Make Videos with WeVideo

One of our special education teachers made the video above using WeVideo.  First off I should say we flip for not just mainstreamed students, but also special ed and ESOL (ESL) students.

WeVideo is an app that you can add in Google Drive or sign up for separately.  As with everything else here, it is free and pretty amazing as it lets you add in sound, video, words, effects, etc.  Best of all, you can use it with your students in groups as it lets them collaborate much as one can do on a document in Google Drive.

Below is an introductory video on WeVideo and here are all their (short) tutorials

Complete AP Econ Course - Videos, Problems, Solutions

So AndrewFoos is a teacher in my district who created his own videos, put together textbook problems and their answers and even videotaped the answers for some of the harder ones.  I used his work last year and was very please with the results.  I should add that I do add some ACDC videos and some I made myself, but Foos' stuff is a great place to start. 

Strive for a Five - Full Length Free AP Econ Exams

StriveForaFive is a teacher run website that has two full length AP Microeconomics and two AP Macroeconomics exams that students and teachers can take and receive free feedback all for the princely sum of $0.00!

They are looking for donations to keep the site open for another year if you like what you see on it.   You can go here to make contributions.   

Chromebook Shortcuts

So last Friday the two wonderful SBTS (school based technology specialists) in my building delivered thirty Chromebooks to my classroom.  We spent about 20 minutes logging in and then connecting to the two WiFi accounts that we have at school.  I was surprised first by the number of kids who hadn't heard of them and then later by the number who said they liked them so much they were going to looking into buying their own.  My favorite comment came from a young man who said he no longer had time to text in between going from webpage to webpage.  Yes they are lightening fast.

So I promise to blog about using Chromebooks this year and will start with what I mentioned in class today which is the list of shortcuts that you can use on the laptops.

By the way if you are like some of my students and haven't heard about Chromebooks then you should know that they are a very cheap, but high quality laptop ($200-250 is where most fall for school needs).  The ones we have are sturdy and from signing in to being on a webpage is less than ten seconds.  There is some space for downloading, but not enough room to run programs that require java script.  

New Voice Typing for Google Docs

It takes a bit of getting used to, but you can say things like "new paragraph," or "exclamation" and it will do them in addition to regular old typing on your Google Drive documents.  I found this on Google+ from Carlos Guerrrevo. 

Grading and Returning Student Work in Google Classroom

I am going to be testing Google Classroom this year so will be putting tutorials in how to use it this year.  Above is a great video I found on the International Educators IT Leadership and Integration page on Facebook.   The video takes you through all of the grading steps and options.  

Back to School Night

Our Back to School Night is next week.  As a precursor I give my parents this message to watch and a Google Form to fill out.  I then begin with the questions and have plenty of time to answer any and all of the questions the parents have about our class.

You can create your own using Screencastomatic.com and this tutorial.