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Google Tips and Tricks

Recording Video into Google Slides

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Working with video can be difficult. While screen recording tools have become popular with remote learning, we face daunting obstacles. One of those is screen recording instructions for student learners. How do you record only what they need and not one more thing? In this blog entry, we’ll explore some tips and G Suite EDU tools for video recording.

Tips for Screen Recording Student Directions

Managing expectations for video quality is important. When I start out, my goal isn’t to create a fantastic, awesome professional video. My goal is to keep the message concise and say no more than what students need. That’s a difficult proposition. When you start making videos, you may think as I once did that a video must be many parts. I like this perspective:

There is no need or expectation for you to create a professional-quality production. You can use titles, opening and closing credits, music and/or special effects. It is best to leave those to Hollywood directors.

Further suggestions worth taking into account:

  • Get directions straight in your head first.
  • Limit them to no more than three (perfect) to five steps (long).
  • Divide directions up and match them to a task.
  • Keep your videos bite-sized, ranging from three to six minutes.
  • Insert yourself into the video at the start and then only after for meaningful points.

There are other tips you can consider. Explore TCEA’s Screencasting for Educators self-paced, online course for more. Now  let’s look at G Suite EDU friendly video tools.

G Suite EDU Video Tools

For many G Suite EDU users, Screencastify is at the top of the heap for video recording. The Screencastify Unlimited version includes Chromebook-friendly recording. For educators, the price is $29. Non-educators must pay $49.

What’s more, Screencastify Unlimited offers a super video editing environment. Not only can you trim your video anywhere, you can crop video like a photo. That is, you can capture a part of your video’s area and cut the rest out. That’s an amazing editing feature I have not seen elsewhere. Screencastify Submit is a nice addition that supports student video creation and editing.

Screencastify Unlimited’s Editor is amazing, offering trim and crop features.

Need a free alternative without the super editing tools? Flipgrid’s screen recorder offers options for Chromebook-only educators. Nimbus Screenshot offers another free option, but most avoid Nimbus due to its less than obvious interface.

Are there any other tools that can ease video recording on Chromebooks? Let’s take a look at a newcomer.

Record to Slides

Clay Smith‘s Record to Slides may be the tool that makes it happen. Instead of a screen recorder, you may need a moment to share your thoughts. You, the camera, and your students.

Record a quick set of instructions with Record to Slides. Videos will appear right on the slide you are speaking about. What a great way to personalize the slide. What’s more, all videos are auto-stored in the “RecordToSlides” folder at the top level of your Google Drive, as shown below:

Here’s a quick video overview:

Parting Thoughts

Record to Slides was easy for me, and I suspect will be easy for students, although you saw me run into challenges with my video recording. While you could use Screencastify or Flipgrid, the simplest tool for the job is often the one to go with. And it doesn’t cost anything.

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remote learning
Good Teaching

Tech Tools and Best Practices with Remote Learning

by Crystal Fuentes, Guest Author
written by Crystal Fuentes, Guest Author

As educators prepare for going back to school, some may still feel uncertain as to what our upcoming year will look like — and most importantly, how it will start. In March, we were all thrown into the deep sea of remote learning regardless of whether we were tech-savvy enough to swim or not! It is safe to say though that teachers now have a wide variety of tech tools under their belt.

Here are eight tips on using tech tools that enhance best practices for remote learning and even traditional settings. Whether your district will follow a hybrid model or full remote model, the following digital tools and examples from additional resources will help you be ready for whatever comes your way.

Digital Organization for Remote Learning

Being organized can help to reduce stress and focus on what’s most important, allowing more time for teaching or facilitating the learning of students, while also helping them access resources easily. Google Classroom has a fairly new feature where assignments or questions can be categorized by topics for efficient organization.

Creating hyperdocs is another way to keep tasks and assignments in one document where students are provided hyperlinks and instructions for a self-paced lesson. Google Sites is a great tool that is free and available for Google users to set up a digital classroom where students can visit to access resources, assignments, important upcoming dates, and other materials all in one place.  

Increase Student Engagement

In order to increase student participation during remote learning, we must keep them engaged with interactive lessons. Nearpod is a teacher favorite that focuses on learner participation with a wide variety of activities embedded, such as open-ended questions, fill-in-the-blank, Flipgrid, and matching pairs, available for feedback and assessments.

Content media can easily be included in the lessons as well, such as videos, VR field trips, 3D objects, and Sways. This tech tool is constantly evolving to meet teacher needs in order to keep every student engaged while delivering a live lesson for synchronous learning or a student-paced lesson for asynchronous learning.

Nearpod has a full library of already created interactive lessons that are aligned to state standards ready to be assigned to students. Classflow is a cloud-based software that allows for effective lesson delivery and you don’t necessarily need an interactive display. Pear Deck is a Google Slides add-on that helps teachers create interactive lessons with different activities and assessments for students to participate in during a live lesson.

Finally, Edpuzzle is a life saver when it comes to assigning videos to students. This tool allows teachers to embed questions, narration, or notes throughout any video to check for comprehension and ensure students are fully engaged. 

Facilitate Student Learning

Become a facilitator and encourage students to take ownership of their own learning. You can create and assign a hyperdoc for an entire week, allow students to complete it at their own pace, and set a due date for students to submit all of their work. You can use Google Docs or Google Slides to create those interactive lesson documents with hyperlinks and resources. 

Timely Student Feedback

Timely feedback from students in real time allows the opportunity to monitor and adjust instruction immediately to meet their needs. You can empower every student with a voice by actively participating using collaborative Google Drawings or any other Google tool, interactive assessments with Quizizz, fun synchronous assessments with Kahoot, and game-based quizzes using Time to Climb activities in Nearpod.

Another amazing tool that allows for students to have a voice is Flipgrid. While you effortlessly engage learners, you also provide the opportunity to boost their confidence. 

Student Collaboration

Collaboration among students not only increases their confidence and keeps them actively learning, but also allows them to problem solve with peers while developing one of the critical skills needed in the real world.

Padlet is a digital platform where teachers can create beautiful collaborative boards for students to contribute with a variety of media. They can post content such as text, hyperlinks, images, and videos.

Nearpod also has a collaborative activity where students can post ideas or resources to one digital board. Teachers can also share templates they create in Google Docs, Slides, and Drawings, granting them editing rights to work synchronously in real time to complete a task or assignment as a group. 

Limit Screen Time

Just because students are learning remotely does not mean all of the work needs to be done digitally. Students can be given a project-based assignment and be asked to reflect  or present it to peers using a tech tool, such as Flipgrid or Seesaw. Within both of these platforms, students can record a video of themselves and safely share with peers. 

