Student Feedback: Maximize with Mote

Awhile back, I wrote on my ESOL blog about the importance of providing meaningful feedback to students. Thankfully, ever-evolving technology makes it easier and easier to provide feedback that's not only meaningful, but also more accessible to special needs and English language learners. That's where Mote comes in!

Mote is a Chrome extension that allows you to leave audio-feedback in the comments section of Docs, Slides, and Sheets. Let's face it- we may spend lots of time typing in thoughtful feedback, but do our students truly take the time to read it? Do our ELLs or differently-able kiddos fully understand the comments we are making? 

Being able to leave audio feedback saves teachers from typing the same comments (be honest- how often do you resort to copy and paste during a grading marathon?) and allows teachers to give feedback that is more personalized and of higher quality. For students, its almost like having a one-on-one conference with the teacher.

How much is it? Which version do I need?

The free version of Mote is great, but it does limit each comment to thirty seconds. I actually think if the comments get much longer than this, you'll lose the student's attention anyway. Also, you can use Mote to add multiple audio comments in a document. If you do want to be able to leave longer "motes", the yearly plans are totally reasonable at $19-$40.

Are you already using Mote in your classroom? Tell me more about how you're using it. 

Five Creative Ways to FlipGrid

One of the most popular tech tools in education is FlipGrid. If you're not yet familiar- check it out! It's a FREE platform that allows your students to record videos (up to 5 minutes) that are then saved to your grid. You can choose to allow students to see, comment, and upvote one another's videos. 

Today, I wanted to share five creative ways you can use this awesome tool in your classroom!

#1- Book Reviews

FlipGrid allows you to create a QR code for each individual video. After students read a book from the school or classroom library, have them record a book review*on your Flipgrid. You can then print out those QR codes and put them in the book (taped inside the cover or as a bookmark). That way, students who are interested in the book can scan the QR code and hear the reviews of classmates to help them make their choice. 

*Tip- For ELL students provide sentence frames, word banks, or guiding questions to help them with voicing their ideas

#2- Draw Me In

Many students (especially those in middle and high school) don't like to have their faces on camera. If that's the case, have them draw a self-portrait to hold up while doing their recording. Another option is to have them draw a picture or diagram related to the topic to hold up during recording.

#3- Knowledge Spark

Allow students to create a video (no more than 3 minutes) showcasing a skill or talent, sharing facts about something they find interesting, or teaching how to do something. For example, a student may do a video showing how to draw a person, make a grilled cheese, sharing facts about the mantis peacock shrimp, or whatever catches their fancy*. This is a great opportunity to offer "extra credit" while building community in the classroom. Make sure you participate too- you and your students will have a blast learning about one another. 

 *Tip- Set up the topic to moderate responses so you can be sure that student videos are appropriate before they are posted

#4- Living Word Wall

Assign each student a keyword from the unit/topic vocabulary. Have them work alone or in small groups to create a small video teaching their classmates the meaning of the word. Encourage them to act out their word or share a sample sentence using the word. Attach the living word wall to assignments for students to refer back to

#5- Virtual Help Desk

Not all students are comfortable asking questions in class. Set up a moderated topic, but don't actually post the videos for others to see. You can answer student questions in private by adding comments or recording a response video. You can also give parents the link so they can ask questions too!

BONUS-Learn Name Pronunciations

One of the most important facets of a person's personality is their name. As teachers, it's important for us to learn to say (and spell!) our students' names correctly. Flipgrid is a great tool for this! Set up a topic called "Say your name" (or something more snappy if you prefer). Have students record a short video pronouncing their first and last name and sharing any nicknames they prefer. Make the videos visible to all students, so they can learn to say each other's names correctly. 

Digital Word Walls: Supporting Language Growth with Technology

Recently, over on my ESOL blog, I talked about the importance of creating dynamic word walls that students can really use during learning. That post focuses primarily on physical word walls in face-to-face classrooms. 

However, I know the pandemic has and is continuing to change how we do things, even as we move ever closer to a post-COVID world. One big change is that technology is now even more deeply rooted in educational practice than ever before. With that in mind- I thought I'd talk about how to create digital word walls for your ELLs.

