Category: Google Sheets

Google Sheets

Fun with Google Sheets, Part 2

Mandi

I am back with another installment of Fun with Google Sheets. Let’s dive in.

You can also visit Part 1 here.

Drop Down Menus

I use this when I’m creating my own data sheets but you could also create this in an activity because conditional formatting will still work with it.

Select the cell to place the drop down menu.

Click Data and then Data Validation.

Under criteria, select list of answers.

Type in your selection with commas between.

Click save

Conditional Formatting

This is my 100% absolute favorite thing to do in Google Sheets. It’s so simple and makes you look like a rock star. I use this in my data tracking sheets with students and the many activities I create from escape room to pixel art.

Insert Images

When Google updated Sheets to include images in cells, I was so excited. Prior to that, the image just floated over the cell and it was somewhat clunky! Now you can do both. I use this with activities, escape room, and the it was very handy for the surface area and volume calculator I created.

Now go have some fun with Google Sheets. I will be sharing more Fun with Google Sheets in the coming weeks.

Google Sheets

Fun with Google Sheets -Part 1

Mandi

After my post last week with my Groundhog activity (Pixel Art) I had some questions about how to use Google Sheets. I decided to do a little series about some basics in Google Sheets. This will be the first post about some fun tips and tricks I use. I am not a Google Sheets “Expert”. I’m just a teacher who will play with tools and learn some stuff.

Checkboxes

-Click on the cell(s) you want the check box.

-Click INSERT and select

If you want the user to have the option to select something in the spreadsheet, check boxes might be what you are looking for. I have used this with students when they self-check standards or topics as they review. You can also use response validation but I like to have my students self-reflect on what they feel like they can do.

Return INSIDE a cell

on a Mac: Command + Return

on a PC: Alt + Enter

I know when I figured out you could do this my mind was blown. How many times have you wanted to start a new line but inside the same cell? For me it was A LOT!

Turn off Grid Lines

Have you ever created a really cool spreadsheet but you wished you couldn’t see the gridlines to make it look more like a document? You can quickly and easily turn off the gridlines and achieve that look. Any borders or cell shading you’ve placed on the cells will remain.

Go to View then unclick Gridlines

Check back in the next few weeks for more fun with Google Sheets.

Geometry, Google Sheets, Make Math Not Suck, Self-Checking

Self-Checking Pixel Art Tutorial

Mandi

*Updated 9/2021*

Self-Checking activities are very common in my classroom. I have used them for remediation days, for review days, and as a check your understanding right after a lesson. I shared the Mystery Picture idea from Jason Pullano that can also be used as a self-check activity. Now, I want to take the Pixel Art idea shared by Alice Keeler and turn it into a self-checking activity.

You will want to have your questions and answers prepared and have an idea of an image to use. You can go as in depth with your image as you wish. I prefer to keep it simple and build upon a background image. For this tutorial, I’m going to use a simple snowman on a light blue background. You can do a full image like these examples if you are ambitious.

Prepare your Google Sheet by making your cells into squares. We will merge cells together to write our questions so no worries. Make the squares as small as you need them for your image. The left side is where my questions will go. The right side is where the image will appear.

Now put your questions into the Sheet. You will merge cells to allow room for the question and NOT distort the grid for your image. I put my answers in also. You can delete them once the activity is complete.

merge button

Now we will start our design. I am NOT a Google Sheets expert. There may be an easier way to do this but this is how I do it. I use 0 and 1. 0 when the answer is blank or incorrect and 1 when it is correct. You can change the color of the numbers so you don’t see them. I will start with my first question and my first black block.

*Update*

You can also add a sheet 2 in the bottom left corner & type your answers into Sheet 2 to prevent students from seeing the answers. So let’s say this answer is in cell B2 in Sheet 2. I would type

=if(D3=Sheet2!B2, “1”, “0”)

*end update*

D3 is the cell with my answer and 125.5 is the correct answer. “1” will return a 1 if correct and “0” if incorrect.

Now copy and paste this formula in every other box that should be black. I will set the color in the next step.

Now let’s change the color of these 1s. Click on ALL the 1s you have on the screen (hold down the command key on a Mac -IDK for Windows – sorry). Go to Format – Conditional Formatting.

Change the Format cells if… dropdown to “text is exactly” and then type 1. Pick your color and also change your font to that color.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you have all colors on your screen.

Now it’s time to delete your answers in the boxes. When you do this, your 0s should appear. Once you see all of you zeros, change the text color to white (or blue in my case since my background its blue.)

Your activity is ready to be sent to your students! Don’t forget to set it to “make a copy for each student”.

Here is the link to my completed activity if you want to use it or investigate.

Enjoy! If you make one of these, let me know how it goes!!!

Bitmoji, Distance Learning, Google Forms, Google Sheets, Relationships

Get to Know Your Students

Mandi

Relationships are so very important. If you want to connect with your students, you need to know your students and they need to know you and each other. I try to build a climate and culture in my classroom of family. I want it to be a safe space to learn, fail, share, and grow. Students will never feel comfortable doing this if they don’t know each other.

