A Look Back at the Year

So a full year is in the books for using a Chrome OS device and I have to say, I didn't miss Windows at all, I did load Windows 10 & Remix OS on my old laptop though. My postings have been far and few between because I have been super busy. I had a student teacher 2nd semester. He did a good job and didn't require too much over seeing, but when I get a student teacher I find myself helping out around the campus with technology issues.

So what did I get done this year? Well first up was AP Qualifications. I have a colleague who has to pour through about 200 applications and see if they qualify. I asked him what he was looking for and he said just grades. So I took his application and turned it into a Google Form. I found a way for the Custom Formatting to search for the unqualified grades and highlight them in red and then highlight their names so they would be flagged out. Then to top it off I had a second tab for his acceptance list. I had to run an add-on to sort by color and then pull that data to another sheet. Well once I showed his dean, she asked me to do it for the rest of her department. So I did and I think that will streamline the AP applications next year.

His dean is in charge of AP testing so she had to put together the master AP list. It was easy once I got everything into a Sheet it was easy to manipulate the data. So what I have planned for next year is for the AP qualification lists to be automatically pulled from the AP applications qualifying tab. So in theory, once they close the application everything will be done, acceptance & master list. Big shout out to Alice Keeler who is 100% right when she says "The Answer is Always a Spreadsheet".

After she saw this she asked me to help with an AP/IB registration form. Students will complete a form where they input their AP schedule. It will identify any types of conflicts (by flagging them in the Sheet) and using FormMule email the students their AP schedules...if our district would open up student email access. It will also have necessary papers to qualify for fee reduction & help identify students that might be in CIF playoffs when testing rolls around.

I also work on a Staff Resource Doc that I saw from CUE. Basically, on one Doc it has everything ever needed for a staff member. I set it up so that certain things will require staff to make a copy first, like our warehouse order form. And of course it is set up to automatically add up the total cost for the teacher.

Also made another Form for requesting set up in the auditorium. Staff fills it out and once again thanks to FormMule a nice email is sent to the custodians as to what needs to be set up.

And finally, I have been trying to convince our admin to seriously look at buying Chrome OS devices for our next upgrade.

And as I look back I realize that most of this, if not all of it, would not have happened if I didn't have a Chromebox. It pushed me into a direction to use GAFE more. And when you start using it you realize just how useful & powerful it is.  And I think that is the big picture of using a Chrome OS device.

Printing from Chrome OS just got easier

One of the main drawbacks of Chrome OS is the lack of a solid printing option. Even though I am running a paperless class now, I still have to print gradebooks, letters of rec, and other reports. So in able to do this I have to make sure my work printer is on and run Google Cloud Printing through it, basically turning it into a printer server. It works. Everytime it works. The problem lies within Windows. I turned on my laptop to print out something and I had to sit and wait about 20 minutes for it to load an update and restart...20 minutes wasted time.

So how has it improved? Today I found an app for Chrome OS called HP Print for Chrome. This makes printing fast and simple. All you need to do is locate the IP address for the printer and type it in. It doesn't have to be a cloud ready printer or anything like that. I use 2 HP printers, they are different models and this app works for both of them. If you don't have an HP printer, then you are out of luck until that printer manufacturer decides to make an app too. I think this is better than waiting on Google to move their Cloud Printing out of beta.

As of today, my Windows laptop is turning off and I don't see a reason why I will be turning it on for the rest of the year. And this really strengthens my case for our school to adapt a Chrome OS devices as our next computer.

Chrome OS to the rescue...again

Been awhile since I posted something, so I will share a quick story of how Chrome OS saved a teacher's day. A teacher came in and told me he had a problem. Turns out he left laptop at home and had no device for the day. On top of that, he had a PowerPoint Presentation planned for his classes that day. I told him I could loan him an extra Chromebook from my class set. Since attendance is web-based now, he could take roll.

As far as his PowerPoint, last year he moved his documents to Google Drive after his laptop crashed. I told him you could get to them anywhere so he did it. Since he had his PowerPoint on his drive, we hooked the Chromebook up to his projector and ran the presentation like normal. The slides in the PowerPoint were off centered, so we did a quick conversion to Google Slides and it looked perfect. After school, he came up to me and said everything worked perfectly and thanks for the help. But without him moving his documents to Google Drive none of this would have worked.

