Tag: Flipgrid

Daily Tech Tidbits #12
Daily Tips

Daily Tech Tidbits #12

Mr HillLeave a comment

I am continuing to share on this blog more great tips and updates as we all continue on this journey!

GooseChase EDU

I came across this from the wonderful Cult Of Pedagogy blog in January, and when I considered new and interesting tools for the current closure – this came back into my mind, particularly as many teachers are setting scavenger hunt style activities already. GooseChase EDU allows teams of students or individuals to work on completing activities set by teachers. Then they photograph evidence via the free app and collect points. Teachers review the evidence and give bonus points (or return as incomplete).

Okay, so you can still use Seesaw or Flipgrid or Google Classroom to have students upload evidence of work, but this is different, gamified, with leaderboards and an option of choice. You can set questions, challenges or use the pre set ideas like ‘have someone take a photo of someone else taking a photo of you’. You can set locations (using GPS!) or just set an answer that needs to be typed in correctly. A definite option during closure.

Flipgrid Continues to be Awesome

Some companies have gone all out to support teachers during this closure, but none more than Flipgrid, who already offer a fantastic fee educational tool and promise it to be free forever. They also keep responding to teacher requests and have introduced another fantastic upgrade: Screen Recording – from Flipgrid! We can also do 10 minute recordings too – which is fantastic for teachers – not so much for a class full of 10 minute student videos!

Cospaces

Another great tool to be creative, and this one is LOVED by kids. There is so much opportunity to extend in this great app, with various level of coding but a very simple to use interface for beginners.

This is designed for students to create great 3D virtual scenes, that can be added to to have animations play from the characters added in. Adding in the feature that anyone can then enter the world created using Virtual Reality, and students fall in love with the idea. Projects for: historical scenes, curating a VR museum, retelling a story, creating mazes and much more.

And Finally

Check this out for a hack to present your own writing during a video conference:

Daily Tech Tidbits #10
Daily Tips

Daily Tech Tidbits #10

Mr HillLeave a comment

I am continuing to share on this blog more great tips and updates as we continue on this journey!

Celebrities

So as the western world struggles through lockdown, more celebrities are taking to offering what they can to support families. Of course as one does it, the others start to copy, so expect many more. The best for schools are the book readers, and authors, but there are plenty of ideas and suggestions to share with your family communities. This article links a few of the current offers including Josh Gad and Lin Manuel Miranda. And Twitter is full of helpfulness:

Interestingly, Authors are not allowed to give you permission to share books online. In fact for most books it is not advisable to record and publish to an open online platform. Please be mindful of publishing rights if you are sharing stories online – although some publishers have been offering temporary solutions.

Shapegrams

This looks fun – and is easy to share for your students, if they are likely to have access to technology and use Google for education.

It is about drawing simple shapes using Google Drawing, but of course the real secret here is the improving of several key formatting skills, like resizing and using colour tools, duplicating things and much more. The first 4 are free and come with a video which talks through the process.

It’s a simple idea – but a fantastic one for a simple home learning challenge.

Flipgrid

Forgot to mention this a while ago, but when recording on Flipgrid using the app, you can keep music playing in the background of the device, and it won’t stop when you hit record. It may seem like a minor thing – but now you can add much better audio quality to your Flipgrid video all from the same device.

Lip Snyc battle anyone? What a great home learning challenge!

And Finally!

I hope teaching and learning is going well for everyone. As a parent and teacher – it’s been tough old seven weeks, and I feel like things probably need lightening up. Now more than ever is the time to jazz up your learning videos – make a fool out of yourself and get creative. Don’t forget to promote creativity to your parents too – let them work together on a great project – this is what we did at home recently on Wevideo for a habitat activity. Having fun is of course one of the most important parts of a successful classroom. How are you managing to keep that going?

Daily Tech Tidbits #6
Daily Tips

Daily Tech Tidbits #6

Mr HillLeave a comment

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.

Thanks for all your kind words about the support we are offering. Here are a few quick tips based on different questions we’ve had recently. 

Edpuzzle
A few more tutorials are now live, including EdPuzzle. This is a tool that basically turns any video into a quiz. It stores the student’s results so you can see at a glance a) if they’ve actually watched it and b) if they understand it. They will log in with google, and it links to your classes already in google classroom. More info on the slides.


More Flipgrid Tips
Two quick tips – when watching back lots of videos – speed them up to give yourself back some time. You can still hear what is being said, albeit in a higher pitched voice.

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You can also use closed captions (cc) next to it to have your speech turned into words.


Scheduling in Google Classroom.
Don’t forget you can also schedule assignments in GC, meaning you can have work ready for the next day, finished in the morning, but schedule it for 4.55pm so it doesn’t appear while students are working on today’s activities. This is also useful for those of you who are not in the same time zone. 

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Daily Tech Tidbits #2
Daily Tips

Daily Tech Tidbits #2

Mr HillLeave a comment

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.

Flipgrid Feedback
First of all, there are two ways to give video feedback when watching the video from a teacher’s viewpoint, you can reply (under the video) or private. The reply one is the one I usually use, because the kids see it more obviously when they go to Flipgrid. Weirdly, the only way to see private feedback is to use this link https://my.flipgrid.com/ which is like an overview of all the videos they have posted. However, there is also an ’email feedback’ button and it is brilliant. You can both do private video and text and the email gets sent to the Gmail account instantly. So it is up to you to decide whether to get them to check emails, or to check that link above. Failing that, just hit them with a simple reply. 


Seesaw Notifications

Just a reminder – from some feedback from parents – every time a comment is added to a post that is tagged with a child, the parent will get an email. They also get an email when you post a video, a document or a link. Equally, with specialists doing a great job of posting their activities too, and some teachers approving posts from before the holiday, we saw some parents receiving over 15 email notifications in one day. It is still very positive to be having constant communication, but do be mindful of this, particularly adding comments to posts tagged to all students. Don’t forget you can use the messaging function now to communicate to parents directly should you wish.


Google Meet for ‘Registering’ We are constantly reviewing best practice in what is unprecedented times for many, looking at how similar schools are managing the situation. We know that many schools are ‘registering’ kids by asking them to sign in to a 5 minute google meet (or similar) in the morning, announcing messages and then letting them get on with the day. Many schools are requiring this at the start of each lesson, before setting a task on or offline. Remember that if you would like to use Google Meet, it is easy to run a session and it is easy to see who attended. Whilst we encourage the tool for any teacher, it is primarily most effective in the Secondary environment.

Thanks, as always send me any questions you may have,
Dominic