How students can see their work, assignments that are missing, as well as class comments and private comments.

In Google Classroom it can be frustrating to not see a notification come up on the initial page. That being said, numerous districts have opened up their email to allow notifications to show up in a student's district supplied email. However, not every student checks their email and not everyone has this feature turned on.

So, if you would like to see attachments by assignment, assignment due dates, missing work, as well as class comment and private comments be sure to enter into Classwork and then look for View your work.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 29 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

Kami. Have a PDF that doesn't show Kami right away? Select the three dots and open in new window.

If you have been using Kami to have your student annotate a PDF in Google Classroom you know how helpful it can be. However, with any piece of technology sometimes a frustration can come up. One tiny hiccup occurred this morning when my son Jack opened his assignment and the "Open With" did not come up right away.

Thanks to my friend Alison she figured out that you need to select the three dots (more actions) on the right-hand side. Make sure to select three dots and choose open in new window. Now, in the new window you can select Open With - Annotate with Kami.

Embedded below is a 38 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad (and Jack)

How to personalize your Google Classroom Header (even add your Bitmoji)

Adjusting your Google Classroom header is one way to show a bit of personality to your class- plus adding your Bitmoji just makes it more fun. While changing the header has been around for years (check out how to add GIFs to your header "shameless self-promotion") Virginia Peterson created a great YouTube tutorial taking you through the process.

Virginia used Google Slides, in my example I use Google Drawings. 

You can click here for the template.

Embedded below is a 5 minute and 50 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Tab Groups coming to Chrome 81 - allows you to organize your tabs

The ability to group Chrome tabs to organize the number of tabs you have open at one time will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks.

Once this feature is rolled out you will simply need to

•  right click/double tap on a tab
• select Add to new group
• Name the new group
• Keep or change the color of the group

Unfortunately as of now it does not appear that you can save the groups for later on, but you could always use Ctrl Shift T to bring them all back if you close the browser by mistake.

Of course future updates may reflect he ability to save these groups (fingers crossed).

If you would like to give this a look, you will need to add this "experiment" in Chrome flags by entering in chrome://flags/ typing in tab groups, enabling, and then relaunch Chrome.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 40 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to use Kami on an iPad in Google Classroom

If you would like to utilize Kami on an iPad in Google Classroom please watch the embedded 3 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial below. You will also see Kami's instructions by clicking here or seeing the information below the video.

How to open a Kami Assignment from Google Classroom on an iPad

How to open from either the Google Classroom app or the Google Chrome to Kami on iPad

Written by Aden Cooper
Updated over a week ago

To open a file from Google Classroom to Kami on an iPad, follow these steps: 

From Google Chrome Browser

1. Click the three vertical dots in Google Classroom (not in Chrome), and select Open in new window.

2. Next, click the three vertical dots in Google Chrome (not in Google Classroom) > Request Desktop Site.

3. Select Open with -> Kami.

Note: For Safari, it is the same process, except for step 2 you will need to press and hold the page refresh button instead of the three dots in Chrome. 

From Google Classroom App

You will follow the same steps as the Google Chrome instructions above, but first you will need to open the file in a browser. To do so, click this button in the Classroom app and select Chrome if it asks which browser to use:

What if I need to open any PDF file on my iPad?

You can use Kami on your iPad by following these steps:

1. Open the Chrome app.
2. Visit the web version of Kami - https://web.kamihq.com/web/viewer.html
3. Use Open from Google Drive or Open from Computer to select a file.

I followed these instructions and I still have problems. What now?

There are known issues with Kami in iOS. Unfortunately, this is because Apple does not support Chrome extensions or rendering non-embedded content on PDFs. It seems also there have been some recent changes to the Drive/Classroom apps that have rendered some of the workarounds we had to overcome this that we previously had in place are now obsolete.

Email our Customer Success team at support@kamiapp.com. Please use the Share Document button to share the file with us. Send us screenshots or screencasts and tell us what isn't working. Include the URL and file name in the screenshots/screencasts. Tell us who experienced the issue, an approximate time and date when the work was made, and when you realized there was an issue. We love any detail that you can provide - they help us fix the problem as quickly as possible!