I have been trying for 2 years now to have our staff move to Google Drive and this is another example why. Heck, it's a great example to move away from old Windows based laptops to Chrome OS devices for the school.

Amusing Tale of Chrome OS vs. Windows

So by now you have figured out I love Chrome OS & my Chromebox for work. I only have my work laptop out to use as a server when I need to print. So here is a nice little story from this morning I thought I would share.

I needed to print something out for a meeting this morning. It was on my personal drive. I went on my Chromebox, logged in under my personal account, and went to my drive. So I logged into my laptop so it would be awake for printing. As my laptop was logging in I realized that I don't have my work printers on my personal account. So I simply shared it to my work Google account. I figured that I would avoid cloud print and print straight from my laptop.

After I shared it, I went to my work laptop and waited for me to be able to launch Chrome. And I waited & waited some more. Then I decided to just switch users on my Chromebox. In the time it took me to switch users on my Chromebox, log into my work Drive, and print it, my work laptop had just opened up Drive.

I just shook my head and got my copies for the meeting. I am amazed at how fast Chrome OS is compared to a 3 year old laptop. I am still hoping someone at the district office figures out Chrome OS is a better fit for the school than a Windows based machine, but only time will tell on that one.

One year later

One year ago I completed my Google Educator certification. They have since revamped it and I'm not sure where I want to go next, but I thought I would look back at how much has changed in the past year.

Things that happened the past year;

• Cart of Chromebooks for my Geometry classes. This is a huge one. When I first received my cart I wasn't sure how I would use them, except for online testing through Socrative.com. One year later, I don't know how I could go back to just me lecturing.  Using Google Classroom & Docs, I am able to put interactive material into the lessons.  So during the lecture I can send them to Geogebra to work with planes or circles.  I can start lessons off with them investigating relationships with segments inside triangles.  Students can collaborate on Performance Tasks as well.  Not too mention since it is all on Drive, the students have access to their notes where ever they have access to get online.
• Tutorial Site: After I completed my Google Educator Certificate I wanted everyone else to see just how much GAFE & technology makes teaching easier for everyone involved.  So I decided to do screencasts & written tutorials of various topics.  I covered the most important topics, GAFE & Socrative. It is always being updated, especially since technology is ever-changing as well.  
• School detention attendance moved to online to Google Sheets.  Before last year our detention list was on a single sheet at the front of the office.  If the counselors wanted to add a name they had to leave their office & walk up there to add it. If they needed to change it, they would walk up and scratch it out.  By the end of the year the daily list was a mess.  Different hand writing & so many things scratched out.  So I created a Google Sheet that was shared between all of the counselors.  Each Sheet had the 3 days we ran detention.  The counselors could see where there was open spaces.  If they needed to delete someone, they could just delete it there.  Just for fun I ran a script that would sort each day by grade level so the counselors could quickly see if their students were there or not.  I also used conditional formatting to turn spaces red if they weren't at detention.  Plus a running number on the top of each day so the VP could see how many students weren't making it to detention daily.  I also formatted that to turn red once the number got too high.
• SST/504 moved to Google Forms. Once again this was done to streamline a process.  Before we had to print out a sheet, fill it out and turn it in by hand.  If we typed it into the document, the counselor would have to print it out and put all the information on the student together.  With the Form it is all done automatically.  The counselor has folders for each student on their Drive that keeps everything organized.  And with Summary of Responses, they can quickly access information on the student without having to look at each teacher's response.
• Peer Counseling list moved to Forms and Sheets. Our school has a peer counseling group. The students go out and counsel other students when they are having problems.  The information needs to stay confidential. The class used to use a clipboard to sign in/out of & write who they were counseling. Even though it was left out of site, it could have been seen because it was a hard copy. So I went ahead with the teacher and created a Form that did what he wanted it to do. The counselors now access the Form and enter in the information and it is shared only to the teacher and school site psychologist. In addition, I linked the data Sheet to a second Sheet to share with the attendance office.  They could now see if a counselor's absence was because they were counseling.  They don't have to call the teacher & they don't see why a student was being counseled. Also quickly created an Android app for the counselors so they didn't have to bookmark the Form, just open the app.
• In-service on Google Drive, Google Classroom, & Socrative.com. I presented at our district's professional developtment day.  I had 45 minutes to try and cover those 3 topics. It was fun to help out other teachers and let them see just how much technology & GAFE could improve their classes.  The number one thing that surprised them was the unlimited storage on Drive.
• Moved to Chrome OS 100% at work. That's why this blog was formed.  I wanted to see if it was possible to move to Chrome OS.  Our computers are slow & time is important.  Moving to Chrome OS through my Chromebox has been awesome.  Zero regrets and now I have to convince others :-)

