Comet Tech

In Episode Two of 90 Second Chromebook Tips & Tricks, learn how to find any shortcut at any time on the Chromebook, without having to do a Google search.  If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Shortcut of the Week - Quickly Copy URL for Sharing! This week's shortcut is one that allows us to quickly highlight and then copy a URL to share with our students or colleagues. Using any web page on the Chromebook, simply press "Ctrl + L" to highlight the URL address of the page. Next, hit "Ctrl + C" to copy. Then paste ("Ctrl + V") into an email, Google Classroom, or a document.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend the Michigan State University College of Education’s 33rd Annual Technology Conference on the Campus of Michigan State. The focus of this year’s conference was on equity in education. Through the lens of equity, there was tremendous discussion focused on what equity looks like and how we can guarantee a viable curriculum for all of our learners. To start the day, we had a wonderful keynote presentation from Ruthe Farmer, the Senior Policy Advisor for Technology Inclusion at the White House and the leader of President Obama’s Computer Science for All initiative. During her opening keynote, she opened eyes about the lack of equity in our current schools, everything from availability of specific courses (over 500,000 students took AP Biology, but only 60,000 took AP Computer Science in 2016), to the types of careers that are available in the United States (600,000 Computer Science jobs available in the United States with median starting ...

Introducing 90 Second Chromebook Tips & Tricks I wanted to try something new. I would like to introduce you to a new series of web videos that cover some quick tips and tricks on using your Chromebook. This series will have one video per week posted that will cover something quick and easy to make your Chromebook more efficient. The first episode is how you can bookmark a website, like PowerSchool, to the shelf on your Chromebook so that you can quickly access them. Here is the 90 second tips & tricks video. 

Missing the Caps Lock key on your Chromebook? Do you find the desire to type in all capital letters but do not want to hold down shift? With the Chromebook, you still have an option for Caps Lock. Here is how you turn it on. "Alt + Magnifying Glass" will enable caps lock.  When working with a document, simply perform the keyboard shortcut of  "Alt + Magnifying Glass" key to enable Caps Lock for your ranting  typing. When you have finished, simply press the same combination of keys to disable the Caps Lock feature.

Introduction to SAMR SAMR, or the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition model was created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, an educational consultant based on the east coast of the United States. The model, which I find to be incredibly useful as a tool of self-reflection, is a way to evaluate the use of technology in your classroom. An easy way to think of it is as a ladder, such as the image below. Substitution tends to be the base of the ladder, where it is easiest to start. Next, you take a step up to augmentation, where things are starting to change a little bit, probably for the better. After augmentation, you get into modification of the assignment, where there is a lot of change to what you are doing. Finally, you land in the redefinition, where you are doing things that were not possible before. Think of SAMR as stairs. As you climb further, you should also strive to increase the level of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Pros of SAMR SAMR is heavily criticized...

Part One , Part Two , and Part Three . Tips for Staying Organized with Google Drive Name All of Your Files - Google will allow you to have 1000s of “Untitled Document” in your Drive. As a general rule and first step, when creating a new file, give it a name. Speaking of names, check out tip number two for more on names. Develop a System of Naming Your Files - There are thousands of possibilities, but when I taught Government, economics, and 8th Grade Social Studies, I used a system to designate the files for each class. If the file was for Government class, I would start each file with G-Filename. Economics would have an E and eighth grade would have an 8. This allowed me to quickly sort and place them in their proper folders. I have also seen people use the date, in numeric form, such as 10252016 at the beginning or end of the file name to help them recognize the file. It is up to you, but it is highly recommended that you develop a system to start the naming of you files. T...