Tales of Distance Learning: Screencasting to the Rescue

On a couple of occasions this school year, in my classes, there have been issues with wifi that didn't allow the kids to hear the me when on a video call. When it happened to me, I was able to see and hear all the kids, but they kept telling me they were not able to hear me. My microphone and other settings were on point, but for some strange reason, kids could not hear me. 

When this happened last, it was a US History lesson where I was going to teach about Thomas Paine. Once I realized the kids could not hear me, I pivoted by communicating whole class via Zoom chat. From there, I immediately put a message in the chat telling students to go into Google Classroom and clicking on the lesson video YouTube link. 

What I did prior to the lesson was record myself teaching the lesson, with Screencastify, and upload it to YouTube. The purpose, originally, was to have the lesson video on-demand for absent students or for those who wanted to revisit the lesson later. With kids not able to hear me due to wifi issues, I directed kids to watch the lesson on YouTube. This was the same lesson I would have taught synchronously on Zoom. 

The lesson was roughly 20 minutes in length. With 40 minutes remaining in the period, I instructed kids in the chat to watch the YouTube lesson and return with 10 minutes left in class. When they returned, they had a couple exit tickets, one to show their notes on the camera and the other was to answer a reflection question in the chat. 

Had I not pre-recorded the lesson with Screencastify and uploaded to YouTube, that lesson might have been lost. Using the video lesson in that manner was not the original intent, but it did save the day in the end. Pre-recording lessons may be a little bit of extra work, but it is definitely worth in the long run.

This is just one of the surreal events I have encountered in distance learning. I'd love to hear from you. What are some of your surreal experiences in distance learning?

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.

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is due out in October/November of 2020. It will be published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Keep an eye out on this blog and on social media. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.

 

Google Meet Updates: GSuite for Education (Free Edition)

 

Slowly, but surely, Google Meet is trying to catch up with Zoom. While Google Meet won't ever have as many features as Zoom, it is definitely a viable option for distance learning. Since the summer, I have trained hundreds, if not thousands, of teachers on how to get started with Google Meet. In each training, I have sounded like a broken record by explaining that Google Meet will be getting some major "Zoom-like" updates in the fall. 

Some of those updates are here. Take a look below at these updates. Each update is for the free version of GSuite for Education. The Enterprise version of GSuite for Education is getting even more updates including Breakout Rooms. 

One new thing rolling out to Google Meet is a small "Host Controls" button on the bottom toolbar.

When you click the host controls button, what you see below will pop up. You will see controls to turn on/off Quick access, Share their screen and Send chat messages. Quick access serves as a waiting room of sorts. Click here to read more about Quick access.  If turned off, all attendees not invited via Calendar must wait to be let in. You can also control screen sharing and chatting. 

If you go to the Settings menu (click three dots in bottom right corner), you get more details on the Host controls. 

When you open the "three dots" menu in the bottom right corner, you will see an option of Turn on background blur. This is great for privacy when participating in a video call from home.

When you click the People button in top right corner, you will now see another button to access Host controls. 

When you click the Chat button in top right corner, you will now see a switch turn the chat on and off.

One other update allows you to view up to 49 people at once in the Tiled view layout. 

Select Tiled and then use the slider at the bottom to choose how many people you want to be able to see.

One last update is improvements for "Knocking" I don't have screenshots for this, but what this does is to prevent someone from rejoining or requesting to rejoin the meeting after they've been ejected. If an attendee has been kicked out by mistake, the moderator can re-invite them via Add people. In addition, if a moderator rejects a request to join twice, that person will be blocked from trying to request again. Click here to read more about knocking improvements.

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.

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is due out in October/November of 2020. It will be published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Keep an eye out on this blog and on social media. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.

A Couple of Ideas for EdTech Coaches to Track Coaching Interactions

As an edtech coach, it is vital to track your teacher and student interactions. Administrators love data and want data to support their investment in your edtech coach position. In our upcoming book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, my co-author and wife, Katherine Goyette and I, discuss ways to measure your effectiveness and impact as an edtech coach. We recommend using the 4 C's for this. We like to say, "if you plan with the 4 C's in mind, the tech will take care of itself". The wisdom is that if administrators observe students engaged in the 4 C's, you've effectively integrated technology.

Edtech coaches wear many hats. Where the 4 C's measure the effectiveness of edtech coaching and integration, hard data for your everyday coaching interactions are also important. Take a look below at the Google Form I use to track all of my coaching duties from meeting with teachers, walking classrooms, providing feedback and training students, quasi-IT duties and more.

The first "question" is where I choose the school site of the teacher or student I am supporting. Depending on the choice, it will take me to a list of teachers for that school site. 

After selecting the school site, I select the name of the teacher or select "Student". If "Student" is selected, when I get to the summary at the end of the form, I add the student's name there.

After selecting the teacher name or "Student", the form takes me to a Checkbox question of a variety of "services" provided. 

When finished "checkboxing" services provided, the form takes me to a question to select the date and add a summary of the interaction. Here is where I provide the details of the coaching interaction.

There are a myriad of ways edtech coaches can track their interactions and measure effectiveness. One option I encourage you to take a look at comes from fellow Google Certified Innovator Suzana Somers. She has created a great tool called connecthub.io. It is a platform designed to help instructional coaches save time and better visualize the impact of their coaching. Click here to check it out. Whether you create a Google Form or use a tool like connecthub.io, find or create a tool that works for you. If you're a classroom teacher or administrator, I encourage you to reflect on the ideas presented in this post and think of ways to adapt them toward your role.

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. Our book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning is due out in October/November of 2020, published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Keep an eye out on this blog and on social media. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech, #DBCIncBooks and #CVTechTalk for updates.

Use Google Tasks to Set "Reminders for Reminders"

Helping remind students to stay on top of work in distance learning isn't easy. As much students need reminders, we, the adults, need them too. Hours of video calls per day can fry your brain. I always like to send students reminders for due dates. My favorite tool for reminding me to send student reminders is Google Tasks. Google Tasks is built in to Gmail. When I set a task in Google Tasks, with a due date, it adds it to my Google Calendar. This helps me remember to send students reminders of due dates for assignments. 

Consider this scenario. You just finished a lesson with your class on Zoom or Google Meet. Students were assigned some work asynchronously based on the content of the lesson due some time in the near future. You are worried students may forget. Use these steps to use Google Tasks to schedule "reminders of the reminders"

Step 1: In the Classwork tab of Google Classroom, click the three dots on the assignment in which you want to remember to remind your students. Click Copy link.

Step 2: Access Google Tasks in the right side panel in Gmail (it's also accessible in Drive, Calendar, Docs, Sheets and Slides). Click Add a task

Step 3: Title your "reminder to remind students" task and paste the Google Classroom assignment link in the box where it says Add details. Set a time and date for your reminder.

Step 4: When your reminder notification alerts you, open Tasks, find the task, copy the link and paste it into an announcement in the Google Classroom Stream.

Students will receive a notification that you've created an announcement in the Stream. When they open the notification, they will have that clickable link to the assignment. For those students who struggle to stay on top of assignments, this can be very helpful. 

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.

Extract Pages on a PDF with Print in Google Chrome

Sometimes you come across a PDF file that has much more than what you need. All you need is just a few pages. You don't want to overwhelm students with superfluous content. Extracting selected pages from a PDF,  in this situation, is the way to go.

Not too long ago, I published a blog post about using the ILovePDF website to extract selected pages from a PDF. A few days after posting, I received some feedback about another, easier way to accomplish the same task. It was brought to my attention, by a reader of my blog, that you can do the same thing using the Print function within Google Chrome.  I am extremely grateful for this reader's feedback as they opened my eyes to a tool I know how to use, but never thought to use it in this manner. This here is the beauty of having a PLN. Take a look at the screenshots below to see how to use Google Chrome Print to extract pages of a PDF.

Step 1: Open a PDF file in Google Drive. I recommend right clicking on the file and selecting Preview. In the Preview, at the bottom, you can see how many pages the file contains.

Step 2: In the Preview, in the top right corner, click the Print icon.

Step 3: After clicking the icon in Step 2, it will open the file in another tab. In the new tab, click the Print icon, again, in the top right corner.

Step 4: Clicking the icon in Step 3 will open a print panel on the right side. In the panel, click the box titled Pages.

Step 5: Change it from All to Custom.

Step 6: When you change to Custom, below, you can enter the page range or set of individual pages you want to extract from the PDF.

Step 7: Click Save after entering your pages or page range.

Step 8: After clicking Save in Step 7, a dialogue box will appear on your computer. This is where you name the file and location to be saved. What you see below is what it looks like on a Mac. It will look a little different on a PC or Chromebook. Regardless of your device and what it looks like, it will function the same way. Simply title it and select Save location.

Once saved to your computer, you can open it on your computer and or upload to Google Drive.

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.

 

Create a Google Classroom Shell

 

Distance learning has made educators busier than ever. Anything we can do to streamline our workflow and be more efficient is usually welcomed. Adapting Google Classroom to the rigors of distance learning, many educators have developed some go-to activities and assignments to maximize learning. One way to maximize our efficiency in this endeavor is to create a "Google Classroom Shell". 

A "Google Classroom Shell" is a Google Classroom created with no students invited. In the Shell, you assign assignments, materials, questions, etc. as Templates. Once you've created your Templates in the Shell, from any Google Classroom (with students) you can Reuse Posts from the Shell and quickly assign work to students. 