Video Recording

Video tutorials are one of the best ways to teach anything while showing visuals or using a digital whiteboard, especially on YouTube! Screencastify or Loom will allow you to record yourself explaining a concept while sharing your desktop screen and simply uploading it to YouTube to share with students. 

Communication with Students and Parents

Communication is key. One of the best interactive tools to openly communicate with students, parents, and even colleagues is Google Sites. As mentioned in the first tech tip for best practices, Sites allows the user to organize any content and media in pages and personalize it to make it fun.

The site can be shared and viewable to not only students but parents as well to create a centralized digital location for all important classroom information and resources for student success. Think of it as a digital open-house for the entire year! 

Photo by Thomas Kolnowski on Unsplash

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SyncTube
Professional LearningWeb 2.0 Tool

Synchronous Remote Learning with SyncTube

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

You probably already know that the dynamic duo of Screencastify and EdPuzzle allows you to make and save videos. With EdPuzzle, you can insert questions and quizzes and track student progress through a video. As nice as asynchronous video questions are, they sometimes may miss the classroom dynamic. For many teachers, that classroom dynamic is essential. How do you achieve that feeling of watching a video together with students? In this blog entry, we’ll explore a web tool you can use.

Synchronicity Is the Secret Ingredient

One of the toughest experiences I ever had was teaching to a video monitor. Large or small, the audience feels locked in a goldfish bowl. When you’re teaching, you don’t want to be on the outside. You want to be in the water, swimming along with your school of learners. It’s the only way to gauge emotions and enthusiasm.

“How can my students and I watch a video together?” asked one teacher in a Facebook group. The answer is to use a browser-based tool known as SyncTube.

SyncTube to the Rescue

If you asynchronous video watching and response isn’t your style, why not give SyncTube a try? You have the option of creating private or public rooms. Anyone can create a room, and you could make one and then customize the settings to make the room private (not public). You can also specify your name and other information with great control over the room permissions.

synctube

Room Setup in SyncTube

Once you have your room settings the way you need, you are taken back to the main space. At the top of the screen, you can paste in a YouTube video address. This will be what you are going to discuss with your students.

synctube

Want to see a room in action? Try this SyncTube room.

As owner/moderator, you have control over the chat, including who can participate and more. If you set up your room to be NOT public, then no one will know the link to your room until you share it.

synctube

As a chat member, students will be assigned a random name and will be unable to make adjustments to most settings. The only setting they can change is their name. That can be an issue depending on student age and maturity.

When you are in a chat, you will see a screen similar to the one below.

SyncTube in the Classroom

“Should I use SyncTube in my classroom?” That’s an important question to consider. Let’s review some of the features.

Available Features

  • Teacher controls start and stop of the video. Students cannot play video or control it at all.
  • Links are hyperlinked in the chat.
  • Moderator/Owner can “promote” or “kick out” chat members.
  • Owner has complete control over the room settings.

synctube

Missing Features

  • Renaming students is unavailable except to the student.
  • Inappropriate content may be available at SyncTube if students go searching on their own.
  • A class roster upload to set student names is unavailable.
  • Student accounts are not passworded, and privacy issues may arise (e.g. a student could pretend to be another child).

A K-12 teacher shared she was using SyncTube in collaboration with Google Classroom. Her workflow involved creating a video viewing room with SyncTube, then sharing the link in Google Classroom. The missing features make me nervous about recommending it for use in K-12. But for high school and college, I can see using this tool.

As a result of missing features, this would be a hard “No, lacks appropriate controls” would be my response as a technology director. You could mitigate this if  there were teachers or instructional assistants serving as intermediaries.

Other Options

One other option you might consider is ShareTube. It offers different features that gives you some more control.

synctube

Another alternative, foreshadowing education tools to come is  BlaTube.com.

School Community Gatherings

One common problem for school and district administrators has been setting up a virtual space for large meetings. One way to meet this need is for principals to prerecord a video message, then make it available. Viewers could offer feedback via the chat feature.

Consider carefully whether SyncTube and some of these other shared tools will help with communicating and teaching remotely or if they just possibly provide more problems for you to have to conquer.

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transactional distance theory
Educational Trends

Remote Teaching: Transactional Distance Theory and Dialogue

by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author
written by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author

I absolutely, not once, never-ever-ever desired to be an online teacher. I would be willing to bet 95% of you reading this did not have this dream either! 

Plot Twist: During this unprecedented, history-making, social-distancing, self-isolating, unbelievable and incomprehensible health crisis, we have all become online teachers.  If I didn’t laugh, I would cry.  But as we’ll explore, Transactional Distance Theory may help us identify tools and techniques that can improve our remote teaching and learning.

My Story

My job over the last four weeks has been to drag, push, and shove my staff – I mean prepare them – for a quick and efficient dive into the pool of online learning.  And once we were all in the water, my job was to cheer them on to mastering the “deep end” of the pool, or to help them back to the shallow end where they could stand up. Many of them actually jumped in with both feet and swam off into total success.  I threw a few floaties at them and they waved “bye!” Additionally, there were a few who were so excited to swim into the deep end that they ran into a few issues like “zoom-bombing” and an adolescent’s idea of a funny virtual background.

But I am sure my teaching story is not that different from many of you. Throughout my teaching career, I have focused on good pedagogy for my content area and for the age group that I serve. And most importantly, I have perfected my “teacher look” that will squash any misbehavior in the back of the room without a word spoken.  

Finding Something New

However, now that I am teaching from home, I find my bag of tricks not to be as useful. My “teacher look” doesn’t really work on the dog, and not all teaching methods that work inside the four walls of a classroom are applicable to online learning. I found myself needing some new tools and techniques in my teaching bag that would work in this abnormal environment.

Mostly, though, we have settled into a basic routine, and the students are responding.  I started to notice right away, though, that if the students did not answer my emails or show up to my online webinar meetings, their work tended to slack off for the week.  The work was incomplete, or it seemed hurried and rushed, definitely not meeting my in-class expectations. But we are not in class, are we?

I immediately began researching distance learning. 

Transactional Distance Theory

I read about Transactional Distance Theory about a year ago in a graduate class.  At the time, I just filed it under “more educational theory,” but now, this was exactly what I was looking for to explain my situation.

Michael G. Moore proposed Transactional Distance Theory in 1973. It is a way of analyzing the interactions between learner and instructor in both space and time.  Moore suggests that separation in distance learning is not just physical, but “a psychological and communications space to be crossed, a space of potential misunderstanding between the inputs of instructor and those of the learner.”

This psychological and communications distance could be fatal to our goal of continuing to educate students during school shutdowns.

Keeping Students Engaged

I believe that as the ed tech community, we have more tools than anyone to help the educational body at large continue to advance student learning. And with this theory in hand, we can continue this endeavor, no matter the circumstances. 

