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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

https://vimeo.com/398016880

❓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.

• Create and grade quizzes with Google Forms

📺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!

• Get started with EdPuzzle online course

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.

No, not a Bette Midler song – but a collection of tips and tricks I’ve sourced from around the socials on best practice of distance learning. With COVID 19 on its way, we might be joining our colleagues from other countries in teaching our students remotely. Already we seen some of the different approaches that schools are taking. Check out the plans from Albany Senior School, Wellington High School, and my own school – Tauranga Boys’ College. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and over the coming weeks I am sure we will see development.

Maslow before Bloom

It’s not the first time educators have discussed the importance of meeting a students basic needs first before looking at Blooms taxonomy (just see the large number of search results!). With schools being closed and the lack of physical presence of students this is perhaps even more important. So think of some ways you can make student still feel like they belong and are respected. Maybe a class chatroom, Flipgrid response, or the opportunity to connect with you via email, messaging or video conferencing.

Asynchronous vs synchronous delivery

You need to consider the demands for synchronous (be online at the same time) versus asynchronous (assigned online tasks to be completed when student wants) learning. I think it is unrealistic to think that we will simply just replicate the classroom experience via video conferencing and my approach will be do set mostly asynchronous activities with the opportunity for students to get help from me in real time.

Heutagogy (hew ta wat gy??)

So now we can’t be the ‘sage on the stage’ because something removed our stage (shot COVID 19…), being a guide to student’s learning becomes more important. But what if students need to motivation of being in a physical class with a teacher to get tasks done? What if we could provide resources for self directed learning that is motivating and engaging for students? I think we need to tap into the large body of research on gamification of learning. You just need to look at the learning design of popular apps and platforms such as Yousician (to teach you an instrument), Codecademy (to teach you coding), Udemy and Coursera (to teach you almost anything!)

Online lesson delivery

Having consider all the above, there is a plethora of resources to support teachers in these uncharted waters. Perhaps there are too many and it is overwhelming to choose what suits your students.

There will be for some teachers a steep learning curve if they are forced to deliver learning more online. There are a number of resources that will support teachers up skilling in this area:

• Teach from Home is a just in time resource from Google pulling together a number of their great resources targetted at teachers coping with delivering lessons from home.
• A great one is Google’s Applied Digital Skills. They have just added a couple of collections targeted at up skilling.
• Here’s a template for the structure of an online lesson. Great tip to make sure you close the Meet/Zoom when you leave!
• 10 Great tips from Tom Mullaney that includes recommended free apps (e.g Edpuzzle and Thinglink)
• Curated resources: as we know there is an over whelming number of excellent resources on the web for education. In response to the pandemic, Google curated this Youtube Learning collection in a Youtube channel.
• First Aid kit for Remote Teaching – a crowd sourced Slide deck with a number of useful tools and tips.
• The Google Teacher Center has a great set of resources/lessons for teachers to go through to develop skills in delivering distance learning.
• Resources for Teaching online due to school closures – a great summary with tips and strategies by Kathleen Morris

Great to see a number of #SYD19 Google Innovator Academy coaches and participants in the above webinar sharing some ideas and strategies around online learning.

Lastly, here’s my short contribution with a quick 5 minute intro to online learning considerations taken from a webinar I recorded this week.

Most of the projects I assign students are assessed with rubrics. I love a good rubric and it gives students really detailed feedback on the criteria for a piece of work while being efficient for a teacher to give this feedback. So when Doctopus and Goobric formed a dynamic duo, the workflow of marking Google Docs with rubrics became much easier. Now Google Classroom has rubrics has meant that I no longer have to transfer the final grade into the Classroom mark book (a couple of click less per student). Awesome!

But, getting the rubrics into Classroom was initially tiresome having to copy and paste each descriptor from an existing Google Sheet. Great that we can now reuse rubrics in Classroom but greater still, as I found out today, that you can import a rubric from a Google Sheet. Took me some time to figure out the correct format so I made this short how to video to help out any other interested educators:

Feel free to grab the Google Sheet template I made at bit.ly/GCRUBRIC

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” – Abraham Lincoln.

In this session you will have a chance to ‘sharpen your axe’ with a range of useful tips and tricks to not only make you more efficient in the use of your device, but also a focus on Web Apps, Chrome Extensions and Google App Add-ons. The session is presented in a gamified format with activities that you could use in your classroom tomorrow.

Session Resources:

1) Do now: Complete the quiz linked below to see how well your machine is set up for GSuite for Education

Google Quiz – Set your Machine up like a Mega star

Workshop Slidedeck:

Chrome shortcuts: Try ten your haven’t used before

Team Kahoot – Chrome Shortcuts

Web Apps, Add ons and Chrome Extensions

Install/try at least 1 new to you (share with group?). If you have used any of those add ons/extensions (or others) and you think it’s awesome – add a comment to the BIST Facebook group.

Individual Kahoot – Web apps, Extensions and Add-ons 

If time…Quizlet live team challenge

Other Resource:
Fiddling with Google Doc URLs