Google Spreadsheets: Creating Your Own Formula

There have been a few times now that I have wanted to do something in Google spreadsheets that I know exist in Excel. However, that functionality doesn't exist yet in Google. So my answer....make it yourself.

I have found that there are thousands of people worldwide who are creating cool scripts and formulas to upgrade the functionality and use-ability of Google Spreadsheets - so Google it and find their awesomeness!

Watch the following 'How To' to show you how you can create your own formula for Google Spreadsheets and how I use a particular formular that I love: 'Count Coloured Cells'.

Google Spreadsheets: Using COUNTA and COUNTIF

There are many times that I need to create a spreadsheet that houses the organisation of school wide events like Fiafia or even a camp. One of these sheets that I create often is a payment sheet to track who has paid, who has handed in their permission/ medical forms and if I have emergency contact details for any child.

What I hate with these types of sheets is not being able to know at a glance - especially when they get large like our year 5&6 camp (around 150 kids) you can't tell easily how many kids you need to follow up. So I use the two formulas to do this for me: COUNTA and COUNTIF.

Check out this screen recording to learn how to do it.

Google Drawings: Creating Info-Graphics

I love Google Draw! I think it is one of the most underused google apps in the Google Apps for Education suite.

In the below screencast I will show you how you can use Google draw to create fast and easy to create info-graphics that could be used as a teacher tool or even a follow up task for the children in your class. Check it out and let me know how you use this cool technique in the classroom!

Google Spreadsheets: Data Analysis Using VLOOKUP

I thought it would be worthwhile reposting this as it relates to what I'm working on this year.
A few years ago as part of my inquiry into teaching I had been looking into ways I could better use assessment to inform my next teaching steps, especially to jump on opportunities sooner. However, when ever I got anywhere near formative data it was spread out across a range of different places -
e-asTTle, NZCER, etc. I needed an easy way to collect this data. Aha! Use a spreadsheet someone told me. However this meant doing hours of copy and paste from other spreadsheets to then have it collated in mine!

This lead me to look at using some of the features of spreadsheets. By using a simple VLOOKUP formula I have been able to set up each sheet to go looking for data for me. There is no more need to copy and paste a whole lot of information anymore!

Check out the below screencast of me explaining the setup of a spreadsheet and how this has streamlined my data gathering and analysis.

DFI Presenting: Northland

Today I went to the beautiful paradise of Taipa in the Bay of Islands to help Kerry with the Northland Digital Fluency Intensive. I travel up to this part of the country often to holiday with my family in Coopers Beach - so this was a very nice change to the normality of Auckland!

Kerry is doing an awesome job leading this DFI course and is very blessed to have Vanessa working with her to deliver content. I thought that they worked well as a team.

I had the pleasure of not only delivering the deep dive into How To: Live Stream but also to present the Manaiakalani connect portion of the day - Create: Manaiakalani Pedagogy for DFI 2019. A couple of key points and ideas that struck a cord with the teachers in Taipa were:

1. It's all about the hook - a significant driver for engagement has been the intentional use of modern technologies to enable creativity.
2. We want out children to be creators of content - not just stealing/borrowing work that has been made from the internet.
3. This quote was hugely impactful and was a perfect conversation starter: “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” John Dewey
4. Site, Sound & Motion: how can we better use this as a teacher tool to help our children engage with learning?
5. If our children create they can then share...and by sharing they are now connecting with a real audience who can learn from the post, comment and help develop the thinking of our children.

Click photo to see entire Create Presentation.
Attribution: Dorothy Burt & Manaiakalani Team

Google Apps for Education - Tips for Efficiency

In light of what I'm trying to achieve with my blog this year I thought that I would repost a presentation that I created with Dave Winter. This presentation to help make your use of the Google Suite more efficient.
Tips include:

• Shortcuts for making a copy of a google doc
• Using quick view instead of opening a doc
• Shift Z... it is your friend
• Create a shortcut to search drive
• Create table of contents....then a document outline
• Many others!

DFI Presenting: Otaki

Today I had a heap of fun flying down to Otaki in the Kapiti Coast and working with Vicki, Makaore and their awesome teachers.

This visit really inspired me, in two key ways. Firstly, I was so warmly welcomed into the learning community that Vicki and Makaore are helping to shape down in Otaki. They really reminded me of my childhood, where I grew up in Palmy before moving to the very busy, fast paced life of Auckland, 10 years ago. They reminded me again of the simple reason why we are teachers...it's all about the kids. It's all about doing what ever we can to connect our beautiful tamariki to learning in such a way that they continue to learn, even as adults.

Secondly, I was so inspired by their passion for their heritage, their culture and their language. There were so many times during the day where they would break into animated conversation in Te Reo Māori, laughing and enjoying learning together, that I wish I could speak Māori and join in too. Don't get me wrong - they didn't do this to leave me out, but did this because it was natural and normal for them. This reminds me of all out kids at PT England who should be doing the same. Talking, conversing, LEARNING in their own language. This has truly inspired me to think of ways that we could be doing this more at PES... what would this look like? How could we make this happen? What community connections could and should we be looking into to have our children speaking more and naturally in their own languages?

DFI Presenting: Northland

Today I felt very blessed to work alongside Kerry Boyde-Preece at Northland College in Kaikohe to share my expertise around live streaming at school and in the classroom.

At Pt England school we have decided to live stream using Youtube. We had looked into other platforms but feel as though Youtube provides the best solution without making you use proprietary software or websites. At the moment we are live streaming school events like Cross Country, Production, Fiafia and different sports like Rugby and Rippa Rugby played on our sports field.


In the below presentation I have shown three different ways that you could live stream.

• using the Teradek Vidiu Pro multicast streaming box
• using a drone - like the Phantom 4 Pro made by DJI 
• or even the camera on your laptop.

Have a look below and please comment on ways that you are live streaming.

How To: Hapara Teacher Dashboard

A tool that we use daily in Manaiakalani is the Hapara Teacher Dashboard. However, I have become aware that many of our new staff here at Pt England have a very rudimentary working knowledge of Hapara Teacher Dashboard. Through taking a number of toolkits and one-on-one sessions with teachers I have decided to make a screencast so that teachers are able to come back to it. Please feel free to use this with your teams/staff.