When it comes to working with student data, most tech-savvy educators know how powerful spreadsheets can be. A basic knowledge of formulas and functions makes it possible for a teacher to generate quality information, reports, and charts. But the typical teacher grade book doesn’t allow for much data manipulation. Student scores on particular assignments in a grade book don’t necessarily show teachers whether students have mastered the material.

While grade books are probably here to stay, there is an additional tool that can help teachers gather more information from their students’ grades, including student mastery and testing information. It’s the Conditional Formatting function in Google Sheets.  

Tablets and Smartphones and Laptops – Oh, My!

There are so many devices to choose from for your classrooms. Sometimes it is really hard to know what makes one a better choice than others. And by “better,” I mean a better fit for your educators’ and students’ needs, because that’s really what will determine what is the right device for you. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring the top reasons why you might want to choose one type of device over another. In this post we’ll focus on Chromebooks.

These days, everyone in education tech is talking about Chromebooks. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re really just inexpensive laptops running a Chrome OS. These devices are designed to be used primarily when connected to the Internet, though they have some functionality even offline. If you’re wondering whether you should buy them for your school, here’s a breakdown of the top pros and cons so you can better understand what these devices do or don’t offer.