All teachers know what happens to the student who sits in the back of the class. If we are not diligent in keeping them engaged, this student will travel to a far-away distant place where there are no teachers and no assignments.

The student who “distances” himself or herself from the teacher within the walls of a classroom can easily be guided back on task just by standing beside their desk or involving them in the conversation. They know their teacher is watching and will not ignore them.

Figure 1: Transactional Distance can occur in any situation

However, what about the student who joins the online webinar, leaves his camera off, and goes back to bed? I can’t walk up to his bed and gently whisper that he needs to pay attention. There are ways, however, using TDT, that I can keep this student connected to his classwork, his classmates, and me.

Our goal in this online learning situation is to keep the Transactional Distance to a minimum – to keep students connected.  Using a model of TDT can help us achieve that. Moore suggested that there are three main variables in a distance-learning situation – Dialogue, Structure, and Autonomy.  Less of one variable means more dependence on the others. 

Figure 2: Three parts of Transactional Distance – Dialogue, Structure, and Autonomy

Moore developed his theory in the beginning of Distance Learning, when the few tools instructors had access to included the telephone and videos that students had to watch on their own. Thanks to today’s educational technology, we have a multitude of tools we can employ to keep students engaged and connected. And with Transactional Distance Theory, we can target which tools to use and share with others that will influence student learning the most during this difficult time.

Transactional Distance Theory and Dialogue

Dialogue between teacher and learner are key to staying connected to a student. If you do not talk to them, how will they ever know what your expectations are or what they should be learning? In our current situation, however, teachers do not have nearly enough of this commodity. 

By examining the TDT model, you can see that as the opportunities for dialogue shrink, the distance between the learner and instructor grows, and thus, the student’s academic achievement can become more difficult. He will have to rely on his own independence to understand what to do and how to do it. Personally, I know several middle school students that have yet to master this set of skills.  

via GIPHY

Figure 3 – Dialogue Shrinks. As Dialogue decreases, the distance between learner and instructor increase.

Online learning pushes students away from us. It is hard to stay connected when we can only talk to them through email, or worse, through paper instructions when they do not have internet at home.

A Few Tools

Fortunately, we have so many resources available to message, converse, and give feedback to students.  Here are a few tools and strategies that we can use to increase dialogue and decrease distance:

  • Check-in with students frequently – Use Remind or another messaging tool to send messages to students daily or a few times a week. Ask students to respond with an emoji to let you know how they are doing. Responses don’t have to be elaborate, but knowing that you are a text message away decreases the transactional distance significantly. For Remind,iIf you turn on replies, students can even ask for help when needed. This type of communication recreates what they are already familiar with and increases your chance of connecting with them and their families.
  • Give personal feedback –  Students will feel closer to you when your feedback is personal and meaningful. “Zach, I really like the way you organized this poem,” carries more significance than “Great job.”   
  • Use screen recording software – Give personal feedback so that students can observe facial expressions and hear meaning in your voice. Use the Moderated Posts setting on Flipgrid to converse with students one-on-one. If the posts are not public to the entire class, students might feel more open to discuss issues with you. You could also use Screencastify or Screen-cast-o-matic to record feedback and then share the link to your personal message with the student.
  • Require responses – When you email or message students or families, ask open-ended questions. “How are you managing your family sharing devices?” or “What is one piece of advice you could give to your classmates during this chaotic time?” Any way that you can connect with students or families is beneficial, even if it is not about schoolwork.
  • Use humor and emotion– Leverage your relationship with your students to bring them closer to you. Remind students of happy or memorable things that happened in the classroom earlier in the year. Include funny memes or pictures in your emails and messages. Be open and honest about how things are going for you during this time as well. Evoking emotional responses can create meaningful connections.

Two-Way Communication

Dialogue is two-way communication. When students are physically far away from teachers, we must create opportunities for this communication to continue.  Transactional Distance Theory would suggest that this dialogue is key to successful distance learning. In 2020, with all the technology tools available to us, we should be able to connect to our students in a multitude of ways, virtually keeping them closer to us than they actually are in reality.

How are you staying connected to your students? Share with me in the comments. I’m sure my teachers would love to hear other methods of staying afloat in the deep end of the pool! Some of the floaties I tossed them may be losing air. 

In the second part of this series, we will discuss the Structure and Autonomy variables of Transactional Distance Theory and tools we could use to manage them.

unsplash-logoPhoto: Sharon McCutcheon
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podcasting
Good TeachingGoogle Tips and Tricks

Video Sharing in Google Classroom and Seesaw

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Need to share videos into Google Classroom or Seesaw? You’re not the only teacher who needs to put a quick tutorial video together for students. Here are some strategies that other educators recommend around the topics of video storage, sharing and creation tools and tips, as well as how to share videos in Seesaw and Google Classroom.

Storing Videos in the Cloud

With both Google Classroom and Seesaw, you can share links to existing videos. This means that you can make a video using any tool you want and then post it anywhere. That anywhere can be YouTube, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or wherever. One thing you need to be careful with is ensuring that the video is viewable by anyone with a link. This is an option when you put the video in a cloud storage space.

Did you know you might have almost unlimited storage in the cloud? Both G Suite EDU and Microsoft OneDrive offer unlimited (or almost) storage.

share video

A New Player? Loom Pro for Free

“Looms is my choice as a best option,” says TCEA board member, John Bimmerle. He goes on to point out that it is “super quick.” Loom Pro, which has gone free for teachers, is also open to students at K-16 education institutions. Loom Pro comes with a desktop version and Chrome extension.  Learn more about their COVID-19 Loom Pro free offer via their announcement. My experience? It lagged a bit in rendering the video on their website. After 10 minutes, I uninstalled Loom and opted for another tool. Let’s hope they improve and/or demand eases up.

Wait, Wait, There’s ONE MORE Newcomer!

Flipgrid announced on April 1, 2020 that they are adding screen recording to their amazing product. It’s a free, no-cost offering. Watch their announcement video via this Tweet (or see the unauthorized MP4 video I made of it):

The possibilities with Flipgrid screenrecording option are endless. You can now organize your screencasts, such as of your desktop and apps, into grids and allow others to contribute. What’s more, you can export those screencasts as MP4 video files to place on YouTube. What’s amazing is how easy it is to screen recording using Flipgrid. And, all of this is FREE and available at no cost to educators. It also allows you to start and stop video recording, which is an amazing feature.

Did You Know?

Sign up for one of our Google Certified Educator certifications. You’ll learn about more than Google Meet, as well as earn 12 CPE hours per course. Use these courses to get Google Educator certified. Find out more online.

