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Brainstorm 2020: ABC’s and 123’s of Google Classroom

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Presented by Heather Lupton, Technology Integration Coach, Warren County

Transform your elementary classroom to a paperless oasis with the use of Google Classroom and G Suite functions. During this introduction, we will examine the basics of the operating the learning management system and how to personalize it for your use in the classroom. This class will allow hands-on experience to investigate and manage Google classroom, as a teacher and a student.

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Transcript

Hello my tech friends! My name is Heather Lupton. I am an elementary technology integration coach for Warren County Public Schools and also a member of UnisonEDU. Today I will be hosting through the training ABC’s and 123’s of Google Classroom. During this training, we will review the basic steps for beginning your adventure. I will share images and videos from a teacher view and as a student. This learning management system is user friendly for teachers and students with Google Suite for Education and a great way to transition your classroom to blended learning. Hope this information assists you with beginning your Google Classroom adventure!

Creating a Google Classroom:
To create your class you can click on the plus sign and you will click on create class. You would do “join class” if you were in (is) going in as a student but since you are the teacher and you are creating it you're going to click on “create class” here. The only thing that is required is the class name. You may also add a section, subject, or room if you prefer to. So the only thing that's required, like I said, is the name so let's create it in Google classroom. Once you have the name in there, you may click on “create”. As you can see this will take a moment to create a new class. And then you will see it in your list of classes. And you can see now that it is automatically taking me to my class.

Classroom Settings:
Now we're going to focus on our settings inside of our classroom. Up here at the top you can see that this is a hyperlink that'll get me to all of my classrooms or the selected one that I'm in. Over here you are going to see your tabs that we will be reviewing shortly. These tabs are your stream, Classwork, People, and Grades. Over to the right you are going to see that you have a gear and that is going to be updating your settings. You also have access to your apps and you can see that you're in your Google account. If for some reason I want to get back to the home screen of where classroom.google.com is I can click on these three lines (three Pancakes or three hot dogs) whichever you prefer and click on classes and it will bring me back to my main screen. Back on my left I'm going to click back on the Google Classroom that I want to be in so that I can see it. Over here you will see the class code, the class code is a way for your students to enter in your classroom where you can just share the code and students are going to actually enroll in the class you have the ability to do this by clicking on the display and it will make it larger so if you're projecting it in the classroom or you can even make it full screen. You have the option of going to exit out of here or click on the top to get out of it and that will take it away. That code will be designated for this classroom, so if later on you have a new student come in (and) you want them to be enrolled in this classroom you can also give them this code. The next thing is that you have a theme behind it .I encourage you to update your theme based on your class so that your students can (help) to figure out which class they are looking at. So you have the ability to select your theme by clicking/selecting and then here at the top you will see some options for different types of backgrounds that you can use for your classroom. Like I said, I encourage you to use ones that go along with what you are working on all. All you have to do is click on the picture and then hit “select class theme” so that it will upload into the back. You can also upload your own photo in the background if you prefer for your kids, for easy access, so maybe if there's a class picture theme that you have behind it that you use all the time that might be a great background for the students to know which class they are going into. Up here on the right you will see the gear shift, the gear shift is where your settings are. So you click on the gear shift, this will take you to your class settings. At the top you can see your class details and that's where (your) name of your class is. This also gives you the ability to add any information that you forgot the first time if you want to, now that you've done it. You can see here again you can see the class code and if I clicked down here I have the ability to display it that the students are going to see (it.) I have the ability to copy it if I need to share it so inside of somewhere else maybe inside of a Class Dojo post maybe somewhere else that I want to join this class for students to join. I can reset it if I want to use it for something else or maybe make a new class so that the same students aren't in it. Here, I can disable it so no one can access it to actually, um, enter into the class. My Stream is where one of the tabs where all my information will be. This is a great learning tool for many of our students, especially with virtual learning since the students can post and can comment on here. You do have the ability as a teacher to change this, where students can comment or only teachers can post or comment. You may choose. This is a great digital citizenship lesson for students if you allow them to post and comment is that everyone in the class can see it. That it is there and cannot be removed for them but as a teacher you can remove it. But this is a great digital citizenship lesson to help them figure out about posting and commenting. Next, you'll have classwork on a stream. So it's designated to (have) “show condensed notifications”, this is smaller for the students and only has the titles in. I encourage you (to) change this to show attachments and details so that they have all the information there. You also have the ability to hide notifications ,maybe if you don't like to use the stream, you can actually turn them off but I encourage you if you're going to allow the stream on there (is) to show attachments and details which will give all the students everything they need one spot. Next, you have (to) show deleted items. Only teachers can view deleted items you have to do is turn this on or off. Next, we have Guardian summaries. This is a great place for parents to be involved with the classrooms. So you have the ability to invite your parents into your classroom, so by using this you can turn it on and it will allow them to access the classes you teach and then give them a summary for the parents. And here I'm going to click on “see example” and this will actually show you what a guardian summary will look like. Parents can choose whether they have it weekly or daily depending on their student but it just helps the parents monitor the student instead of having to login to their account it will automatically send them to email to let them know what they're missing, what they need to work, on what to do a head of time just to keep parents in the loop. So it's a great tool for using and Google has recently just added that. You have the ability to turn it on and then off. A brand new feature that we have is Google Meet is now (been) placed into Google Classroom, which allows many of our students to join us in the classroom where I can just designate a Meet that'll be visible to my students. All I have to do is click over here and generate the link meet and you can see once I've done that it's automatically visible to the students. This link I can copy it and send it out or reset it if I need to, if students continue to get in I can change this and that is not visible to the students or change that back. I want to show you where that's located inside of your Google Classroom so that you can see it so I'ma click out of this so that you can see where the link meet will be. Right now you can see that I did not save my information so I want to make sure that I save before I go. And now up the top you will see (the) meet link and it has the link for the students to join into a Google Meet right here inside of my Google Classroom. This is a great new tool that's just been implement(ed) to help teachers and students especially with our virtual and distance learning currently. I'm going to click back on my gear shift and get back into my settings and I'm going to continue to scroll down so that we can start talking about grading. Inside a Google Classroom you also have the ability to grade your students. So you can choose whether you want to use. Many teachers use their normal grade book on top of it so they don't like to do this but some teachers like for students to get a check or grades that they know what the student completed and what the student got, so this is a quick and easy way for them to access it. You can see that you can have overall grade calculations, so you choose the grading system and it has more detail. So currently the default is “no overall grade” you can do “total points” or you can do “weighted by category”. If you choose “weighted by category”, then you can show you actually create your own category so if I want to create a testing category it can be there for my students. This is completely up to you and your preference. If you prefer to have, that it is completely great. Many of our teachers use this system more as a way of monitoring what the students have done. So since our gradebook currently does that they don’t usually go to the “weight by graded” but they give no overall
grades and show their points to their students. It’s completely up to you and how you want to set it up. After you have finished this whole list, please make sure to hit save again and those save settings will be applied in to your Google classroom

Tips and Tricks for Google Classroom:
Next, we are going to look at email notifications. Depending on the number of classes you teach and students you have, you will soon learn the default email notifications can be overwhelming. To help reduce the stress of the notifications, I will show you have to select which notifications you want.
To do this, you will visit the three lines in the upper left hand corner. You will need to scroll to the bottom of the list where you see the gear shift and the word “settings”. Click on this link. Go to the “Notifications” section. Your first option here is to receive email notifications. The default setting is to “receive email notifications” for all items below. If you toggle to the left, you can turn off this feature and you will not receive email notifications for any google classroom.
If you leave the toggle to the right (it will be blue if turned on), then you will have more options for selecting which notifications appear as emails.
You can see there are options from comments, if you do not want any of these notifications on then move your toggle to the left until it is gray.
Next, there are notifications from “classes that you’re enrolled in” that will help you when you are a student and will need to join a class and turn in items.
The third section focuses on the “classes you teach”. If you are consistent at looking at the information directly in Google Classroom, then you may want to turn these notifications off to help keep clutter from your email.
In the next section, I have the “Class Notifications” email. Here I can just select the classes that I want to select to receive or not receive notifications from. As you can see from my list, I have many classes that I am a co-teacher but I do not wish to receive the emails from. These classes are gray to avoid receiving email notifications. The classes I am the main instructor, I leave on to help with keeping track of items since I do not log into google classroom daily.

Another great tip when you are on your home page (there is a picture of the house next to it), also known as your “classes” or your “classes” page you are able to organize your class cards by dragging them around in the order of your preference. So as you can see I moved mine around because the classes that I teach now are at the top and the other ones are down at the bottom. So it's just more organized but you can click and drag on them to move them around.

Another excellent organizational tip is on the classroom cards, you will see an icon of a folder. This folder will direct you straight to the google drive folder that will host all of the students’ works from this class. As you students turn in work, it will automatically be loaded to this folder inside of your Google Drive.

Next to the folder, you will see this wiggly arrow. This wiggle arrow will open up the Gradebook for that class so that you can see what assignments and materials there. So if you click it, it will take you straight to the Gradebook where information will be placed and where you can add grades in at one time.

Next we'll talk about the Google Calendar up at the top, where your three lines are. If you click you'll see where calendar is calendar here will have all of your events that are happening happening inside of Google Classroom if you click on calendar you will see all of the events that are taking place and for all the classes that you have up at the top you can select in between them or you can see him listed out depending on the amount of classes you might have you might have to scroll up and down to see the activities for that day you can click back and forth to go by weeks so that you can see what it is assigned for before or a fart after to go back to click into the assignment you can actually click straight in and then view the assignment here you can see in a teacher view I can see all the students that are in it and what they have assigned to them

ABC’s of Google Classroom
Now we will be focusing on the ABC’s of Google Classroom. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to go over the 26 letters of the alphabet, so we're going to focus on our Google Classroom tab letters. And that would be C for Classwork, G for Grades, P for people, and S for Stream.

Stream
First we'll start with the letter S and we will talk about the for Stream. Up at the top you can see the stream is the first tab on the top. Your stream is important because it helps you communicate with your class. You can create and schedule announcements and respond to students' posts. Remembering the settings, you need to make sure that you've turned your settings on for your students to communicate inside of here, the Stream. All activities will also be inside of it. As you can remember we also talked about the details that you will see in our settings portion. About what the students will see inside of the stream. Now we're going to talk about how to place an announcement as you can see right here at the top I have this bar. When I click here on the bar, it will let me proceed to make an announcement. You can see right here, the FOR-the first one, is the class that I'm choosing, you can also do that. I can choose multiple classes at a time, maybe there are certain classes that all need this announcement then I can check those boxes that go along with it. If I only want it for this class, then I can leave it there. Next, I can choose (whether) I want this to go to all of the students (are) enrolled in the class or only some of them. If you were planning on reusing this post, in other classes you will need to make sure that they are for all of your students. Here’s where you're going to type your message. So “please check out the Google Slides”. You can see here I put a link but also I have the option to add on to my post. Maybe there's some activity that I want them to go to or I want to direct them straight to the link when I click. I have options I can click and add a file from my Google Drive. I can add a link to a hyperlink to something on the web, I can also add a file that’s on my computer, or I can also insert a YouTube video for the students to watch. Since this is a link that is a hyperlink, it'll take you to actually the presentation that goes along with this training, I will add the link here. Directly in here- and it'll attach it to my announcement and you can see that the direct link. (It) is adding it straight here so that the students can see both of them. Next, I have the option to cancel it, if I mess(ed) something up or I decided that I didn't want to do it. Over to the right, I have “post “. You have three options inside of post. I can post it right now which will add it immediately to all of their screens. I do have the ability to go back to edit, but not the students. I will have to just edit the wording. In the next, I can schedule it for a certain time to show up. So if this is an announcement for another day, maybe I want this to be scheduled to show (up) first thing. (In the for that) or I want a reminder that evening I can schedule it here. So that I'll show up next, I can just save this out this is something that I wanted them to know I can save it. And, actually, you have those three options once you get it. It'll be there for your students and it'll show up in your stream. Now we will continue to look at the stream but as you can see we've added some announcements to it. Here you can see the first one I did was a link. The next one I did I added a YouTube video and then the last I added(was) actually a file from my Google Drive for the students to see. You can see down here, that the students have the ability to comment or I can comment back to them. Everybody in the class has the option to see it, to send it, all I have to do is click this arrow. My name and time are also post(ed) if a student response here. If you prefer not for your student to respond (and) remember you have that ability. Also you have the ability to condense the view. This is an expanded view for the students, but to condense the view remember to go to your settings, scroll down to General, where it says stream. Remember if you don't want your students to post this is where you can put it in. And then “class work on the stream”, “show attached details”. If you change that to show condensed notifications it will change how the student see it. So that they will see a smaller view of all the activities that are on it. Also, (too) the teacher has the ability to move items on to the top. So let's say that you've added these three items and I want this one to go back on the top. “Review”- And then I want this one to go back on the top so that everyone can see it. All I have to do is put the three (DOTS) arrows and click “move to the top” and then this post will now be located on the top of these other two. If you're going to cancel. Sequential order so that is the only way to get it back onto the top. Remember you have the ability to schedule those items if you choose.

Stream- Student View
Here you can see on the student view-that the student has received all the announcements on their stream. And you can see that I have opened it up so that the student can comment on all of the posts. They do that and click the arrow and it will show up. It also shows up with their name and the time they completed it. They can click on the link to access the information. They are staying inside of their Google Classroom. They can go back to where they were. Also they have the option of copying the link if they need to put it somewhere else. This also gives the ability of the students to chat amongst themselves inside of these posts if you have it set up. And ask questions about the announcements or activities. This is what the student stream view will look like.

Classwork
Now we are going to focus on C for Classwork. This is by far the most important tab for the students and organization for the teacher to know where all the activities are. Under the class work you can see that you have a create button. You also have your Meet link, Google Calendar, and a class drive that are all links that will be helpful to you. In this section of Google Classroom you can say that it's to assign work to your class you can create assignments and questions, use topics to organize class into modules or units (which is very important for organization and so the students can find what they need. And also in this one you have the option to order it so actually drag items up and down they way that you would want to add them. So what you are going to do is click “Create” here. You can see we have options-trying to figure out what is the best option for us. The first one is an assignment, which means the student will have to complete it and turn it in. Next, you have a quiz assignment, which will focus on a Google Form, um, also if you are using a chromebook i t will lock it down for the student so that they can’t go outside to get answers. Next, you have a question that you just post inside of Google Classroom that will show up students and they can answer it, interactive question. Next, is just material, maybe there is a certain resource that you want the students to read or uh lesson page that you want them to have. You can just give them materials that go along with yours. Next, we have “reuse” post. Next, if you use your class or co-teachers in different spots you can reuse a post. Last but not least, you have topic. Topic is the way you are going to sort activities, especially now with distance learning. It might be good us your topics by dates so the students know what activities and assignments are due on certain dates. So we are going to go to “Create an Assignment”. We will have to “title” my assignment. Now, you can see that they have added a rubric piece into the grading option so that you can also add that to your activity. Here I am going to title it. I am going to give instructions for the students. I can add a link here from my Google Drive, a hyperlink, file, or YouTube Video -just like you could on your announcements. Or I can actually create something that I want them to use inside of this. You can see you have all your Google (apps) Forms, Sheets, Drawings, Slides, and Docs. You can actually create to go inside of it. Here you have a link, If I was going to get the students a link and I wanted something from my drive- and I wanted them to have their own copy- there are three options for this. When I do this, I can hit “add” and here you can see when I add it (then) it says “students can view this file” that just means all the students have access to this file. And you can see what's on it but cannot write on it. If I want the students to collaborate and write on it I can give students the option to edit but that will give every student in the class the option to edit this file. Last but not least, I can make a copy for each student just like you would have worksheets. This would actually give them their own sheet for the students (where) they can interact and complete activities inside of it. Over to the right you'll see again the FOR where you can pick your classes. You can assign to multiple classes at a time.To the right you can make “FOR STUDENTS”. So maybe there are only certain students you want this activity to go for. You can choose it. You can see that the point value is there. Or I have the ability to check “UNGRADED”, where it will just give a checkmark if they have completed the activity. Down here I have a due date. I can pick any date on the calendar so that it will go through. I even have the ability to pick the time that I want it to go through. Next, I have a topic. This will become one of the most important things that you add. I suggest that you go to “create topic” and you give it a date. Where the topic or maybe an SOL that you want to use or any way that the students would know exactly what they are supposed to go to. Once again you have the ability to add a rubric if you choose one. You can create one, reuse one, or import one if you have it from sheets. The option here inside the Google Classroom. Now that you have all this information in now at the top you have the ability to assign. If I click this, it will immediately assign it to my students. If I click to the right I can “assign” it, I can “schedule” it, or I can “SAVE DRAFT”. Just like our options before. The last one you’ll see is “Discard draft”. If you get one in there and decide you didn’t want to do that activity you could go back and do it. So I am going to SCHEDULE this so it will go through. I pick the date and time for it to actually show up. This is great for test and assignments that the students are doing inside of the school. If I save the draft, I can find it in my list. You guys can see that it is here but it is gray. If it is gray then it hasn’t been assigned to the students yet. So that you know it is a draft, it says it over to the right. Then if you click the three dots, you have options to edit it or delete it because I haven’t given it to be available to the students. I hit edit and now I want to assign it to the students right now so I click assign. Then it will be available for the students. In the student view, it will show under their classwork and it will also post in the stream as an assignment. You can see this is an assignment, a condensed version of this. But if I was to click back up and go into my settings, I can click on “Show attachments and details”. And here is what the students will see which is great for me because I can also see who has turned it in and who hasn’t and who it is assigned to. If I go back to my classwork tab, I also have the ability to do “QUESTION”. This is a quick and easy way to ask a question. I type my question in here. I can get directions if I need to but you can see that this is an optional piece. Maybe there's an activity or a picture that I want them to use inside of this, I can add that right here or I can create something that goes along with it. Maybe a picture activity. Over to the right, you see my classes, next to it the students, if I'm going to grade- I’m not going to grade this- so I am going to check ungraded. Due date I want it by tomorrow and then also I’m not worried about time because that it optional. But I want to make sure that I have my date. Right here I have the option that “Students can reply to each other” and “Students can edit answers”. If I want them to be able to go back and edit there answer, maybe after they have watched a video, I can click here. But if I want them talk to each other or respond to each other then make sure this is checked. Here again you have options to “Ask” right now, “Schedule”, or “Save Draft” or “Discard” it. SO I want to make sure that it is in my post to ask now. Material and other items are also in there. If you wanted to reuse a post from another classroom, I can click “REUSE” post. I pick the class that I want to reuse the post from, I click on the link. And down here I can create new copies of all attachments if I have an attachments to it I can make new copies of it or I can assign exactly what it was and I hit reuse post. And now you can see it is in here. One thing that it doesn’t do is add a topic, because my topics might not be the same so I need to make sure that I “Create” topic that goes along with what we are working on. Then I want to assign it to my students. Here you can see the blue are the topics and below it are the assignments and activities that go along with it. If I change my mind and want to make sure that’s down with that activity that I can interact and change these back and forth so that they are adjusted. If I decide that I want that to go back upI click and drag up here. And any time that you want to edit, you click to the right.

Classwork- Student View
Here is the student view of the classwork tab. As you can see already in the classroom card, there are items and activities and when they are due there. They click into the classroom, click on classwork. You can see their topics are up at the top with all their activities below that go along with it. And all they have to do is click in. Up at the top, they also have a button that says “View my Work” so they can see it in that area. Plus, it will tell them what their grades and activities are over on the left hand side. To go back they click on the title and go back to the classwork tab.

People Tab
P is for People. Under the people tab, we can add teachers and students. There are several ways to do this, so let me show you how to do it. Once again, teachers are the most important. Having a collaborative teacher that you work with, also have access to your classroom, is a great resource. That brings me to my scavenger hunt word. My scavenger hunt word is TEAMWORK. When you have teamwork, you can do anything. So invite other teachers to participate with you in Google Classroom. Click on the little person and enter in the email address that you want to be attached and then you click down here where it says ”INVITE”. Remember that these teachers can do everything in the classroom. You can see it is grayed out right here but you can see they are invited. If I change my mind I can always click on the three dots, and I can email them to say “hey I have invited you to my class” or remove them fully from the class. Next, I have students. Remember you can also add kids by giving them your class code or you can click on the plus sign and find their email or type in their email as well. As you see I can invite him in my class but as you can see he is not able to join because he is already in my class. If I pick another student, and click on it and then I can invite them. You can see that when you invite them they will be grayed out, just like that. And then once they have accepted then they will be over here. If you give the students the class code then they will automatically be accepted into the class. Once a student is fully enrolled in the class, then you can invite the guardian of the student for the guardian summaries we have gone over earlier. And you can see that the email has been invited but it is still in acceptive mode from the parent, then the parent will have access to the information with out having to access the students’ Google Classroom. And that is our people tab!

People Tab- Student View
Here you can see the people tab in the student view. When the student clicks on people, It will have a list of the teachers, and the other students in the classroom for them.

Grades Tab
The last tab that we have is G is for Grades. As the teacher view, you have a gradebook page. This will list all your students out here and all the assignments and dates due. Plus allow you to enter in material. So I can see that I can enter in a grade for him here and it will calculate his grade here in it. Remember the grade setup by how you set up the settings in the beginning that we talked about on what will work for you. You also have the ability to grade inside of the activities once you click in. You can also grade in here where the activity is as well. Plus you can see any comments or notes that they have. Also, if any student has turned something in by accident, they not longer have access to it so you will need to return it to the student so that they can redo the activity. You can send them a private comment like “please look over the item” and return it back to them and now they have editing rights to that activity.

Thank You- The End
Thank you so much for attending the ABC’s and 123’s of Google Classroom training. I hope this training was helpful for you and you continue to take your adventure with Google Classroom to the next level. Thanks again!

Brainstorm 2020: The Magic Beneath the Surface of EdTech

by

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Presented by Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Stop, collaborate, and listen! Do not move away from a technology just because there is a new one and/or without fully exploring the tool. Many times the magic of edtech tools lies beneath the surface and is only discovered after users have explored, failed, and grown. Digging deeper alongside concepts such as “app smashing” creates all new worlds of possibilities! Come learn all about some of the magic beneath the surface of many popular EdTech tools, especially in the land of G Suite!!

Note: We are aware of some sound quality issues with the video due to internet and microphone limitations for the presenter. Please contact him directly at phausedu@gmail.com with any questions.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

Hey everybody, super excited to be with
you for the Magic Beneath the Surface of Edtech

presentation. This one being a
special G Suite edition. Hope you enjoy,

hope you learn, something, and on the
flipside connect with me anytime for

more help and diving deeper into a range
of edtech goodness. Welcome to the Magic

Beneath the Surface of Ed Tech. You'll see
a bit.ly on your screen that will get you

directly to this side deck. So if you
want to go ahead and pause for a second to

type that bitly into your address bar.
You'll be able to follow along with

the slide deck and hopefully jump into
the tools as I do as well. I am Patrick

Hausammann. I can be found at phausedu.com. I
can also be found at unisonedu.org,

which is my nonprofit I started to help
all schools in need of great

professional learning opportunities
at rates or even a free cost to make

sure they're moving forward with all
schools. You can also find me at PHausEDU

on Twitter and phausedu@gmail.com. You'll see a range of

different badges on your screen, know
that those are not there in any way to

boast or brag. I put all the different
things I've earned up there so you know

that I'm coming from a knowledgeable
base when I share with you. But also so

that you can get a really good idea of
what I could help you get to if there's

different certifications and badges you
want to get to, such as Google innovator

or Google Certified Trainer, Common-Sense
Ambassador, WeVideo ambassador or any of

those things you see. I'd be more than
happy to walk you through the process

that I took... help review applications and
help you get to that point. So what do I

mean by this magic beneath the
surface of edtech? Where is this magic?

What is this sorcery? I believe that many
times a magic of edtech tools lies

beneath the surface and is only
discovered after users have had an

adequate amount of time to explore, fail
learn, grow, discover, make connections, and

collaborate. It's not a instant dive in
and you

know everything about that tool. You need time
really play with it, fail, and grow from that

failure. To connect with others, collaborate
with others to do great things with

edtech. Simply because an edtech tool
isn't the latest one released doesn't

mean it isn't the best or just as
capable as another. You don't want to

instantly jump on the bandwagon of new
tools just because they're new and shiny.

Look at those old tools... see if you can
think of an awesome new way to use that

and does just this great if not a
greater thing than the new tech cool.

That doesn't mean don't try new things
but make sure that tools you're

comfortable with and the tools that your
students are comfortable with need to be

changed in order to do something else is
great. If they already know it and have

mastered it use the one that you know
they know to do the amazing things with.

