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Podcasts

Special Education and Parent Communication | Podcast Ep. 89

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

During the pandemic, the ways educators communicated with parents and guardians changed. Guest speaker Nadia Tamez-Robledo of EdSurge explains how, for some parents of special education students, it was a change for the better.

Homework

Nadia Tamez-Robledo: “Technology Made Special Education Parents Better Advocates During the Pandemic“

Emily Tate: “Here Come the Virtual Academies“

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Music by Patrick Patrikios

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parents
Educational Trends

Remote Learning: How Parents Can Help

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

With schools about to start back up, many parents are already looking to see how they can prepare themselves and their kids to have the most positive and impactful year possible. This past spring was definitely not what many parents planned for. And, with many parents trying to juggle new job situations along with helping family members that are in need, it left little energy to think ahead and make note of ideas and strategies for a better fall.

Fortunately, we have you covered at TCEA. Here are some tips and strategies that can help make this fall less stressful, for your child and for you.

Designate a Workspace

Creating a designated workspace that is separate from your living space can make a great impact on how well your child is able to focus on their educational tasks at hand. What you find works for you or one of your children may not be as good a fit for another of your children.

You have probably seen them when they are “in the zone” and may have some clear ideas as to how to replicate that space, but don’t forget to involve them. Consider asking for input and making it a parent-and-child project. While I do best with as few distractions as possible, I have friends that do well sitting right in the middle of noise and movement.

Regardless of whether the child prefers it to be busy with color and inspiration or whether it is a nod to minimalism, be sure to have good lighting and supplies (pencils, crayons, calculator, etc.) handy.

Develop a Schedule

It is unrealistic to try to replicate a school schedule and think that your child is going to spend eight hours learning. It is realistic, however, to develop a schedule that gives your child specific time to work on specific content areas with breaks included. They do need time to focus on learning and making application of the new knowledge, but they also need time to play, move around, and relax.

While “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is a popular proverb dating back to 1659, it was extended in 1825 to include, “All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.” The wisdom exposed here is that moderation is a good thing. Rhodes College shares how chunking the learning into manageable time slots can help a person stay focused and on task. Similar to the Pomodoro Technique, this involves writing a study/work goal, working on it for 25 minutes, and then taking a five minute break. Knowing that you have a break coming up helps you maintain a better focus. You may not accomplish the study/work goal in just one 25-minute slot, but the goal is that you have a target that you are working to accomplish.

Communicate with the Teacher

Hopefully the teacher is initiating communication with you and sharing what he/she expects of your child. Because this is still a new way of teaching, educators may still be trying to find their footing and struggling to stay one step ahead due to delayed decisions from their district and state leaders. Here are a few questions you can ask your child’s teachers in order to be the best advocate for them:

  • How can I best support you as my child’s teacher?
  • Do you have a teacher website I can refer to that has resources to help with learning tasks and assignments?
  • Other than grades, what are some evidences I should see if my child is doing well and learning in your class?
  • If my child doesn’t understand an assignment, where is the best place for me to direct him/her for resources that you provided?

Model Hard Work

As an adult, we find that there are times we would rather not work on a particular project even though it is necessary…and possibly required. You’ve learned to work through the lack of motivation to get the job done. Share your experiences with your child as to how you manage to move forward, even when you would rather not.

Letting them hear how you feel frustrated and unmotivated at times but still work through it can help them start internalizing those same efforts in their lives. Is it thinking of how good it will feel when the task is done or how you will be proud of yourself for finishing a hard task? Maybe you’ve learned to bribe yourself that when you complete xyz, then you’ll let yourself enjoy something simple as a reward. However you do it, talk to your child and find out what works for them (and what doesn’t work for them). You may find these conversations are much more rewarding than you realize and put you and your child on the same team when it comes to tackling hard work.

Don’t Forget Self Care

If we aren’t careful, we can be so focused on establishing routines to “get’er done” that we neglect self care. Growing up in Texas where the thought is “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” when you go through hard times, it can be easy to overlook the necessity to take time for yourself so you are more able to keep going…and hopefully find yourself needing to be picked up less often.

