GSuite Keeps You On Your Toes: Adding or Creating in Google Classroom

This morning when students were creating vision boards in Google classroom I introduced them to the Mark as Done feature. Getting students into the routine to mark their work complete in an online setting takes time, as it is a new to them. I tell them it is like putting their physical assignments in a hand in bin.

Today when I showed each individual student how to mark as done as he or she completed his or her work, I noticed something new about Google classroom. I was excited because apparently Google classroom changed how students can add their own work to assignments in Google classroom.

There is now a large add or create button, giving students the opportunity to add something to their assignments or create something in an assignment.

Upon clicking the button we noticed there were lots of options to add or create in an assignment in Google classroom. 

This feature is more user friendly than what was there previously and easy to explain to students. I always tell learners of GSuite you never know when something will change on you! GSuite keeps us on our toes and helps us teach students how to be flexible and fluid with their thinking when things look differently.

The New Room Job: Social Media Ambassadors

Teaching students under 13 about social media has to start somewhere. I remember coming across a sketchnote from Sylvia Duckworth that made me realize even though our students in the 5^th grade cannot use social media themselves (in the classroom) does not mean they are not using at home.

At the start of school I ask students how many are on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Tic Toc, etc. The amount of hands goes up is not surprising. Knowing what students are accessing in the classroom prompted me to design ways to model and teach them how these tools could be used for a global voice.

We have built a classroom culture that is not defined by four walls and a hallway to the outside world. Among the myriad of ways we use social media in our classroom one technique I created was that we have social media ambassadors. I got the idea from MassCUE, as we have this position at our conferences. It is their job to tell the story happening at the conference. I wanted a way for students to tell our story, so I created a new room job.

The position description on our You're Hired wall has evolved over the years. The most current reads:

Social Media Ambassadors (2)

o   Create tweets for our class Twitter account about our day

o   Take photos for our class Instagram and Facebook account

o   Think of clever captions for the photos and write on a notecard

o   Write Facebook status updates about our day on a notecard

o   Support the creation of our Week in Reviews in Adobe Spark

Social Media Ambassadors use a paper template created by Suzy Brooks to leave on our desk at the end of the day. Photos can be taken on devices in the classroom, though I made the error or using a digital camera. Students were looking for the circle button to take the photo. I encourage using devices they are familiar with. All posts are typed by me into our accounts. Students working on the Week in Review will collaborate with me, but I will do the typing and inputting of photos based on their suggestions.

Our Social Media Ambassadors work as a team with me, building relationships with not only their teacher but with our global community who follows us. In a world where data privacy is important and following and teaching students about policy is imperative, there are ways to reach students where they are while modeling safe practices.

The Evolution of the Classroom Newsletter

For 20 years the evolution of the classroom newsletter has changed from a packet to four pages and now down to a maximum of two. I read a guest blog post by Cult of Pedagogy’s Jennifer Gonzalez where she explains why no one is reading your classroom newsletter. I began to wonder if this was me! I recycled content with the occasional rewrites. I had clip art and used a Word template from 2000. So last year I decided to shorten my four page newsletters down to two pages.

The method of delivery changed as well. I used to photocopy the packets and staple them, sending them home. Then we went green, so I decided to email home a PDF. A few years ago I created a parent portal in Google Sites and embedded the newsletter on a webpage and sent home a hyperlink.

I believe we need to reach parents in many ways, and a classroom newsletter had been engrained in my brain as one of the myriad of options to do this. However I realized after #ISTE19 I needed to do a major makeover of my newsletters. Thanks to tips from Wanda Terral I discovered I could create a more interactive newsletter using Google Slides.

All I had to do was change the page set up! I went to file>page set up>custom and created an 8.5x 11 Google Slide. Then I made colored boxes to be used as bins for text or video. I added a few bitmojis, saying goodbye to clip art. Using the new Flipgrid Camera I took a risk and filmed myself sharing some information, bringing the text alive to parents. The video was then downloaded and uploaded to an unlisted YouTube video where I could pull it right into the newsletter. Remember to turn the closed caption on your videos if your setting is not automatic. 

Though it is still a work in progress I have figured out a way to reach parents through image, text, and video on one page! This will be shared on our Parent Portal. I just wish Google provided a view counter on Slides, so I would know how many times it got read. Anyone know if there is an extension for that?

What Math Should Be

Sometimes I look at my learners, then I peer at the math lesson out of the curriculum guide, and a giant THIS WILL NOT WORK for them flashes through my brain. Ever had one of those moments? I feel like I have them all the time, causing me to ponder who writes curriculum for kids.

Understanding different triangles was the learning objective. The lesson in the teacher guide introduced vocabulary and had several workbook pages where students were asked to classify triangles using words like scalene, equilateral, or isosceles. It does not take much mental effort to look at a shape, flip back a page, locate the matching shape, and label it. Depth of knowledge Level one is all about recall, and I was staring it in the face.

I had a decision to make in a split second. I could use the lesson in the book or engage my learners in an activity that required them to apply their thinking of triangles and the vocabulary they needed to know. I went with option 2.

Students were asked to write a triangle story in a narrative form. They were offered a graphic organizer as a choice to help write their story. They had to use the six triangle vocabulary words and could include quadrilateral vocabulary too, which was the next lesson. Most students chose to use a graphic organizer, understanding the ease of writing a story once the thoughts are on the paper.

Instead of correcting several workbook pages, I got to interact with students on a deeper level. We discussed their story along the way. I loved sitting with students and hearing their thoughts about where their triangles were going. I questioned the problem their triangle was having and probed for elaborative detail. Students showed me they really understood the basic concepts of triangles through the evolution of their characters and setting.

A good friend suggested I read the story Triangle by Mac Barnett to further enhance our learning experience, showing students how their stories are similar to a published book.

We made connections and drew conclusions along with sharing inferences about shapes as we read.

When they were done, students created a Google Drawing of their story as an assessment. Each student then met with me to discuss his or her drawing, helping me gain further insight into his or her thinking.

Every child felt important and valued. Every child was a writer, an illustrator, and creator of a masterpiece. This is what math should be: cross curricular lessons that dig deep into concepts and give all students a voice to share their work.