Street View Treks + Google Forms in Classroom

Google Street View Treks

I often dream of being able to fly my students all over the globe to experience my content firsthand. How engaging would it be to see, smell, hear and feel all of the things that we are talking about in class. Unfortunately, there are limitations to our field trip budget so for now I turn to tools like Google Street View Treks as a way to expose kids to the world outside of White Bear Lake. Treks are online experiences that use tools such as 360 degree panoramas, photos, audio narrations and videos to tell the story of a place. They have a growing collection of experiences for you and your students to explore including The Amazon Basin, Galàpagos Islands, Pyramids of Giza and The Great Barrier Reef.

Check out the list of available Street View Treks here and see if there is an experience that would be relevant to your classroom. Even if you can't find an overlap in your curriculum they are pretty cool to check out on your own.

Formative Assessment Forms in Google Classroom

Google Forms are great at doing one thing, collecting data. That's why many teachers are finding Forms to be a useful tool for formative assessment. There are a number of different question types that you can pose to your class to get a sense of where they are at with your content. Assigning these Forms through Google Classroom now allows you to see which students have completed the assessment and who still needs to finish. Follow these steps while assigning a Form in Classroom. 

1. Create a new assignment in one of your classes and give it a title. 
2. Click the Drive icon and search for the Form within your Drive.
3. From the dropdown menu, select all of the classes that you wish to assign the Form to. 
4. Click the 'Assign' button
5. As soon as students get to the end of the Form and submit it, Classroom will automatically show that the student has finished that assignment.

  

BrightBytes Survey + 4C's Mentoring + YouTube Webcam Capture Alternative

Brightbytes Survey Coming Soon!

In past years we have taken the BrightBytes survey twice. This year we are only taking the survey once You will receive access codes on Wednesday January 13th. The survey will be open through the end of January.

Please plan to complete the BrightBytes survey and make time for your students to complete it as well. Your feedback is extremely important and the closer we can get to 100% participation, the better job we can do of serving your specific needs.

4C's Mentoring Program

The 4C’s mentor program is a differentiated professional development opportunity that honors the work you are already doing with your students and provides a structure to increase your impact while focusing on the use of the 4C’s and technology in your classroom.

The goal is to increase specific 4C’s (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity) capacity and spread innovation through the use of technology. Click here for more information and click here to sign up. After signing up you will be paired with a mentor who will contact you.

YouTube Webcam Uploads No Longer Available

  

YouTube is no longer supporting their webcam upload and as of January 16th, the tool will be unavailable. This tool allowed students to record themselves speaking with a webcam such as the one available on the Chromebooks. 

Students are still able to record video with another device and upload to YouTube. We suggest that students use a smartphone or tablet to capture their video and then upload the video to YouTube with the device used for capture.

For help finding alternatives, please contact Matt or Cassie. 

Two Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts (inspired by my most common mistakes)

Control + Shift + t will open the last tab you closed - say goodbye to accidentally closing tabs and having to navigate back to them.

Control + z will undo your last action - say goodbye to having to undo something you accidentally did.

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