1. Explore Coding: This made-by-Google coding site offers simple drag and drop coding projects for students, and the finished products can be downloaded. No account is needed. This is a great way to promote coding with your students.
2. Pear Deck Add-On for Google Slides: Like the Poll Everywhere Add-On featured last week, Pear Deck has a slides Add-On which allows you to embed their interactive slides directly into your slideshow. The unique aspect of Pear Deck is that students "join" your slideshow by entering a code into the Pear Deck student site. This immediately pushes the teacher slideshow out to the students who can interact with the activities on their devices. This is ideal for 1:1 classrooms.
The Add-On comes with 21 free templates that are ready to go. Some of the best templates help facilitate student check-ins where they can indicate how they are understanding the lesson, and teachers can show the results on the screen. This is great formative feedback for the teacher as well as self-evaluation for students. (Note: To access deep analytics, a subscription is required. However, many features can be used for free.) Eric Curtis has a great blog on this Add-On. Check it out here.
To get started, install the Pear Deck add-on for Slides.
3. Google Sites: You can now add embed codes to Google websites. This allows you to embed activities, videos, H5P content and more directly into your website. (Learn how) Websites are a great way for students to create and show their learning. They are also great for building portfolios.
4. Google Sheets: Google has added natural language generated pivot tables, suggested formulas, waterfall charts and more. (Learn more)
5. Google Templates for Docs and Sheets: Google has added new templates to help you get started. Sheets includes a nice gantt chart for project management. (Sheets Templates) The Docs templates may be especially useful and include essays, reports, notes, lesson plans, letters, resumes, brochures, newsletters and more. (Docs templates) (Learn more)
6. New Look for Google Calendar: Some of you may have already seen this, but there is a new Google Calendar interface. At this time, you can still opt in or out of it (click . If you'd like to explore some of the new features, explore this blog post.
7. New YouTube Layout and Design: YouTube is getting a makeover too. This Google Official Blog Page discusses some of the new changes. Changes include a new interface and design, removal of the video editor, updates to the mobile app, the ability to speed up and slow down videos as you watch them and more.
In addition to the new controls (click gear to access), also remember that with our new filter settings, you need to "approve" videos in order for your students to be able to view them.
No comments:
Post a Comment