Author: edtechmrbrown

Baamboozle is an engaging team competition game hosted and controlled by the teacher. Students do not need devices to play this game. A teacher could easily host a Baamboozle game online or in person. When I tested this game out on the coaches in my office it was a blast. We had intense competition and teams learned quickly to use strategies to win.
One thing I really like about this game is that it gives everyone a chance to win compared to games like Kahoot or Gimkit that reward the fastest and smartest only. Each team/person gets an equal chance to answer questions.

Let’s take a quick look at how to create a Baamboozle game. I wouldn’t call it super user friendly or obvious but it is not hard either once you figure it out.
The first step will have you create Title and a Description. You can also upload a cover image for your game.

You can type in a question or upload an image for a question. If you choose to upload an image you must also enter text on the question line. After you enter a question and correct answer click save

From the game preview screen you can click play to launch the game

How to Play explains how the game works. You can have up to 4 teams on the free version.

These are the options with the paid account version.

Here are the available options on the free account. I like to turn on the pass option and lose points for guessing wrong.

Here is what the game board looks like when you are playing.

Students choose a question number and that question is displayed on the screen. After students provide you with an answer click check answer.

Then decide if they earned the points or not.

The more teams you have the more questions you need to give everyone multiple opportunities to answer.

Some questions are bonus cards. The game adds bonus cards in addition to your questions.

After all of the questions have been answered a winner is announced.

Sometimes when you post a Google Form assignment, you forget to check the box for “Collect Email Address” or forget to include a name collection question. Have you been there and done that? I know I have several times.
This is an issue I used to see a lot more often at the beginning of the year but I know I used to make this mistake every now and then and I always felt like I was just messed over and wasted the students efforts.

I have found and confirmed a solution!
You just have to go back to edit the form screen then allow students to “Edit After Submit”. Go check the collect email box or add on a (required) name collection question and it will be there when students return to the form. The responses will update with the new additional information when they resubmit.

I have a few troubleshooting ideas for you to try if you have student Google Classroom assignments (Not Google Forms) disappearing.

• Look in your Google Classroom Drive folder for the activity. Sometimes it stays there even when it disappeared from Classroom itself.
• If you find it in Drive try to leave a teacher comment on the assignment. I have heard that will make it show back up in Google Classroom.
• Of course we also want to make sure they are logging in correctly to avoid any issues: https://edtechmrbrown.com/login-issues-with-google-forms/

Screenian is a simple little tool that can turn your laptop or Chromebook web camera into a document camera. This looks like a decent option for presenting or recording lessons for your students.
Since it uses your webcam it does not require sharing your screen in Google Meets. Which makes for a good simplification of that process. You just set a clipboard or white board down over your keyboard and start sharing.
This is a far more affordable option than purchasing an expensive document camera for remote teaching. If you gave one to your students they could share their work over a Google Meet or record a video of it to submit.

Screenian lists for $25 on their website. Even better I found an iPevo version on Amazon that comes in a pack of six for $40! You can share some with your friends or students.

Screenian reminds me of the Osmo device my daughter uses on her ipad. If you have one of those laying around it should do the same thing. It is also like you are harnessing some fancy yet simple periscope power so you can feel like a submarine commander when you are deploying it. I can definitely see myself having a Navy hat on the side that I would put on before announcing I was about to raise the periscope to present. I would probably have my students make sonar sound effects when I was “raising the periscope” to make things more fun for them.

https://www.screenian.com/

With these steps you can enter just the answer key for a test you already have. Then you can print scantrons for your individual students. Once those scantrons are scanned into Aware you will have data about student performance on your tests, just like a six weeks test.

Step 1 Go to ClassLink and click on Eduphoria

Click on Aware

Click on “Create a New Quick Test Key”

Give your test a title, select the subject, grade level, and add a course, then click “Build Quick Key”

You should be prompted to enter the number of test questions you will have on your test. Then go to the Go to the “Test Key” tab.

Click the pencil to edit each question

Select the correct answer choice also attach the TEK standard on this screen, then save

Repeat those steps for each question on your test

Step one go to ClassLink

Step two Click on Eduphoria

Step three Click on Help Desk

Step 4 Click “Create a New Request” in the bottom left hand corner

Step 5 Choose the best category you can fit your request into?

