Two Resources to Help Make Virtual & Hybrid Learning More Equitable & Effective
This is a guest post from Dr. Beth Holland (@brholland), Research & Measurement Partner at The Learning Accelerator (TLA) – a national nonprofit. As the school year ramps up again, teachers and leaders have to confront the same challenge that has been plaguing schools since the start of the pandemic: how to develop more effective, […]
Good Resources for Remote Math & Science Lessons
PhET is a great resource that I’ve shared a bunch of times over the years. Recently, I was looking through the site when I noticed that its activity search tool now includes a filter for remote activities. Through this search tool you can locate lesson plans designed for remote instruction and learning. You can combine […]
Five Jamboard Features You Should Know How to Use
In the last year Jamboard has become one of my favorite tools for online and hybrid instruction. I often use it in place of Zoom’s whiteboard function because I can create multiple page whiteboards that I then share with my students via Google Classroom. My students can then take notes on their own copies of […]
Five Ways to Get Students to be More Active in Remote Learning
This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College. In remote environments, sustaining engagement is a challenging task even for adults, but with school continuing to take place virtually, the question of “How to motivate and keep students engaged in remote learning?” […]
Video – How to Annotate Your Screen in Google Meet
Last week I wrote a blog post about drawing on or annotating your screen during a Google Meet call. The way to do that is to use a free Chrome extension called Annotate Meet. Annotate Meet lets you draw on top of any tab or window that you share during a Google Meet. What I […]
Draw on Your Screen in Google Meet
Annotate Meet is a Chrome extension that lets you draw on your screen during a Google Meet call. A reader named Eli mentioned it to me a couple of weeks ago so I gave it a try. Annotate Meet provides you with a small set of tools that you can use to draw or type […]
A New Google Meet Feature That Brings Order to Class Meetings
Does it ever feel like conducing an online class meeting is an exercise akin to herding cats? Between making sure that every kid can hear you and then making sure that they don’t talk over each other or you, managing an online class meeting is challenging. Fortunately, Google has just announced a new feature that […]
How to Improve Audio Playback in Zoom
On Thursday morning one of my colleagues asked me how to improve the quality of the sound when he plays videos in Zoom meetings. Zoom actually has a simple way to do that built right into the screen sharing menu. To improve the quality of the audio when playing a video in a Zoom meeting […]
The Easiest Way to Use Jamboard in Google Meet
A few weeks ago Google announced that Jamboard would be integrated into Google Meet. Earlier this week that finally happened in all of my Google accounts. This makes it easier than ever to use Jamboard in Google Meet. The old method that I used was fine, but the new integration is so much easier. In […]
How to Use Nicknames in Google Meet – And Why You Should Try It
One of the best features of Google Meet is one that is front and center at meet.google.com but is often overlooked or misunderstood. That feature is the option to give your meeting a nickname. Using a meeting nickname in G Suite for Education is an excellent alternative to displaying and using the Google Meet link […]
Five Tips for Live Online Instruction
Whether you use Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams for online class meetings there are some universal things that you can do to make the experience better for you and your students. The following five tips for live online instruction are an excerpt from my recently published 2020-21 Practical Ed Tech Handbook. Elevate your camera […]
Five Current Google Meet Features to Note
Last week Google announced a bunch of additional features that will be coming to Google Meet later this fall. Before those appear in your Google account, here are five other features of Google Meet that you should how to use. Meeting Nicknames: This feature allows you to choose a nickname for your meeting in place […]
A Great Set of Microsoft Teams Tutorials
I published a bunch of videos about using Google Meet and Zoom this spring. That’s because those are the tools that I use the most and I was asked about the most. This afternoon I answered an email from a reader who was looking for help with Microsoft Teams. My recommendation was to check out […]