What's in Your Blended and Remote Learning Toolbox?
By Jamie Averbeck @AverbeckTech
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Blended...Virtual....Cohorts...Remote...Synchronous....Asynchronous...can all be a bit overwhelming these days. The goal of this edition of Teaching w/ Tech is to highlight some updates and tools that you hopefully can add to your blended and remote learning toolbox.
Google Meet Updates
Google Meet Updates
The first of a series of Google Meet updates rolled out this week. If you are the creator of a Google Meet, you will now see a small blue shield in the bottom left corner that allows for two new controls.
The settings give you the access to turn on and off the ability for attendees to share their screen or participate in the chat. The Meet creator can still share their screen and post to the chat with both of these settings set to "off" for everyone else.
Google Meet also added the ability to adjust your tile view up to 49 users. You can do this by clicking on the three dots in the bottom right, then "change layout", and then select "tiled" for your view.
What's Coming to Google Meet? Upcoming features that are expected to be rolled out over the next few months include breakout rooms and enhanced chat features (polling, Q&A, multiple choice).
Google Calendar Appointment Slots
Google Calendar Appointment Slots
A common question for teaching in a blended or remote learning environment is around how to conduct "Open Office Hours" for individual students. An easy way to set this up is using Google Calendar Appointment Slots. You can set up a block of appointments on your Google Calendar that students can reserve. Here is how you do it:
Click and drag on the date and time you would like to create appointment slots for. On the calendar pop up, select "Appointment slots" and give your block of time a title (6th Grade Science Help Appointments). You also can adjust the time duration of your appointment slots.
After hitting save, click on the appointment block. Then click on "Go to the appointment page for this calendar"
This is the page you would share with your students. Once a student clicks on an appointment slot, they can put information in the description and then hit save. Each of you will get the created Google Calendar invite with a Google Meet link. Since this is being used 1:1 with a student, using a Calendar invite is fine. If you created multiple appointment slots for multiple classes, they all will show up on the appointment page. If you would want a separate page for each class, you would need to create a separate calendar for each class. You also can edit the block to repeat on specific days.
Calendly is another tool you could use to accomplish the same as above. You get one calendar in the free version.
Flipgrid Users
Flipgrid Users
If you are a Flipgrid user, or if you want to become one, here is an awesome resource for remote learning with Flipgrid, specific to engaging students and families.
Screencastify Users
Screencastify Users
For those of you who are using or planning on using Screencastify as a screen recording tool, I found two great articles full of ideas for how to use and organize screencast videos.
Asynchronous vs Synchronous
Asynchronous vs Synchronous
Anybody else have a negative visceral reaction to just reading those words? With the switch to Blended/Remote/Virtual instruction last spring, Asynchronous and Synchronous learning became the new favorite buzz words in education. Let's define them:
A recent article in Forbes, made a strong push for Asynchronous learning. The article, Asynchronous Remote Learning is the Most Humane Way to Teach This School Year, has a lot of great points, especially around lecturing through a computer screen. My take is that it isn't either or, we need to have a mix of both. I'm a big fan of Asynchronous content (screencasts, Flipgrids, articles, blogs), with scheduled Synchronous feedback and clarification communication (Whole class Google Meets to go over expectations and to make sure everyone has access to materials, small group Meets for formative assessment feedback and re-teaching moments, and individual Meets for personalized instant feedback, assessment, and re-teaching). Providing flexible access to content, with scheduled communication makes the most sense to me. I think it is the best of both worlds.
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