ELT burnout revisited A little more than two years ago, I talked about burnout, particularly the path towards it that I and probably you were on. My ELT:Other ratio stared glaringly in my face, mocking my attempts at having a life outside of language teaching. It’s then that I realised I was definitely on the road to burnout. Now with Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s cycle 4 of the 30 Goals for Educators, and an upcoming Google Hangout I’ll be doing with her about them, it seems like an opportune time to revisit my path and see if things have changed. The gist of the ELT:Other ratio is looking at how you spend your time in language teaching areas vs all of your other interests. It’s a 3-step process: If your #2 & #3 shows over 50% of your time on ELT, you might be heading down that fiery path. One caveat that came out in discussion, however, was the blurry grey (or in this case red) overlap between social media and ELT. What’s there to be done about burnout? If you don’t feel like you’re burning out, go with that.
8 Free Apps and Web Tools for Staying Organized in the New Year The start of a new year is a great time to think back and reflect about what really worked for you and what isn't quite cutting it. When it comes to staying organized, there is no one-size-fits-all. It's really all about finding the system that works for you, picking apps or tools that you will actually use, and remembering that there are lots of options to choose from as you figure out the best fit. As you sort through the following list, don't try them all out at once. Pick one or two, put them into practice for a month, and then reflect on how well something is helping you stay organized. 30/30 (iOS - Free; upgrades available) This super useful task manager is perfect for teachers with a long to-do list. Google Docs (iOS, Android, Web Browser - Free) Google Docs are one of my favorite tools for staying organized. Pocket (iOS, Android, Web Browser - Free; upgrades available) I've shared the reasons for why Pocket is great for keeping track of your personal learning network (PLN).
Google Drive: It's Slick & Not Exactly Free Google is set today to open Google Drive, a service to store files online and share them among various computing devices that turns out to be a lot more important than you might think. Why? Two reasons: First, Google's service goes well beyond rivals because of integration with Google Docs, Google+, Gmail, and other services.Second, beyond a basic free level, ordinary consumers will pay to use Google Drive -- not much, but enough to make them into customers, not just users of an advertising-subsidized service. What is Google Drive? If you copy or save a new file to the folder, or if you upload one to the Google Drive site online, the technology automatically replicates it at all other Google Drive locations. "You can take all your data, regardless of which device you're on, and make it seamlessly available to you," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Google's Chrome and Apps projects. It's very useful, as Dropbox users can attest.
Avoid Burn-Out Posted by Shelly Terrell on Saturday, June 29th 2013 Goal 2: Avoid Burn-Out of The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators. Click the link to find out more about the 30 Goals Challenge for Educators. “Courage doesn’t always roar. This year with the 30 Goals Challenge for Educators, our 30 Goals Facebook community is voting on what some of the goals will be. My Take on the Goal Each year as a teacher I struggle with burn-out. Another important way I avoid burn-out is through taking time for myself everyday. For more ideas about this goal, check out the video I did in 2011. Goal Short-term-Take at least one hour for yourself where you don’t dwell on your role as an educator but instead give your time to relax and have some fun. We are pinning ideas on ways to avoid burn-out here. Long-term- Begin to schedule weekly even daily times where you leave your work as an educator behind and aim for balance. Educational Leadership Goal New Teacher Goal Take an hour for yourself each day for a week.