Video Creation Tools

If you’re still looking for a good tool for video sharing, here’s a quick run down of other digital tools you can use to creating teaching videos.

  1. Screencast-o-Matic. Screencast-O-Matic is a fantastic tool that will let you record from their site. You can record up to 15 minutes, and it allows for webcam picture recording. Save your videos in .mp4, .flv, or .avi video format or you can upload them straight to YouTube.
  2. Screencastify. Screencastify is a Chrome extension that allows you to record, edit, annotate, store, and share video screen captures. Record a specific tab, or your whole desktop, at the click of a button. The free Lite version normally limits recording time to five minutes per video and has a watermark. Due to COVID-19, as of this writing, you can get premium version for free for 60 days. You may also want to look at some of their free e-learning resources. They are also announcing a new feature for students to use Screencastify. Find out more at Screencastify Submit. Watch a video intro.
  3. Nimbus Screencapture/Screen recording. Nimbus is a Chrome extension for capturing web pages, either part of one or the whole browser window. You can also edit your screenshots and screen record your desktop or a particular tab.
  4. Zoom. Available at no charge and in wide usage as a result of COVID-19, many people don’t know they can use it to record and share their screens. Using Zoom Basic, you can record webinars that feature picture in picture, play music as you share your screen, and save a video recording to your computer. Many videos you will create will be no more than five to 30 minutes, which fall into the free version of Zoom time limits. Of course, those time limits have been waived for educators during COVID-19.

Popular Screencasting Tools

Those are some of my favorite browser-based screen recording tools. There are also free screen recording tools that you can install on Windows. Of course, Mac users can rely on QuickTime, which offers free recordings. If you need to edit videos, Shotcut is a great editor for Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux computers.

A Personal Recommendation

People often ask, “What do you use?” Until lately, I have relied on Screencastify. With its $29 price tag  for one year, it’s worth the investment. While I still use Screencastify when on a Chromebook, on Windows 10 and Mac I recommend another tool, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). I can’t tell you how amazed I was at the flexibility, versatility, and speed of this free (and no-cost), open source tool. Gamers (e.g. esports) use OBS to stream their game-play to various streaming services (e.g. Facebook LIVE, Twitch, Periscope). You can use it to record your content, too.

Look hard? It’s not as bad as you think. Here’s what OBS looks like when I’m using it to record videos for TCEA Remote Learning.

Highlight Tool: Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)

Instead of recording your desktop, OBS allows you to record anything your computer does (see sidebar image for a list). While not for the faint of heart, OBS continues to get easier to use every day. If you have to record video, it makes switching between different scenes and input sources (e.g. audio, video, webcam, browsers, and apps) easy.

Intended as a streaming solution, you can use it to record and save video to MKV or MP4 format. I am truly astonished how fast it is once set up. However, the setup can be confusing, and so I encourage you to read my upcoming guide on recording videos with OBS. In the meantime, be sure to read the the OBS Studio Quickstart guide.

Even More Video Sharing Tools

Looking for other powerful tools to use? Here are a few.

  1. Flipgrid.com – Flipgrid is a free, fun, and easy way to have a video chat. It is a great tool to get student feedback while incorporating student voice. There is an iOS and Android app.
  2. VideoNot.es. Have students use this Google Drive app with their Google account. That will allow them to take notes while they watch a video that you assign. Notes work as video markers. Click the notes, and you leapfrog to the matching spot in the video.
  3. Vialogues. Vialogues allows you to create conversations that revolve around a video.
  4. EdPuzzle. This is the premier tool for adding content to an existing video. It makes it easy to use what you need from any video. You can insert audio notes or record over a video with your voice. You can even add questions at any point in the video and track your students’ understanding.
  5. Educannon (Playposit). This is a great way to annotate existing YouTube videos for students to watch at home.

share video

Some Quick Tips for Video Recordings

Here are some quick tips for video recording you may want to keep in mind:

1) Storyboard your content first, then create a video about your lesson. All the tools are free to get started.

2) Keep videos short, two to three minutes or five to 10 minutes max (shorter is better). You can always create more videos. Think “bite-sized chunks” that students can nibble on their way to/from school, sitting somewhere waiting for an adult to do something, or during the gap in a basketball game on television or in person.

3) Plan for reflective, online classroom activities. Use tools like Quizziz, Kahoot, and GetKnowt to create some online assessments.

Recording Video on the Go

Need tools for recording videos on the go? You can use your smartphone and an app to get the job done. Need some solutions for Android? How about iOS?

Sharing Videos in Seesaw

Sharing content in Seesaw has never been easier. The steps involve creating an announcement and adding an attachment. Then you select the type of attachment you want (a link). Afterwards, paste the link to your “shared with anyone” video resource. For a visual overview, check out this animated GIF that walks you through the process. Remember, you can have a copy of that video saved anywhere so long as it is “shared with anyone link.”

If you want to share a message straight to the camera, you can record video directly into Seesaw using your device’s camera. Instead of choosing LINK in the Add Attachment window, choose VIDEO, as shown in the picture below:

share video

Sharing Videos: Google Classroom

Google Classroom makes it easy to share content by posting it into its stream or to YouTube. If it’s an instructional video, you can then add questions with EdPuzzle. Dropping your videos into Google Drive, then sharing a public link is easy. Drop the link to the video in the Google Classroom stream. You may like Eric Curts’ video series on Google Classroom.

Final Thoughts

Still not sure what’s the best tool for the job? Let’s review the options below:

  • Flipgrid user? Need an easy to use tool, then Flipgrid screen recording is so easy. You can save your screencasts as MP4 videos on your computer. Flipgrid works via your browser, making it the perfect tool on mobile devices. This is also an amazing feature for students to use.
  • Screencastify? If you are a Chromebook users, or want to use a simple, powerful tool, then Screencastify will make the job easier. As a veteran Screencastify user, it’s one of my favorite tools. They are also announcing a new feature for students to use Screencastify. Find out more at Screencastify Submit.
  • OBS Project? Not afraid of a little complexity? OBS offers a free, no-cost screen recording tool that works on your Windows or Mac computer. It’s super-fast since it’s running on your computer.
  • Mobile user? Try XRecorder to screencast your Android screen, YouCut – Video Editor & Video Maker, No Watermark to blend pictures and video with light editing. On iOS?

Need a video editor? Use the free, open source Shotcut for Windows, Mac, and GNU/Linux. Or if you need a browser-based web editor, WeVideo may be your only option (check here for more info).

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G Suite EDU
ChromebooksGoogle Tips and Tricks

Overcome Five Challenges in G Suite EDU Classroom

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Looking for G Suite EDU goodness? Then you need look no further than this blog post. In it, we’ll explore a few ways educators are using G Suite EDU tools to resolve classroom challenges. Let’s take a moment to review some of the main challenges that educators face.

A quick list of challenges includes:

  1. Providing individualized feedback to students
  2. Encouraging collaboration with experts and peers
  3. Learning Google Classroom
  4. Viewing educational YouTube videos in the classroom
  5. Locating top Chrome apps and extensions

Ready to get started? Here we go.

G Suite EDU Challenge #1: Individual Student Feedback

In this video, Sean Thompson shares how educators can more easily provide individualize feedback to students who then review the feedback and then hold formative, reflective discussions one on one with you.

The video uses two tools you may be familiar with, along with a third you may not. The third tool is one you may be unaware of, the Autocrat extension. Autocrat features a simple description that belies great functionality:

Autocrat is an easy to use, flexible document merge tool. It makes creation of PDF or shared Documents from a spreadsheet straightforward. Autocrat is a multi-purpose document merge tool. It allows you to take data from a spreadsheet and merge it into a document via a template.  Tell Autocrat which fields to merge via <>. Then, let Autocrat mass-generate personalized documents.  You can also send the documents as email attachments.  Or, when new forms are submitted, let Autocrat automation take over. This automation means less oversight from you, making your job easier. (Source: Adapted from Autocrat G Suite Marketplace)

The other two tools include Google Forms and Sheets. You may want to watch other videos in this series.

G Suite EDU
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G Suite EDU Challenge #2: Foster Collaboration via Expert Cards

Wish you could have students self-identify as guides on the side for other learners? You might want to try this approach that Zak Kolar suggests. He writes:

I used these “expert” cards with 5th graders for a Google Sites project last year. Students who are more experienced place “expert” cards on their desks. That signals to other students they can answer questions related to a certain area. Those areas include inserting images, creating links, changing layouts, etc.

Zak points out that this approach frees him up to circulate and answer tougher questions. Adapt the approach for both technical and content-related challenges. Teaching students self-assessment can be helpful. When students learn to check or assess their own learning, this can be quite powerful. As such, you can see a gradual release of responsibility when students own their learning. They may begin with you checking for understanding, but as they gain confidence, they move on to self-checks. As they gain knowledge, they can becomes aides to others.

You can see specific ways in these links:

Why make the effort to empower students to self assess? John Hattie explains that students are accurate at self-assessment. As their own critics, they set goals and want to achieve them. To do this, students might follow a specific process that culminates in expert cards:

  1. Students set goals for themselves. Teachers provide descriptive feedback to help them know what they need.
  2. Pupils predict their performance before they begin a task or series of tasks. For a quiz or test, students compare their actual performance with their prediction. 
  3. Learners then reflect and reconcile the difference between the two. This enables students to gain insight. Are they meeting their set goals on a specific assessment? (Source: Chris Bettiol) 

Self-reported grades empower students. Zak’s expert cards appear as the visual acknowledge of student expectations well-met.

G Suite EDU Challenge #3: Learn Google Classroom

Every time I use Google Classroom, I’m amazed at the new features. As you might imagine, the wealth of new features makes keeping up difficult. Let’s explore three miscellaneous questions that have come up about this tool.

Question #1:  “If a person gets added to Classroom later in the term, does he/she receive all the assignments? Does the new person get earlier assignments and stuff?”

Response:  “Yes, that person will have all of the stuff that everyone else in the class has.” (Source: Heather Dawson)

Question #2: “I am a robotics teacher at 4 schools. I have a different Google Classroom at each school that I access with an email address for that school. I have created a quiz at one of the schools. Is there a way to move that quiz to each of the other classrooms without entering the information again?”

Response: “Make a shared drive or a shared folder that all of your email addresses have editing access. Then anything you put in that folder will be accessible to each classroom.” (Source: Laurie Anastasio)

Question #3:  “How are you using G Suite EDU to maximize efficiency? That is, when creating standards scales, data/standard tracking (teacher & student)?”

Responses: 

  • “I made a standards based “gradebook” for my 3rd grade co-teacher. Used Sheets. You could make a master copy for yourself and import the formulas. This will make an individual one for each student and share that with each student and parent. You can also use Autocrat to have the info pulled from your sheet into a google doc. Then, have it share with students and parents.”
  • “Two videos on grading with rubrics (Video #1: Create Rubrics | Video #2: Grading with Rubrics).”

Challenge #4: View YouTube Videos in the Classroom

How can my students watch YouTube videos without advertisements? That’s the substance of questions I’ve received. Another G Suite EDU user asks the following: 

“I have a set of videos a teacher has asked students to watch from YouTube. I can access them as an administrator, but for students, it says the video is unavailable. “This video is restricted. Try signing in with a Google Apps account.” Student attempted with both GAFE and personal accounts and still could not access. Any ideas?

There can be several responses that result in a positive outcome. Most rely on what your school district’s policy is on YouTube. For example, some schools may put a block on YouTube for students when accessed via wireless (a.k.a. WiFi). Teachers may have to submit those web links to allow for access.  Unfortunately, another possibility may include student honesty. Jennifer Brower states the following:

This happens to students under 13 who have signed into YouTube and give their real age. Hooray for them not lying, but it means YouTube now restricts them from a lot, even if we have approved the video. Tech hasn’t found a way to get around it as it is YouTube’s policy that under 13 isn’t supposed to have access.

Other educators may choose to use websites like Viewpure, Safeshare. Another possibility for ad blocking includes a Chrome browser extension Video Adblocker for YouTube. Want an alternative solution that is cost-free? Use Wakelet to create a video playlist. Learn more about this solution via this Wakelet on creating a YouTube Video Playlist. Learn more about Using YouTube Videos in the Classroom.

Challenge #5: Top Chrome Apps and Extensions

Want to start a fight in the teachers’ lounge? Ask “What are your top Chrome must haves for approved student apps and extensions?” and you will be sure to get it started. Here are some responses in alphabetical order from other educators. How would you rate this list? What would you include or remove?

Note: Descriptions excerpted from the Chrome Web Store.

  • Clever: Clever is a Chrome extension that enables students and teachers to log in to their applications.
  • Draftback: Draftback lets you play back the revision history of any Google Doc you can edit.
  • Fun Text: Applies fun effects to your text, such as Rainbow, Growing, Upside down, and much more. 
  • Goobric: Facilitates rubric-based assessment. Includes two different Chrome extensions and works in collaboration with the Doctopus Add-on for Google Sheets.
  • Grammarly:  From grammar and spelling to style and tone, Grammarly helps you eliminate writing errors and find the perfect words to express yourself. You’ll get suggestions from Grammarly as you write.
  • Insert Learning:  Insert instructional content on any web page. Teachers can insert questions, discussions, and insight directly into any website. When students go to that website, they can respond to those questions and discussions. They can also take their own notes.
  • Kami: Allows you to take any existing document and enhance it in your browser. Annotate scanned PDFs, as well as write, draw, type, comment, augment.
  • LastPass Free Password Manager:  LastPass saves your passwords. It then gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device. Only remember one password – your LastPass master password. Save all your usernames and passwords to LastPass. It will autologin to your sites and sync your passwords everywhere you need them.
  • LucidChart Diagrams: The easiest way to draw flowcharts, mockups, UML, mind maps and more.
  • PearDeck:  Pear Deck is an add-on for Google Slides that will allow teachers to ask students questions. Students will be prompted to answer your questions as you advance your slides. Read these TCEA blog entries featuring PearDeck.
  • Read and Write:  Offers text-to-speech to hear words, passages, or whole documents read aloud with easy-to-follow dual color highlighting, and more. Read this TCEA blog entry. 
  • Screencastify:   Capture, edit and share videos in seconds. Read TCEA blog entries featuring Screencastify.
  • WriQ:  WriQ helps teachers assess student writing, provide valuable feedback, in Google Docs.

Looking for more ideas? John Sowash has a nice list online. And here’s my list. Remember, avoid Chrome extension overload for yourself and students by introducing a new extension when needed and not before.

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gt and cte
Professional LearningSpecial NeedsTechnology Applications

Earn Your GT Hours at TCEA 2020

by Kristy Breaux
written by Kristy Breaux

Educators know that each student learns differently. And today, many teachers specialize in a number of important areas, like providing enriched learning experiences to gifted students (GT). 

The 2020 TCEA Convention & Exposition is an event for all educators. That’s why TCEA is helping meet the needs of dedicated educators like you. Not only can attendance at TCEA provide critical professional development in your specialty, but you can also experience a world of informative sessions on all things education. Here’s why TCEA 2020 is right for you.

How TCEA Helps GT Educators

Teachers who have received the initial 30 hours of training in gifted education are required to receive six (6) hours of training yearly to maintain their eligibility to teach GT. Technology is a major component of the education of gifted and talented learners, and TCEA has identified sessions at our annual convention that are targeted for GT teachers and meet the six-hour requirement. 

Below are a sampling of the sessions that have been identified for GT teachers. You can view the full session list, and search by topic and audience, here.

  • Student Choice and Voice for the GT Student
  • Gifted and Talented Showcase with Makerspace Creations
  • Poster Sessions: Special Populations (SPED, ESL/ELL, GT)
  • A More Perfect Union: American History, Silent Sustained Reading, and Blended Learning
  • Growing the Workforce of Tomorrow: Business Plans, Shark Tank Survival, and Entrepreneurial Thinking
  • The GT Student Today
  • Fostering Student Agency with Flipgrid, ScreenCastify, and Twisted Wave
  • Whisper Courses: Micro-Learning Opportunities for Differentiation, Extension, and Management
  • Digital Choice Boards for the Win!
  • The Board Game Design Project, The Ultimate Interdisciplinary Project
  • Blended Learning/Personalized Learning/Student Voice, Now What?
  • Solution Circles: The GT Student Today

Intrigued? Find the professional learning you need — and much, much more — at TCEA 2020.

unsplash-logoPhoto: jose aljovin

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make-up work
Good Teaching

Keeping Up with Make-Up Work

by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author
written by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author

I saw a juggler once who could juggle over 100 items at once.  It was awe inspiring and mind boggling. He was vastly entertaining and seemed to bend time and space to accomplish this seemingly impossible task.  

Did I say juggler? Oh, I’m sorry. I meant teacher.        

I know how many balls I have in the air every day, and I don’t have near as many as a few of my colleagues! One of the issues I juggle, and struggle to keep in the air, is make-up work.  

Why Students Miss Class

Recently, I have had quite a few students out with sports, competitions, and unfortunately, concussions.  While it is frustrating to have to keep up with who is missing class for what event and when, or who has or has not turned in an assignment or taken that test from two weeks ago, I know my ultimate goal is for the students to learn, not to follow my perfect schedule.

I want them to be able to participate in sports, theater, ag, and band. Students participating in these activities learn all the lessons that come from being involved – including how to manage their time and efforts.  But I also want them to learn academic knowledge, keep up with their assignments, of course, and love English more than anything in the whole world (a teacher can dream…).

As teachers, we see absences as a loss of instructional time, an occurrence with far-reaching implications.  However, our students do not view the classroom as the only place or time that they can learn.  From their point of view, classrooms shouldn’t have walls or time constraints.  The instructional time is not lost — just moved — to a time and place of their choosing.

Keeping Things In Motion with Make-Up Work

I put together a short list of tips and tricks where technology can help manage all the missing assignments and make-up work — or at least help you keep this one ball in the air. If you have mastered this particular issue, maybe you can share these ideas with someone who doesn’t have eight hands.

  1. Utilize your LMS (Learning Management System). Use Edmodo, Google Classroom, or Schoology to set up an online place where students can access files, handouts, instructions, etc.  Absent students can access all their resources online and won’t have to ask you to make them copies. 
  2. Keep an accurate calendar online.  Make sure students and parents can access your schedule of upcoming (or missed) lessons, homework, quizzes, and tests.  Edmodo, Padlet, Schoology – wherever you want to put it, but this will help your sanity and theirs. You don’t have to think about what a student missed.  Just tell him to refer to the calendar.
  3. Create instructional videos.  Use Screencastify, a Google Chrome Extension, to record a lesson.  Click the link for a short three-minute example video I made last year to introduce my faculty to this great tool. If it is a long lesson, make shorter videos of micro-lessons.  You can post these on your LMS for absent students or email to parents. This might take some time at first, but ultimately, it will save you time since you won’t have to re-teach an individual lesson to multiple students. You can save them and use again for next year!
  4. Record audio explanations in PowerPoint presentations.  If you teach with PowerPoint, you can easily add audio clips of your voice explaining information on each slide.  Tips: put the microphone icon that indicates an audio clip in the same place on each slide so students know where to look. Also, keep audio clips short. Students are more likely to listen if they are less than two minutes each.
  5. Send personal messages with Edmodo and Remind. I never remember that a kid has been absent the next day. When I realize someone is absent, I will send a quick note through Remind or Schoology to just give them a quick rundown of what they missed.  “We missed you today – here’s what we did… 1. 2. 3. ” I don’t always have time to do this, but I do try. Parents appreciate the communication and students know they can’t fly under the radar and hope I won’t remember they were gone.  If I can’t message them right then, I write myself a note to get to it later.
  6. Keep a class blog. If you don’t have an LMS, a blog is a very easy way for students and parents to get a summary of what you have done each day during class. Simply write a quick summary of what was done in class each day. You could even assign a student helper to keep up with this. As an added value, you could print these summaries and turn them in as evidence of your teaching for evaluations. 
    • For example: Friday, Nov. 1st, College Prep English I: Today, in class, we read Book 2 of The Odyssey.  We divided into groups to discuss the similarities and differences between the graphic novel and the prose version. At the end of class, we turned in the Venn diagram. Homework is to read Book 3 on your own and prepare for a Socratic discussion.  
  7. Communicate frequently. You will need to train students and parents as to where they can locate missed assignments, handouts, etc.  Include a link to this information in all class emails, on the bottom of your newsletters, or on your homepage.  You can also create a QR code and post in the front of your room. Then when a student asks, “Did I miss anything?” simply welcome them back and point to the code.

