50 for 50 Writing Contest for Students

Middle school and high school social studies teachers in the U.S. who are looking for a writing project to start the year, should take a look at PBS Election Central's 50 for 50 writing contest. The contest asks students to draft open letters to Presidential candidates. The letters should include ideas and suggestions on what needs to change in government to get more accomplished. One winner from the middle school category and one winner from the high school category will be chosen to attend the final Presidential debate in Las Vegas.

September 21st is the deadline for submissions to the 50 for 50 contest. Teachers need to register and submit the letters written by their students.

15 Google Forms Tutorial Videos

On Friday I published a new video guide to using Google Forms for new users. As I noted when I published that video, there are many other features available in Google Forms. Over the last year I've created a bunch of videos on some of the advanced features available in Google Forms. Those videos are all in my Google Forms tutorials playlist that is embedded below. Of course, the playlist will be updated as I create more videos about Google Forms.

The Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where we're still enjoying summer even if there are a few leaves starting to change. One of the hallmarks of late summer in Maine is the surplus of tomatoes that you see people trying to give away or trade away. I don't grow any myself and I don't trade for them. Nonetheless, I always seem to end up with more tomatoes than I can handle. I guess that's just one of the things I love about living in a rural community.



Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Finally! Google Classroom Lets You Share With Parents
2. Displaying YouTube Without Distractions
3. GoogleCast for Education Gets Your Students on the Same Page
4. Annotate Documents In the Updated Google Classroom Apps
5. Control What's Projected With Chromecast or Extended Display
6. The Four Things Students Need to Create Good Book Trailers
7. How to Use Images as Answer Choices in Google Forms

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5 Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed This Week

This week Google released a bunch of updates to many of their tools that are popular with teachers. Here's a short overview of those updates.

1. Google Classroom now supports sharing with parents. You can now invite parents and guardians to subscribe to a daily or weekly summary of activities in your Google Classroom classes. The process for setting this up includes a few more steps than you might anticipate. You can read the full directions on this help page.

2. In the Google Classroom mobile apps you can now draw on, highlight, and write on top of students' Google Documents, PDFs, and Microsoft Word documents. The iOS version of the app will also let you type on top of a document. With both apps students can annotate items that teachers have shared in Google Classroom and teachers can annotate items that students have shared back to them.

3. You can now use images as answer choices to questions created in Google Forms. You can also use images as question prompts in Google Forms. I created a video about how to use images as answer choices in Google Forms questions. You can watch that video on my YouTube channel.

4. You can now add topics labels to posts in your Google Classroom stream. This allows you to search and sort your stream by topic instead of date. Directions on how to use topics can be found on this help page.

5. Starting on September 12th Google will no longer offer Hangouts on Air. Hangouts on Air will be replaced by YouTube Live. YouTube Live will let you create public, private, and unlisted broadcasts. Broadcasts will be automatically stored in your YouTube account. The most significant change for many users will be the removal of the Q&A feature that was in Google Hangouts on Air. Now to host a Q&A you will have to share Google Slides and use the Q&A feature integrated into the presenter mode in Google Slides.

Padlet Adds a New Post Attribution Feature

It is a not a secret that Padlet is one of my favorite ed tech tools for all classrooms. From creating KWL charts to simple blogging activities to creating digital portfolios,there is not a shortage of ways to use Padlet.

This week Padlet introduced a new way to identify who writes what on a collaborative Padlet wall. Padlet's new post attribution feature allows you to automatically display user names on notes. Of course, your students will have to be logged into Padlet accounts in order for that feature to work. The post attribution tool will make it possible for you to ensure that each student gets credit for his or her contribution to your Padlet walls. It is also possible to turn off the attribution feature and let students post anonymously.