With all of that said G suite is the first
area that we're going to jump into and

the main area for this presentation. So
get ready and I hope you learn a lot

about G Suite. There is a ton of awesome
stuff within the land of G Suite. It truly

is quite "suite." You'll notice on this
slide you have a lot of different links

through a lot of the different areas of
G Suite but by no means is this

everything. We have other things like
Google Keep that have phenomenal

resources and awesome uses they're just
not in this presentation. You'll notice

that we have links down the left hand
side and we also have two presentations that

are linked on the right side with the
images. One for Tips and Tricks and Just

Plain Cool stuff in G Suite and one
for All the Things You Didn't Know Google

Slides Could Do. We'll touch on some of
the things in those & if you want to learn even more

about G Suite than what is linked on the
left,

check out those slides as well. I will go
ahead and jump out of the slide deck and

we'll bounce through some of the tools. I'll
walk you through some of the awesome

stuff and then we'll come back to this slide
deck and make sure you have that bit.ly

one more time because there's
another thirty some slides in this side

deck. They go well outside of the land of
G Suite into a ton of awesome and edtech

tools.
So the first thing that we're going to

explore is Google Chrome itself.
So you'll notice as I go down down through

some of the tabs I have open, one of the
big places start is a Chrome Web Store.

The Chrome Web Store is where you can get
different extensions and themes but the

powerful one of those two is the
extensions . They will let you do a

ton of different things that aren't
inherently built into Google Chrome. For

instance, if I scroll it down just
slightly you're gonna notice there is an

extension for Kami. Kami will let you open
PDFs that you have within Google Drive

and annotate them in a range of
different ways. My internet going a

little slow, we should have a preview on
the screen but you can see that's not

loading up for me. There we go,
so what it does is allow you to annotate

via highlighting via text boxes and a range of
other ways for free. There are a couple

freemium pieces. One of the things I
always recommend with this store is to check

the overview. Check the different things
that give you an idea of what it does

here as far as they'll be some images or
maybe some videos and also jump over to

the reviews see what the reviews are
saying. What I would recommend is

changing this helpful to recent so that
you see the most current reviews not

necessarily just the ones that are
skewed towards a good side. Check this

new one and see what people are saying
right now with a side note of making sure

you read through a decent number. Don't
just take the first full negative ones as the

truth because students are actually
getting smart enough, & in some cases adults as

well, they will go in & bash the comments with
tons of negatives to try and get it to not

be approved to use. So make sure you read a decent
amount just like you would if you're

online shopping. When you want it and are
ready to use it, just click on the add to

Chrome and it'll join some of the
extensions you may already have up

because at your district side your
school can actually push the extensions

so you may well have some things that
come out there that will that you

use them without you having to install
them. One of the biggest resources I'm

going to share here comes from one of
my friends and UnisonEDU team

member, Denise Henry Orndorff and she
has made this periodic table of Google

extensions and you'll see there are a
ton of different extensions. By no

means is this all of them but you'll see
different things like EasyBib that'll

help you cite resources or help your
students cite sources. Things like share to

classroom that will let you put just about
any resource, link it directly in the

classroom without opening classroom or
using something else. There's things like

Screencastify that you'll see down here
at the bottom that is actually a

screencasting tool that I'm using right now
to record this video. There are ton of

different other ones like Mercury Reader
that will help take all the distractions

away from an article so you can read it
clearly. Check out a ton of these

different extensions, check out the
Chrome Web Store, do some Google searches...

there's a ton of the things being
shared out there. Know that the way

Google Chrome operates on the surface is
very far shy of what it can actually do.

So make sure you dig a little deeper on
Chrome. Some of the other things we're

going to look at are different instant
searches that you can do. If you've not

been to ControlAltAcheive.org, I'm sorry, .com. It's Eric Curts'

website he puts tons of awesome
resources up. The one that I'm going to show

you right now briefly is 20 instant
searches your kids need to know or your

students should know. Instant searches are those
things they type in the address bar or

the URL bar and they will instantly do
things for you without you having to

click more things. One of those is as
simply as typing "flip a coin."

Google will automatically then put a coin on your screen so you can flip it.
Y ca do a quick heads or tails type activity.

Maybe you're looking at probability...
It'll come up saying preparing to

flip and when you click it it'll flip it
and of course you can click it multiple

times you continue to flip. Some of
the other things that

are within the blog post and there's
actually a second companion blog post to

this as well but you can do things like
roll a die, quickly get definitions,

check the time, particularly in different
countries by saying what time is it in

this place, one of the ones a lot of our
elementary teachers use and even

secondary is the timer function. They'll
type in something like 15-minute timer

for their stations. It'll automatically
load the page with the timer you see,

start it counting down, and you'll notice
there's a small volume option there

that'll let you control whether or not
that makes sound when that and runs down.

You have calculator options, things all
the way up through and including

calculating the area of shapes,
calculating the volume of shapes, even

going as far as graphing equations. So
just the search bar within Google Chrome

itself gives you a lot more than
literally just typing in a website or

doing a search for something that you
then have to dig deeper. There's a lot of

things you can instantly find out if you
dig a little bit deeper than that

surface level. So check out these, go to
ControlAltAchieve.com and check out

the companion posts. It's going to give you
a lot more things that you can search

for and instantly get the things you
need. You can see there's also some

keyboard shortcuts and using different
users in Google Chrome. Definitely things

if you use Chrome for a lot on the
personal side and work side I would

check those things out so that you get a
really good idea of all the different

things Chrome can do for you. As we come down,
the next thing we're going to look at is

Google Drive. We won't do a ton in Google
Drive but the first thing that I want to

look at is actually using emojis. There's
a couple different ways that you can use

emojis If we come into Google Drive
itself,

you'll notice as I scroll down I have
one emoji up next to the name of a

folder and that helps me really quickly
find it and be able to pick it out of

the list of all the other folders. I've
shared this with different students as

well and it really helps them find
things in the maze of all the other

things listed in their Drive. Adding
emojis into those things is

very easy to do.
if I right-click on the file or the

folder, I'm just going to go into rename and
you'll see I can type in this I can do

whatever. What I'm actually going to do is
hop over to a different website for

emoji pedia and we'll just do something
quick and easy. We'll search for smile

and you can choose which one that you
might want go ahead and click on it and

it will tell you, which is nice about
this website, what that [emoji] represents but it

also gives you this quick and easy copy
button. So I'm going to snag that, come back

to my tab, and then I can just paste it
in like I would anything else. The

important part here is that you paste
it after the title or after the name of

the document. If you put it beforehand
it's actually going to break up the

alphabetical order and put it up towards
the top like you added a number at the

beginning. So make sure you put it after
and then you just hit OK and it's going to

be right in there. You could do
the same thing if I was in an open Doc.

I could easily hit that copy and paste and go
ahead and paste it right into my

document. If I click on the title you notice that this
one already has a couple in it. Very cool

stuff, really helps students find those
things. What you want to make sure of on

your side and also likely on the
students side is that you've cautioned

them to not add too many. If every folder
in their Drive or every file in their Drive

has emojis, it's not going to help them
find anything. Another really cool thing

that you can do with emojis within
Google itself as far as in a Doc, if I

come into my document if I just want
an emoji anywhere I can come up to insert,

go special characters, and in the
drop-down (it's usually gonna be on

symbol) but you can choose a emoji and you
have an emoji library there you can

insert things directly into your
documents. You can even try your hand at

drawing the symbol for the emoji. You'll
be able to find it on the screen and

insert it directly into your Doc.
Another thing that you can do that's

cool is customize your bullet points. So
if I click on the bullet point twice [slowly] and

I'm going to right click on more
bullets and you'll see I'm right into

that insert special characters again. I
can choose and I can make any emoji that

bullet point and if I hit enter to add
another one it's gonna be that same

emoji. Cool stuff and stuff that really
captures students attention and makes it

a little bit more exciting than just
another bulleted list.

Side note of different projects you
might be able to do as well as far as

something one of our teachers does is
recreating the Bill of Rights

written completely in emojis. As we
come through and look at our document a

little more, popping back quickly to the
slide deck, you're going to see there's other

things here like shortcuts, work spaces,
and different apps that you can bring in.

Just like other things in the land of
Google if I go to new and more I'm going to

see all of those other things I do like Forms, Drawings, Sites, and

different apps I connected into my Drive
to other things, for instance like WeVideo

allows me to edit different videos,
Jamboard is a another piece that allows

me to do whiteboard type things in the
land of Google, with Beautiful Audio Editor I

can edit audio in Google Drive which is
not a capability it normally has. But if

I scroll to the very bottom of this list,
and again, I'm in "Create," then "More," then at

very bottom "connect more apps." I will
have an app library that I can search

down through and install things. A lot of
these including this apps for as well as

extensions need to be enabled by your G
Suite administrator to allow you to

install them. A lot of times this is disabled
for students and left on for teachers

but if you get to this and it doesn't
let you install anything, connect with

your administrator to get that turned on.
Those are some cool things that you can

do just in Drive a little bit within Docs.
If we come down through we're going to go

ahead and jump right into Docs and
keep rolling on quickly through our

different things. So in the land of Docs, you'll notice I closed a tab I needed. Quick tip,
control+shift+T will open the last tab

closed and, say it was five tabs ago, just
hit control+shift+t five times & it'll

instantly bring back those five tabs in
the order that I closed them. If I look at

this, I also have add-ons within Docs, which
are really cool. So if I come into

"add-ons" and then click on where it says
"get add-ons" that's going to let me

explore again on another store full of
different things that add increased

function and capability to Google Docs.
So it's going give you different options

that allow you to do things like
bibliography work with EasyBib. It's

going to give you maybe Math Type to let
you type different things within the

realm of equations... things like that.
There's also a great accessibility

add-on that you can use Called Grackle Docs
that will scan through your Doc & give

you suggestions on how you can approve
it for accessibility. Well, you'll notice

I have a fairly small scroll bar which
tells me I have a lot of

different things I can check out in
there. These will not slow down your

machine at all but something I should
have mentioned when I talked about

extensions is you want to make sure you
don't install too many as extensions can

slow down your machine. I would also
recommend... you'll see a small yin-yang

symbol at the top right in my screen.
That is Extensity. That's will let you

toggle on and off extensions that you
use or install. So if you need it right

now you can just click it turn it on, if
you don't need it it's okay to turn it

off so it's not using those system
resources. Another thing in Docs that I

want to show you is within the "Tools"
menu. If I click on that I can click on

preferences and these will allow you to
customize different things that Google

does for you. By clicking on the
substitutions tab I could type something

like Haus, like you'll see down here at
the bottom, and it will type my last name

instead. If you consistently spell a word
wrong you could type in the one that you

usually type it as and set it to auto
correct something else. You'll see this

is where the things like the fractions
that autocorrect themselves. Those are

pre-programmed things by Google. You'll
see the copyright symbol, the trademark

symbol, those are all things already
there but you can add your own just by

typing them in at the top, hitting the okay
button and it will automatically

substitute for you and make that a
preference that goes forward with you in

your Docs.
Another thing that I'll touch on here in

Docs and then we're going to jump out and
keep rolling through is for instance if

I highlight this it's going tell me that
that font is Arial. Maybe I want it to be a

different font instead and maybe I want that
to be my headings font for the end of

time in Doc's or at least in this
Doc. If I click on the drop down we'll

see Heading 3, I can click on update heading
3 to match so that is going to make it so

in this Doc alone that is going to be
any time I do heading 3 it's going to look

exactly like that. If I want to apply it
globally to Doc's I could come down to

options and save it as my default styles.
Which is going to mean anytime I use head

three any time in Docs from here into
the future it's gonna look exactly like

that. So, if you want a different normal
text so that when you open the Doc it's a

font other than Arial 11 you can program
that in the exact same way. We're going

to keep rolling down through our
different things and we're gonna skip a

couple of these but I'm going to hit on
Slides first and notice you have this

other slide deck "All The Things You
Didn't Know You Could Do With Slides," so

if I pop that open and I'm going to to do a
quick scroll through because we're

actually short on I'm already. But if you
check it out you're going have different

sections: "General Awesomeness" which tells
you how to do different things like

customize the slide side size, how do you
bring in images, auto type or speak to type your

speaker notes via your voice, different
transitions and things you can do,

format options, and as you come down
through... There's some simple things your students can do

like applying gradient backgrounds,
different things like the

re-emergence of "Word Art" within the land
of Google but as I come down through

there's a next section that is "Next
Level Awesomeness." That's going

to show you how to edit things like the
master slide, how to do things like word

sorts, different add-ons that you can use
in Google slides, and know that there's

add-ons in Forms and as well as Google
Sheets as well so check those out when

you're in those apps. But as we come down
through you'll see there's different

things that walk you through or give you
a template on how to do things like word

sorts, how do I add add-ons, what about
social media templates (things like

Instagram templates, things like Facebook
all of those different things... maybe even

some new tic toc ones that are coming
out), how can you use those in a safe way

without maybe jumping into the app
itself. Different infographics, how to do

stop motion animation, choose your own
adventures, magnetic poetry, even a thing

that comes from Micah Shippee on how you can
teach your students how to create an app

within Slides. So, please don't think that
Slides is just the presentation tool. I

can just do a PowerPoint but I'll do it
in Slides. Slides can do so much more...

It can be your newsletter with a custom
page size. You can design

full-size posters by making the slide
size 24 by 36, save it as a PDF, and send

it to the publisher to print out. Its a
ton of different things you can do so

don't discount it as just the
presentation tool. There's a ton of

different things in there including what
I didn't touch on is a sweet way that

you can do a magic reveal by playing
with the ordering of an levels of

pictures, images, & texts that are on your
slide. Really cool stuff that you can

check out. I'll touch on a couple of
these things briefly without necessarily

touching out of the slideshow much but
in Sheets think of things like pixel art...

and there's a ton of different resources
on Eric Curts' website including things

about pixel art. Things like doing "Battle
Sheets" and you'll see right here a

template for 20 color pixel art
template as well as pixel art activities

for any subject with any grade. But it
gives you a really great idea of ways

that you can use Slides [meant Sheets] that are
different or cheats that are different

than just typing in formulas and numbers.
Getting the students really comfortable

with something like Sheets that will
then allow you to work your way into

those numbers formulas and things. Give
them comfortable, fun things to do in

school before you jump into that a
little bit heavier things to do in

Sheets. Something else that's really cool
is that you can actually translate

things within Google Sheets. On Jake
Miller's, JakeMiller.net, his website, he

actually gives you an animated EduGif
here that shows you how to do this

within Google Sheets where you can have
it translate into different languages

just by typing in the right formula and
then filling downward. And it's going to

translate those things in different ways
for you. Really cool kind of trick or

hack that I didn't even know about but
is really simple to do and could be a

game changer in your classroom with your
kids.

One of the last things I'll touch on is
flippity.net. This does a ton of

different things with Sheets and they
give you Demos, instructions, and

templates for just about every one from
things like scavenger hunts, quiz games,

random name pickers... You can actually make tournament boards or brackets, badge makers,

also word puzzles, bingo, hangman,
certificates... tons of different things

that all use easy to follow instructions
and templates and utilize Google Sheets.

As we continue down our list and get
towards the bottom here there's a lot of

cool things you can check out with Forms.
One of the biggest things I like about

it is creating basically really easy to
create digital break outs that use

something like Google Forms with the
verification side turned on. There's

directions in a slide deck there for you
as well as playing with the confirmation

message by embedding some sort of
enrichment activity in there via a link so

that when students finish whatever quiz
or activity breakout they're doing

there's one more added wrinkle that they
can get to and add something fun on. I

also like a thing that Tom Mullaney
posted about an "impossible to fail quiz."

If students get it wrong that form will
then branch them to more help, & have them

answer the question again. So think of it
a way that they can do a quiz but review

at the same time. Really sweet stuff!
The last thing we'll touch on this slide

is Google Drawings and the only one I'm
going to touch on on this one is what

Eric Curts calls a "Googlink." Which makes
it very similar to if you've used Thinglink.

This is what it is but made in the realm
of Google. You can create a Google

Drawing and this will walk you through a
hundred percent of the steps of how to

do it. You can embed links& pictures. You
can even use a hack that is listed on

the slide to bring in an image or sorry
a video within Google Drawings, something

you typically can't do. But watch that
link and you'll know how to do it fairly

quickly. But what it [the Googlink"] allows you to do is
embed everything in one spot, use the

published URL, and then you basically
have a one-stop shop

for all your students that they could
link into different websites, their

different activities, they could watch a
video answer questions from the Google

Form... anything that you can link in you
can bring into the "Googlink" & have it

in one spot. This actually is a good
segue and a touch point to something I

didn't touch on up in the top part here
and that is Hyper Docs. It's a way to

package your lesson all in one spot that
is linked on the slide as well if you

look at HyperDocs.co you'll get
tons of information there. Think of it as

an amazing way to engage your students,
give them all kinds of activities and

awesome things to do, and also bring them
around to some sweet reflection at the end.

That's where we're going head right now.
At the end of the slide deck you're

actually going to see a slide that'll be
an evaluation link. Please do that. Give

me some feedback. Let me know how it went.
I know it went fast but remember too

this is a video so you can go back and
pause and re-watch anytime.

And also check out some of the many different sections like Flipgrid,

Adobe Spark, Wakelet... & tons of
others that are linked in. The bit.ly is

back on your screen for a moment here so
you can grab that if you missed it at

the beginning. And I'll also bring up my
contact information so you'd have that

one more time.
Please contact me anytime, it doesn't matter

if it's today when you watch this, a week
from now, or a year from now, send me

questions and act to collaborate any
time. We'll make great things happen with

our students and last thing that I would
ask you to do is towards the very bottom.

And I'll leave you with this to repeat...
please place your

hand on a keyboard when you do so. Give your permission self permission to dive deep

into edtech to check out the magic down below
by reciting the oath but remember the

last part of connecting with a loved one or
a friend that can bring you out of that

rabbit hole if you dive too deep or go
for just simply too long. Thank you guys!

Really enjoy being with here with
you, wish we're in person but love that

we could do it virtual, if nothing
else. Thanks!

Brainstorm 2020: 6ft Apart, Lessons from Sick at School

by

<-- Back to conference page

Presented by Katherine Fielding, Woodbridge Senior High School, Prince William County Schools

For years disabled students have been asking for accessibility accommodations and improvements in homebound learning. Let's take lessons learned in doing remote learning during the corona crisis to inform our practice moving forward in working with chronically-ill students in the homebound setting to provide limitless learning.

Session note sheet

Certificate of attendance form

Transcript

Hi. I'm Katie Fielding a tech coach in Prince WilliamCounty Virginia. Thank you for taking some time today to spend with me to learn how we can really help our students move through this covided 19 crisis. I'm going to share some lessons from my experience at Stick at school and how we can all learn that six feet apart life even in education, it's going to be okay.

So I was born with cystic fibrosis but I love school and you can see in this picture that I was totally feeling my graduation. And I think all of us, a lot of teachers we love school and we're probably really missing it right now and there's a lot of students that are missing it too.

But just because we don't have a building to go to right now doesn't mean that we don't have a school. The school is the people. So we can all still connect with one another. We can all still learn from one another and we can move forward during this time.

So as I said, I was born with cystic fibrosis. This is the genetic lung disease; means that the lungs fill up with thick sticky mucus and over time it makes it harder and harder to breathe. You can see my dad really excited about giving me my breathing treatment in this photo.

I was diagnosed at your age one and at the time I was diagnosed my life expectancy was supposed to be about 12 years. Fortunately I've exceeded that and because I've exceeded that it's been really important that I had an education. So education even for chronically ill students that may not have a lifespan is really important because medicine is getting better every day and now here I am sitting talking to you at age 38 and if I had not been able to have an education, I might not be able to to afford my lifestyle as someone with a disability.

So, I love school and, I I loved it and I just wanted to always be there but sometimes I couldn't because I would be sick. And starting about sixth grade I started going into the hospital yearly or every six months for two to three week periods. And in those times, I would be in isolation.

So I can say that if I as someone in sixth grade can make it in isolation with two TV channels that we're all going to be pretty okay through these few months with all the ways we have to communicate and all the ways we have to collaborate with one another now.

In this photo you can see I'm at a Christmas party, but this isn't just a normal Christmas party. This is actually a hospital Christmas party for \kids with CF. They no longer have these anymore because when I was 14 years old, they discovered that my bacteria and my lungs could affect someone else with the bacteria in their lungs and we could cross contaminate one another.

Some bacterias are far worse than others. So they found that at times like this through the Christmas parties and summer camps that we had that we were all passing bacteria back and forth. So once sixth grade started, and there was no more camps there were no more Christmas parties, we all had to live by six feet apart rules, so even any fundraising events for cystic fibrosis, we all had to stay six feet apart.

Whenever I would go in the hospital, I'd have to be an isolation, um, so this is something that I've been living with over half my life down this six feet apart life so I can tell you that we're all gonna be okay after the initial impact we're all gonna find ways that we can still connect with one another the education can move forward and even maybe be transformed by this situation.

I hope that in this time that you'll understand that we can all. Make the best of this situation just like the CF community's been doing for the past 20 years. The CF community has a super strong online presence and we are super connected so just because we can't be and the proximity of one another doesn't mean that we don't have bonds that are super strong. And we all know that relationships with our students are really important so just because we can't see our students face to face doesn't mean that we can't create bonds with them.

So as I said, I was really fortunate to be able to have a great educational experience here. I am studying abroad. I'm in Europe and then I was even able to go on and I'm now finishing my 16th year of my education career. So nationwide there are 32 million students with chronic illness in our country many of those will go through periods of time where they're on homebound instruction.

These students have a unique situation in which they're vasculating between three different places the hospital, the home, and school. The hospitals in just a place they're necessarily going for appointments, but you also understand they're also a lot of stresses involved with going there traumatic chronic traumatic stress from ongoing medical procedures is actually a new area of emotional mental health that's being studied and I think we're all probably experiencing some of that chronic persistent traumatic stress right now in COVID-19.

And the home while it is a safe place for many people, um. People with chronic illness may not have a supportive family structure around that illness and some of them, you know, may have other concerns like money due to the stress that chronic illness can cause so there can be a lot of issues going on in the home as well and then they're also trying to manage school so students with chronic illness have three separate places that they're trying to manage and there are definitely ways we as teachers can help those students.

So how can we say some of these lessons these things from working with chronically ill students that I've talked to teachers about over the years and how can they help we apply them to everyone with during this COVID-19 time and beyond. So as I said students with chronic illness manage three spaces the hospital the home and school and I think we're all kind of managing three spaces now.

So we're all managing the wellness space. Maybe it's not a hospital maybe you have a relative with COVID-19 or a friend or you're just trying to keep yourself safe. And then the home which has become a much bigger space because that's where we're spending all of our time.

And finally school, which is now primarily online for every student. So how can we make managing these three different spaces a student's wellness our wellness is teachers? A student's home our homes as teachers and as students school in our school online. How can we manage that through this time?

So the first thing I would recommend and highly press is flexibility. Be flexible for yourself as a teacher being flexible with your students during this time is the number one most important thing. I could stress. So how do we want to be flexible modify assignments So something I tell teachers working with homebound students is this student may only need the essential assignments.

I know there are lots of things that we as teachers think are essential but it's really time to get down to the nuts and both of what is the core thing that my students need to do to learn what I want them to learn. There are a lot of great assignments but sometimes during these times we need to just pair it down.

So make sure you're modifying assignments and making them attainable for students while they're in the home environment. Also modifying time. So we want to make it so that students can do their work when they have access to the internet. They may be sharing a home computer they maybe having to pay for data on their phones.

Let's just be mindful that students may have some limitations during this time. And we also want to make sure that we are using these opportunities to keep students connected to the classroom. Just like I said the CF community, even though we have are now 20 years into not being in the same space with one another we have super strong connections.

And there's some really great ways that we can do this. One we can have offer students synchronous opportunities. So using Google Meat using any platform that your district approves of to have those face-to-nice connections. Now, I would stress this isn't the time for new direct instruction. This should be time for students to connect for you to connect with your students for questions not anything new because by making it synchronous and putting it in a specific time, you're maybe blocking students out that can't come during that time.

Maybe they're responsible now for watching siblings. As their parents are working or maybe again, they're sharing the computer. So making synchronous opportunities various, various times in the day can help as well as making these synchronous opportunities completely optional and just something for support and not again any new direct instruction.

We want that direct instruction to come during asynchronous times, times that are available for students to get it on their own. So use a tool like screencastify screencastomatic to record your lecture of new material. That way student can watch it at 2am or 2pm. I mean, let's be honest a lot of high schoolers are up at 2am.

Making it flexible so that they can do it when works for them. It's gonna be especially important as students become sick with COVID-19 and have periods of weeks of where they're not able to work because they're not well. Allowing making it asynchronous allows those students to catch up just like we want homebound students to have the flexibility to catch up and be on their time schedule.

Also, we want to make sure that we're providing asynchronous opportunities for that connection. So use something like a Flipgrid to have students just connect with you in a social way can be really important for the social emotional well-being of both the teacher and the student during this time.

And again we want people we want to really help students piece it together. So make sure you are keeping all of your assignments, you know be it makeup work or new work in one space, whatever, you know your school designates try and make that uniform between all the teachers that way students know exactly where to go.

So if your school hasn't been using something like a CanvasLMS or Google classroom LMS, this is the time to really get together and I'll be unified on where you're putting work that way students know the one place to go. Also, make sure as a teacher that you're putting everything there.

It's also isn't a great time this end of the year to start using new tools you haven't before. Not only do you have to navigate the tool but, the student has to so while we may see all of these great deals and a freemium options offered by a lot of ed tech companies it's best to just pause and not dive into all of those.

Maybe dive into one or two but when you start throwing tons of new things that students it's gonna be really confusing and hard for them and their parents to navigate. So remember keeping it together online is gonna be a really super helpful thing for teachers and students both throughout this time but we want to make sure that we're doing that with a little heart.

So keeping the communication open keeping opportunities for building relationships, it's gonna be really important. Because empathy is the heartbeat of everything we do I went to teaching not because I love science which I do and I was a science teacher and I loved it but I wanted to connect with students and either make them love science or just make them love learning in general.

So the content that we teach is important but the way we do it and the relationships we build with these students is also important. We have to remember that for a lot of these students that are out now. School is their sanctuary, School is their safe place. So being able to provide these students with some empathy and some emotional stability and maybe an emotional place to go even online is really important.

You know, the CF community we haven't been able to interact physically, but we are there for eachother emotionally online. And it is okay to step away from that at times as a person I've stepped away from the CF community for periods of time from my own emotional well-being so I'd say as a teacher it's okay to pace your empathy and your your access to students to take care of yourself because this is gonna be a marathon for us through COVID-19, tt's not a race. So if you need to take periods of time, the evenings the weekends and mark those as your time, that is important and that is okay. You do not have to be a teacher 24/7 now just because we're at home.

Again, I think we it all goes back to why we became teachers and we became teachers because we care and we love to share knowledge.

So if we keep that at the heart of what we do moving forward and push aside a lot of these things that that may feel overwhelming right now like grades and test scores. We're able to push those aside and get to the core of what we do. I think there can be some real cool innovation in education coming up.

Brainstorm 2020: Welcome From Dr. James Lane

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A welcome message from Dr. James Lane, Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction

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hello and welcome to brainstorm twenty twenty thank you for visiting and all of the partners for making this possible over the next few days and thank you for engaging in your professional development in this innovative way during what is absolutely a challenging time we so appreciate the work of all of our educators staff members cafeteria workers bus drivers they're keeping our students safe and well fed through this time we also thank our instructional leaders for continuing to move instruction for it in a way that will be meaningful to our students while thinking about equity to make sure that we're not leaving any students behind during this critical time so again this spring storm is an opportunity for you to continue to grow so that we can continue to develop new and innovative ways to DO instruction thank you so much for being a part of this on behalf of all educators in the Commonwealth

Brainstorm 2020: Limitless Learning

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Brainstorm logo

The FREE virtual Brainstorm 2020: Limitless Learning Conference is full of over 25 different presenters and sessions. The sessions focus on a tool, concept, or project as well as resources to aid each session in yielding a takeaway that you can implement right away.

Sessions will begin going live the week of April 27, 2020 with new videos each day of the week culminating on May 1, 2020! Spotlight sessions will launch as well featuring Chey Cheney, Katie Fielding, James Lane, Jake Miller, Phil Strunk, & Pav Wander!

Don’t miss the premier FREE professional learning event of spring 2020 all launched from this page.

Be sure to watch as many of the videos as you can. You don’t want to miss the hidden words and your chance to win the grand prize by solving the scavenger hunt anagram! Don’t forget to use the #vstebrainstorm20 hashtag in all your tweets to be eligible for the most conference tweets prize!

A welcome message from Dr. James Lane, State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Monday, April 27

Spotlight

6ft Apart, Lessons from Sick at School (14:50)
For years disabled students have been asking for accessibility accommodations and improvements in homebound learning. Let's take lessons learned in doing remote learning during the corona crisis to inform our practice moving forward in working with chronically-ill students in the homebound setting to provide limitless learning.
Presenter: Katherine Fielding, Woodbridge Senior High School, Prince William County Schools

ABC's and 123's of Google Classroom (38:55)
Transform your elementary classroom to a paperless oasis with the use of Google Classroom and G Suite functions. During this introduction, we will examine the basics of the operating the learning management system and how to personalize it for your use in the classroom. This class will allow hand on experience to investigate and mange Google classroom, as a teacher and a student.
Presenter: Heather Lupton, Technology Integration Coach, Warren County

Google Expeditions: From Consumer to Creator (13:37)
This session will walk you through how to cost effectively use Google Expeditions in the classroom and then will show you how to create your own expedition using Google Tour Creator.
Presenter: Scott Lewis, Instructional Technology Coach, Frederick County Public Schools

Purposeful Planning for iPads in the Classroom (16:11)
How are your PK-5 students using the iPads in your classroom? Are iPads a toy or a tool? Join us as we explore ways to plan for student iPad usage in the classroom. BONUS: Tips and tricks to keep students on task with the iPad.
Presenter: Karen Griffin and Tiffany Cobbs, Instructional Technology Coaches, Newport News Public Schools

Remaining Aloft in the Twitterverse (20:13)
You’ve taken flight and your Professional Learning Network has grown with Twitter. Now you’re ready to take the next steps! In this session, we’ll look at how to become an advanced user by learning about Twitter's filters and analytics, scheduling tweets with third-party apps such as Buffer and TweetDeck, and get the 411 on Twitter Chats!
Presenter: Darcie Priester, Instructional Technology Resource Teacher, Manassas Park City Schools

The Magic Beneath the Surface of EdTech (27:40)
Stop, collaborate, and listen! Do not move away from a technology just because there is a new one and/or without fully exploring the tool. Many times the magic of edtech tools lies beneath the surface and is only discovered after users have explored, failed, and grown. Digging deeper alongside concepts such as “app smashing” creates all new worlds of possibilities! Come learn all about some of the magic beneath the surface of many popular EdTech tools, especially in the land of G Suite!!
Presenter: Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Tuesday, April 28

Spotlight

Two Ways to Get Into a Swimming Pool (17:46)
Through story, I encourage people to be more daring and I invite people to reflect on their past and the past I share with them to recall moments of daring and how to recapture those feelings and transfer them to new situations—ones that require daring and creativity. There are two ways to get into a pool- to dip our toes in the water or to leap...
Presenter: Evan Robb, principal, Johnson-Williams Middle School, Berryville

Google Tips and Tricks (27:38)
Google's GSuite is used in many schools and is used well in most cases. This presentation shows you little tips and tricks in order to better use Google at work and at school with your students. Most, if not all of these tricks may help you keep things a little better organized in your classrooms or at least give you new ideas on how to plan lessons.
Presenter: Chad Fisher, Instructional Technology Coach, James Wood High School, Frederick County Public Schools

Awesome Annotations and Note-taking for Digital Natives (36:43)
Learning how to read, take notes and annotate text is an important skill all our students need to truly understand stories, articles, and website. Digital annotation is a skill which our students need to be taught and learned over time to master. Come learn with us all the ways to annotate and take notes on any digital medium such as pdfs, websites, and documents with easy to use and free tools available to you. Annotation has never been this FUN!
Presenter: Joe Marquez, Education Strategist, Sons of Technology

Mixing and Remixing With #GoOpenVA: Ten Ideas for Using OER (24:41)
#GoOpenVA, Virginia's repository of Open Education Resources (OER), offers a wide variety of materials for teachers and students from complete textbooks to individual lesson ideas. Because they are "open," users can use them but also, and here's the powerful part, remix them to meet their specific needs. This presentation will show how remixing can open opportunities for student creativity.
Presenters: Karen Richardson, Executive Director, Virginia Society for Technology in Education; Jean Weller, Virginia Department of Education

Authentic Learning! Technology Can Help With This! (22:05)
Authentic learning helps students understand the real-world connections to what they are learning, they are more likely to be engaged and less likely to question the significance of classroom learning. Technology helps to bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world by providing access to information in a variety ways and through different perspectives. We will look at examples of authentic learning experiences and the way technology can support these experiences.
Presenter: Tim Taylor, Instructional Technology Supervisor, Shenandoah County Public Schools

