One Quick, Easy Teacher to Student Communication Tip for Distance Learning

        

The past few days, I have received numerous requests for help finding a quick and easy way to email all students in one class without having to type out all kids names or addresses. Through our Google Domain, I have created numerous email lists that accomplish this, but teachers want to create this for themselves.

One way would be to go to contacts.google.com and add students to a label, but that would require you to search each student and add them to a label. To avoid typing out names or searching students within your domain, assuming you're using Google Classroom, go to Google Classroom. Click on People. Where you see the list of students in the class, click the first check box to select all. Click actions and select email. This will then open a new window with a message ready to be composed with all students' names inserted under BCC.

In just two or three clicks, you have a message with all kids' names populated. Check out this video below to learn how.

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.

Two Simple Online Tasks for Students During School Closures

Something that must be considered when designing distance learning experiences is students' home lives. Students may go to work in the fields with parents. Others will be babysitters. Some will be doing household chores. Many will likely be unsupervised and ignore the amazing, in-depth work we send home.

When designing lessons for this environment, don't overwhelm students will ton of work or get fancy with a ton of cool apps. Where I work, we are sending home spiral review activities for kids to get extra practice on what they've already learned. Without getting too technical or fancy with the edtech, consider activities that allow fun, easy ways for students to review and practice.

My suggestion for this would be Quizlet and Quizizz. In Quizlet, find or create your own study sets of concepts for kids to review.  The "Learn" game gives kids immediate feedback when they get one wrong. For accountability, they can screenshot their scores when they play the different games within Quizlet.

Immediate Feedback

Screenshot of Results

With Quizizz, kids can use the Flashcards function to practice independently. They can also play the quiz game independently. When finished, they see their score and can try to improve by playing again.

Flashcards Function

Independent Gameplay

Screenshot of Results

Long story short, we don't want to overwhelm students with too many "cool apps".  Many students will have much more than school on their mind during this stressful time. These two simple ideas are designed merely to be an uncomplicated way to get students interacting with content while we ride out this storm. If you have any questions for how to use these apps, feel free to reach out to me via email or Google Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com.

Something that must be considered when designing distance learning experiences is students' home lives. Students may go to work in the fields with parents. Others will be babysitters. Some will be doing household chores. Many will likely be unsupervised and ignore the amazing, in-depth work we send home.

When designing lessons for this environment, don't overwhelm students will ton of work or get fancy with a ton of cool apps. Where I work, we are sending home spiral review activities for kids to get extra practice on what they've already learned. Without getting too technical or fancy with the edtech, consider activities that allow fun, easy ways for students to review and practice.

My suggestion for this would be Quizlet and Quizizz. In Quizlet, find or create your own study sets of concepts for kids to review.  The "Learn" game gives kids immediate feedback when they get one wrong. For accountability, they can screenshot their scores when they play the different games within Quizlet.

Immediate Feedback

Screenshot of Results

With Quizizz, kids can use the Flashcards function to practice independently. They can also play the quiz game independently. When finished, they see their score and can try to improve by playing again.

Flashcards Function

Independent Gameplay

Screenshot of Results

Long story short, we don't want to overwhelm students with too many "cool apps".  Many students will have much more than school on their mind during this stressful time. These two simple ideas are designed merely to be an uncomplicated way to get students interacting with content while we ride out this storm. If you have any questions for how to use these apps, feel free to reach out to me via email or Google Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com.

Something that must be considered when designing distance learning experiences is students' home lives. Students may go to work in the fields with parents. Others will be babysitters. Some will be doing household chores. Many will likely be unsupervised and ignore the amazing, in-depth work we send home.

When designing lessons for this environment, don't overwhelm students will ton of work or get fancy with a ton of cool apps. Where I work, we are sending home spiral review activities for kids to get extra practice on what they've already learned. Without getting too technical or fancy with the edtech, consider activities that allow fun, easy ways for students to review and practice.