Some simple ways include eating healthier meals, getting enough sleep, limiting being on digital devices as it gets closer to bedtime, socializing (even from a distance) with others, and even looking for ways to help others. These can go a long way in refreshing your body and soul so you have more attention to give to the work that needs to take place.

How Do You Help?

We’ve shared a few ideas above, but that doesn’t cover everything. What are some strategies and tips you would share with parents that have either worked for you and your child or that you’ve seen other parents successfully do? We’d love for you to share by leaving a comment below. Your comment may be the very one that helps another parent have that “aha!” moment so it all comes together much easier at their house this fall.

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

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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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screen time
Educational Trends

The Good and Bad of Screen Time

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about the dangers of screen time. Everyone is talking about how kids today don’t know how to have a conversation with someone or to focus on something because they are too busy staring at their technology’s screen. Experts warn about the addictive danger of social media, and those who work in the technology industry are not allowing their own children to use the devices. So what are educators to think about the use of technology for learning?

The Bad

Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.” Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads.

screen time

We can all agree that tech can be taken too far. Have you seen the potty  training iPad station? And what about the USB Pet Rock? screen time

And it’s definitely true that technology can become a mindless babysitter if used in the wrong way. Too much time spent staring passively at a screen is bad for anyone, young or old. There’s also the argument that being able to quickly find answers to simple questions with our devices is making us dumber and less patient. All of these points have some validity

The Good

But, to be fair, isn’t anything carried to the extreme bad for us? Coffee has been found to have some positive health benefits, but not if you drink 25 cups of it a day. Walking is good for you unless you walk 50 miles daily. Too much of anything is bad. That means that it’s up to us to monitor and, when necessary, limit how much time we spend staring at our devices.

The better question may be how much screen time is too much. “According to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on children’s interactions with media and technology, kids under the age of eight average two hours and 19 minutes a day on some form of digital media, which is similar to TV habits going back decades for this age group” (source). So younger kids aren’t really spending any more time staring at their iPads or smartphones today than they did staring at the television in the past.

Technology connects us. It empowers each of us to find our own answers, to pursue our own dreams. It can help those of us who need a little more time or assistance to learn something to achieve that goal. It can remove the barriers of poverty, disability, and lack of opportunity. It can make the world a smaller, friendlier, and safer place. And it can inspire us as we use it to create, compose, innovate, communicate, and collaborate.

What we must understand is that technology is a tool just like any other tool. It has specific purposes and best practices for its use. Just as you would not use a hammer 24/7 to do all of your activities, so technology should not be used for everything. But what technology can help us to accomplish is something that no other tool can do. And that is where its true power lies and where we must use it most.

What We Should Doscreen time

First, we have to admit that the technology is not going away. We will not be going back to the “good ole days” when no one owned a cell phone. The latest study of market-research group Nielsen found that American adults spend more than 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to, or simply interacting with media on devices (source).

Second, we have to acknowledge that too much of anything is bad for us and may be especially bad for the youngest of us. Parents should set limits as to when their children should have access to devices, as well as to what they may do on those devices. This is no different than parents limiting access to candy and sweets.

Third, educators must make sure that we are not using technology just for technology’s sake. As stated above, technology is AMAZING for empowering us to do higher-order thinking and creating. But it should most definitely not be used for passive consumption. That means that, when thinking about a lesson or activity, we actually spend time considering whether technology will add to the learning and, if so, what is the best way for that to happen. It is a conscious choice that should be balanced with all of the other pedagogical decisions that we make each day for the betterment of our students.

The devil does not live in our devices, but he may be able to convince us to use them inappropriately. It is up to each of us to ensure that time spent with technology adds richness to our lives and doesn’t take away from our sharing with each other, being in the world, or seeking to make each day a little better for everyone.

Updates

The Canadian Pediatric Society in June of 2019 has released new screen time rules which are of interest. They include no screen time at all for infants and toddlers under two and less than an hour a day for kids two to five. The guidelines for kids and teens, however, focus more on how and when screens are used rather than how long. “We really wanted to highlight that content, context and kids’ individual traits are as important as specific screen time limits,” says Michelle Ponti, chair of the CPS Digital Health Task Force and lead author on the statement. “It’s not the screens themselves that are inherently harmful,” says Ponti. “It’s how we use them. As long as they are not taking over our lives and complementing our lives, that’s OK. That’s what we’re trying to focus on.”

This blog was updated with additional content on June 9, 2019.

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Love to Learn message on side of a pencil mural on a wall
Good TeachingGoogle Tips and Tricks

Provide Custom Email Updates for Parent Communication

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Keeping parents informed about their child’s progress is a critical, but very time-consuming job in education. But it can make a huge difference in that child’s learning. Parent involvement in a child’s academic life has a positive impact and can motivate students to learn and behave appropriately. Often, parents want to be supportive of what is happening in the classroom, but lack information on how to accomplish that. Given that there are over four billion email accounts, chances are that the parent/guardian of the child has an email account. In this blog entry, we’ll explore three simple ways to provide parent communication using Google Sheets and a convenient add-on to help automate this process a little. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to add them at the bottom of the blog entry.

Parent Communication Tool #1 – Form Mule

Take advantage of the Google Sheets’ add-on Form Mule. It allows you to quickly create information in Google Sheets and then “email merge” it together. This can result in nicely nuanced messages as you create specific feedback or share information. Comments can be placed in different columns. Some examples of English comments can be seen in this blog from Scholastic and Spanish ones are available here. Of course, you can come up with your own as well or use whatever comments your district or campus has approved. I’ve borrowed a few of them for the examples below.

provide

Note: Comment examples may not be suitable in some districts. Consult FERPA and school administrators in your area. When in doubt, keep it positive and do not reveal personal details via emails. More on this point below.

Once you have your comments customized for students, you are ready to take advantage of FormMule. Note that you can get even fancier with email updates. Do this by using the concatenate function in a spreadsheet. This function enables you to combine a student’s name with your comments which lets you create generic comments for students while “dropping in” the child’s first name. This may become a necessity with large classes where you may want to have consistent remarks for each student. Notice that in the example above, I’m able to offer English/Spanish-specific feedback in the comments.

To begin using FormMule, go to your Add-Ons menu in Google Sheets. Then select “Launch” from FormMule. FormMule presents itself with the first screen shown below. You simply have to make a few selections to get started. You can also watch this video for more tips.

Step 1 – Select Your Sheet

Most Google Sheets come with standard titles for each sheet in the spreadsheet. The standard name is “Sheet1,” and FormMule expects you to select the correct sheet from a drop-down list. Simply select “Sheet1” and click on the blue button labeled “Next: Templates and Send Conditions”

provide

Step 2 – Save Your Template

While FormMule offers several features you may want to explore later, let’s be brief this first time. Simply leave the settings below as they are. Click the “Save template settings” blue button at the bottom of the screen and then select “Next: Edit templates.”

provide

The next step involves actually writing your email, then embedding mail merge elements (the column headers in your Google Sheet) into the email. These elements are offset by greater than and less than symbols <<ColumnHeader>>. Below, you can see an actual example:

provide

Notice that the following is true of the example shown above:

  • You can mix your email with various elements shown on the right. You can also include HTML formatting tags (such as the use of <ul> and <li> to get an unordered or bulleted list
  • When you insert an element from your spreadsheet, you can identify it with greater than/less than symbols
  • To get true customization for other languages, you could create your welcome message as its own comment in your spreadsheet

Here’s what the end product will look like in Preview for two of the students, Barney and Melodia:

provide

The final steps involve clicking “Preview and send all” and then send. Provided the email addresses are correct, your students’ parents will receive the emails.

