Password Protect Quizzes in Google Forms

by | Jan 20, 2022

If you are giving a Google Forms assessment to multiple classes, security is a consideration. Different teachers approach this security differently, but it is worthwhile noting that Google Forms can be password protected to limit students’ ability to access the form before you want them to have access.

This video is an example of not being able to go through the door when it comes to tech, but rather finding a window by which to accomplish the desired task.  There is no button to toggle to password protect your forms assessments, but if you follow the easy and innovative process shown in the below video, you will have a new level of security to apply to your assessments!!

Let’s go in Through the Window

How to Record Audio for Students with Learning Disabilities on a Chromebook

How to Record Audio for Students with Learning Disabilities on a Chromebook

by | Mar 19, 2021

I was wrong!

The first time I took a look at Mic Note for recording audio clips to assist our students who struggle with reading or have written language or other disabilities, I thought that it was clunky and awkward.

After much searching for a perceived better option, and coming up blank, I returned to Mic Note, only to realize that I was wholesale wrong about it.  It offers more than just audio recording, which is amazing!

Among my first misconceptions was my assertion that it was difficult to record in .mp3 format, and awkward to direct to Google Drive. Wrong.  If you are wanting to learn how to record your voice on a Chromebook, this app is what you’ve been seeking!

The key advantages it offers over other audio utilities are important details for educators.

Firstly, it allows for up to four hours of recording time. None of us require that much for school uses, but we definitely need more than 5 or 10 minutes as the outer limit, which is where most other applications cut the recording off.  Some sources for exams take longer than 10 minutes to read aloud.

Secondly, it can be set to store the recordings directly into your Google Drive, making them yours forever. This is another advantage over the “competition”. There are some decent applications out there – Talk & Comment and Vocaroo come to mind right away – but they store your audio on their server and delete it after an amount of time has passed. This means that for all the time it takes to record the audio, a year down the road when you wish to reuse the resource with your students, you no longer have access to your recordings from last year, or even last semester. That’s no good!

Thirdly, Mic Note allows you to edit your audio as you are in the process of recording. So, if you get your tongue in a knot reading aloud, and you need to try again, Mic Note facilitates this easily.

So, I hereby retract my earlier position about Mic Note, and I highly recommend it.

Here’s a video outlining how I recorded an English 30 exam for students requiring the accommodation, and the templates for the two exam booklets can be copied to your Google Drive through the freebies section of this website!

Students Keep Getting “Booted” From my Online Classes!

Students Keep Getting “Booted” From my Online Classes!

by | Jan 3, 2021

This page contains affiliate links. You can read my disclosure here.

As we move toward a week of at-home learning for all students in Alberta at the start of January 2021, I offer this tutorial to try to help families maximize the capacity of their home internet connection without incurring additional costs to the internet service providers. There are many things that can be done for free to try to improve the Google Meet or Zoom experience.

This video will give an analogy for the internet and bandwidth and then take you through some ideas to improve your home connection.  I’ve used this analogy for fifteen years to explain bandwidth to eleven year olds. It will help make sense of the issues at hand, and can be given to families “as-is” if they’re having problems.

Summary

  • Move closer to your router. Try to attain 3 bars.
  • Do a speed test of your download & upload speeds.
  • When possible, download content the night before it is needed (especially video content).
  • Enable offline mode for GSuite (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets).
  • Powercycle your router.
  • Set Google Meet’s layout to “spotlight” (and don’t use blur/change background).
  • Remove household cell phones from the wifi, or turn them off.

 

Glitches in Google Meet

Glitches in Google Meet

by | Jan 3, 2021

It’s so stressful!! Teaching online is difficult enough, but every time I try to teach with Google Meet, I DON’T HAVE THE CONTROLS! I can’t record it, I can’t start breakout rooms, I can’t mute students or remove anyone for bad behaviour. It’s embarrassing, not to mention anxiety-provoking. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG.

 

DO NOT USE THE GOOGLE MEET LINK FROM GOOGLE CLASSROOM.

1. The link that Google Classroom generates is glitchy. We have learned from our remote learning troubleshooting this fall that using the Meet link that Classroom publishes on the banner does not always ensure that the teacher is the owner of the session. IN MY SCHOOL DISTRICT, We realized these links were glitchy when we had one of our remote teachers log in to her own Meet first (ahead of all students) – 8:50 am according to the Google server log. At 8:58 her first student logged in, and that student was in control of the meet.

2. A Meet address that you have created seems to have expired. This seems to occur when the meet is given a nickname.

  

To Solve These Issues

1. Go to meet.google.com and click on “Join or start a meeting”.

2. Do NOT give the Meet a nickname.

3. Copy the URL (web address) that Meet generates.

4. Paste the URL into Google Classroom as a material and apply a topic to it (I’d call the Topic “Google Meet Link”) and then drag that topic to the very top of your classwork tab in Google Classroom.

If at any time your Meet link begins to glitch (Michelle has used the same link since the first Covid quarantine in March of this year), repeat the above steps, but you’ll only need to edit the material in step 4.

Other Challenges

When things have glitches, it is often “the network” we first blame for the problems. If you are physically in a CESD school, it is highly unlikely to be the network. However, what students have open on their device can present challenges.

