Marking in the paperless classroom

I don't know about anyone else, but a majority of the work in my classroom takes place in an online environment. It is possible to do marking through Google Classroom, but it isn't always the most effective system. Enter Goobric and Doctopus. The best way to explain it is to walk through an example of what exactly these programs do. I have used it for the past few assignments I have done with students, and it has really streamlined the process! 

Step One: Assign students a writing (or any other) assignment through Google Classroom. Name it something practical and descriptive so it is easy to find! 


Step Two: Type up your rubric in Google Sheets

When you do this, it is important that you put your numbers along the top (and leave A1) blank, and put your criteria down the left-hand side. 

Step Three: Open up a new (Blank) Google Sheets document. 

I usually name it whatever the project name is and then add assessment at the end. This is where all your marks will be compiled 

Step Four: In your newly created document, you will need to run the add-on Doctopus.

• If you don't have it already, you can go to the add-ons tab, and go to get add-ons, and search for Doctopus. 
• If you have the add-on, you will need to launch it.

Step Five: Use Doctopus to ingest your assignment and select rubric

Step 1: Select "Ingest a Google Classroom Assignment"

Step Two: Select your class from classroom

Step Three: Choose your Assignment  

Once you have your class and assignment chosen, you will pick your rubric

Click on "Attach Goobric"

Select your rubric from Google Drive. Must be in Sheets! 

Step Six: Make sure you have the Goobric Extension (You only need to do this step the first time you do this)

Go to the Google Chrome Web Store, and search for Goobric. Or you can just click on this link to go Goobric Extension. The icon looks like this, and will appear with your other extensions

Step Seven: Find your students' assignments in your Google Classroom folder within Google Drive 

Click on the first assignment to open it up. Once you have it open, you must click on your Goobric extension. It will open up the same student document in a new tab

Step Eight: Assess student writing/work and give feedback

When your students work opens up through Goobric, it will look like the image below. You simply click on the rubric description that fits their work to select it.  You can add comments into the comment box, and you can also attach a voice comment using the microphone button. When you are done, you can click submit. It will automatically move you onto the next assignment. 

Step Nine: Check out your assessment data 

If you go back to that new document you created all the way back in step three, all of your students' rubric scores and comments will be compiled there for you to view and print. The rubric scores and comments automatically attach themselves to the end of the students' assignment. 

Pear Deck

I attended the Tech Innovation Conference from ERLC in Edmonton earlier this week, and one of the presenters used a website called Pear Deck to do his presentation. I had heard of it before, but hadn't really given it the time of day. However, after seeing his engaging presentation, I knew that I needed to give it a shot! 

Pear Deck is a platform that allows you to create slides to deliver information to your students, but the fun part is that you can add different types of questions to your presentation for students to answer as you go (multiple choice, long answer), and you can also add youtube videos right into your presentation. The best part is, you get students to join your presentation, and it plays it right on their devices for them to follow along. If you upgrade to premium,  it spits out a Google sheet with all of the students answers to the questions recorded in a handy spreadsheet when you are finished. 

My kids absolutely enjoyed a "boring" social lesson today because of this fun tool. I highly recommend checking it out!

Some of the slide options you have

It is as simple as typing your info in

You can see what your students will see on their screens using the student preview

Writing News Articles

A few times a year, our students are asked to write news articles.  They are asked to do this in response to literature,  about events happening around the school and as a school wide writing prompt.  All too often, we ask the kids to write the article, but don't really tell them how to do it beyond including the 5 Ws.

In recent years, we have found the kids have been more successful in grade six by using a structure for the articles.

The structure we use is as follows:

     First Paragraph: 

• A general overview, including all the 5 Ws.  
• You should get the general idea of the whole article from this.

     Detailed Paragraphs:  

• The paragraphs following the first paragraph are dedicated to giving more specific details on an element of the story.  
• It may be a paragraph that tells more about an event, character, location, etc.  For each specific area, there should be a specific paragraph.

     Quotes:  

• Students should then provide a quote that captures something important about the article. 
• The quote should be specific...not "it was fun!"

News articles are then assessed on the content of the article and content management.



Example: