Each day, whilst the school is closed, I have been sending daily tips and advice to our staff to support with their online learning provision. Sometimes it is in response to common questions, and sometimes it is just great tips and tools. I’ve decided to share them in light of the ongoing global impact of Covid-19.

Try not to ‘Stream’ in Google Classroom for tasks

Having seen a number of google classroom environments recently, it has come to my attention that many teachers are simply adding activities into the stream page of their class. I urge you to stop doing that and use the Classwork section instead. From here you can set assignments, which allow you to, amongst other things, set due dates, schedule in the future, and most importantly, select a topic. For example, this allows you to group similar tasks together, in Primary, you can set topics for Reading, Writing, etc. This allows an easy way for students to find previous work, without having to scroll through post after post after post. Assignments appear in the main class stream just like comments, but can be named clearly, searched for, and also be ‘re-used’ in other classes, perhaps if you have a similar piece of work for another class. Also when assigning work in this way, you can provide templates, students can create work within that assignment that you can view at any time, and you can even give each child their own copy of the slide/doc that you are working with. Children Y4 and up (and some Y3s) are proficient enough to use this way of working.

Also Google Classroom has been updated in the last two days (it does this a lot) so some things have slightly moved around from previous gifs.Finally, for loads more tips and tricks and to become a classroom expert – watch this video that Angela has found for us.

Cosmic Yoga, Go Noodle etc. As we promote a bit of free time on Friday, it’s a time to remind you about the brain break videos that we love in school, but may not be known at home. Why not set a mindfulness task, or a fun dance routine brain break. Perfect for the young ones and an active way of using screen time.

Teaching in Videos
As we settle in to our new roles as distance educators, a reminder that teaching is possible through video, and there are some inspiring teaches across HK sharing their videos across Twitter, like this art teacher, and that videos to home can be much more than simple motivations and ‘well done’s. In Flipgrid, or almost any video recording app, you can download your videos, then upload them to google drive and turn them into a pack of slides with step by step instructions for a lesson. To promote shared practice (note: not best practice!) – here is a link to how I present my Maths work. Each child in the class gets a copy to fill in their answers. In Seesaw, you could just link to the presentation with a videos teaching the kids new things. If you need more info and support for this, let us know.

Google Meet etc..
The tech teachers have been discussing this topic recently, a big concern for many is the idea that if you run a google meet, you MUST NOT record it as well without permission. Google Meet and others should be used for discussions, Q&A, but instructional videos, stick to screen casting and other tools previously mentioned.
If you are holding live chats through google meet or Zoom, maybe remind the kids that they should always be wearing appropriate clothes and be in a responsible place. Maybe this will make them chuckle: (shared to me from fellow teacher Ross Parker)–>