Digital Components in My 1:1 Chromebook Classroom

Here is a recap of the digital components that in my 1:1 Chromebook classroom. Click on the links to go to learn more:

• Google Apps for Education We are a Google school using Chromebooks, Classroom, Docs, Forms, Sheets, Gmail, Drawings, etc. Each student has a google login to connect to the school district wifi network. 
• Hapara  Through Hapara, teachers are able to monitor student screens, access documents, message students, and create collaborative workspaces for projects.
• Spelling City  Spelling City replaced our printed spelling workbooks several years ago. It also integrates with our newly-adopted nders Reading program and GoMath series.
• McGraw-Hill Wonders Reading  The Wonders 2017 program provides digital access to all components, tests, and student responses.
• Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math For our 5th grade classes, the completion of 20 AR points and 20 AM objectives per quarter is required.
• GoMath  Think Central provides the digital link to our math component. Students can complete tutorials, watch video explanations, and gain immediate feedback using the Personal Math Trainer assignments. 
• XtraMath My students complete XtraMath each day as part of their morning routine. This 5 minuted fact review builds fluency and allows me to track and report progress easily.
• Read Theory After a placement test, Read Theory provides leveled reading passages and high-quality questioning for students. Not only do the topics increase background knowledge, but the reporting features clearly show student growth in reading levels and lexiles. Writing components are optional.
• EdPuzzle  Flipping the instruction and providing remediation is easy when questions can be added to instructional videos. EdPuzzle integrates seamlessly with Google Classroom, too.
• Planbook Digital lesson planning puts sub plans, yearly lesson units, and the ability to share assignments into one place. Planbook makes it easy to print, alter, and save lesson materials for easy access.
• BookWidgets This site provides tools for adding alternate digital lesson options to any lesson. Make digital breakout experiences, crosswords, word searches, drag and drop, fill-in-the-blank, timelines, and sequencing options to Google Classroom.
• Bloomz After using Class Dojo and Remind in previous years, I have settled on using the free version of Bloomz for communication. Parents do not have to respond to the sign up link to get your digital communications by email! Create a class photostream, add reference documents, make alerts, sign-up for conferences, request materials, and message privately through this one app. The read receipts are such a time-saver, too!
• Pear Deck I like this app and extension so much that I paid for the premium version to get even more features. The Pear Deck extension with Google slides turns any device into a digital responder. Collect brainstorming ideas, multiple choice responses, drawings, etc. and save them into student take-aways to review later. This one supercharged my student engagement. Don't forget to try the Pear Deck Flashcard Factory, too. Awesome!
• Quizlet All of my test review materials are housed in folders on Quizlet. No more waiting for review materials for an upcoming test. Students know they can find practice sets here and use games to make learning fun. Quizlet also exports easily to flashcards and to Gimkit.
• Gimkit If you have played online quiz games like Kahoot and Quizizz, you will love Gimkit. I finally broke down and paid a subscription fee. It is a little pricey for my taste. This quiz game beats all of the rest by adding power-ups, insurance, multipliers, themes, and gifting to the individual, homework, and team modes. After playing this one, the students didn't want to go back to the other game formats.
• Flippity This website turns a Google Spreadsheet into fun review games. Check out the options.
• Jeopardy Labs Use this site for students to create and play their own Jeopardy-style games.
• Flipgrid Post a question for your class and compile all of the responses in one place. This is a great way to facilitate classroom discussions and give every student a voice.
• Khan Academy Khan Academy allows you to set up classes and assign content to your class through Google Classroom. This is the perfect way to add remediation for any subject. I like to attach it as an assignment to a Google Forms Quiz based on the students' scores. Use some forms add ons to make this happen automatically.
• NoRedInk For most grammar units of study, students complete a pretest, remediation practice, and a growth assessment through NoRedInk. This is mastery-based program so the length of student practice is based on their success. Once they prove mastery, using sentences created based on their own interests, they are finished. 
• Brainpop After having a school account for years, I finally discovered how to create a My Brainpop account for my class this year! Now I can assign videos, games, and quizzes to students, track their completion, view digital work, and view a digital gradebook easily. Brainpop also integrates with Google Classroom so it is very user-friendly.
• Kidblog Kidblog is a secure classroom blog with options for sharing privacy that made this my classroom choice. I did opt for the paid version, since I liked the format and features.
• Epic! Find digital texts, quizzes, and reading content for your class. There are over 35,000 texts in the library that you can access and share with your class. The students love this site.
• DOGO News  Find current events, high-interest news for kids here. Most stories include video clips, vocabulary lists, and word searches, too. Teachers can create classes and assign content seamlessly. Through the DOGO News classroom or Google Classroom you can share content that is curated just for students and the content if free!
• Padlet I use Padlet for sharing introductions, posting questions and responses, and for Revolutionary War projects. Students can record audio/video, share images, add links, embed slide shows, write, and personalize their Padlet walls. I especially like the privacy features that allow me to monitor and approve posts before they are visible for my class. There are so many options here.
• EduTyping Our keyboarding class uses this and students like returning to practice touch-typing skills in their choice time.
• Mystery Science Our school will have access to Mystery Science next year for all classes! Woohoo! These open-ended science tasks require critical thinking and collaboration to complete. Check out the 

Professional Development Breakout Session: Hapara

For the January 2 in-service, my first breakout presentation was on using Hapara to access and monitor student learning. I really don't know how I would manage a 1:1 Chromebook classroom without Hapara! Students know that I can access their screens, files, email, and even the trash from my Hapara account. Just knowing that I can and do monitor them has curbed most of their off-task behaviors. Check out my Google slides for more information.

Hapara Focused Browsing

Focused Browsing

Hapara is a robust program that has solved so many classroom technology problems. This past month, I find myself sighing, "Where have you been the past 33 years!" whenever I explore a new feature. For today, let's look at just Focused Browsing.

First, open Hapara Teacher Dashboard. If this is your first visit, find the name of your classroom by clicking on Classes>Manage Classes at the top of the screen. Click on the star in front of the name of your class to add the classroom to your list of classes.

Then open your classroom tab and find the link symbol in the blue header. Open this link to take all of your students immediately to the web addresses that you choose.

On the next screen, type in up to 10 web addresses that you want your students to access. If you just want to open tabs for your students, leave the slider to No for Focused Browsing. Turning on Focused Browsing will open the tabs listed on every student computer and lock out all additional web browsing.

To schedule a browsing session to open automatically at a specified day and time, move the slider next to scheduled browsing. Choose the date and time from the calendar or pop-up menus. The scheduled browsing option can be used independently or with a focused browsing session.

Session duration can be set for 15-180 minutes, and you have control over whether the session ends quietly or if student tabs will be returned to their previous state. I usually turn off the "At the end of the session restore student tabs" box as shown above.

Uses

Focused browsing solved some major classroom problems for me:

• Students can quickly be taken to the same websites without first having to post links to Google Classroom. I used to use the Share to Classroom extension, but students had to be logged into Google Classroom to receive the web links. Hapara does not require any student action and will automatically open student computer tabs for you.
• Students cannot misspell a web address and go to the wrong site.
• I can focus student research on reputable sites and block out Wikipedia.
• Focused browsing eliminates digital cheating for tests and quizzes. No more google searching for spelling words or using the online calculator on math tests! 

Not only does this give teachers control over their student's web usage, it allows you to schedule secure sessions even when you will have a substitute in your room. Simply set up focused browsing sessions for your classrooms in advance.

Monitoring and Deleting Focused Browsing

To review, edit, or delete a browsing session, go to the Schedule option on the Highlights screen. Use this menu to view sessions for this week or in the future.