#AppsDays (38:18)
There are many ways for a teacher to spend the summer and, as many of us know, it often involves a good amount of work. In the summer of 2018, two educators finalized an idea to start classes off in a very different way. #AppDays would start the school year off with relationship building through using #Hyperdocs to learn and use numerous apps such as Canva, Flipgrid, Powtoon, Screencastify, and a second #Hyperdoc focusing on GSuite aka “GSweet.” Come check it out!
Presenter: Phil Strunk, History Teacher, Clarke County Public Schools; Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Wednesday, April 29

Spotlight

Educational Duct Tape: an EdTech Integration Mindset (30:43)
In a multi-session, content-rich, idea-filled conference like this one, educators can fall into the trap of “paradox of choice,” which often keeps educators from integrating *any* of their newly learned skills. In this session, Jake will share about how “Educational Duct Tape” can help educators overcome this paradox. Learn how Jake’s silly metaphor can be used as an #edtech integration mindset in your instruction, tomorrow!
Presenter: Jake Miller, Technology Integration Specialist, Orange City School District

Digging into Google Forms (24:07)
This session will show participants the key features of Google Forms and how they can create a variety of activities such as quizzes, Choose your Own Adventure stories and Digital Breakouts.
Presenter: Darcie Priester, Instructional Technology Resource Teacher, Manassas Park City Schools

An introduction to building your own AR Sandbox (11:29)
Have you ever heard of an AR Sandbox? This unique tool provides various opportunities for student learning without the need of special glasses or headsets. The construction of a sandbox also presents an interesting way to promote cross curricular work among various departments as well. Learn how one high school managed to make their own AR Sandbox through cooperation, collaboration, and creativity and how you can make one too.
Presenter: Chad Fisher, Instructional Technology Coach, James Wood High School, Frederick County Public Schools

ThingLink: Making Ideas Pop! (27:57)
Do you have a need to package a presentation for large groups and taught by a wide-variety of trainers? Or do you need to provide a way for students to have independent learning? A ThingLink can be used to create school-wide presentations, an online module, or for a classroom of students. Really -- it's your imagination that will make anything possible!
Presenter: Jennifer Rowan, Director of Technology, Jefferson County Public Schools

Finding Balance and Joy in the Digital Age (29:07)
Join Karen Richardson and Margaret Sisler for a conversation about finding joy and balance in a sometimes overwhelming world. How do we make time for our own well being and deep relationships when we see the work that needs to be done and brings us its own joy? What role does technology play both positively and negatively in finding personal space?
Presenters: Karen Richardson, Executive Director, Virginia Society for Technology in Education; Margaret Sisler, School-Based Technology Specialist, Westfield High School, Fairfax County Public Schools

Leading Your Professional Learning (35:06)
Few tools or software have revolutionized on demand professional learning like Twitter. No teacher, anywhere need feel isolated and unable to seek inspiration, guidance, and collaboration. These powerful components of professional learning are all within the world of Twitter and at the fingertips of any educator.
Presenters: Abby French, History Teacher, Shenandoah County Public Schools; Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Thursday, April 30

Spotlight

Rediscover Your Voice! (28:35)
Improving our teaching practices through podcasting! Through this presentation, we'd like educators to come away with the idea that their voices can be heard and rediscovered through so many different mediums, including podcasting, as is the case in our experience.
Presenters: Chey Cheney & Pav Wander, teachers, Beaumonde Heights Junior Middle School, Toronto District School Board

Can I Use This Amazing Resource? (13:57)
Did you find an image from Google images or resource from Pinterest and wonder if you can use it? This session will go over how you can find out if a resource is copyrighted and what you need to do to be able to use it in a Google Slide presentation, newsletter, etc.
Presenter: Rosemary Wagoner, ITRT, Waynesboro Public Schools

Intro to 3D Design with Tinkercad (17:37)
This session will cover the basics of Tinkercad, a 3D modeling software. Come learn how to design a keychain and take home an introductory lesson you can use with your students! All content areas and grade levels welcome - we will briefly discuss how 3D modeling can be used in all classrooms!
Presenter: Megan Hacholski, STEAM Lab Coordinator, Brookfield La Grange Park District 95

Blending in a K-2 Classroom (19:46)
CUE Member and Kindergarten teacher and 2019 CUE BOLD teacher of the year Ben Cogswell is going to share his go-to strategies and awesome mindset of blending amazing pedagogy with easy to access edtech in his #KindRockets classroom. Ben was recently quoted in the NY Times and his SeeSaw lessons have over 100k views. Ben's warm style is inspirational for any grade level.
Presenter: Ben Cogswell, Kindergarten Teacher, Alisal Union School District

Next Level EDU Video with WeVideo and Edpuzzle (Part 1: WeVideo 0:00-18:30; Part 2: Edpuzzle 18:30-42:00)
Learn how to use WeVideo to create teacher-made video content for distance learning. By app-smashing your videos with EdPuzzle, you can assess student understanding and track progress automatically! The skills learned here can be used in all content areas for anyone interested in creating video lessons to push out to students.
Presenters: Jen Leban, Creative Technology Teacher, Elmhurst CUSD 205/Sandburg Middle School; Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Is the Sky Even the Limit with the Rubik's Cube? (20:09)
When the Rubik's Cube was invented by Erno Rubik in 1974, it was a wooden prototype with rubber bands for its twisting mechanism. Since then, the Rubik's Cube has caught the attention of many. This puzzle can be integrated in any curriculum to create mosaics, qteach problem-solving skills, encourage teamwork, and spark students' curiosity. Dan Van der Vieren, who spoke about this topic at TEDxBoulder in 2018, will share his successes in the classroom and ideas to take the Cube to the next level.
Presenter: Dan Van der Vieren, Ambassador/Educator, You Can Do The Rubik's Cube

HACKaroni & Cheese: EdTech Hacks & Cheesy Jokes! (29:07)
EdTech Hacks and Cheesy Jokes! This session focuses on little tips and tricks to make your edtech tools (primarily Google for Education tools) do things that you didn’t know they could do! And, yes, along with all of those hacks come plenty of silliness, a.k.a. cheese.
Presenter: Jake Miller, Technology Integration Specialist, Orange City School District

Friday, May 1

Spotlight

What Do You Like? (19:36)
In an unprecedented year we all need words of encouragement and reminders that even in the midst of hard times there are things we do well. Check out this video where Phil Strunk (@MrPStrunk) encourages educators to learn from others, but also recognize that they themselves have talents to bring to the table.
Presenter: Phil Strunk, History Teacher, Clarke County Public Schools

Top 12 Google Extensions (24:44)
Do you use Google Extensions? Want a few more tools for your Google Toolbox? During this session I will share 12 extensions to use with students.
Presenter: Denise Henry-Orndorff, ITRC, Strasburg HS, Signal Knob MS, Sandy Hook ES

Podcasts Are the New Essays (29:25)
In this session you will learn the how-to and whys of bringing podcasting into your classroom. Perfect for all grades and contents.
Presenters: Katie Fielding, Daniel Nemerow, Elizabeth Summers, Billy Watts, Instructional Tech Coaches, Prince William County Schools

Get exSITE-Ed!: Google Sites for Student Portfolios (37:09)
Learn how to leverage the new Google Sites to create an immersive tool for student organization with the creation of an eBinder. The idea behind any binder is organization, primarily collection of work, a place to reflect on their learning process, and finally recollect of what they learned for purposes of sharing or studying. This organizational structure is "Collection,Reflection and Recollection” and will be our guiding principle in our eBinder creation.
Presenter: Joe Marquez, Education Strategist, Sons of Technology

Student Centered Learning: A Conversation with Abby French (44:13)
Few things can have the power to change a classroom for the better like student centered learning. This conversation wit Abby French will give you insight into how to get started, what it looks and sounds like when its working, and examples of the benefits that come with this focus on students leading their learning.
Presenters: Abby French, History Teacher, Shenandoah County Public Schools; Patrick Hausammann, Supervisor of Instructional Technology, Clarke County/UnisonEDU/VSTE

Building Motivation for You and your Students! (17:43)
In today's challenging times it's more important than ever to help students become motivated with their learning. It starts with us! The session will discuss ways to develop a higher level of motivation both in and out of the school environment. While the session isn't grade level specific, it's generally geared more towards a secondary student. All teachers can benefit though.
Presenter: Craig Shapiro, HPE Teacher/Secondary Lead Teacher, William Tennent High School/Centennial School District