Benefits

One obvious advantage to incorporating digital word walls into your practice is that they can be more easily differentiated. In a classroom, it would be impractical, in terms of space and time, to try to maintain differentiated word walls. Technology makes it easy!

Additionally, you can add media- like audio, video, and images- to digital word walls that are difficult, if not impossible to add to physical word walls. Technology also allows students to return to word walls from previous units as needed, unlike a physical word wall that gets changed out regularly. 

Digital word walls can also allow for students to work collaboratively to build word walls according to their own needs. When students help to create the tools for learning, they take more ownership over that learning. 

Tools

My two favorite tools for this purpose are Padlet and Jamboard. I like Padlet, and it can be a little more organized, however, they do charge a fee for more than three Padlets. Jamboard is free as part of Google Workspace for Education accounts (if your district has not disabled it). But, Jamboard can be a little more chaotic for collaboration. 

• Padlet word wall
• Jamboard word wall

These are two examples, but the word walls you create can be simpler or more complex, depending on the needs of your students. Do you use different tools to create digital word walls? Tell me about your favorite tools!

Digital Assistants: Should you bring them to school?

There are now a variety of digital assistants on the market for home and office use- Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home are two of the most popular and widely used. A digital personal assistant is a software-based service that resides in the cloud, designed to help end users complete tasks such as answering questions, managing schedules, home control, playing music, accessing games, and much more.

It seems like a natural extension to most teachers to incorporate this tool in the classroom to answer questions, define words, and play learning games. But should you bring this tool into your classroom? 

US Educational Privacy Laws
These devices are designed for home and office use primarily by adults. They are not designed for use in the classroom, and therefore, typically don't comply with US laws for educational privacy. In Tweets from Bill Fitzgerald, which have since been removed, he tells us about a conversation with an Amazon representative:

The fact is, any technology tool used in the classroom must comply with COPPA, CIPA, or FERPA. If you choose to use a tool in the classroom that is not compliant with these laws, then you and your district could be sued and you can lose your teaching license. While the chance of that scenario happening may seem remote, these laws are in place to protect children and give parents and guardians recourse when the laws are not followed.

What is being recorded and who is listening? 
This is a hot topic and a subject of much debate. Each of the companies maintains that their digital assistants do not record or "listen" unless a "wake word" is detected. Even if that is the case, when it does detect a wake word, it records the interaction between the user and the digital assistant. Those recordings are then stored in the cloud and listened to by real people who transcribe and annotate the interactions then feed them back into the software to help improve the responsiveness of your digital assistant

But is that all that happens with the recordings? Not always. For example, there's also the story of a Portland family whose private conversation was recorded and sent to a business associate.

How else might recordings from digital assistants be misused? 
Recently, police in Arkansas got a warrant for sound recordings from a man's Amazon Echo. This raises a host of issues when it comes to student privacy. As teachers, it is up to us to protect the most vulnerable of our students. 

For example, if you have English language learners in your classroom, chance are some of them are undocumented. Having a digital assistant recording conversations could put these students and their families in danger of deportation should ICE decide to get a warrant for your classroom's digital assistant. The families and parents of your ELLs are not necessarily knowledgable of their rights and their child's rights, nor are they always in a position to advocate for those rights.

As another example, we already know that Alexa has, on at least one occasion, sent a private conversation to an outside party. What if during an IEP meeting, your digital assistant starts recording and sends out a recording of one child's IEP meeting to another child's parent or another of your contacts? This would be a huge breach of privacy.

In the end....
It comes down to asking yourself this: is using a "cool tool" in the classroom worth the safety of your students and their families? Is it worth risking your career for?

If you decide to move forward with using a digital assistant in the classroom, you must:

• ensure that use of such a tool does not violate any policies in your school or district
• explain to parents what it is and how you plan to use it
• make parents aware of potential risks to student privacy and security of information
• get signed permission from all parents before you begin using it in the classroom 

It can be so very tempting to bring the coolest new tool into the classroom- but I urge you to carefully consider the implications before you act!

Google Classroom: Rubrics Beta

I've finally had a chance to play with one of the new Classroom features that is currently in Beta- the rubrics feature! This is a really cool feature that many users have been requesting for awhile. Read on to learn a little bit more about how it works!

