It’s a bummer...

Some things that Google Classroom doesn’t do.

Alice Keeler shares some of her frustrations with Google Classroom in this blog post here.

New Discovery Education Resources

New from DE!

Share these key features and instructions on how to maximize
Discovery Education Experience with your colleagues.

Need #DENspiration? Access the Instructional Inspiration Channel and

Student Learning Activities Channel for grab-and-go lesson activities that combine
content and strategies you love in a flexible format that make it easy to edit and
share with students.

#FOMO Alert: Don't miss out on using these ALL NEW

SOS Student Learning Activity Videos. Add one to your digital lesson next week.

Slow internet suggestions

Here are some common sense suggestions from Matt Miller to help students with slower internet.

Changing your Google Classroom photo

Tired of looking at your initial?  Follow Alice Keeler’s directions here to change your image!

Helping your kids find their work

Google Classroom has some great tools to help students manage their work.  Please see this post from Alice Keeler.

Using PearDeck

Alice Keeler shares a guest blog post on PearDeck here.

Google Rubrics and Originality Reports

While I will be doing drop-ins (grades 4-12) on both Google Rubrics and Originality reports, I thought these videos were useful.  Rubrics have no limits yet Originality Reports can only be used three times in a Google Classroom. These videos will walk you through the process.

Wakelet

For the past few months, I’ve been exploring Wakelet - it is a curation tool that allows you to collect links, tweets, all sorts of things!  Please see this review in TeachersFirst this week.

Helping Students Become Better Writers

Google has rolled out its new Originality report.  It is designed to find instances

where the student's writing matches online sources. Students can then edit their

work (either providing the correct situation and re-working their text for a better

paraphrase) prior to submission.  The short EDU video covers the highlights.

Originality reports are activated when a teacher creates an assignment. 
Please note you can only have 3 assignments (per class) use this feature. 
For additional details, please see the Google information here.

I tried it with a test document and it did highlight a few sentences
(on the right side of the screen you can see the websites).  It does allow the
student to edit prior to submission.

Currently, it will not check documents against other students' work.

When things calm down

Maybe not today, but at some point, you might want to take a look at using Twitter.  Alice Keeler has some great suggestions here.

Progress not perfection (Part 2)

Here’s a look at online learning from a veteran via Alice Keeler.

Progress not perfection

I found this article reassuring and it helped me refocus my efforts.

Teaching from home

Here are some strategies from a veteran.

Great Screencastify Video

Eric Curts shares Screencastify here.
  Just a few notes:
1. Screencastify is already installed in the district.
2. The five-minute limit has been waived.

Google Classroom Rubrics

"Discussion board rubric" by The Fanboy is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Rubrics are now available in all Google Classroom Assignments. Richard Byrne does a nice job of walking you through the process in his blog post here. If you create a classroom with others as co-teachers, you can share the rubrics!

Opera and Physics

Ok, here’s a change from all the virus emails I’ve been getting.  And it includes one

of my favorite things ( I’ll let you decide which it is). This was an interesting look

at the intersection of science and art!

Making Feedback part of the process

In this blog post, Alice Keeler shares her suggestions for making feedback count.  I like the idea of two due dates- one for the feedback response as well as the finished product.

Something for everyone!

In this blog post from Alice Keeler, she shares:

1. How and why to share a Google folder
2. Using an outline to make student work more efficient
3. How to force a copy (so people will not edit your version).

Many things go with Google

We all have our favorite applications that work with Google Classroom.  Kasey Bell has just shared a list of her favorites. You have probably seen the Classroom logo with many of these sites.

YouTubing in the classroom

My son and I follow a YouTuber in Japan.  While often his videos are often field trips, they almost always include food and an unboxing video.  What if you could transfer this experience to the classroom? In Matt Miller’s blog here, he shares eight ideas your students could use to demonstrate their understanding.  They could take unboxing to a whole new level!

Distance Learning/Teaching

I think almost every email I’ve gotten in the last week has included a reference
to distance learning (in these days of COVID-19).  This blog post from Alice
Keeler is one of my favorites.  She steps you through several ideas that will be
easy for both you and your students.

Social Media Ideas

Matt Miller has shared in this blog post a variety of suggestions to use social media tools (and their lookalikes in the templates he provides) to hook your students.

Google Classroom Assignment Hint- save those assignments

Some of you have heard me talk before about adding your assignments to an empty Google Classroom (I refer to mine as the Master File).  This way, I can reuse the assignments without recreating them!

Alice Keeler has another suggestion- why not create a Google Classroom with

templates for your assignments?  This way you don’t need to keep rewriting them.

In fact, you could share the classroom with other teachers (invite them as teachers)

and you could share the templates.  Think about how much time you could save

if you didn’t need to retype the same directions (over and over again!).

Please see Alice’s blog post here for complete details.

Storyboardthat Student Work

Eric Hall (Sayreville Middle School) and his class were recently working on Storyboardthat. He has shared this sample from his class.  His students were engaged in retelling parts of the story The Monkey’s Paw using the many options in Storyboardthat.

Free training site

While reviewing the highlighted sites on the TeachersFirst blog, I came across Free Training Tutorials.   While it covers some of the basics (excel, word, typing) it also included some interesting writing ones (“How to create a character” was one that caught my eye).  I think it is worth reviewing for some of your students.

Tim + Moby + Coronavirus= Common Sense

BrainPOP has rolled out a new video on the Coronavirus.  The tone is straightforward and designed to help students manage the facts and take control. It is one of their free offerings so you will need to use your school subscription to access.

Looking for new templates?

Matt Miller (of Ditch That Textbook fame) recently shared templates from Paula Martínez, the creator of Slides Mania on his blog.  You can access them here.  I like the film one and am using it for my digital storytelling training. Which one calls you?

It’s making all the news

Looking for information on the Coronavirus? Discovery Education has a new channel- just access your DE account and search for viruses.

Locked Google Quizzes

If you are looking for a quick step by step on using the locked Quiz feature in Google forms- look for further In this blog post, Charly Choi will spell out everything you need to know!  Just remember, this feature only works on Chromebooks (not on the desktops in the library or some of the labs).

Pi Day!

When I was teaching fifth grade, this was our math teacher’s favorite day of the year!  If you are looking for some Pi Day activities, please check out this Discovery Education blog post here.

Be Happy!

And celebrate the International Day of Happiness!

Discovery Education has a variety of resources here (for many grade levels and topics).  Happiness is contagious- share yours!

STEM for all!

Looking for STEM activities for all grades?  Check out the Siemens STEM Day page here.