Something practical for Christmas: 22 Google form templates

While the bigger questions around the meaning of education are engaging and 100% necessary, sometimes it is great to have someone create something really practical and immediately usable. Med Kharbach (of Educational Technology and Mobile Learning) has shared, just in time for the break, some neat resources for Google Forms, including some templates that could be used by you with your students...or perhaps by your students with each other and/or their communities :-) Med writes:

So you love Google Forms but you are too busy to use it to create your own forms. Don't worry we have some great pre-made forms for you . But before I share them with you let me just remind you of the Chinese adage that goes " don't give me a fish everyday but show me how to fish ", you might find some of the forms included below useful but it would be way better to create your own tailored to your own teaching and learning needs. This is not a hard job to do and Educational Technology and Mobile Learning is here for you to give you a hand. You can read our easy and simple guide on everything you need to know about using Google Forms in Education to get you started . It is just the first step that counts and once you take it , everything comes together for you.

After "The 10 Google Forms Templates Every Teacher Should Know About" that we have posted here a couple of months ago, today we are providing you with another great set of forms created by Kern Kelley who is one of the most reputable guys in the field of educational technology. Kern has really invested a lot of time and effort in creating these forms and on behalf of all you , we send him a big thank you for this work and don't forget to have a look at his fabulous blog The Tech Curve.

You can read the rest of the post and find the links to the 22 Google Form templates created by Kern Kelley here.
Image: 'form.png'. Found on flickrcc.net

It's Time to Stop Letting Fear Interfere With Youth Online Freedom

Another gem from Cynthia Lieberman and Diana (the CyberWise team), It's Time to Stop Letting Fear Interfere With Youth Online Freedom (by Larry Magid), is a well-expressed plea to not lock everything down and to enable young people to express themselves online.

Schools are blocking the very media that young people are using to express themselves and communicate with others. It's also one of the ways people learn and is the virtual gathering place for today's social activists. Schools that block social media today are no different than schools that blocked political speech during the sixties. Today's educators may think they're protecting students and keeping them on track just as some adults in the sixties argued that political speech -- including protesting the Vietnam war and advocating for civil rights -- was an unnecessary distraction for students of that generation.

The fact is that the open Internet has been used by young people since the early nineties and those early digital natives -- now in their mid to late 20s -- seem to be doing OK, despite the ready availability of online porn, drug sites, hate sites and sites advocating all sorts of social evils. My own kids -- now 26 and 28 -- had unfettered access to the Internet during their teens and both -- along with nearly all their peers -- are well adjusted normal young adults.

The skills to understand how to communicate well, stay safe, and think critically about what they are encountering, Magid emphasises, are essential. He also advises that we "can have a big impact by listening to, speaking with and supporting the young people in our lives and have an even more lasting impact by serving as good role models".
You can read the complete post here: It's Time to Stop Letting Fear Interfere With Youth Online Freedom.
Image: 'Message to and from Obama' Found on flickrcc.net