With a shift to widespread online learning in place, I thought I’d summarise my recommended tools for different teaching strategies.
🏫Classroom management – Google Classroom
This is the hub of my online class. Sharing resources in the Stream such as web site links, videos and documents. Asking for students comments, submitting work in the Classwork section with Assignments – this tool does it all.
- First day of Google Classroom from the Google Teacher centre
- Getting started with Classroom at the Google Teacher centre
- A pretty comprehensive How to use Google Classroom video series from Eric Curts
👨🏽🏫Asynchronous Demonstration or Instruction – Screencastify
This awesome add on to Google Chrome gives you up to 5 mins (on the free version) of screen recording. You can even insert web cam footage of you explaining a particular task or demonstrating a skill. Record the video then share with your students via Classroom or YouTube. I’ve even used it to give feedback on a student’s assignment – just post the link to the video in the comments.
- One page overview by Edtech team
- Screencastify for remote teaching by Eric Curts
👩💻Video Conferencing – Google Hangouts Meet
This is a web based platform that doesn’t require any additional downloads/extension (like Zoom). However, not the best for whole class instructions as students have the ability to unmute themselves. You might also want to consider using a Slide Q&A during a presentation to get some interactivity.
- Hangouts Meet cheats sheet
- Meet Quick start guide – remixed from Jen Giffen
- Adding Hangout Meet chats to Google Classroom
- Video Series: How to Use Google Hangouts Meet. Five videos from Eric Curts on using Meet
👨👩👦👦Discussion – Flipgrid
Post a question for students to respond to. Allows asynchronous contributions and student love to add bling to their videos with stickers and filters.
Another tool I have been trialling for this is Google +. While this appears to be heading for the graveyard I’ve been using it to interact with students just on how they are going. Simple things like ‘post of photo of you wearing a silly hat’ have been a great way to keep connected. Only works with accounts within your school domain and because it’s social networking, students must be 13 or older (or they get locked out of their school account!)
- Flipgrid Quick start guide for educators
❓Quizzes – Google Forms
While there are a heap of well known tools like Kahoot!, Quizlet and Quizizz, Google Forms allows you not only to make self marking quizes that will automatically import the result into Google Classroom’s markbook, but also make them formative by using the Adding answer feedback. For example if they get a question wrong, you can add a link to a tutorial or website in the answer feedback section.
📺Watching Video – EdPuzzle
Students have many different places where they can watch videos, some are even educational! But how do you know if they have watched a video that you have set them? Using EdPuzzle solves this. You can also add in questions part way through the videos to check for understanding. Even better, there are a number of videos with questions added that other teachers have shared that you can use!
Well, that’s just some of the tools I’ll be using – what about you? Comment here or ping me on Twitter with what works for you.
