Using Zoom’s Reporting Feature
Steve Romary shows us how to see who is in our Zoom meetings and their level of engagement
Zoom Your Way to Better Student Meetups
Overview
Zoom is a popular and powerful service for communicating with students, parents and nearly anybody. While Google Meet has its niceties, Zoom triples down with more features and ease of use.
Possible Uses
- Meet up with your entire class and present to them
- Have students use the “raise your hand” feature when they have a question. Lets you get to them one at a time
- Take advantage of the breakout rooms for small group discussions. You can jump between those rooms as needed.
- Record your session with students to allow for those that are not around at the moment.
- Take advantage of the chat room to answer written questions on your own schedule
- Share your screen and conductor a webinar from a slide show you have presented.
- Use the virtual background so no one has to know you are hanging around at the beach!
Getting Started
- Click on the link that Chad sent you so you will be in the ISB world
- Login using your Google Account at school
- Start a new meeting
- Send the link to students
- Enjoy!
See this detailed support guide for even more great features.
Video Support
EdPuzzle
Make it easy for students to answer questions and generally interact with video content you find our make yourself.
Connect With Your Students Via FlipGrid
Overview
FlipGrid is a fantastic way to connect with students. Basically you set up a question for them and they respond with a video. Beyond basics, there are a ton of ways to get creative and have some fun as you get better at it.
Merissa Bush is our expert on this. You can catch her in Slack all the time now! See some tips on how to use Flipgrid here.
Getting Started
- Head to FlipGrid.com and create an account using your school email.
- Create a “grid” for students
- Make sure their email address domain is set up properly. That is students.isb.ac.th. The default will show isb.ac.th since that is what you used to log in
- Copy the link and send it out however you like: Email, Google Classroom, PowerSchool Learning, SeeSaw, etc.,
Video Support
Verifying Student Engagement
Overview
It can be difficult to tell if students are engaged in the exciting lessons you have for them. When I get questions like, “what are we supposed to do?” I start to think “are they looking at the emails, etc. that direct them on what to do?”
To help with this, I am listing ideas I come across as I work with you all.
Happening Now (to be updated as we move along)
Teacher Ideas
- Steve Romary is asking kids to check-in via Google Chat. He then marks them as present on a spreadsheet. At the end of the day, he has a list of who was around and who was not. (See here for help with Google Chat)
- Merissa Bush is asking students to leave a reflection on FlipGrid A fun way to interact with each other. (Help coming soon)
- Meg Fisher Reports In G2 teachers are using SeeSaw and students are posting pictures with explanations or videos to share their work. Kim has been able to share back recorded comments with them. It is nice to be a co-teacher in classes so we can monitor LS or EAL as well as be a resource for parents.
- Don Hutner uses Google Classroom: “Similar to Google forms, you can ask a question through Google Classroom. When kids post their answer, you can see in your Google classroom. You can also see which students haven’t answered the question.” (See his screenshot)
- Brenda Perkins likes to have one Google Meet link available for students to use so they can quickly have a video chat with her. She uses the same link all day long and is in the room during certain times. (Help Setting Up Google Meet)
Other Ideas
- SeeSaw. Create an assignment where students are asked to check-in via video and provide some feedback.
- Ask students with laptops to use PhotoBooth and shoot a quick video reflection. They can add some fun elements to it to make it more interesting too. (Photobooth Help)
- Ask students to use QuickTime on their computer or any camera recording device on a phone or laptop. Ask them to drop the video into a Google Classroom assignment you set up. (Quicktime Help)
- Create a Google Form where you ask students to fill in some information. You can even ask them to upload a video too. Or take a picture of them working? (Google Form Help)
Got an idea that works for you? Let me know!
Be Easily Available with Google Chat
Overview
Thanks to a tip from Stephen Romary, Google Chat is a great way to connect and stay in touch with students. You can use Google Chat on your
Practical Uses
- Create a virtual room and invite students from your specific class (or a group of classes) to the chat room.
- Have them drop questions, ideas, check-in etc., during the day
- If a more dedicated conversation is needed, send them a Google Meet link.
Getting Started
- Head to chat.google.com
- Create a room. For example, Social Studies Block 4
- Or just have one giant room of all Social Studies Students. Your call.
- Invite each student by email address. This is REALLY annoying as you have to do it one by one and it stinks. If anyone knows a better way, let me know.
- See this post if you need help finding your student email addresses.
Start Here: Components of Virtual Schooling
Components of Virtual Schooling
This post serves as thoughts and ideas for working virtually with students. I will update it as we go through the process and learn more along the way.
Feel free to reach out: Michaelb@isb.ac.th I will be around and ready to chat.
Connection
It is often said that students come to school for three reasons: Friends, friends and because their parents make them. Of course, they also come to connect with the adults in their lives that care about them.
Virtual schooling makes connections a “little” more difficult yet, the importance of connecting with students is still there.
Suggestions for connecting with students
- Create a screencast of you for EVERY lesson and post it on the system you usually use for class (PowerSchool Learning, SeeSaw, Google Classroom, Website). Do the usual greeting you might do in class in a way that reflects the personality you have.
- Create office hours of when you will be available. The HS has this defined already. MS suggests creating your own hours.
Communication
Admin has set out expectations for communication with parents and students.
- Be sure to point families to PowerSchool Learning as the first place to go for online learning. While many of us use other systems (including me), the expectation is that all families start in one place (PowerSchool Learning). This will make it hugely easier for everyone if they all agree on where to start.
- Consider sending a video greeting along with your email. Assume parents and students will view this greeting. Upload the greeting to YouTube (set to unlisted) and include the link with your email.
- Ask students to send you a 30-second video reflection of the work they did for the day. It holds them accountable and provides teachers with a lot more information about the work they did and how they felt about it.
- Feedback: Consider screencasting your feedback to students on the work they did. I find it a welcome break from typing comments and I know they really enjoy it.
Suggested Lesson Format
- Film a video greeting with expectations for the lesson. This may just be a video greeting or a screen recording.
- Write out the expectations for the lesson. This may be a repeat of the video, but you can imagine it is difficult (and unlikely) that a student will go watch the video again.
- Communicate how, where and when students will submit their work. If using a system like PowerSchool Learning or Google Classroom, it is easy to spot those who have not submitted work
- Ask students to send a video reflection (about 30 seconds) back to you on the work they did.
- Alternatively, this could be written
Suggested Tools (To be updated as we move forward)
There are a zillion tools out there and it can seem overwhelming. My suggestion at the outset is to keep it simple and then add tools as you start to explore them.
Google Chat (See Help Here)
- Create a virtual room and invite students from your specific class (or a group of classes) to the chat room.
- Have them drop questions, ideas, check-in, etc., during the day
- If a more dedicated conversation is needed, send them a Google Meet link.
Google Meet (See Help Here)
- Office hours
- Create the meeting in advance, then share the link. The link should last for a while (not sure how long)
- Pro Tip: Open the link on your end during your office hours and do your regular work. You will hear a loud “DING” when someone enters the room.
- Create the meeting in advance, then share the link. The link should last for a while (not sure how long)
- Group meetings
YouTube (See Help Here)
- Store recorded lessons and greetings
- Allows for live streaming as needed
- Use the “unlisted” feature to keep things fairly private.
Quick Time (See Help Here)
- Record video greetings and lesson expectations
- Record screen recordings of your lessons and or expectations
- Upload to YouTube for easy sharing
A Design Cycle Approach
Virtual schooling, with short notice, lets us indulge in a classic Design Thinking Challenge. We have to build it, put it out there for feedback, reflect on how it went and then improve it.
Stay in touch!
Grab Parent and Student Emails in PowerSchool Pro
Need to get the most recent email list for your students and parents?
See K. Arintra’s tips below for pulling that information from PowerSchool Pro
1. First, log in to our Powerteacher Pro. Go to Class on the left-hand side menu, then select Email Class
2. Next, select your class and check the box ‘Student Email’ and/or ‘Parent/Guardian Email’ if you would like to email to the whole class.
3. Scroll down, and click ‘Build list’. All email addresses that you selected will appear in the box. Then, copy and paste the whole chunk to your gmail. Recommend to copy this to BCC to keep parent emails private.
Slack for Virtual School
Overview
Slack is a phenomenal chat program that allows for an organized and super friendly communications structure. I have used it for years and it is perfect for groups working from home. Simply put, it rocks.
Instead of one GIANT chat room, Slack breaks it down into separate channels. That makes it sooo much easier to have a conversation. And… you can add fun channels where we can all put up silly memes and other things to brighten our days.
Check out the video below for a very funny look at why Slack is so awesome.
Getting Started
- Click on this invite link and sign in using your ISB email address
- Download this awesome Slack App for your Mac. Not required, but it makes life so much easier!
- Download the Slack App for your phone too.
Slack is easily a substitute for email too. Imagine, the end of email as we know it!!