Blended Learning 1 -- Getting Started! (CMS Electives 10/21/15)

1. Take Attendance!

I'm not loving how the attendance Google Sheet is working as a link here, so let's take a look at the STARRED DRIVE in Google Drive

2. Blended Learning -- bring your iPad and/or laptop 

Our Objective today is to acquaint you with a few learning management systems (LMS) that will support a blended learning environment so that you can ultimately choose a system that will best work for you and your classroom. We'll look specifically at hyperdocs, Google Classroom and Showbie.

In our planning session a few Wednesdays back, we landed upon Blended Learning as a topic we were interested in because we all understand the need to have a way to deliver instruction to students who have been absent or to students who need to see or hear things more than once. Video is a powerful tool, and the most difficult part of providing instructional videos to our students is finding a way to organize and house them.

There are many solutions to this dilemma, but three very easy solutions are Google Hyperdocs (fancy name for documents with hyperlinks),  Google Classroom and Showbie. Classroom and Showbie are learning management systems, but neither LMS involves difficult set up, and each platform offers its own pluses.

Let's look at each platform so you can decide which one works best for you. Then, let's get started setting them up.

1. Google Hyperdoc -- Use this link to open this folder in Google Drive where I would create and store hyperdocs for each unit. A hyperdoc is a document file that contains hyperlinks to various resources. It works similar to a web page or blog post without having to mess with the fancy parts of a web site or blog.

 2. Google Classroom -- To set your own up, go to classroom.google.com on Safari or Firefox (Classroom doesn't like Internet Explorer). Classroom does have an app. All the tools are the same, but the layout is a bit different.

3. Showbie -- To set up your own account, go to Showbie.com on the internet, or download the Showbie app on your iPad.

There are MANY other options when it comes to housing and delivering content in your classroom. The trick is to find one that you're comfortable with and just get started!

Your challenge before we meet again for tech is to think about your needs and decide which type of system will work best to house and deliver content for your students!

Hope this helps! As always, leave any anonymous feedback here.