Friday Matinee: Creating Choice Boards With Google Slides

Giving students a choice of how they can complete an assignment gives students ownership over how they show you what they've learned.  By creating choice boards, in Slides (you can also use PowerPoint to do the same thing) it is easy to create an assignment where the students have to pick a certain number of things to do to complete the assignment.  Many teachers use these boards and have students pick 3 out of 9 options to complete tic-tac-toe.

Here's how to create the boards in Google Slides.

During remote learning, some teachers are having their students work on their choice board assignments when they are remote while they do something different with the students in their classroom that day.  Others are using choice boards to have students work independently when they are not attending class synchronously.

Did You Know? Getting Started With Google Docs

Have you never used Google Docs before?  Are you not sure how to get started?  Docs is great because you can access your files no matter what computer you are on since your documents live in Google Drive in the cloud.  You can even pull them up on your phone or tablet.  

Do you need your document to be a Word file?  No problem.  You can download Google Docs as Word files or PDFs.  Watch the videos to get started!

Friday Matinee: Using Padlet in Your Class

Padlet is a great app for discussions, formative assessment, sharing documents, brainstorming, and more.  It looks a lot like an online bulletin board with a bunch of sticky notes!  The free version allows you to create 3 walls for free.  If you need another one, just delete a previous one.  Students can upload just about any file, add a link, search and add images, videos and more via Google, take a picture with your computer's camera, capture video from your camera, record their voice, record the screen, doodle, add a place/location, or link to another Padlet.  Wow!  That's a lot!!  What's more is that students can respond to other students.

I've used Padlet for years to have students give feedback on an article they've read, review a Chrome extension that they have tried, as a backchannel, or as a way to share a document with the class.  I've asked a question and had students respond.  I've even had them introduce themselves and add a video or image to show something that they are interested in.  The possibilities are endless and it is easy to use in a hybrid teaching environment.

Check out this video on how it works.  Want to try it?  Here's one I created asking about what the characteristics of effective feedback are.

Did You Know? 3 Quick Google Tips

Here are 3 quick Google tips that will save you time!  Learn how to quickly create a new Google Doc (works for Slides, Sheets, and Forms too), how to force your students to make a copy of a document you are sharing with them, and use advanced search to find files in Google Drive.

Friday Matinee: Using Wakelet in Your Classroom

Wakelet is a curation tool that allows you to save items (anything with a link), organize them, tell stories, and share content from around the web (Kathleen Morris, 2019).  Curation, evaluating resources, and collaboration are necessary skills for our students.

It will help you understand more about what Wakelet is if you look at a collection.  Here's a one on (drum roll please . . . 🥁 ) WAKELET!  Check out these resources, many of which have been written for K-12, but that doesn't mean that they can't be used in higher education.  It's a great way for students to keep up with their research and they can work together in groups to find and organize their information.  Their curated information can then be put into a Google Site, a research paper, a presentation, or a digital magazine as a way for them to show what they have learned.  Here's another one that you can actually add to!

Wakelets can be private, unlisted (only people with the link can find it), or public, where anyone can find it when searching the web.  It's easy to get a link to share a collection or add collaborators.  Wakelets are an easy to share resources with students, differentiate learning, create digital portfolios, and more.

Watch as Holly Clark (she's amazing) shows how to use Wakelet in the Classroom.

Click on the above image to read more!  

Remember to check out our Remote Learning Resources website for more ideas on collaboration.  

Want to know more about how technology is infused into classrooms around the world?  Attend the Virtual FETC Conference in January for FREE!

Did You Know? Recover Last Closed Tab in Chrome

Have you ever been browsing the web and somehow you click and close a tab that you really need?  How do you quickly get it back?  There's a quick shortcut for that!

On a Windows computer - Control-Shift-T

On a Mac computer - Command-Shift-T

It's a life saver!  Here's a video on how to do it.

And use Control-T to open a new tab!  Command-T on the Mac.

Want to know more about how technology is infused into classrooms around the world?  Attend the Virtual FETC Conference in January for FREE!

Friday Matinee: Creating a Backchannel With Google Docs

Having a discussion is an important part of a class but it can be difficult when you are teaching either totally online or using the hybrid model.  Fortunately there are digital tools that can be used for backchannel discussions, including a shared Google Doc that everyone in class has the right to edit.

Use this Google Doc that you can copy (FILE>MAKE A COPY) for classroom discussions.  I like this document rather than just using a Doc without any added guidelines because you can see not only who asked the question, but also who responded and what their response was.  It also keeps the questions and answers together for easy viewing.  Multiple people can also answer the same question.  

A suggestion is to have one student per week or class period who would be in charge of the backchannel document.  They would monitor the questions and answers, and bring up questions in class that might need clarification.

I would keep the original document as a master and then make a copy of it and rename it every time you use it.  All you need to do is change the title and date at the top.