Creating a Rubric
Creating a rubric is pretty easy, with the ability to duplicate criteria to make rubric creation a little faster. The rubrics are 100% customizable- you input your own criteria and descriptions. For each criteria, you can have up to 10 levels of performance. When creating an assignment, you'll see the blue "create rubric" button on the assignment creation box. Tip: When creating your rubric, don't forget to scroll down and save!

Editing a Rubric
If you've forgotten something or just want to edit the rubric in any way, it's easy to do! Tip: When editing a rubric, don't forget to scroll down and save!

Reusing Rubrics
One drawback right now is the inability to choose from your already created rubrics to just add to an assignment. You must currently create the rubric each time.....however, there IS a workaround. If you've already attached the rubric you want to use to another assignment assignment, you can just reuse the assignment, attach new documents, change the name and the instructions, and save yourself some effort.

Send feedback!
If you're participating in the Beta, be sure to send feedback and let the developers know what you like, what you don't like, and what you'd like to see added! They take Beta Feedback into heavy consideration when finalizing the updates for public roll-out. Tip: Title your feedback "Rubrics Beta" in the subject line.

Overall, I like the new rubrics tool, though there are a few things that I think could make it more teacher-friendly. The ability to choose from created rubrics as I mentioned above is one. Another thing I would like to see is the ability to import spreadsheets into the rubric tool. I have a lot of rubrics in spreadsheet format, so it would be nice not to have to recreate those. Yes, I know...copy and paste will have to do for now!

How can you sign up for the beta?
Inevitably, some of you now want to get on board with this awesome tool and start learning how to use it for the coming school year. You can sign up for the beta by filling out this form.

New Features Coming to GSuite for Education!

Just in time for #ISTE19, Google has announced new features coming to your favorite GSuite for Education apps this fall!

Coming Very Soon....

Gradebook
The Gradebook feature in Classroom has been in beta testing for a bit, but has officially launched publicly. Classroom users should begin to see it in their Classrooms over the coming weeks.

Locked Mode for Managed Chromebooks
A beta has been going throughout the school year in Forms, allowing teachers to lock students in to the tab on quizzes on managed Chromebooks. The beta is wrapping up, and teachers should be seeing this feature become available when setting up quizzes by August.

Question Import in Forms 

Also coming soon (no specific date given) is the ability to import questions from other Forms when creating a new Google Form. Teachers will find this handy when creating and differentiating assessments for students!

Beta Test Opportunities

Rubrics

If you've ever wished you could attach a rubric to an assignment in Google Classroom, you're going to love this news! Google announced that they are working on a feature to allow you to do just that. If you want to get access early, consider signing up for the beta. 

School Information System (SIS) Sync

Google has been working with many large SIS providers to provide you a better experience by allowing you to sync your classroom and gradebook with your school or district's SIS. If you're eager to try out this feature, consider signing up for the beta.

Those are all the big announcements! Hop on the betas if you're so inclined so that you can give your feedback and help perfect the final version! 

Let me know what you think about these new features! And, if you're going to ISTE, don't miss me there!

Can't make it to ISTE? Catch me at Teach with Tech Conference- online!

Google Classroom: Printing Student Submissions

One of the most common questions I have teachers ask is, "How can I print all my student submissions at once, rather than one at a time?". Since Google Classroom is designed to facilitate a paperless classroom, there is no in-built method to easily print all the submissions for a given assignment. However- there is an easy way to do it!

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Go to your Drive and open the Classroom Folder.

2. Find the subfolder for the Classroom that the assignment you want to print is posted in. For example, if your classroom is named "6th RELA 4th period" then the subfolder for that classroom will be labeled the same.


3. Locate the subfolder for the assignment. It will have the same title as the assignment. Right click the folder to get the folder menu and select "download".

4. Once the zipped folder is downloaded, unzip and open it.

5. Select all the files in the folder.

6. Finally, go to File>Print and follow your system's printing prompts.

While the screenshots are from a Mac, the same basic procedures should work for those of you using PC as well! I hope this helps you to print work when needed in a quicker manner! Please comment below with any questions!