The Power Of I Don’t Know
Nice infographic reinforcing that all teachers are teachers of Search. Students need information literacy and be deliberately taught how to search for reliable information. Google has some good resources for how to teach students to search effectively.
7 New Google Tricks from Shake Up Learning
Here’s a good, brief update of some recent feature additions Google has made to Forms and Docs (how about Voice typing in Google Docs!)
Tips, Tricks and Traps
Form Class – co-curricular involvement form
To keep track of what your tutees are involved in, you can print out this form and have students complete at beginning or end of year. Not only will it help you with what activities they are involved in but also encourage them to make the most of the opportunities available (for example if all are blank you can start a conversation with the student about getting involved in something.)
Form class Folder
One trick I have used is to have a clear file folder with one sleeve per student. In it goes all the bits of paper we get about the student (Academic coaching, CareersNZ, Co-curricular form). This has been especially useful for the Y12 Academic coaching where you can easily refer back to the documentation from Y11 to see what has changed.
More tips and resources @ TBC PL Website
Things that make you go hmmmm….
Digital citizenship
Teaching digital citizenship in a meaninful way is a challenge for any school. Here’s the thoughts of Colin Bridgewater from The American School in London on some of the challenges and solutions:
“Any time I speak with parents or students, I remind them that the TOS for most sites state that users must be 13 or older to sign up for or use an account. But I also explain to parents that this age limit has to do with complying with a US law about data collection from children. Instagram and Snapchat are pretty popular with our fifth and sixth graders, all of whom are under the age of 13.
Just today the assistant principal and I did a session for MS parents about social media and children, and one of the points we made to them was that there are some 17 year olds who don’t have the emotional maturity to make good decisions online, while there are some 11 year olds who are wise beyond their years. Ultimately, it’s a family decision as to when their children are ready to be on social media and what sites they might be ready for.
Then, at whatever age they’re allowed to use digital devices and be on social media, they need the following from their parents and their teachers: modeling, communication, repetition, oversight. You wouldn’t hand the keys to a car to your child without any preparation. You’d model good driving technique in the years leading up to the time when they’ll start to learn to drive and would continue to model good driving technique while they are learning. You’d talk them through situations while you’re in the car driving and when they’re first behind the wheel (communication). They would get hours of practice (repetition) behind the wheel with you and their driver’s ed instructor before they could be eligible to take a driving test. They wouldn’t be able to practice without an adult in a car, and even when they pass their test and get their license, most US States require newly licensed drivers to have an adult in the car in certain situations for their first year (oversight). The same careful consideration and time needs to be given to the process of introducing children to social media.
When we’ve become aware of instances when children have misused social media accounts (whether they’re under 13 or over 13), we generally don’t treat it as technology issue. Instead, it’s usually framed around our school’s Core Values. Sometimes it involves consequences from the school, and sometimes it’s handled just by the parents. It really depends on the situation and how much it has had an impact on members of our community.”
If you’re interested, continue to check out NetSafe’s teacher resources.
out these tips about how to use the About Tab. A good place for putting course descriptions, links to NCEA standards, curriculum resources for students etc.
Here’s a good presentation by some Math teachers describing how they use a range of Google apps to enhance their student’s learning. Although focused on Maths, could be applied to a range of subject areas.
Google Drive, Apps in the top left of Chrome, seperate programmes you can download and add to your Dock..) – as long as it works for you, then sweet as.
For those of you who want a different way to get a copy of your teaching timetable on your computer that is different than taking a screen shot from KAMAR and sticking it on your desktop, try this method. In Teachers-> Events Planner you can export your timetable then import it in to a Calendar app of your choosing. I use 
Registration is open for the GAFE (Google Apps For Education) conference. This is held at Hobsonville Point Secondary School in the Term 1 holidays. Being a Beaker, I intend to go to this (I went to it two years ago and it was really worthwhile). But not just for Beakers, there is something for everyone. If anyone else is interested, please let me know by this Friday (the 12th) as we could put in a small group PD application to share transport and accommodation costs.
labels that has their username (email address) and password. Take note of the updated tip (not in the video)- instead of Internet \ User name to get the student email, if you use General \ Student email – School, this will print out the complete email address with the @taurangaboyscollege.school.nz domain.
Here’s a link to a short presentation you can show on your class projector that has what students need to do to sign in to their school account. The last slide has instructions on joining a Google Classroom
of your subject classes with course descriptions or as a form teacher to send a general welcome back email. Here is a 
With the popularity of last BWB’s Star Wars theme, here’s some education based posters. Enjoy!
‘What’s on’ to find out what is happening in the school? Add the TBC Term Diary to your Google calendar by going to 
and leading at four different fairly traditional, fairly engaging, high performing secondary schools, add three years of innovation incubation as part of the establishment Senior Leadership Team at Hobsonville Point Secondary School (HPSS) and throw in a bit of Most Likely to Succeed (documentary and book)?”
Ready to Get Started with Google Classroom? Here’s some tips from Shake Up Learning: “Google Classroom is a free application designed by Google to help students and teachers communicate, collaborate, organize and manage assignments, go paperless, and much more! This is the ONLY application that Google has developed specifically for students and teachers, and they want it to be your go-to assignment …”
collapse the Year 11 timetable to allow for say an English standard to be delivered and assessed within one week) and attempts to have student’s learn in authentic contexts (the student’s built the school’s outdoor furniture at the beginning of the year). They also have open evenings for the community to show the outcomes of student inquires.
another celebration of Star Wars’ return. Type this into Google:
Looking for that killer lesson for this last week with Juniors? Check out the selection of lesson ideas here.
