Thanks for staying tuned to Live, Travel, Teach. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and want to keep checking out my adventures. I recently switched website hosts and the old subscriptions didn’t get transferred. The good news is my website is easy to find at www.LiveTravelTeach.com.
Once you are there don’t forget to put in your email address to receive updates whenever I post! See you on the new site 🙂
Sincerely,
Mike
Thank you Buddha for being awesome, oh and happy birthday! This weekend I jumped on another night bus with Seoul Hiking Group and took a 15 hour, 25km trek into the mountains before some R&R on the beach. It was another incredible adventure watching the sun rise & fall over the ocean, a Korean mountain rescue, spotting a rattle snake, stunning views and an all around great time. Enjoy this sneak peek, more photos & a video coming “soon.”
Sunrise over the East Sea enroute to Seoraksan’s toughest trail – Dinosaur Ridge.
A new hiking buddy, Erik, enjoying the stunning views along Dinosaur Ridge, Seoraksan National Park
Mountain Rangers descend from a helicopter to help an old Korean man succumbed to heat exhaustion & dehydration along Dinosaur Ridge, the toughest trail in Seoraksan and possibly all of South Korea.
Hajodae Beach in Yangyang, South Korea. Famous for the “finest sand” in all of Korea
Playing with long exposures & fireworks at Hajodae beach, Yangyang South Korea
I went to a Google Apps in Education conference the other weekend. It was awesome meeting with such like minded people and being surrounded by positive teaching vibes! We all nerded out a bit in key note speeches and smaller sessions geared towards using technology to enhance our teaching, classrooms, & general productivity. I learned about auto-grading, auto-data entry and aut0-emails. There were tricks to help your computer run faster and stay organized. It was also an opportunity to meet teachers from around the globe and network with big names in the ed world. I was ballsy enough to get up on stage for a demo slam (2 minute presentation) on Boomerang that won me a nifty laptop backpack. In 2 weeks I’ll be presenting to my coworkers about a few google tricks and I’ll share the presentation here too. For now check out my favorites including Flubaroo, Formmule and of course Boomerang.
disclaimer: Google updates things regularly and the exact steps may change. Also I’m still learning how to use them too. Comment below if you notice a change, mistake or are having any difficulty!
Boomerang
What does it do: Boomerang is an email tool that allows you to schedule emails and send a reminder at a later date. Its especially useful for teachers with forgetful students. Sending a reminder out on Monday about Friday’s assignment? Boomerang it for Thursday night to remind anyone who forgot about it.
Difficulty: Beginner
How to get it: Boomerang is a Google Chrome extension. Once in Chrome click on the top right button. Scroll down to more tools and click on “extensions” Scroll down again and you’ll find “get more extensions. In there you’ll find a search bar. Type in Boomerang. Click “free” then click “add” and start using it!
Flubaroo
What does it do: Flubaroo is an amazing add-on that autogrades your assignments! The only catch is they must have data input into Google Sheets. Lucky for you Google Forms automatically creates a spreadsheet on Google Sheets with answers! You can set it up to automatically email grades too!
Difficulty: Intermediate
How to get it: Flubaroo is an add-on for Google Sheets. You need to open a specific sheet before you can add it by clicking add-ons on he toolbar. Click “Get Add-ons” and search “Flubaroo.”Click “free” then click “add” and start using it!
How to use it: The trick with Flubaroo is to make your test first then take it inputting all of the correct answers. Make sure you have a question for “Name” & “Email.” Before you use it with students make a practice test to make sure you set everything up the way you want to. After you’ve given the correct answers go back to the Add-on’s bar, click Flubaroo and autograde assignment. If everything is working correctly you should get an email with your score almost instantly. Flubaroo will also make a new page in the sheets with the breakdown for each user.
The Great Suspender
Continue reading
I’ve been debating self-hosting (presently wordpress manages it all for me)for the past few months and finally decided to make the change. For me that means more options which means you get a nicer looking website (hopefully) with cooler functions and hopefully better navigation. It also means I can put some adds on here to make a little extra money. I promise I’ll keep them as unobtrusive as possible and hopefully always relevant. Some of them are paid per click and I’m not allowed to ask for you to click on them and they say they’ll know if my family & friends are repeatedly doing it but if you see something interesting please check it out. This also means my website may be down for a few days in the near future as I make the switch.
I’m using http://www.bluehost.com and so far its a little more confusing than I had hoped. I feel like I missed a step somewhere since I can still access it from my original website and don’t have any added functionality yet.
Well… time for bed. I’ve got an overnight field trip tomorrow and a 3 day weekend hiking in Seoraksan and exploring the beaches along the East Sea after that.
Bijindo is an island just south of South Korea. After enjoying a sunrise hike in Hwangmaesan we took the ferry from Tongyeong Ferry Terminal to Bejin Island (do means island in Korean). The 40 minute trip went quickly as sea spray and fresh air came over the sides of the boat while a few seagulls entertained us by trailing behind and snatching chips out of the sky!
Once on Bijindo it was easy to find our pension. The whole island only has a few hundred people living on it in one small village and another smaller beach-side hamlet. From afar it is easy to confuse Bijindo with one of Thailand’s many tropical paradises.
Live, Travel, Teach 