Learning to Juggle

One of the benefits of adopting digital tools to manage make-up work is that it puts the responsibility back on the student.  One of our goals as teachers is to empower students to take ownership of their learning. If your classroom has no walls or time constraints, there is nothing to stop them from accomplishing this.

In real life, I wish I could actually juggle. I can’t even juggle two balls, much less a hundred.  And I am certainly no better at it in my classroom. The fewer items I have to juggle the better!  

What tools or methods do you use to keep up with make-up work? Let me know in the comments!

unsplash-logoPhoto: Alexis Brown
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Wakelet
Good TeachingWeb 2.0 Tool

The Modality Effect and Wakelet Templates

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Wakelet is an amazing (and free) tool for content curation for both students and teachers. To make it even better, there are fabulous templates available showcasing innovative ways to use the resource in your teaching, learning, and leading. There is also a modality effect that makes non-linguistic representation easier to achieve in your classroom. In this blog entry, you will find a host of inventive ways others are using Wakelet in the classroom.

Update (01/2021): Be sure to read about the all new Wakelet Templates that appear in this blog entry.

What Is Wakelet?

Wakelet is an all-purpose digital pinboard or social bookmarking site that makes it easy to add a wide variety of content to it. If you can link to a resource, then you can add it to Wakelet. This makes it a versatile, simple tool even for the technology-challenged educator. Here is a list of some of the content you can drop into it. Be sure to check out my Wakelet About Wakelet to see how it works.

  • Website addresses
  • Text
  • YouTube videos
  • Tweets
  • Bookmarks (in Wakelet)
  • Images
  • PDFs
  • Google Drive documents
  • Screencastify video recordings

If you like tools like Pinterest and Pocket, then you’ll love Wakelet. During the first week in October, 2019, Wakelet enhanced their feature set with Mood Board (see video below). Educators can use the Mood Board feature for many purposes, such as a:

  • Curated social wall for events
  • Reflection board for students during and after lessons
  • Way for project documentation
  • Visual, equitable, and collaborative group project tool
  • Digital, visual content blackboard
  • Virtual book clubs gathering space, digital maker space and school library tool (e.g. book talks)

And since Wakelet is completely free, and planning to stay that way, you know it will get only better.

Group Contributions Made Easy

Working on a big project that requires group collaboration? No problem; partner with other educators on your team to contribute to Wakelet. You can all add content, even if they don’t have a Wakelet account. This makes adding information and ideas to a shared Wakelet easy to do.

Contributors do not need an account to add to a Wakelet you create. Think about it. This means your under-13 year-old students can contribute to a Wakelet. And you keep editing control.

Explore my Wakelet collection, Templates for Wakelet:

Now, before you disappear down the rabbit hole of the Templates, let’s take a quick look at accelerating student growth.

Multi-Modal Learning with Wakelet

Think of Wakelet as a serving plate for great ideas in multi-modal format. Video, audio, PDFs, images, and text characterize non-linguistic representation. That’s important for many reasons, among them:

The modality effect refers to how learner performance depends on the presentation mode. Improve learning when you present textual information in enhanced mode. That is, when text includes auditory format, and/or visual materials. Visual materials could include a graph, diagram, or animation. Source: Visible Learning Meta  X database

According to Universal Design for Learning (UDL), non-linguistic representation is a must. Multiple representations ensure information is accessible to all learners. It also makes content easier to access and comprehend for many others. The use of Microsoft’s Immersive Reader to make text “playable” with all text content is powerful. It transforms Wakelet into a powerhouse for processing text as audio with picture dictionary and language translation (shown below).

See how Microsoft’s Immersive Reader, built into Wakelet, transforms embedded text.

This instructional strategy (modality effect) accelerates student learning. It enjoys a Hattie Effect Size of .55. This is great because non-linguistic representation is so important; text can’t cut it alone anymore. Wakelet works as a digital mixing board, a plate where you, as the teacher, can organize content.

Wakelet Templates Explode in January, 2021

Templates can kickstart your thinking as to how to best organize content. In January, 2021, Wakelet announced a new feature, Wakelet Templates.

wakelet templates

Wakelet Templates comes with a wide variety of templates you can explore. For example, check out the categories:

Categories include entry and exit tickets, portfolios and resumes, and ice breakers. You can also see distance learning, collaboration tools. It’s a good start. In the meantime, here are some other templates educators have created.

A Few of My Favorite Wakelet Things

Ready to see how other educators are creating templates for you to use? How about ways that educators are teaching with the content creation tool? Here are five fun ways Wakelet is being used.

1) Reading Logs

Dr. Ruth Okoye introduced me to Kristina A. Holzweiss’ (@lieberrian) Wakelet as a way to conduct reading logs. Kristina includes instructions and various resources to get you started. You can create a template for your own students that makes it easy for them to record their reading activity. Some of the information to collect includes what they read, when they read, and how many pages are read each time. It’s also a great way to summarize what was read.

For fun, you might want to take advantage of this Reciprocal Teaching template I created to encourage student readers. Students can use online audio recording tools (e.g. Vocaroo Online Voice Recorder) or Screencastify for webcam recording, to post their answers to reciprocal teaching sentence stems. The link can then be posted in the Wakelet.

2) Newsletters

Many educators, including librarians, are embracing Wakelet as a newsletter template tool. Kristina Uihlein Holzweiss does a wonderful job explaining how she created the first newsletter template below, School Library Media Center Newsletter, September 2019. You can watch her video explanation via the 2020 TCEA Convention Facebook group. Find several newsletter templates you can copy for your own use online.

3) Research reports

One of my favorite templates is this sample research report about polar bears. Imagine how taking a chemistry lab report and putting it into the tool would make the process easier for the teacher to grade. Students could use the template, fill it in, and then submit it to the class assignment Wakelet when complete. This works well for other content areas, too.

As you can see in this example, the work features teacher instructions for students. What might they look like for your classroom?

