Megan's Rewind

Back in January, I started exploring Google Drive a bit, but leave it to Google to always keep us guessing as they constantly develop new features -- it's almost impossible to learn it all. While there are so many cool things you can do with Drive, I want to share three new features I discovered this week that you may also find useful: 1. Google Drive Offline: To use this feature you have to use the Google Chrome browser (which I discovered while I tried to enable it on Safari). Using Chrome, if you go to your Drive Settings by clicking the gear icon, you'll find an Offline option under the General tab. By enabling this feature, your are able to access your Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drawings to edit or create anytime you don't have good WiFi access. Whether you're sitting in an airport or want to work on your back patio, this trick helps you stay connected even when your computer isn't. 2. Lucidchart: This week I also learned that, much like Chrome extension...

Hey everyone! Let's talk about Learning Management Systems. If you've been reading this blog, I submitted a post about Google Classroom  a few months ago (you can revisit that post here ) and I praised it for being user-friendly with a professional, creative-looking layout. I love that it allows teachers to share and post a variety of resources. Google has so many different tools that are able to weave and work together that the possibilities are fairly endless. However, this week I learned about two new systems that share some of those same qualities, but add some additional tools that educators may find helpful as well. First, let's discuss Schoology . Schoology is more interactive than Classroom in that it allows for more collaboration between teacher & student, as well as teacher & teacher. Schoology is still synchronized with Google Docs to allow for easy document/file sharing and editing. It allows teachers to post tests, quizzes & polls with immediate r...

This week has been packed full of learning about new resources to build my PLN (which is a term I had not even heard until now). Every teacher has a Personal Learning Network , whether you know it or not. Every time you look at Pinterest, or educational websites, or teacher blogs for ideas, you're building your PLN -- you're accessing resources that help you learn and grow as an educator. I explored a few new resources this week, including EdWeb and Discovery Education , which are wonderful for K-12 teachers as well as students and parents, but my favorite was definitely Edutopia . Edutopia was founded by George Lucas (of the Star Wars persuasion) and it's goal is to improve education and to promote positive skills & attitudes in students to carry into adult life. I really like the way this website is easy to navigate, and I feel like the topics of the articles and videos are so relevant. The variety of topics is awesome, there's something for everyone -- address...

As an avid Pinterest user and Google searcher, it's no surprise to me that a teacher's best resources are often other teachers . While I have come across several teacher blogs in my browsing days, this week I really spent some time looking for blogs that would be beneficial for me to follow on a regular basis -- blogs that share ideas about my kids in early childhood land. (Sometimes it feels like it's own island.) Here are some of my favorite finds: Caitlin Tucker Blog Differentiated Kindergarten Teacher Tom An Everyday Story It may seem overwhelming for a busy teacher to keep up with so many different helpful blogs and resources, but this week I learned about Feedly . If you don't know about it, you should check it out. You can easily add all of your favorite blogs to one feed that allows you to quickly scroll through new (and old) content in one browser window. It took me less than 5 minutes to add these to mine. Super easy and super convenient. ...