Google Classroom quick tips - Stream, Classwork, Google Meet, and Team Drive

My wife is a 4th grade teacher and these little tips has helped keep her Google Classroom organized and easy for students (and families) to follow.

• Hide Classwork Notifications on the Stream - save the Stream for morning/important announcements.
• Settings gear -  Classwork on the Stream - Hide notifications

• Classwork - move the previous weeks assignments to a new topic 
• Once the week is over - move the posts that are in the specific topics to Week 4 Learning (or whatever week it is) 
• The Classwork is still available for students/families to access

• Google Meet
• Google Classroom now supports Google Meet
• You can learn more by clicking here or click on Eric Curts awesome tutorials.
• A few notes 
• You can make the video available to students (when you do this it shows up in your Classroom header)
• This is great for simplicity.
• Make sure to check with your admin as in the admin console, the ability for students to create meetings needs to be turned off. This will prevent them from joining ahead of you and becoming owners of the meetings/recordings
• Personal thing - I would only make this link available to students at the time you want to have the meeting.
• When the meeting is over, make sure to be the last one in the meeting (you can remove students). Make sure to then remove the ability for students to see the link.
• The meeting is still open between 30 seconds and 1 minute even after you leave the meeting so students could still rejoin and invite their classmates back in.
• I would recommend going back into the meeting 1 minute later on - just to be sure no-one jumped back on.
• A reminder that you can show captions for those that are deaf or hard of hearing
• Please note that captions will not show when you record your meeting and play it back.
• Team Drive
• Copying a file from a Shared Drive to your personal Drive
• Depending on your permission you may not be able to just right click and save a file you may need to open file - select file make a copy

Embedded below is a 3 minute and 15 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Flipgrid has a Chrome and Edge Extension - s easy for students to access their Grids!

Flipgrid recently announce both a Chrome and Edge extension that allows students to easily access their Grids directly from the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers. 

Embedded below is a 15 second YouTube tutorial from Flipgrid as well as one I made myself showing you the process. 

Take care,

Brad

Wakelet now has autosave!

That's right - Wakelet collections now have auto save built in! This is a feature I was hoping would come along. As a matter of fact, just last week I was working with teachers on Zoom and showing them how to make collections and I lost the sample collection. Now, this won't happen!

Embedded below is a 36 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

Want to send video directions in Google Classroom? Use the Shorts section in Flipgrid. BONUS there is a screen recorder as well!

If you want to send video directions in Google Classroom or a personalized video, try using the Shorts section at the top of Flipgrid. You do not need to create a grid or a topic. The great thing is you can copy that video URL and share it with whomever you would like.

BONUS - select the three dots and you have an screen recorder!

Embedded below is a 1 minuter and 14 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

How to hide comments and recommended videos in YouTube using an extension.

If you would like to hide comments and recommended videos in YouTube, try adding the Chrome extension - Remove YouTube Recommended Videos, Comments.

The extension will simply do as it states. Please note that you can toggle on/off options when you select the extension.

Embedded below is a 58 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

How to share the Google Form you created with other teachers (and not have things get messed up 😉).

Eric Curts created an amazing blog post on How to Create Self-Grading Quizzes in Google Classroom including an 8 minute "How-to" video tutorial that walks you through the steps. Tweet is below but can also access this blog post directly by clicking here.

☑️ How to Create Self-Grading Quizzes in Google Classroom https://t.co/dTk5XoyMig Quick 8-minute video with all you need to know! #ControlAltAchieve #GoogleEDU #GSuiteEDU #COVID19EDU #TOSAchat #ETCoaches #TLAP @GoogleForEdu pic.twitter.com/MRqFMT53BR

— Eric Curts (@ericcurts) April 4, 2020

A number of teachers have asked me the best way to share the Form they create with their co-workers and have things not get messed up.

Here is how you can do it.

• In your Form make sure to select the three dots in the upper-right (more)
• Select Add Collaborators
• Change who has access (I made my anyone with the link)
• Select Save
• Select Done
• Go to the address bar and after / remove the word edit and replace it with copy
• Now, copy the changed URL (with the word copy at the end) and now share that link with the teacher or whomever you would like to share it with.
• When the link is opened they will see a pop-up that will force them to make a copy
• The user can now use the form as they see fit

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 34 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad