Add-Ons Can Save Lives, Or At Least Time

It's been awhile since I've made a post about anything other than Kid President.  It's been a very busy year.  I no longer have to worry about my Master's Degree, but I'm department chair this year and become a site rep for the union.  We also have had a lot of administrative absences for various reasons and a few of us have been picking up some of the slack when we can.

Last week, my Safe School Ambassador "club" hosted an Anti-Bullying Week.  That kept me pretty busy, but that's a kind of busy that is definitely worthwhile.  We got some help from one of the AVID classes and created a "Take What You Need, Give What You Can" board to share

#takewhatyouneed #givewhatyoucan #endbullying #bpawsitive

A photo posted by Miss Barron (@missbarronsfhs) on Oct 24, 2016 at 2:30pm PDT

I'm, as always, behind in my grading.  One thing that helped me so far this year is a Google Doc add-on called JoeZoo.  It's not perfect.  It would be great if you could go from giving grammatical feedback on an assignment, to grading it (using a rubric to give it a grade) instead of having to go back to the start screen.  But, if you use many of the same rubrics for different assignments, it's pretty handy.  I just had to set up my districts narrative rubric once, and now I can use it with multiple assignments.  It saved me a lot of time and it will show the students the areas they need to work on.

It also integrates with your Google Classroom (GC), so you don't need to enter in all your students and assignments.  If you have them in GC, it's there in JoeZoo.  I still suggest edits for mistake students make because the feedback function is not foolproof.

I discovered two new Docs add-ons the other day as well that I'm pretty excited about, though like JoeZoo, they aren't foolproof (apparently, it's nigh on impossible for AIs to identify comma splices).  These two add-ons have similar functions:  proofreading.  One is called GradeProof and the other is Proofread Bot.

GradeProof Screengrab

GradeProof reminds me of Grammarly in function and aesthetic.  I really like it.  It gives statistical information too like how many words, sentences, etc. the paper has.  It also gives a readability score and a "grade level".  The grade level isn't really what most teachers would consider a grade level.  What it is is a number of years it is estimated one would have to be in school in order to underestand the text.  So, my students and I figured out that the higher a readability percentage, the lower the grade level was.

Proofread Bot is interesting in that it explains the error and why it shouldn't be made.  I like that about it because it teaches along with guiding you through corrections that maybe should be made. This tool in particular could assist students in self (and peer) editing. Here's a video to see it in action:

I was a little surprised to hear about the change in name for GAFE to G Suite.  I'm curious how that will affect the Ed Tech world.  For instance, will EdTechTeam rename their GAFESummits?

Why is Life So Cray Cray?

And yes, I used the words cray cray.  Since my last post...

It's been very busy, and I've barely been the in the classroom.  At the end of February, I attended the National Conference on Bullying and Child Victimization.  I mentioned agreeing to this in a previous post.  I learned a lot about bullying.  What it is, and what it isn't.  A quick run down for those that don't know:

• There needs to be an imbalance of power.  For example, a group of students against one student or upperclassmen against lowerclassmen.  
• It needs to be repeated.

If there isn't an imbalance of power or it's not repeated, it might be mean (and still needs to be handled), but it's not bullying.

Don't label:

• A student who bullies instead of calling the student a bully.
• The targeted student instead of the victim.

We took the red eye out so we could spend one day at Universal and experience the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  It was amazing.  I can't wait to experience the one here in California.  

We also did a half-day pass to Seaworld, which was within walking distance of our hotel, and enjoyed the afternoon and evening there.

At Universal, Seaworld, the hotel, and the restaurant across the street, I was consistently amazed at how friendly everyone in Florida was.

The biggest takeaway, the session that stood out to me most at this conference, was the one I attended for the One Leg at a Time group.  This is a student-led initiative and not an adult one (there are of course adults involved).  It was really amazing and inspiring to see these kids take an active role in being better people and trying to get their classmates to be better people too.

I had three days in the classroom when I got back--interrupted by the weekend--before I had to be pulled out with half the department to grade district writing assessments, which is never fun and--considering our school does school-wide writing four times a yea--very unnecessary for us.  

I finally had a full week with my kids after that, though time with my 10th graders was interrupted with registration one day, and then another time this past week.

Then, I was out the last two days for CUE 2016. But, before that...

All hell broke loose on campus because of a phone app called Ogle.  I was notified about it by a student early Tuesday morning before my 10th graders registered.  I downloaded it to see what the student was talking about and showed admin right away. It is a horrible, horrible app that the students are using to bully and demean each other and staff (the post about me is so awful and vulgar that I can't show you) and distribute porn (including nudes of each other).  

Threats were made against the school through this app, which is anonymous, and now the FBI is involved.  

Despite the horrid way many of us were made to feel, there were a few lights that this darkness revealed:

• Many students are willing to report such behavior and do what they need to to protect themselves and their friends.
• Many students care enough about their teachers (me) to stand up against those that say vile things about them.

The week before all this went down, I was put in charge of the group of kids called Safe School Ambassadors I talked about before.  I have a feeling/am hoping that a lot more students want to join us for tomorrow's meeting and make a difference in the culture of the school and how we treat each other.