If you are one that wants to allow students to share their voice and what they are thinking/feeling/questioning etc - Flipgrid is for you.
As always, Flipgrid has amazing updates every August and this year is no different. To access Flipgrid's blog about he updates - click here - https://blog.flipgrid.com/news/flipgrid2020
There are so many updates available - the main one that I love is the ability to add a split screen to your whiteboard when recording.
Embedded below I take you through creating a Group, topic, settings, as well as assigning to Google Classroom and what it looks like from a student point-of-view and then again what a teacher sees when a response has been submitted.
If you are interested in the ins and outs of Kami (teacher and student point of view) I have created a brief - ok it is 20 minutes - so maybe not too brief video below. I also have a document that Kami created available for you as well. This document includes 5 steps on how to use add Kami and use it for their assignment(s).
So you see your classroom from last school year and wonder what you can do with it. There are a few things and I will keep it brief.
If you select the three dots in the upper right of the classroom in question you will see the options to:
If you choose to archive it, the class will then be moved to the archived section (under the hamburger - the three lines in the upper left of your screen). This class can always be "brought back to life" if you desire.
If you copy it, please note that what it does it makes a copy of everything in the Classroom (just not the students). Every document, video, including your directions, course syllabus, and other 'view only' documents you provided to your students in their assignments. However, they are in draft form so you can use as you see fit.
Personally, with a new school year, I like archiving the class and starting from scratch - but that is up to you.
One bit of advice I have when starting your class is to make your stream be streamlined by removing the notifications of classwork being posted in the stream. I like the stream being clean ad only for announcements you make. Remind the students to always go into their classwork to see what their classwork is. Of course these are just my 2 cents.
Reminds me of Steven Wright's joke:
"Why is it, "A penny for your thoughts,"
But, “you have to put your two cents in?" Somebody's making a penny. 😀
Embedded below is a 2 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial I created.
If you have a number of tabs open in Google Chrome and want to see a quick image of the site - simply enable the Tab Hover Cards and Tab Hover Card Images in Chrome Experiments by clicking on this link - chrome://flags/. You can see what it looks like in the image below as well as a second YouTube tutorial embedded below.
Want to turn your backyard, home, or any room into Jurassic World? You can now search for any of the following 10 dinosaurs in a Google search:
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Velociraptor
Triceratops
Spinosaurus
Stegosaurus
Brachiosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Dilophosaurus
Pteranodon
Parasaurolophus.
Once you search for one of the above mentioned dinosaur and make sure to select "View in 3D". Once you do so you can then adjust the size of the dinosaur. Click here for Google's article relating to the topic here - Travel back in time with AR dinosaurs in Search
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 23 second YouTube tutorial I created.
If you would like to add audio in your Google Slides I have two ways that you can do it (of course there are many more ways to do it - but these are two that I have found to be useful). Online voice recorder and the extension Screencastify.
A reminder to check your sharing settings for each audio file as you will need to adjust to fit your needs.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
