The Beginning of my Digital Year!

If you have been following along with Teaching in Room 6 lately, you know that I am mildly obsessed with using Google Apps in my classroom.  I love finding different ways to incorporate the GAFE (Google Apps for Education) into my lessons in a practical and authentic way.  (You can see some of what I have done so far here.)  I have access to at least 9 Chromebooks all year long (thanks to DonorsChoose.org!!) so I am planning on getting my students up and running with GAFE starting on day one of school this year.

Our first project will be a take on the whole "hold a frame up and take a picture" craze that is going on now.  I created this slide for each student in which they will get to use their basic Google Slides knowledge and insert a selfie (that they will take that day using the Chromebook) and some text boxes with general information about themselves.   I am hoping to do the same on the last day of school, but I think I will tackle the first day right now :)

You can pick up a FREE copy of the slides by filling out the form below. Once you have the links, the template will automatically copy into your google account, so make sure you have one of those too.   I originally only did 3rd - 6th grades, as I figured they would have the skills necessary on the first day of school to complete this project semi-independently.  However, I had so many requests for literally every grade level, that I made them for you! Every one of the templates, Grades 1 - 12 is available for FREE by filling in the form below.

As the first week continues on, I am going to have the students start to long range plan and keep a record of the important work samples that they complete this year.  Using this My Digital Yearbook file, the kids will be prompted to start thinking about themselves as a learner, writing their goals and aspirations for the upcoming year.

Then, after each month, I will have them complete a monthly page to insert into the Digital Yearbook.  They will take snapshots of their work samples, describe things they learned, and include pictures of important people in their school lives.

I bought these great blank books at the Target Dollar Spot (rush there now....you can get 8 books for $3!!), so I made the pages the correct size to fit inside. My students will be printing out the yearbook so they will have something to take home as a keepsake at the end of the year with me.   What is great though, is *I* don't have to keep any files of their work for this, as it is all housed in the students' Google accounts!  And if I didn't want to print it out, they have a digital copy of the file.  Win-win for everyone involved.

One final GAFE project I have been working on and plan to implement on the first or second day of school is this Back to School Survey.  Now, usually I have the kids fill this in on paper.  I look at it a few times, place it somewhere, forget about it, and never go back.  So to avoid that paper trap, I have this Google Form that the kids will complete.  I, again, will have digital access to their information without having to use paper to gather it.  It will remain in my Google account for easy access if I do need the information in the future.

Here is a copy of the Back to School Survey as well.  You can edit it to suit your needs, but make sure that you click on the "responses" section to designate where your student response will be collected.  Don't forget that part...or you won't have any responses from your kids!!  :)


So that is about it for now.  Three things I plan to implement the first week of school using my chrome books and GAFE.  Do you have anything up your sleeve to share that you will be implementing?

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