Parent Communication Tool #2 – Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM)

A less robust tool for sending emails than FormMule, Yet Another Mail Merge relies on draft messages you’ve put together in Gmail. It pulls those emails up from your DRAFTS (you can “Compose” a message, then save it to the DRAFTS folder in Gmail).  The email is addressed using email addresses that you’ve prepared in a Google Sheet and allows you to quickly “spam” or bulk email people. The main benefit of YAMM is that you can add file attachments to your DRAFT email. The email attachments, of course, are sent when you use the YAMM add-on. This is helpful when you have prepared a paper form or publication (digital newsletter) in PDF format that you need to distribute. You can watch this short video tutorial if you would like to see how to use YAMM.

Parent Communication Tool #3 – Email Parents

Google wizard Alice Keller has also created a Google Sheets add-on known as Email Parents. Alice provides an illustrated tutorial of her add-on online at her blog Teacher Tech with Alice Keeler.

Some Final Points

Consider that email updates to parents are a great opportunity to connect. Be sure not to violate FERPA rules when it comes to them however (it will vary depending on your state and district policies). While you may find the sample comments provided in this blog entry to be a bit too revealing, you can always adjust your comments to be less revealing of student academic or behavioral progress. “There is good reason to believe that emails, texts, Tweets, and other digital communications between teachers, administrators, parents, and students about students are not student records unless they are maintained in the student’s file,” points out this blog entry. Remember to be professional in your communications and take care when entering emails for parents. It wouldn’t do to mix up updates for one student with another’s parent/guardian.

Addendum: How to Add Google Sheets Add-Ons

You can find a variety of  Google Sheets add-ons. Here’s a quick overview of how to get to them:

  1. Open Google Sheets by doing one of the following:
    1. Go to Google Drive and create a new Sheet OR
    2. Go to to Google Sheets
  2. Click on Add-Ons and select “Get Add-Ons.” You can see what this looks like below:

provide

As you can see from the picture shown above, there are several add-ons already set up. You may not have any add-ons, so your list will be quite short. When you click on “Get add-ons,” you will see a screen similar to the one below:

provide

In the top right-hand corner, you can search on specific add-ons you will be adding from this blog entry. When you select an add-on, you may be prompted to give permission to the add-on. Do so. You will be expected to quickly click through a series of screens. Next to new add-ons you are considering selecting, you will see the plus symbol with the word FREE next to it. Click this button to select the add-on for use in your Google Sheet.

The next screen you will see is an account selection. Many of us have multiple Gmail accounts, such as one from work or personal. Below, you can see a typical screen:

provide

 

The last screen you will see is a permission request. Google will ask if you want to ALLOW this add-on to do what it needs to so it may be added to your Google Sheets.

Now, once you’ve finished these steps, you will be able to go to your Add-ons menu and then select the new add-on you selected previously.

 

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Google Tips and Tricks

Updates to Google Classroom

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Google has come out with two new updates to Classroom that will make educators very happy. One is available now and the other will be available in the fall.

Scheduling for Later Posting – Google Classroom now allows the busy teacher to schedule announcements, assignments, and questions for a later date. Just look for the scheduling option when posting new items. You can find scheduled and draft posts in the “Saved posts” section of your class stream, and you’ll get email and mobile notifications when your scheduled posts go live. This is great for perhaps getting ready for the new year by scheduling things over the summer or for when you’re going to be out of school. Additional updates will also be added this next week for easier-to-read email notifications and improvements to the Classroom iOS and Android apps.

By the way, did you know that TCEA members are given access to free monthly webinars on everything Google, including Classroom, with their membership? Find out more about the Get Your Google On series and start your learning today. Want to try it out first? Here’s one recorded webinar from this year’s series on Making the Most of Google Classroom.

 

If you like that webinar, sign up for the new series of Google sessions here to make sure you don’t miss a one. All of the webinars are free to members. If you’re not a member, you can join with full benefits for just $49.

Keeping Parents in the Loop – In the fall, Google Classroom will allow parents and guardians to sign up to receive daily or weekly email digests of their child’s progress, upcoming work, and class announcements. Administrators will also be able to invite parents directly and set domain-wide policies for linking and notifications. This will be a great tool for keeping parents informed and engaged with their child’s learning.

If you want to learn more about the power of Google Classroom, check out our post Check Yes or No: Add Polls to Google Classroom.

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