Here is a link to some FAQ’s and tips for using Google Classroom from Mrs. Kasey Bell. Kasey Bell’s Shake Up Learning is a great resource to follow. One cool tip I learned from this page was that you can post assignments to all of your classes at the same time if you are not scheduling them ahead of time. This link will show you how.
I was in a Region 10 Webinar today about Remote Learning for the ESL classroom, which I will post about later, and I noticed a great strategy they were using to keep the meeting going smoothly. The presenter had a second person that was monitoring the chat tab and would relay the questions to the presenter. I thought this would be a great job for you to assign to a student helper. The student helper could keep their microphone open and be responsible for interrupting the teacher and reading the questions from chat so that the teacher can address them while they are relevant.
Let’s take a quick look at Classkick’s super short introduction video then we will dive in deeper.
You can create new interactive assignments in Classkick that include manipulatives, multiple choice, and fill in the blank activities. You could also use the multiple choice and fill in the blank question features to add on to an existing worksheet.
This looks like a great new tool to try. It also has some pretty decent features with the free basic account.
Here is my video walk through of Classkick. It includes signing up, the features, creating an assignment, and assigning it to your students. It’s a little longer but very detailed and helpful.
This is a cool game based on the Bill of Rights. Students run a law office and interact with clients to determine if they have a case in their complaint. Watch the video below of me checking out the game and seeing how it works.
To assign the game to your students in Google Classroom you have to find it through the green teach tab at the top of the home page. Then you will find the button to assign it in Google Classroom. You could easily just share the link as well without involving Google Classroom. It looks like there is an Apple and Android app as well.
Coding Designed for Kids We’re excited to provide your educators and students with an exclusive full-access preview of our all-new Coding app, now available with Discovery Education Experience through June 30, 2020.
Discovery Education Coding provides completely self-guided and engaging lessons for students to learn block coding, HTML, and Python. Designed for educators and students with varying levels of skill, Coding is easy to use and loaded with Help videos and lessons. And, best of all, students can demonstrate their creativity by creating their own apps and sharing them with their classmates!
Want to maximize your students’ experience with Discovery Education Coding? Be sure to maximize your free student accounts today!*”In today’s Digital Age, coding and coding literacy are important skills every child should have the opportunity to develop. A basic understanding of coding fosters student creativity as it sharpens the problem-solving and numeracy skills critical to future success. I am looking forward to integrating this new digital resource into my lessons.”
Please note that we have updated our terms and conditions to extend any obligations that relate to Discovery Education Experience to Discovery Education Coding as well. See our updated terms and conditions here for U.S., Canada, and International.
Let’s take a look at Powtoon. Powtoon is a video creation tool that lets you make animated engaging videos to share with your students. There are a few usable free features available to you that make it worth checking out. There are two videos here. The first video walks through how Powtoon works. The second video is an example I created.
Here is a fun little game for students to practice vocabulary knowledge and reading skills. Students navigate their player through the platform game with the arrow keys. When they fall into a trap they are quizzed and if successful they are able to continue their adventure.
CAST_COVID is a coupon code for Screencastify. I tested it and it gives you a free one year subscription to the $29 Teacher plan. Note the Total Due after I put in the coupon code.
Google Meet Grid View is a Google Chrome extension that will tile the camera view of all the participants in your Google meet session so that you can see all their faces. Thanks to Ms. Hall for sharing this one.
"No data is stored by the extension, it's a purely cosmetic script. No extra permissions are required except access to meet.google.com."
Classlink is the best way to get your students connected to Google Classroom and many other online activities. After students login to Classlink they only need to launch Google Classroom and they will be connected.
ClassLink also contains many other activities and resources for your students to work on.
Check out this link here to find ClassLink Resources for your students.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom will be the easiest way for you to push out assignments for your students to access at home.
If you do not already have a Google Classroom for your students you can refer to this training here for information on setting that up.
Email your students the Class Code for the class section you want them to join.
Videos
You can record a video to post to your Google classroom of a lecture, explanation of directions, etc.
You can accomplish that as easily as making a video on your phone and uploading it through the Google Classroom App.
Use the webcam on a Chromebook to record a video that will save in your Google Drive.
You can get fancier with a program like Screencast-o-matic that will record a screen capture video. You could use a tool like that to click through a slideshow and narrate as you would in class. You can record screencasts up to 15 minutes long for free. A deluxe account that removes the time limit and gives you access to their decent editing software is less than $20 a year.
Flipgrid
FlipGrid is another amazing tool that you could use to pose questions to your students and allow them to respond with a short video. You could ask them to reflect on a reading or other assignments.