Even though I am extremely proud of everything I have been able to do the past year, there is a lot of work needed to be done;

• More buy-in from staff on benefits of GAFE, especially those with carts of Chromebooks.
• Have admin start using Google Classroom to send out information
• Incorporate Google Calendar into my classes, this will be easier with Google Classroom update.
• Convince someone important to move to Chrome OS as a staff.  Keep Windows/Mac around for those that need them for their classes.

Haunted by Windows

If you read this blog you know 3 things; 1) I bought a Chromebox for work because I was so impressed with using just a Chromebook for the last 7 weeks of school &summer school. 2) our school has no cloud enabled printers so I have to still use my old laptop as a server.  3) my laptop got stuck in a boot loop on the last day of school and had to be re-imaged over the summer.

I got my laptop back today and it was back to factory default basically. All my programs were gone and my printers were gone too. So I know how to install printers, it is about a 5-10 minute job. I had the drivers on a flash drive just in case.

And that's when problems started. I plugged the flash drive into 3 different USB ports and each time a warning came up saying it didn't recognize the device. Finally for some reason on the 3rd time to a USB port it worked. So as I clicked on the drive to install the drivers, the "updates need to be completed" box popped up and I had to click it away. It took my computer 10 minutes to install the drivers. Then came the printers.

I had the IP addresses, so no need to search just put in the IP address and go. Well then it took about 15 minutes for it to contact the printer and another 12 to query it for the driver and install it. When it was all said and done it took my over 45 minutes to install one printer.

Every time I wanted to do something it would take multiple clicks to get it to register. Signing into chrome was a pain as well. Everything was horribly slow. It was almost  like Windows was taunting me saying "oh you aren't going to use me? Well I'll make your life hell for it!"

I'm not going to miss Windows. Now I need to get some cloud enabled printers on this campus so I can unplug my laptop for good.

Putting my money where my mouth is...

So as you know I have been working exclusively with a Chromebook the last few months and I also used it for summer school. I have never had an issue with it and loved every minute with it. The speed is amazing.  Webpages load almost instantaneously and since I am heavily invested into GAFE, everything just flows together so nicely. I spent the last couple weeks of school having the Chromebook in docked mode hooked up to my 24 inch monitor. Essentially turning it into a Chromebox, my preferred device.

So this past week I took the plunge and bought an Asus Chromebox for $250. I know I talked about the Acer Chromebox and really liked the design of it, but for the extra $30 I got an i3 processor, instead of the typical celeron and a wireless mouse and keyboard. The Acer came with a USB mouse and keyboard. I reviewed the Asus Chromebox, but that was the Celeron 2GB RAM version, which was more than capable of doing my day to day tasks.  So by throwing in an i3 with 4 GB of RAM, there should be zero issues with performance. Even though the i3 processor is a year old, the gains from this year's processor is minimal.  In fact, after researching the differences, some sites said there was no clear winner between the two.

I always felt like if there is technology being used in the classroom, that the teacher should also be comfortable in using it, if not using it as well daily. I also like the fact I have the same OS hooked up to my projector to show the students parts of Chrome OS that they aren't familiar with.

So why buy a Chromebox instead of using the school's Chromebook? Well as I said during my time using the Chromebook, our school has them managed. So anytime I logged out or turned it off, everything was wiped clear. Downloads, extensions, and settings. It became a hassle and I after awhile I didn't turn it off. Since it won't be managed by the school, everything I do on it will be saved.  The other big difference will be the ability to access my Google Drive from the Files App.  Right now we only have access to the downloads.  I am sure there is a good reason for doing it that way, but it wasn't convenient for me. 

The one thing I am still not looking forward to is printing.  We have zero cloud enabled printers on our campus.  This means I will still need to have my laptop turned on, tucked away in a corner so I can use the classic printer cloud print, which basically turns my laptop into a server.  We just bought new printers and I was hoping they would be cloud enabled to print to, but they aren't.  Hopefully, if we get new printers down the road we purchase some cloud ready printers.

So this blog will take a new turn.  I will still be updating my progress using a Chromebox, but I still want to focus in on apps & sites that help foster student learning.