How to Search Google Like a Pro: 11 Tricks You Have to Know Google is a powerful tool, but you’re missing out on a lot of that power if you just type words into it. Master Google and find the best results faster with these search tricks. Whether you’re an inexperienced user or a seasoned professional, you’ll probably find at least one search operator you weren’t aware of here. Many of Google’s search operators aren’t very well-known. Exact Words and Phrases One of the most basic and widely known search tricks is using quotation marks to search for an exact phrase. “Hello World” This same method now works for exact-word queries. “mining” Excluding a Word The minus sign allows you to specify words that shouldn’t appear in your results. linux distributions -ubuntu Site Search The site: operator allows you to perform a search in a specific site. site:howtogeek.com windows 7 You can also use the site: operator to specify a domain. Related Words ~geek Apparently, “Linux” is the most similar word to geek, followed by “Greek.” The Wildcard Time Ranges File Type
4 Fantastic, Free Things Google Drive Will Now Do For You Most productive people with a mind for the web know what Google Docs are about. Then Google Docs became Google Drive, with all kinds of storage space and collaboration folders and connected webapps. Most people just noted the new icon and kept on writing meeting agendas and filling small spreadsheets. Now, however, would be a good time to pay Drive some mind. Send Gigantic Attachments That Are Always Up To Date Your email attachments are only as useful as the lamest inbox to which you send them. Google Drive and Gmail really, truly want to fix this. One caveat: You need to be using Gmail's "New Compose Experience" to insert Drive attachments. Do More With Drive On Mobile, Including Spreadsheet Editing Google makes a Drive app for iOS devices, a Drive app for Android, and a kind of “app” for Chrome browsers. Perhaps most helpfully, you can stash lots of documents for a project in Drive and view or present them in Drive. Upload And Search-Index Your Paper Documents
Install Bookmarklets / Extensions of Your Favorite Tools Posted by Shelly Terrell on Sunday, December 8th 2013 Included in the Digital Tips Advent Calendar and part of the Effective Technology Integration category The tools I choose to use habitually or recommend to teachers, usually meet most of these requirements, they provide: a free web versiona free mobile app (a plus if it works on multiple platforms)a bookmarklet or extension for your web browsera way to embed your work on your blog or platform There are many tools I think are beautifully designed, but I refuse to use them because without these features they take too much of my time. One of the ways I am able to collect, organize, curate, and share so many valuable resources is because I have installed the extensions or bookmarklets of my favorite web tools on my Chrome browser. These tiny icons, usually at the top of your browser, do magical things when clicked. Luckily, many of your favorite tools have an extension/ bookmarklet. Challenge:
Track & Rate Skills Directly in Google Drive Track & Rate Skills Directly in Google Drive One of my favorite tools for providing feedback in Google Drive is Kaizena, which allows you to leave voice comments on documents. Today Kaizena launches an enhanced feature: tags. Tags allow you to track and rate skills, saving your comments for future use. Here is a summary of what these new features in Kaizena can do: Track and rate skills - tags can be rubric criteria, common core standards, your local state, region, or country’s standards, learning objectives or outcomes…anything. Voice comments saved educators time while enabling better student outcomes, and tags continue this legacy: Better student outcomes Knowledge of strengths and weaknesses is a prerequisite for improvementTransparency: showing the evidence behind a rubric score builds trust between educators and students Save time Re-use your feedbackGet rubric criteria out of your head as you read Like this: Like Loading... About Jennifer Carey
16 Secrets Of Google Drive Google Drive—formerly Google Docs—has come quite a way in nearly a decade of existence. Originally launched as Writely, a startup’s clever collaborative word processor, Google quickly acquired the app, changed the name to Google Docs, and released it as a new way to help people work together more efficiently using little more than a browser. Google changed the name again to Google Drive in April 2012, reflecting the ever-expanding goals and capabilities of the suite. 1. One of Google Drive’s best features is its ability to let you collaborate with other people on a document in real time. 2. If you use Google Drive, it’s probably a safe bet you also use Gmail. 3. You can think of this feature as “Google does Dropbox.” 4. If you use Google Chrome ( ), the Save to Drive Chrome extension will make it easier to right-click and save just about anything you find straight to Drive. 5. 6. Naturally, Google built some handy Google Drive tools into Google+, its social network. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Build Your Teacher’s Survival Kit The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. – John F. Kennedy When I first began teaching, I remember meeting a veteran teacher who carried a big bag with her everywhere. I forgot what the situation was but I remember her coming to the rescue with masking tape, scissors, and Post It notes. She told me she always carried those things among other items like dry erase markers, poster putty, and so forth as a teacher, because she had learnt that situations always arise when she needed these items. That left a huge impression on me and I kept thinking of this as a survival kit. More Resources If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachersor my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.
Tips Every Teacher should Know about Google Docs in Education ( Great Easy Guide ) Here is a list of some of the best features of Google Docs that teachers need to know about :It is free and very easy to useIt has a user-friendly interfaceIt lets you create Google documents, spreadsheets, and other file types and collectionsIt lets you upload, manage and store files and foldersIt allows you to share Google Docs, files and collectionsYou can preview your docs and files before you open or share themYou can also view images and videos that you have uploaded to your document listIt lets you search for items by name, type and visibility settingIt allows users to collaborate on documents in real timeIt also offers a chat functionality for collaborators to use while working on docs.Google Docs Templates for teachers Many Google Docs users are unaware of the fact that they can breathe life into their documents with templates. Google's new templates for Google Docs make it fast and easy to create all kinds of documents. I- Documents : Click on any title to read the tutorial