Young, Scrappy, and Hungry

"I am not throwing away my shot

Image from https://twitter.com/hamiltonmusical

I am not throwing away my shot
Hey yo, I'm just like my country
I'm young, scrappy and hungry
And I'm not throwing away my shot"

    Shot? Whose shot? What country?

    (groan) Don't you pay attention to anything? It's Hamilton! You know, Alexander Hamilton from the Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

    Wow, talk about someone with drive. Hamilton became the first Secretary of Treasury at age 34. Say, weren't you working on a drive?

    Yes, Google Drive.

    Similar to our government, there are a lot of pieces within Google Drive. To start with, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are Google's equivalent to Microsoft's Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. In fact, when you upload one of those documents, you can open it in your Google Drive and save it as the Google format and keep both versions (Word and Doc) in your Drive. One of the neatest aspects of Drive is the ability to share all those creations. Because there are several ways and several settings you can choose, I'll let the video tell you how.

    Wow! That was smashingly quick and informative! 

    Yes, he was. But, there's more.

    Two of the Google Documents/Programs in Drive don't really have a Microsoft equivalent--Drawings and Forms. Although Drawings is similar to Paint, you can do so much more including creating custom graphic organizers like the one I made here. Then, thanks to the magic of Google Drive's sharing technology, you can share it with each of your students without having to leave the comfort of your classroom to make copies (unless you prefer paper or are not 1:1).

    The other Document/Program is Google Forms. Imagine a multiple choice quiz or test. Now, give that test the ability to automatically collect the student names, force them to answer every question, and grade itself (after you tell it the answers). Add in the awesome Add-In called FormLimiter which gives you the additional power to tell it a certain day and time to stop accepting answers as well as a certain number to accept, and you've got a pretty powerful tool.







Make sure when you're limiting the number of replies that you make it one less than the number that you want because the program allows it to go one over.





    Man, it's so sad that Hamilton had such a short life. I bet he could have made an even bigger impact if he would have been around longer.

    I agree. However, not all shortened items are bad. For instance, shortening a URL is awesome.

    There are several ways to shorten URL's. First, you can use a FREE Chrome Extension called Goo.gl to shorten. It has both a website and an Extension in the Chrome Web store (although the Extension isn't the official one by Google it works the same and keeps track of your URL shortenings).

The other popular and FREE URL shortening program is TinyURL. With TinyURL, you can ask the program to shorten a URL for you, or you can create your own shortened one. For instance, if I link students to Hamilton's biography, it's a 59 character link that TinyURL shortens to 28 characters.


 Now, if you want to make it easier for students to understand and remember that link, you can customize it. The trick is to make it unique enough that no one else has thought of it or you can't use it. The first one I tried (HamiltonBio) had been used, so I went with Sec-Hamilton. Although it is longer than the original one TinyURL gave me, it is (hopefully) more memorable.

If you're still unsure how to use it, watch this video.

    

    Hamilton had eight kids? He sure was busy for dying so young.

    Yes, he was also a lawyer and ... Hey! (gasps) That's YOUR homework! Follow the link and read it, you turkey.