Here are a few activities I’ve done to help us get to know one another and create that family climate.

Google Form Survey

make a copy

This document does more than gather information. I play a game at the of class periods that run a little short. See, if my students get done early, they pack up and migrate toward the door. This is problematic because so many students clustered around the door causes issues (and our administration has made it an expectation to NOT line up at the door). I will open the spreadsheet from this form and play guess who. Now let’s use some common sense here! I do ask students some personal information like internet access and food allergies. DO NOT USE THIS INFORMATION for guess who. I know you won’t but I’m putting it out there JUST in case. Students love to play this game and they get to know each other a little as we go. It also keeps them in their seat and engaged until the bell rings. This Google Form idea came from Jennifer Gonzalez. I found it in this blog post with many other great ideas including ice breakers. The guess who game idea came from a retired administrator I had during my specialist classes.

Collaborative Slides

click to preview

I have been using this slide activity for quite a few years now. I like it because we learn about each other the very first day but I can also teach students how to use Google Slides, a tool we use OFTEN in my class. I assign it through Google Classroom and every student has access to the SAME document. This means you need to make a copy for each class. I forgot once and had to make a copy of the completed activity and delete the slides the students had added. Not a complete disaster but wasted time. I post this activity at the TOP of Google Classroom so students can access it any time. I also make sure any new students who join us later in the year complete it (same with the Google Form).

A NEW Collaborative Slide

click to preview

This is a NEW collaborative slide idea I saw on Twitter. Pamela Bradley (@4pambradley) shared on behalf of Lauren Vining. I LOVED IT, and not just because it had a Bitmoji (I give other options BTW). I wanted the lockers to be a little bigger and I wasn’t sure about the copyright of the locker image used so I made my own version in Google Slides. I plan to have the students use this activity just like I did the previous one. I will also get to introduce remove.bg and unscreen.com to remove the background from images and animated gifs. This way they can add a picture of themself if they want.

All of these activities (except or guess who, and maybe even that one via Meet or Zoom) could be used for virtual learning too.

Now, go build those relationships!

Geometry, Google Sheets, performance task

Popcorn Containers and Volume

Mandi

Anytime you can have food in class it’s a good day (unless you are the custodian sweeping up popcorn. I’m sorry!) I came up with this project probably four years ago. We did the whole pour the water from a cone into a cylinder thing, and it was ok, but I wanted something better. While eating popcorn at the movies, my daughter and I started talking about the cost of the popcorn and the sizes available. Putting those two ideas together, this project was born.

The first year I had students create a cylinder and then figure out how to make a cone with the same base area and height. This was a struggle and I ended up showing them. It does involve a lot of thinking and many would not have gotten there on their own. The following year, I created a hand-drawn example of how to calculate the dimensions of the cone. I now have the information in Google Slides for students to use.

There are great discussions about the slant height becoming the radius of the cone. I do have to show students a visual of this and they are always amazed. Once they see the visual and we discuss how the circumference of the cone piece has to meet up with the base circle, they begin to see how it all fits together.

I’ve included the activity for the first day. I’ve popped trashbags full of popcorn and I’ve popped microwave popcorn. If you can get your concession stand to open up their popcorn machine then you have it made.

Popcorn Container Activity

As a follow-up activity, I decided to have students calculate the cost and the amount for which they could sell their popcorn. This allows them to make some decisions about which container would be best. Many of them tell me that it doesn’t matter which one is the best deal because the cone of popcorn would be inconvenient. 🙂

Popcorn Surface Area & Volume Follow-up activity

PopcornEnjoy!

differentiation, Factoring, Google Sheets, Parallel & Perpendicular

Differentiated Instruction with Google Slides

Mandi

I just watched Dave Burgess at #METC17 and it challenged me to go back through my lessons again and Pirate the heck out of them. And even though we want engaging lessons that kids want to learn, there does come a time, especially in math, when they need to practice. I  don’t think all students should practice the same thing. Some need more and some need less and some need something completely different. On these days we use differentiated lessons in Google Slides. I recently created two new ones (well, one was created by my amazing student teacher) that I will be using next week. Eventually, I’ll have an arsenal of these to use.

The idea behind these activities is to give each group of students a lesson and practice they need to be working on but allows them some independence so I, as the teacher, can walk around and have conversations with students.

parallel-and-perpendicular-linesfactoring-practice

I used to assign all of them in Google Classroom and just tell each group which ones they will be working on but with Google Classroom’s new update, you can now assign separate slides to kids in the same class. I KNOW! Game Changer!!!

2017-02-11_17-26-14

Remember that all files are set to view only but if you File-Make a Copy then it’s yours. Alter as needed for your kiddos but if you share, please credit me.

Enjoy!

Google Sheets, interactive notebooking

Googlefied Scientific Notebooks

Mandi

Is that a word? Googlefied? My word editor says no, but we are using it anyway. I shared this idea this summer when I conducted PD sessions for schools.

Let me start by saying I am not for 100% paperless. There are many studies that support the need to write and draw for learning. AND, I love me some sketchnotes! But one purpose of using technology is to do things we couldn’t before. You can incorporate so many things into a digital scientific notebook that you either couldn’t do or wouldn’t be easy to do in a regular one. Images of experiments, embedded spreadsheets & graphs, including images from research. The other reason I love a digital INB is for the digital portfolio aspect. What an amazing evidence of learning that is easily sharable with the world. I created a short example using Google Slides (probably my favorite app – I might say that about all of them!) You may freely use it for ideas and adapt it for your needs.

Notice this is 8.5 x 11. You can resize Google Slides by going to File – Page Set Up. I selected a size that could be printed, which also made it easy for me to adapt some of the files I already had.

You may make a copy of the INB here. Please let me know if you find this useful. You can always follow me on Twitter: @TTmomTT

Google Sheets, online graphing

Zombie Lines

Mandi

This is one of those proud moments. The moments when someone has observed you doing something and then goes and does it themselves. My colleague Tessah is a 3rd year teacher, and quite amazing at what she does. She has watched me create & share math activities with GAFE for the past two years. She even created some of her own last year. She found this zombie activity online as a paper copy and after collaborating with our Algebra 1 group decided we could practice our online graphing skills. She did an amazing job creating this digital version. She used the font Zombie Salad from dafont.com, also a habit she picked up from me. I asked her permission to post it here and she was very willing to share (maybe another habit from?).

Tolen Zombie Graphing (1)

It was created on Google Slides, probably my most favorite Google App because of it’s versatility.

Here’s the finished product. Sorry for those of you who don’t give your students the solutions.

Tolen anwers Zombie Graphing.png

Feel free to use this activity with your students. You may make a copy of this slide here. Please let Tessah & I know if you like her activity. It makes us happy when people use our stuff.

Google EI, Google Expedition, Google Sheets

I applied to be a Google Innovator

Mandi

I submitted my application today to be a Google Innovator. It’s been a goal of mine for a while now. My vision is to change how we teach using technology, to get away from the factory model of sit and get. Here’s my vision:

I want classrooms full of thinkers, collaborators, & risk-takers, who have an internal drive to learn, create, and contribute to the world, not robots who just follow instructions. The world wants innovation, so let’s send them students who have the skills to innovate.

250 characters is VERY challenging. I know the sentence is choppy but wow 250 characters! I hope the selection committee takes that into consideration!

My solution is to change how we teach math using Google Expedition and Google Sheets. I worked with Alice Keeler this summer and helped her create the first lesson about functions while climbing El Capitan. Then I began a second one. This one is based on an expedition to a Tanzanian manure farm while exploring rearranging formulas. The lesson is titled: This Lesson is Poop.

This isn’t the completed spreadsheet activity, but it’s a good start and will give you an idea about what the spreadsheet lessons will look like that will accompany the expedition.

Other than the expedition part (teacher guided), the lesson is student directed and self-paced. It allows the teacher to ask students individualized questions and guide their learning instead of direct instructing.

Screen Shot 2016-08-28 at 6.15.36 PM.png

Make a copy of spreadsheet here.

I will be working with Alice to finish the spreadsheet in September. August was crazy busy and slowed my progress on it. I will post the final product here whether I get accepted or not. I think this type of math lesson is important and I will continue working on them when I can. I REALLY hope I am awarded one of the grants I’ve applied for so I can get a Google Expedition classroom set! Right now I don’t have the supplies to do this with my students.

I also had a lot of fun making the Video to go along with my application. I hope it conveys my message.

Google Sheets, order of operations

Order of Operations with Google Sheets

Mandi

I look for real reasons for why we use math. Students can spot BS from a mile away, probably because it STINKS! A few years ago, I realized that a spreadsheet was a great way to explore order of operations. We have to tell technology how we want it to process numbers. If we don’t, technology defaults to the basic rules of math, order of operations.

While reading Jo Boaler’s book, Mathematical Mindset (if you haven’t read it, get a copy RIGHT NOW!), Alice Keeler and I started chatting on Twitter. Alice was working on a spreadsheet activity and asked me to collaborate with her. I realized it was the perfect platform for a student directed lesson (I used to guide the exploration) on order of ops using Alice’s inspiration. This is what was born.

Students begin with some research on equations and expressions, inserting images or typing their own examples. There is also a place where students draw a conclusion from their research. Communication and collaboration is encouraged.Screen Shot 2016-08-26 at 9.18.00 PM

Then it’s time to play a game. One student writes an expression in words. Their partner calculates by hand and enters their guess. Then we teach a spreadsheet skill (Alice would say Computer Apps class isn’t needed, we can embed it in content – I agree!) This is a basic introduction to entering a function using the =. If your partner calculated correctly, they get a point, if not the first person does. The spreadsheet tally’s the points to see who wins. The 2nd person has to figure out how the spreadsheet would calculate and then calculate by hand the same way.

Screen Shot 2016-08-26 at 9.20.28 PM

The sad part, I didn’t get to use this lesson this year because of the late roll out of Chromebooks. I may put it in Google Classroom as a warm-up one day.

Feel free to use this but please give me feedback. It makes my day when people use my stuff!

Get your own copy here.