The Mars Generation Space Camp Scholarship is a great opportunity for U.S. high school students to receive an all-expenses paid trip to space camp in Huntsville, Alabama.
Applying for and receiving this scholarship will take some significant effort on the part of students who apply for it. Students must propose an outreach project that they can complete as a result of attending space camp. They must also create a video to include in the application. Finally, students will need to have a letter of recommendation from a teacher or mentor.
The Mars Generation Space Camp Scholarship applications are due by January 15, 2018. Complete rules and eligibility requirements are available here.
Google's annual drawing contest is back again for 2018. This year's Doodle 4 Google theme is inspiration. The contest is open to students in grades K through 12 in the United States. To enter the contest students should create a drawing that represents something that inspires them. The drawing, of course, must include the word Google somewhere within it. The artwork must be submitted on this official entry form.
This year's national Doodle 4 Google winner will receive a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology prize package for his or her school.
If you're thinking about using some classroom time to have your students draw for the Doodle 4 Google contest, take a look at the free lesson plans that Google offers. Making drawings for the Doodle 4 Google contest might also be a good indoor recess activity during the cold days we're having here in New England.
To most outside observers my notebooks, both digital and physical, are a hot mess. That's because I rarely employ tags, folders, or any of the other traditional methods used to organize a notebook. The only time I do use tags and folders is when I am working on specific research project. The rest of the time I just jot things down and then search for them later, if I need them. For me the processes of note-taking and bookmarking are largely exercises in triggering mental notes (plus, I usually write a blog post about whatever it is I bookmark or make a note about).
I know that my process doesn't work for most people and in some cases triggers anxiety when viewed by people who like structure in their notebooks. Most people need tags and folders to make their digital notebooks work for them. If that's you, might benefit from using folders in Microsoft OneNote. The following two videos provide excellent overviews of how to create and organize notebooks in OneNote.
The 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group kicks off tomorrow afternoon (4pm Eastern Time). It would be great to have you join us. This small group of teachers, librarians, and technology coaches will participate in three live meetings every month of the year. And between meetings we'll connect through a private Slack group to talk about how we're using technology in our schools.
If you have been thinking about joining, but have a question that you need answered first, feel free send me a question at richard (at) byrne.media. I also made this short video in which I answer a handful of FAQs about group membership.
The question that is most frequently asked about the Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group is, "what are the webinars about?" The first six webinar topics are:
Building Digital Portfolios – January 9th
AR & VR in the Classroom – January 23rd
Social Media for Teachers & Principals – February 6th
Video Creation as Assessment – February 20th
Copyright for Teachers – March 6th
Programming Simple Apps – March 20th
I hope that you will join us in the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group.
formRecycler is a free Google Forms Add-on that makes it easy to reuse questions from one Google Form into another form. When you have the formRecycler Add-on installed you can access all of your existing Google Forms and then pick questions from one of those existing Forms to use in a new form. You can use formRecycler multiple times on the same form and thereby include questions from multiple existing forms in your new form.
Applications for Education formRecycler provides a great way to quickly assemble a review quiz by selecting questions from prior quizzes given through Google Forms. For example, at the end of the semester I often would give students a practice quiz that featured the most difficult questions from quizzes given earlier in the semester. formRecyler makes that process much easier than rewriting each question.