Take a look below to see how I set up my Class Shell and use it to streamline the process of assigning work and activities to students. In my Shell, I have a dozen or so go-to activities that I reuse over and over each week. 

Step 1: Create a Class Shell Google Classroom. Create assignments, questions, materials, and quizzes "templates". Title each with easy to edit naming conventions or codes. This will help you when you reuse in your live Google Classrooms. 

Step 2: Once your Shell is created, go to a live Google Classroom you are currently using populated with students. In the Classwork tab, click Create. Select Reuse post. 

Step 3: Choose your Class Shell and select from the "templates" you created.

Step 4: Once you've selected your "template", edit the title, instructions and details for your planned learning goals. You can also assign this to multiple classes. If you create templates with documents, when you reuse them, new copies of the documents will be made as well.

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.

Too Many Chrome Tabs Open? Try Google Drive Workspaces

 

In the edtech world, we are notorious for having numerous Chrome tabs open in our browser. I have a friend who actually reached the limit of open tabs. It's a symptom of multitasking. One issue with multiple Chrome tabs open is that it can negatively affect the performance of your computer. You computer will not work as efficiently with too many tabs open. 

Often times, we have files from Google Drive open in many tabs. We leave them open because it's a pain in the butt to go back into Drive and find the files. One way to have easy access to often-used files, and to minimize the amount of open tabs, is to use Google Drive Workspaces. 

Have you ever noticed the "Priority" button just below "New"? (If you are working in a personal Gmail account, you will not see this. It's only available in GSuite for Education and Enterprise accounts.) When you open it, you'll see an option for Workspaces. Workspaces allows you to pin and group often-used files for easy access without having to always go fishing through Drive or leaving too many Chrome tabs open.

Take a look at the screenshots below to learn how to start using Google Drive Workspaces.

Step 1: Go to Google Drive and click on the Priority button on the left side panel.

Step 2: Click the Create button next to Workspaces and give it a title.

Step 3: Once you name it, click Add files to begin inserting files you want easy access to.

Step 4: Add to Workspace panel will appear on the right side. It will allow you to go through your Google Drive files to select the ones you want available in the Workspace. 

Step 5: Click on the file(s) you want in the Workspace and click Insert when ready to add. If you have other files not currently in view, located in a different folder, you will have to repeat steps 3-5.

Step 6: Once inserted to a Workspace, when you go to Priority, you'll see your Workspace(s). Click the one you want then, select the files you want to open. 

You may want to include files such as templates for lesson planning, activities, etc. When done manipulating these files, don't leave them open as a tab in Chrome, close down to save CPU power. Simply leave Google Drive open as its own tab and you'll have quick, easy access to these files. A good rule of thumb is to leave tabs open that aren't files in Drive. This will help you minimize the amount of Chrome tabs open at once. 

Below is an screenshot of an actual Workspace I use everyday. (Note: You have a limit of 25 files you can add to a Workspace.)

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.

Get Started Leaving Voice Comments with Mote

Feedback is essential to the learning process. Traditionally, feedback has been given verbally, face to face, or via text comments on a document (digital, handwritten). Mote is a Google Chrome Extension that combines both verbal and digital feedback. With Mote, you can leave voice comments on student work done with Google Docs, Slides, etc. It can be used in conjunction with Google Classroom as well. 

There is something powerful about hearing a teacher's voice, especially in a distance learning environment. Often times, with English learners, meaning can get misinterpreted when feedback is left via text. For these students, the meaning is more easily understandable when they hear inflection and tone from the teacher voice. 

Take a look at the screenshots below to learn how to get started using Mote for the first time. 

Step 1: At the Chrome Web Store, search for Mote. When you see Mote appear in the search results, click Add to Chrome.

Step 2: Once Mote is done being installed to your Chrome browser, click the "puzzle piece" extension manager. In the drop down menu, find Mote and pin it with the rest of your extensions. This will make it available on your browser.

Step 3: When you click Mote for the first time, you will have to verify your age.

Step 4: After verifying your age, check the acknowledgement box and sign in with Google. (first time only)

Step 5: The notification below will appear once you're done signing in. Be sure, on the next Doc or Slide you open, to refresh it once it's open. This will activate Mote so you can leave a voice comment.

Step 6: After opening and refreshing a Doc or Slide, insert a comment. When you do, you will see the Mote icon in the comment box. Click it to begin leaving a voice comment. 

Step 7: Recording starts almost instantly. When you're finished recording, click Done.

Step 8: The voice comment will take a few seconds to process and will look like this while processing.

Step 9: When finished processing, the voice comment will look like this on the teacher's end.

On the student end, the voice comment will look like this. All they have to do is click play to hear your comment.

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.