Case Management Documentation and Google Apps Scripts (Add-ons)

Well I've begun the project for this year and I expect to be done around January 2015, although tht may be wishful thinking. If I keep the current pace for progressing through each problem, I'll be done by thanksgiving, so January seems more realistic.

I have previously built each of the pieces I'm going to need for this project, now I have to connect them all and make them talk with each other. I've been able to find some great examples of code, but for all of them I've needed to tweak to make it fit my data. 

My concept is for a special education case manager to input only four pieces of info for an IEP and have my program do the rest of the job looking up things and inviting teachers. This means making at least two databases talk to each other and probably three. For right now I'm pulling the data once a semester and using that to work with. So if something changes for a student then I have to update manually on my sheet. 

The old method is for case managers to look up a students schedule and then manually input each of six teachers names and classes twice--once for the meeting invite and once for the feedback form.  This method was varying degrees of technology away from a typing pool secretary with 5-sheet NCR paper and a highlighter. Currently we've moved up to around 1998 using a word document with fillable boxes. 

So far I've figured out how to make the computer read the form input from the case manager and pull up the next form and pre-fill the answers. Next is to make it email the URL of the prefilled form to the six correct teachers. 

This will certainly be part one of my posts on this topic.  Next Post Here
Link to part 3 -- and Link to part 3.5

Donor's Choose Project for Mr. Hyland's Class -- Update!

Exciting Opportunity! 

My Donor's Choose project, Classroom Computers for Common Core Language Arts, is eligible for a three-day-only offer from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To celebrate teachers and the amazing work we do, nearly all projects will be half-off through August 24.


Please donate if you are able, or share with people you know who might be interested in supporting my class and our students:

• The half-off match will last for three days, starting August 22 and ending August 24 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. To receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, other donors must complete 50% of your project funding during that time.
  
• Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation isn't guaranteed.Funds will only be applied to your project if other donors complete the rest before the offer ends on August 24.

Here is a short link (also above) to my project page http://goo.gl/2hfQWo

Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Docs

I continually have to look these up, so I'm holding the link here on this site.
I find the help button in Docs does not have all the shortcuts I'm looking for, most notably the "insert comment" shortcut key which is "command+option+m".   Less clicking when I get my students using Docs for their writing. :)

This will become important if I ever get my next task off the ground: daily warm ups using Google Docs which should get some form of feedback (i.e. comments) from me (perhaps on a weekly basis. . .).

Link to the shortcuts

Sorry, no pics for this one.

Donor's Choose Project -- 3 new chromebooks

Well, in all my free time I've created a Donor's Choose project to augment the technology in my classroom.  My students really need to be able to create, compose, and publish on the internet.  I would like to have a class blog for some of our literature responses and argumentative assignments next year and my students this year (2013-2014) wanted to as well.

Our hold up was, well it was mostly due to planning time on my part since it was my first year at this school.  I'd like to blame the equipment, but that's not the full picture.  We could have done most of what I want to do--writing, drafting, collaborative revision, commenting, etc.--with my current technology setup; however, it would have been slow to say the least.

We currently have 3 classroom computers to use, a fourth one if I can free up a shared laptop for the day.  Even with my reduced class sizes I had 12 students in my largest classes and that would still take 4 rotations to get all the students on to computers for typing.  While that's ok for shorter writing assignments or surveys (see my previous post, the data for which I gathered using two of our computers hot-seat style after exams), it is tedious for research papers or longer assignments when the needs of my students require that some of them are typing for two or three times as long as other students.

Donor's Choose only lets you start out with a small project at first until you get enough "points" to allow a larger dollar amount for your projects.  This, I assume, weeds out the weaker hearts, and indeed kept me out last year when I created the account and drafted half a similar project for my last classroom. Even with this small number of points--and therefore a small "budget"--I am able to fund a huge boost in capacity for my classroom:  Three Chrome book laptops for my room will double the available number of screens for students to use and cut in half the time it takes for computer projects in the room.  Not to mention the classroom management impact!  Easier planning for me, I hope.

Upon the successful funding of this project, I believe I will be able easily to plan and implement some engaging and fun lessons with our new English curriculum which will cover Antigone and Things Fall Apart next year.  Look for a class blog on here and, at the very least, some published student examples of peer edited and revised, polished, college prep writing.

Here's the link to my teacher page on Donor's Choose:  Link
Yes, it's the same as above--I'm trying the best I can since the project expires in 4 months.

Class Feedback Results

To follow Larry Ferlazzo's example, I'm posting my class feedback results from my end of year suvey. I'll put the questions followed by the highest percentage rating, just to save typing since I don't want to take the time to screen shot the charts and graphs that google forms made for me.

 I didn't split these by class period or anything, although I think for next year I'll take the trouble to make a different form for separate classes to get a better idea. This will be really important for me next year since I'll be co-teaching with two different teachers and teaching 4 different subjects. I'm excited for the challenge.

• I felt challenged by this class: 41% neutral
• I felt like Mr. Hyland respected me: 46% agree
• I felt like Mr. Hyland gave me useful feedback: 70% agree
• I felt like Mr. Hyland was fair: 63% agree
• Mr. Hyland had high expectations of me: 50% agree
• I tried my hardest to do my best in class: 37% each (tie) strongly agree and agree
• My grades reflected the quality of my work: 52% agree
• Mr. Hyland encouraged me to do my best: 43% agree
• I felt safe in Mr. Hyland's class: 54% agree
• The class was well organized: 59% agree
• I enjoyed being in this class: 41% agree
• I always followed Mr. Hyland's instructions: 41% neutral

 I also had 5 short answer questions where students could type a response. Some did not, and others made what seemed like sarcastic comments (hard to tell if they were serious). However, there are some gold nuggets that told me what I needed to hear from students (that's the point after all!). Many of these comments referred to our penultimate activity--watching Star Wars after a series of lessons on the Hero's Journey, so if you follow the link below and scan those comments, you'll note some fanboys.

 I also co-teach one period, so I included my co-teacher and co-teach class on the questionnaire. You'll see her name in there as well. Here's the link to my full results, and--as un-scientific as they are--I'm proud of them this year. I always have plenty of room to improve. My goals for next year include inching forward on tech integration in my classroom lessons.

More Google products for educational uses.

I enjoy the ability of Google+ to send me posts that I can really engage with.  Of course, I have connected with some fun things and games for enjoyment on Google+.  So I get a lot of that in my feed which is nice so that I can decompress from work.  I have also added a good number of education related groups and ed-tech groups.  Sometimes I flip past those posts if I want to avoid melting my brain from too much work-thought.

Today, a post grabbed my attention because it was asking for a solution that I know how to provide.  I left a short comment, knowing that I also wanted to post here on the topic.  The poster, +Jennifer Fox, asked for some follow up so here's what I put together--I hope it was what she was looking for:

Original problem:  "Is there a way to sort responses from a Google Form as they are being gathered on the response sheet?"
My response: Use either VLOOKUP or IMPORTRANGE functions to copy the data to a second sheet and filter/sort that sheet.  Then the original collection sheet continues to get live responses and you can still organize your data.
My example:  I created a sample google form to collect fake data with numbers and letters, i.e. something to sort multiple ways.  Then I went to the spreadsheet where all the responses were collected and created a second sheet (named "The Magic").  On the second sheet, I used the importrange function to copy the data and then I selected all three columns of data (this makes sure that when you filter, the rows of data stay together) and applied a filter.  Now I can sort and filter the data and new data from the form automatically comes in whenever the users complete the form.
I also got to learn a little from the other comments in the thread--specifically, that there is an SQL-style query function in google sheets.
So, that was a win all around!

Hero's Journey Lessons Reflection Pt. 2

To wrap up my reflection, I'm going to share about the final two days of my Hero' Journey lessons.

Due to my lack of timing and many other excuses, I only had two days to cover about 60% of the Hero's Journey. The parts following the first threshold all the way to mastering both worlds. This proved to e difficult and since I had each student pick a different story plot line to outline, it became a challenge to keep everyone on pace while still covering each step adequately.

Next time I do this (and I will), I believe I will incorporate pairs and have some of the steps of the journey be presented by flash card or short video or something independent (flipped classroom?) so my lesson time can focus on the main points without getting bogged down or having 2/3 of the class zoned out while I help one group with their plot outline. 

The lessons as I planned them this year were too much but kids also seemed to loose interest by the end, another reason to streamline the key points and delivery by working up a video for students to watch for homework. Possibly, I could have students create a good one for me and use it in the next class. Then class times could focus on students working in pairs or groups analyzing their particular plots. 

At this late point in the year, I always really excited about possibilities for next year. 

I've found a link to a neat podcast that discusses Star Wars and it's uses in the classroom, so that's really exciting.