My suggestion for this would be Quizlet and Quizizz. In Quizlet, find or create your own study sets of concepts for kids to review.  The "Learn" game gives kids immediate feedback when they get one wrong. For accountability, they can screenshot their scores when they play the different games within Quizlet.

Immediate Feedback

Screenshot of Results

With Quizizz, kids can use the Flashcards function to practice independently. They can also play the quiz game independently. When finished, they see their score and can try to improve by playing again.

Flashcards Function

Independent Gameplay

Screenshot of Results

Long story short, we don't want to overwhelm students with too many "cool apps".  Many students will have much more than school on their mind during this stressful time. These two simple ideas are designed merely to be an uncomplicated way to get students interacting with content while we ride out this storm. If you have any questions for how to use these apps, feel free to reach out to me via email or Google Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you'd like to unsubscribe, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.

Two Quick Tips That Can Help With Distance Learning

Flipgrid for Teachers

Flipgrid is a great tool to give students opportunities for academic listening and speaking. It's also a great tool for teachers to record quick tidbits, "info-bites" or, tips, nuggets of wisdom and announcements. Create a grid separate from the ones you use with students. Record 30-60 second tips, etc. for kids and parents. Once submitted, the video files are easily downloaded and can be shared via Google Classroom or Remind in addition to be uploaded to YouTube. The example below was recorded with Flipgrid.

DocHub

DocHub was the foundation of my Ditch That Copier movement. We all have a horror story involving the copier. Stories likely include waiting in line for the copier, jammed copiers, out of toner as well as running out of paper. Years ago, when I was a full-time history teacher, we started using DBQs. Each DBQ packet was at least 10 pages front and back. As a tech coach, I have sought ways to lessen to angst of having to make large amounts of copies and packets.

With Google Classroom and DocHub, most, if not all, of the things you would have kids do with a packet and or article, can be done without making tons of copies. If you're able to get your packet and or article as a PDF file, attach it to an assignment in Google Classroom. Students only need view permission. Students click the file and "Open with" DocHub. From there, they can mark the text however you see fit. When finished, students can submit to Google Classroom from a button in DocHub. See the video below to learn how.

Teacher View

Student View

Custom Sticky Notes and Fact Checking with Sketchnotes

Custom Sticky Notes

Feedback is such an important part of what we do as educators. Feedback helps develop rapport and relationships with students. When we make the feedback personal, it becomes more meaningful. Feedback can be as simple as writing on a sticky note. Now you can write on a generic, plain sticky note, but what if you jazzed it up a bit? What if you could create a custom sticky note with your Bitmoji? Create your own custom sticky note to add a personal touch to your feedback. Something this simple goes a long way showing kids you really care.

Click here to access a Google Slides template to create your own custom sticky notes. Once created, screenshot the image and send to Vistaprint. For around $15, you can get a half dozen sticky note pads with 50 notes per pad. Click here to start designing on Vistaprint. Credit to my friend and fellow Google Certified Innovator Ben Cogswell for creating this template and sharing this great idea with me.

Fact Check with Sketchnotes

My Google Certified Innovator project, The Cardinal Innovation Center, has a Sketchnotes Gallery. On this website, I scan student sketchnotes exemplars and curate them by grade and subject. The Gallery is easy to create with Google Sites. Click here to see the Cardinal Innovation Center Sketchnotes Gallery.

Teachers can then access these sketchnotes for a variety of activities. One way you can use the Sketchnotes Gallery is to review concepts in a fact check activity. Give students a rubric or list of criteria. Send them to the accompanying topic page in your Sketchnotes Gallery. Have them evaluate some sketchnotes and judge them to see if the sketchnotes are conveying all of the main ideas or concepts listed in the rubric or list of criteria. This is great for spiral review or assessment prep.

Integrate some edtech by having them use the Screencastify Chrome Extension to record their critique of the sketchnotes.