From the TBC PL Google+ Community
New in Classroom: saving time while marking
For those of you using Google Classroom, here is a list of recent updates you may not be aware of:
“We built Classroom to save teachers time, and we know that grading is one of those tasks that can involve a lot of little time wasters. In fact, students have turned in more than 200 million assignments via Classroom to date, which adds up to a lot of grading hours. HERE IS THE LINK TO THE FIRST EASTER EGG
5 Chrome Apps for Student Creation
What some other tasks than just creating a document or a presentation? Here is a list of 5 really good content creation tools that students can use with the Google Chrome browser. I’ve used Powtoon in class to get student’s to create short explanations of scientific concepts and found it works really well.
Tips, Tricks and Traps
EDpuzzle: Google Classroom Awesome Integration
EDpuzzle is an online app that allows you to ‘push’ a video resource out to students, then be able to see who has watched it and you can even add in questions to check for understanding. It now works really well with Google Classroom and will ‘pull’ the class lists from Classroom (so you don’t have to add individual students) and can also automagically post to your Stream. Enough from me – watch the Video. Site is www.edpuzzle.com
E-Learning workshops
If you’ve been to one of the e-Learning workshop chances are the presentation file is on this site. Feel free to link them in to your appraisal document.
More tips and resources @ TBC PL Website
Things that make you go hmmmm….
Teacher gobbledegook gets glossary
Appearing in the papers last week was news that education has a heap of jargon – wow, surprise surprise. Either go straight to the ERO’s glossary or read the news article.
“Digital natives have emerged from the cave to gather at the watering hole where they’ll ponder their cognitive wobble. Confused? You’re not the only one. Try translating systemness, digital immigrant and scaffolding from the classroom into plain English….”
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 
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!)
To keep track of what your tutees are involved in, you can print out 
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.
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 …”