4) The All About Me Wakelet

Whether it’s All About Me for students in English or Spanish class or a Meet the Teacher template, you can make it easy for students to share a little about themselves using the tool. Research shows that building teacher-student relationships has an effect size of .72.

The relationship teachers have with their students dictates the impact they will have on their students’ achievement.


When there is a positive teacher-student relationship, students feel safe and there is a strong bond of trust within the classroom. Students are not afraid to take risks and understand that making errors are all part of the learning process. Students are more likely to feel positive about school and have a greater chance of developing a true love for learning. (Source: Teacher-Student Relationships)

Breaking the ice with students early on and building that bond of trust can begin with a simple Wakelet.

5) Create Copy-Friendly Content

Ready to jump into template creation? Don’t be afraid to use this resource for digital breakouts, station rotation activities (e.g. Types of Cells), and green screen ideas for your classroom. You won’t regret adapting Wakelet for use in your classroom in simple, powerful ways that enhance learning.

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hands in the waves with a hand outstretched to them to save
Google Tips and TricksiOS Tips and TricksMicrosoft Tips and TricksWeb 2.0 Tool

Wakelet to the Rescue: Backchannel and Twitter Chat Archiving

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

There are two common challenges we face as educators, no matter what you do. Classroom teacher, school administrator, or instructional coach — you face these same two challenges.

The first challenge is how to archive your Twitter chats. Imagine being able to capture Twitter hashtags featuring classroom critical information. Instead of losing information to the continuous scroll, how can we save it? Or how about curating content for a campus show-and-tell?

The second challenge is how to set up a safe space for backchannel chats. Providing the ability for your students or your staff to share ideas and thoughts is a powerful learning tool.

In this blog entry, we’ll explore both of these aspects of Wakelet that you may be unfamiliar with. Ready? Let’s get started.

Did You Know?

You can now save Flipgrid videos direct into a Wakelet Collection! The Wakelet developers have integrated Flipgrid’s new Shorts Camera into Wakelet to help bring your stories to life! Learn more via this tweet. (Updated 9/4/2019)

Wakelet for Backchannel Chats

“Wouldn’t it be neat if we had a tool that worked well for backchannel chats?” I remember asking the question a few months ago when Today’s Meet went offline. In spite of my best search efforts, I couldn’t find any solutions that worked well. I ended up settling for Padlet’s backchannel, but it feels clunky and not worth the effort of setting up. The good news is that Wakelet makes it easy with its access code feature.

Step 1: Create Your Wakelet

You can add some descriptive text and include a short link. You must use the one Wakelet provides, but you can also make your own with a URL shortener. You can see this “Class Academic Chat” Wakelet online here.

Step 2: Set the Visibility

Set the visibility of your Wakelet to unlisted, as shown in the image below.

Step 3: Get the Contributors’ link or Code

Once you have your Wakelet ready to share, get the Contributors’ link. This link includes a special code you can share with others. This link, which is also available as a QR code, makes it easy to get your K-12 or adult learners into your class chat.

Note: If you are logged into Wakelet via your browser, you will not see the ENTER CODE. To get around that, either 1) log out of Wakelet, or 2) open an incognito/private browsing window. Also, if at any time you need to generate a new link and code (like I will with this particular chat), you can use the link shown.

Step 4: Invite Others

Instruct others to enter the code for your Wakelet, then enter their name, as shown below. If you are in an environment where sharing the link is difficult, ask learners to open up their browser. Then, have them go to the Wakelet.com page. At this point, have them click on ENTER CODE in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Once learners click on ENTER CODE (as shown above), then they can enter the top secret access code that makes them into contributors, as shown below.

After selecting the JOIN button, then they will be invited to enter their name as shown below.

At that point, they are ready to begin adding content to the Wakelet Class Chat.

Step 5: Ask for Participation

Once your learners are in the Wakelet chat, they can click on the plus symbol. Each contribution displays the student’s name or the one they entered. Here’s what the add content bar looks like.

The plus symbol will empower them to do any of the following:

  • Paste URL – You can ask students to replace the text imported from the website by having them enter their own rationale for adding the site or why it is relevant to the conversation.
  • Text – Add text or contributions
  • Image – Add an image
  • PDF – If learners have a PDF document on their device, they can add it.
  • Drive – Add content from Google Drive.

Isn’t that incredible? When done adding content, participants SAVE AND EXIT. This commits their changes to the class Wakelet, making them visible for all to see. If they want to add new comments, they can click on EDIT COLLECTION. This will let them add more remarks before they SAVE AND EXIT again. They can also choose to CLOSE out without making additions.

Now, one other neat feature is possible. Participants have the ability to add content, but cannot make changes. That is, they are unable to change the background images, the display of the Wakelet itself. Only you can do that as the organizer or teacher.

Tip: Once the content is in Wakelet, don’t forget that every text entry has the power of Microsoft’s Immersive Reader behind it. Yes, that means that text can be read aloud to students who need it.

Want to see it all in action? Watch this short YouTube video tutorial  (alternate link) I made for you.

Curating Twitter Chats and Tweets

This aspect of Wakelet slipped past me at first. While I knew Wakelet had the ability to embed tweets into its flow as bookmarks, there’s more to it. As an instructional coach or facilitator, you need to curate content for K-12 or adult learners. And that content should include resources and ideas from the Twitterverse.

Capturing tweets is difficult, but Wakelet makes it easy. As you can see in the two images below, click the plus symbol and then the TWITTER button. Note that this content bar is different than what you see as a contributor when participating in a chat. You have MORE options available to you.

After that, you can add tweets from a particular hashtag or user. In the image below, you can see that one can multi-select tweets from a hashtag, in this case, #pblchat.

Wakelet to the Rescue

As you can imagine, Wakelet makes powerful options available to you. I hope you will find these two features worthwhile. I had not explored them until a recent conversation with Wakelet’s Misbah (@Wakelet). What a joy to learn about such awesome, free (no-cost) tools for educators. In addition to creating content-rich collections of curated goodness, you can use Wakelet for much more. Stay tuned as we continue our exploration.

Bonus Tip: Embed Content

Want to share your backchannel chat or twitter curation efforts on another website? Wakelet embeds easily into Microsoft OneNote, Google Sites pages, Google’s Blogger, and traditional websites. This makes it the perfect tool for capturing student insights and sharing. You can embed content by using the embed code Wakelet provides. Misbah also points out that you can print the QR codes to existing collections and then paste them into books, magazines, or around your campus to give people MORE information.

But wait, there’s more! Did you know that you can save Screencastify video recordings direct to Wakelet? Yes, it is easy to take those screencasts and drop them right into your favorite Wakelet through the Apps feature.  Here’s a video overview of the options available:

*This post was updated September 4, 2019.

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