As long as you are using the latest version of Chrome or Firefox, you can drag files from your desktop to your Google Drive account. This removes the need for the manual upload step.
Applications for Education
This update to Google Drive could be handy when students are creating files outside of Google Drive that they want to store and share through Google Drive. For example, if students have made videos using iMovie on their MacBooks they can share those videos by dragging the from their desktops to their Google Drive accounts.
Tomorrow evening at 7pm Eastern Time we will have the first meeting of my popular online course Getting Going With GAFE (Google Apps for Education). Registration is still open and a handful of seats are available.
Getting Going With GAFE is a Practical Ed Tech five week webinar series designed for teachers and administrators who are new to using Google Apps for Education. In Getting Going With GAFE you will learn everything you need to know to integrate Google Drive, Google Classroom, Google Calendar, and Google Sites into your practice.
Last night I published a post that featured a poster of explanations of common logical fallacies. This morning I received an email from a reader who wanted to know if there was a way for her to print the poster. My suggestion was to try using the Block Posters website.
Block Posters is a web-based tool to which you can upload a high quality graphic then divide it into letter-sized chunks for printing. Print out each section and put them together on a poster board to make your own poster.
Applications for Education
If you find a great infographic or poster that you want to display in your classroom, Block Posters could be a great tool for you to use. Want to create a giant jigsaw puzzle? Block Posters could be useful for that. Or if you have students create their own infographics that they want to display, you can print them out with Block Posters.
One of the most challenging things to tackle in education today is the glut of information that is available to students right in their pocket! With a few swipes, students can come up with thousands of resources; however, evaluating all of those sources serves as a challenge for students. Enter, instaGrok. InstaGrok is a search engine that brings together information in the form of an interactive mind-map, including text, videos, and more. It is available for free online, iOS App, and Android App.
After entering a query, instaGrok creates an interactive mind-map on the topic including multiple sources. Each node builds off of the subsequent one, giving students a visual idea of how concepts and ideas connect. When students select a source from instaGrok, it guides them through a process to help them vet their source by asking a series of questions about the author, publisher, website, and more. When they are finished building their Grok, students can share via email, link, Social Media, and even embed it onto a webpage. Check out this Grok I built on Project Based Learning:
Students can also keep a journal in their Grok and test themselves with quizzes designed by the Grok engine. InstaGrok is a great way for students to begin exploring online content and learning how to vet various sources.
Looking to learn more about research or Project Based Learning? EdTechTeacher will be hosting their first Innovation Summit in San Diego, February 1-3, 2016.