If students have a large number of tabs open, this can place a burden on their device, causing Meet to not have access to the local resources it needs to run. This can cause a student to be “booted” out of the meet, or can cause their video to be glitchy.

If students are at home on a PC or Mac computer, other programs they have open can steal valuable processing from that computer. Things like Fortnite running in the background, or YouTube open to play music while they listen can be quite problematic in Google Meet.

Students accessing the meet on a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) not using the actual app for Google Meet may experience challenges.

Lastly, the network in the personal space (homes) of the participants can have an impact on the meeting. The CESD network is unlikely to be at fault, but home networks may be.

 

Crash Course in Kami

Crash Course in Kami

by | Jan 2, 2021

This page contains affiliate links. You can read my disclosure here.

Originally Kami was built as a .pdf reader for Google Drive. Over time they have added new tools and features to it making it a very powerful classroom application.

This blog post offers a short video “Crash Course in Kami” that will introduce you to the annotation tools and will offer some differentiation ideas for it as well.

If you are teaching remote learners, Kami offers a lot of assistance in accomplishing that task.

Kami typically offers a 90-day trial of all the tools in this awesome extension!

Google Meet – Teach online like a PRO!

Google Meet – Teach online like a PRO!

by | Jan 1, 2021

When Google rushed Meet to market in March, there were many features in the works that weren’t ready yet. The quarantine likely caught them as off-guard as it caught us.  But, now, nine months later, there are many new features in Google Meet. This 18-minute video will take you through each of the new features and demonstrate how to use each.

At 16:20 I show how I created a link on March 16 and am still using the same link almost 9 months later.

Screencastify Tutorial

Screencastify Tutorial

by | Dec 11, 2020

Have you ever wished you could clone yourself in your classroom?

Me too. Many times it felt like there were more questions and pressing needs than places I could be at one time. 

The global quarantine of Covid has forced educators worldwide to learn some new tech skills, but what if we could cash these skills out for years to come?

That’s right, I said years!

Picture this: One year from now, you press “PLAY” on the lesson you record today, and the students in your classroom watch it. That’s right. They are in your classroom, watching a video of you teaching. And you’re there. I bet you’re wondering “Why the heck would I do that?!”  Well, doing that might let you do those one-on-one conferences with students that you always plan to do, but struggle to fit in. Reading check-ins with the younger students could happen. Discussions with students about recent assessments. Formative assessment. You know – all those things we want to do, but struggle to fit in around instruction. What if…..

If you are new to Screencastify and are looking for some help getting started, this tutorial covers the content that I went through in a live Google Meet with teachers in my school jurisdiction..  The link for Canadian Copyright law with respect to reading books aloud and recording the reading is important to check if you are considering reading to your students in a recording.

So, press play on the video, and if you have another idea of things you could accomplish while playing a lesson in your class (just don’t do it every day), leave your idea in a comment on my YouTube Channel!!

 

Google Jamboard – Your Digital Whiteboard

Google Jamboard – Your Digital Whiteboard

by | Nov 16, 2020

A newcomer to your Google Suite of Educator Tools is Google Jamboard which provides you with a blank screen and annotation tools. With a touch-screen Chromebook, you can now open a new “jam”, and begin drawing, instructing and demonstrating. Best of all – it saves into your Google Drive when you’re done. 

With Jamboard, you can easily bring in images, draw shapes, write, erase and illustrate. Even better – it is now built right into Google Meet. So, if you are instructing at a distance, you can open a new jam from inside Google Meet to seamlessly draw and illustrate to your students the lesson at hand.

Want to see it in action?

This instructional video might be helpful.

Upgrading Your Chromebook

Upgrading Your Chromebook

by | Oct 7, 2020

If you are experiencing challenges with your Chromebook, or a student Chromebook, the first place to start is to engage in the simple process of updating the operating system. This step-by-step guide will walk you through the steps to ensure that your operating system is current, which will minimize glitchy behaviours of the machine.

Google Meet Etiquette for Students

Google Meet Etiquette for Students

by | Jun 4, 2020

Knowing what the expectations are in an online classroom isn’t always easy. We are all familiar with the face-to-face classroom, but what are kids supposed to do in an online classroom? We offer this one-page printable document outlining the expectations for students in our online classrooms. 

June 2020 – Celebration of Learning

June 2020 – Celebration of Learning

by | May 25, 2020

Grade 2 website, built by Miss Sookram, BGS

The 2019-2020 school year changed the moment Premier Jason Kenney suspended classes on the 15th of March. From that point on, teachers were thrust into the position of Distributed Learning Teacher.

What occurred during the week between the announcement of the suspension of classes and the start of online classes was an astounding display of “can-do” from our teachers around Chinook’s Edge School Division.

The philosophy of Life-Long-Learning was displayed in spades throughout Chinook’s Edge. The result of this has been the creation of a number of classroom websites, and online friendly resources. This page is a celebration of the learning that was undertaken by the professionals in our school district. Your commitment to education, to your students and to your professional calling kept learning moving forward. 

This page will contain a gallery of the class sites and other online resources created by our esteemed educators to keep learning moving forward. The more we share, the lighter the load! Please share your resources here!!!

Ross Ford Learning Website

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