Step 6 If necessary, choose the correct sub topic

Step 7 Enter the details of your issue, be sure to include your room number

Step 8 click Submit Request which is hiding way down in the bottom right corner of the screen

Here is an add-on, Magic Make Copies, that will make multiple copies of files and folders in your Google Drive. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a reason to use it, lol, but maybe you can. It is neat and I have seen folks online say they like it. It seems to me like normally when we need that functionality it is going to happen automatically from Google Classroom. What are some ways you can see using this add-on?

https://workspace.google.com/whatsnew/

https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/classroom-roadmap/

Some improvements are coming to Google Apps that might help make your life easier. I dug through them to find the best and most important ones. Let’s take a look at a few of these which will impact us the most.

Beginning 22 February you will be able to end a Google Meet for all and remove everyone at once.

Starting March 3 you will be able to mute all participants in Google Meet at once.

Google Classroom will soon be providing data about student engagement.

Teachers will have more text options when making posts in Google Classroom. You will be able to make text bold, italicized, underline, and add bullet points.

Better functionality when grading assignments on mobile devices is on the way.

You no longer have to send students to outside apps to upload work. Students will be able to take pictures of written assignments and upload them directly from Google Classroom! Even Better, notice they can easily combine multiple pages into one submission!

Built in integration with outside apps is coming as Google Classroom add-ons. Hopefully we will see some of the big ones we use like ClassKick, EdPuzzle, teachermade and more. I will let you know when I get more specifics on this.

You should already have breakout rooms available in Google Meet. Have you been able to use those successfully? I don’t see it as an option for me…

Great News!! You can now change the page setup inside a Google Doc per page.
You can have pages be either portrait or landscape as needed in the same Doc.

Here is a quick five question check up activity over 2 digit subtraction with regrouping.  This is a Google Form.  It grades automatically and can be assigned in Google Classroom.

https://www.gimkit.com/host/60352192991ede0022b05d6e

Find more Gimkit games here: https://edtechmrbrown.com/gimkit-games/

I had a fun idea poke me in the brain the other day and I managed to put it into application. Here is a fun, relevant, and engaging math activity on ratios. In this activity we will dive in to the differences between menu prices today and in 1972 versus the Minimum wage today and in 1972. I had fun making this and even working my way through it the first time. I won’t give you any spoilers. Check out the preview below before downloading a copy to share with your students. You could easily assign this in Google Classroom as an individual assignment or work through it together in class there is potentially a lot to discuss as you go. Thanks to Mrs. Nelson and her logical math brain for helping me word this creation in a way that hopefully makes sense to you.

This was designed for 6th grade math skills in Texas. Below is a link to an editable version that you can change to make it easier or more advanced for your students.

Your students most likely love using emojis and can communicate as well as decipher some pretty sophisticated messages using emojis. Let’s take that passion, interest, and skill and apply it to lessons in your class. Have students use emojis to explain a concept or tell a story. Have students convert vocabulary definitions to emojis.

This is a great activity for students to display their knowledge and comprehension on the highest Evaluate level of Blooms taxonomy.
I have made a generic template for you. You can edit it to include what ever content you need to cover. Copy and paste slides and delete the format you don’t need to use.

I have also created a few examples over specific topics that follow below.

Civil Rights and Modern Texas, 7th Texas History

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Analyzing Texts, 6th ELAR

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Investigating Force and Motion, 8th Science

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I see this problem reported a lot recently. When teachers present their screen to students they see a large notification that they are presenting and lose the tile view of their students. Check out this super fast 1 minute video for an easy fix.

Here are some digital resources to help you cover Black History Month with your students.

Elementary Teachers, do you need some safe a reliable search options for your students to look up definitions or synonyms? These are especially helpful tools when working on writing and your students are trying to make sure they use the correct words or are trying to expand their vocabulary. Below are a couple of quick websites you can share with your students. Some of these allow you to search for definitions at different difficulty levels. Some have visual dictionaries, some even have games built in to learn about words and spelling.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/

http://wordcentral.com/

https://learnersdictionary.com/

https://www.ldoceonline.com

https://www.wordsmyth.net/

Here is a cool and easy digital white board tool for you to use when teaching your class. You can use this live in class or in Google Meets. Whiteboard.chat has some really great features like different lined templates and backgrounds including graphs, music sheet, Grids, and more.
You can sign in with Google. You can share your whiteboard with a QR code, hyper link, or a class code. Scroll through the features below to see it it peaks your interest. I will dive in and create a video shortly.

A QR code generator has been built into the Chrome Web Browser. Have you spotted that new feature up in the Omni box (Address bar)? If you need to share a website as a QR code, you simply click in the omni box then click the little QR code icon and it will pop up the QR code for that webpage. Click Download and it saves the QR code as an image in your Downloads folder. It even names it after the website so you can be sure which file you are looking for later instead of the name being some long line of random letters and numbers. This is a fantastically accessible and easy tool to use.