You can learn more about FlipGrid and ways to us it here. Flip Grid works with Google Classroom. You can connect it to your Google Classroom and post assignments through FlipGrid.
EdPuzzle
EdPuzzle is another tool that you can use to create assignments that your students could easily complete from home on their own devices. You can learn more about EdPuzzle here. EdPuzzle also integrates with Google Classroom. You can post EdPuzzle assignments into Google Classroom from EdPuzzle.
Today we are going to learn a quick and easy way to turn those .pdf worksheet files into a format that can be assigned and completed in Google Classroom.
I will walk you through the process in the video but here are the basic steps: 1) Save the worksheet as an image (make it the background on the slide) 2) Create a new Google Slide 3) Change Google Slide size to 8.5×11 or 11×8.5 depending on your worksheet 4) Enter text boxes for students to type answers over the image
It is super simple to accomplish and can turn something old into something useful during these times.
We have been struggling around our household with printing pdf files. When you click print the browser is freezing on the print preview screen. The work around I have come up with is to download the pdf and open it in Adobe Acrobat Viewer instead of Chrome. You can change the settings of your Chrome browser to force it to do that. In the Chrome settings search for pdf. Under Site Settings will be the PDF Documents menu. Expand that and turn on the setting to “Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome”
What a busy and interesting time we are all working through! Today I am bringing you something new, a reminder, and something fun. In true dessert first fashion let me throw something fun at you first. This is my current favorite song. You will either love it and think it is genius or you will HATE it and hope you never hear it again. Feel free to let me know where you fall on the issue.
For our reminder, you can get help with Google Hangouts, Meet, Contacts, Calendar, and how they all work together to run your new online class through the link below.
Something New!!! Google Jamboard Jamboard is an interactive whiteboard software that you could use during your Google Meet sessions or even in class someday…. Check out the video and link below for a quick introduction to Jamboard.
March 17, 2020|Accommodations, Blended Learning, EdTech, ELAR, Elementary, ELL, FERPA, Google, Kinder, Math, Organization, Science, Secondary, Social Studies, SPED, Tools
If you are unable to get to your school phone and don’t want to use your personal phone number, Google Voice could be a great option for you to use when making phone calls to contact parents. You can set up a free Google Voice account with your personal Google Account. You cannot set up a Google Voice account with your school Google account, it must be a personal account. Google Voice will generate a phone number that will forward to your personal phone number. When you make calls from the Google Voice Application it will show the new Google Voice number as our caller ID. You can access Google Voice through a mobile phone application or on a computer with a headset.
March 17, 2020|Accommodations, Blended Learning, EdTech, ELAR, Google, Math, Organization, Science, Secondary, Social Studies, SPED, Tools
Google Hangouts Meet will be a primary contact tool that you use with your students during this time.
The first step you will need to take is to create a Gmail Contact Group of your students. Those groups are called “Labels” and they are in Google Contacts. Here is a quick video walk through of how to set up a Label.
Do you need to create a spreadsheet of parent email addresses? There is no exact and easy way to accomplish that in Infinite Campus but we have worked out a plan to help you create that list if you do not already have one. There are two steps in this process. The first step will be to create a Google Form requesting that parents verify their current email address that they wish to use. The second step will be to send that form out through the Messenger platform in Infinite Campus. This is not going to be a perfect solution. You will have to fill in the gaps for students who you do not get responses from but this will hopefully drastically reduce the amount of email addresses that you have to look up one at a time in Infinite Campus.
If you want to create a Gmail contact group label list for parents here are the steps to create that.
There is no way to just pull a list of parent emails only for all your students. You can select print roster in Infinite Campus to speed up the process of getting all those parent emails. Make sure to check guardians and show guardian contact information.
To schedule a Google Hangouts you will need to send out a Calendar invite. Your students will receive an email confirmation about the Calendar invite. In that email will be the link to join the Hangouts meeting. Here is a quick video on how to send out a calendar invite.
Are you getting spammed with emails from parents and students accepting your calendar invite? You can create a filter to automatically archive those responses and keep them out of your inbox. Here is a quick walk through for setting that up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNSiI2vjNPw&feature=youtu.be
Now when you are ready to join your Google Hangout Session the quickest and easiest way to access your meeting is through your calendar. Here is a quick video walk-through on how to join and operate the meeting.
You CAN record a Google Hangout Session so that students who missed it can watch it at a later time. While in your Hangout Meeting click the 3 dots in the bottom right corner and click Record Meeting. After your meeting is finished and you stop the recording (same place) a recording will be automatically uploaded to your Google Drive in a folder called “Meet Recordings”. The recording could be uploaded to Google Classroom. The video recording of the meeting should also be available to the invited guests on the Calendar invite.