Communication with parents is vital to have a successful classroom. Having multiple options to communicate with parents is also key with parents having busier lives today. One app that I enjoy using with my parents is Google Voice. Google Voice offers many great tools for teachers. Here is a quick list of benefits I've found: 1) A free phone number (Not being able to give out your personal phone number.) 2) Text messaging (Some families are better at texting than calling.) 3) Online voice mall Inbox (Your Voicemail inbox can be easily accessed on any mobile device or computer.) 4) Documentation of conversations with families (No need to stay anymore here.) 5) Not giving out your personal phone number (As you can see I like this one a lot.) Google Voice is easy to set up and if you don't currently have a classroom phone number this might be a good resource for you. Below you will find a video tutorial on how to set up Google Voice and how another teacher uses it. If interested I have included links to the apps for mobile phones at the bottom of this post. Google Voice is also available on the web.
0 Comments
Google has made advancements in the classroom over the years. One area they continue to grow in is Google Classroom. Google Classroom acts like a Learning Management System such as Schoology. There are many tips and tricks that the Classroom app offers that many teachers may not know about. Thank you to my friends at Whooo's Reading The Blog for collecting all these great tips I'm about to share. Here are some top tips I found most helpful. You can find the rest in the resources below: 1. “Share with Multiple Classes: If you teach multiple sections of the same course, Google Classroom will create the assignment in each section.” (Alice Keeler) 2. “Adding descriptions to assignments is a good thing to do. The assignments in Classroom become good points of reference for absent students and kids that see their grades and wonder why they are as they are. Spelling out all of the details makes for easy reference later.” (Ditch That Textbook) 3. “Google Classroom can be used by schools and districts to organize and deliver professional development content for teachers.” (Edudemic) 4. “Keep due dates in order with Calendar, now available in Google Classroom.” (Google Classroom) 5. “When an assignment, lesson, or unit doesn’t work, add your own comments–or have students add their own feedback), then tag it or save it to a different folder for revision.” (TeachThought) 6. “Distribute Notes: Rather than focusing on note taking, students are able to focus on discussing. Posting the notes to a Google Classroom announcement allows students to pull up the notes easily and then spend class time talking about them instead of taking them.” (Alice Keeler) More: 3 Reasons to Bring Digital Note Taking to Your Classroom 7. “Students can make comments on the stream. This is awesome because if they have a question, I get an email when the stream post is made, which means I can respond in a timely manner. The other benefit is that sometimes students have the same question and can see that it was asked and perhaps a response has already been posted.” (Zahner History) 8. “Vertically-align student learning by curating and sharing “landmark” student assignments that reflect mastery of specific standards.” (TeachThought) 9. “Create a consistent and descriptive naming convention for your classes before you begin adding them to Google Classroom. Consider including the semester or school year to keep things organized. Example: 7th Period U.S. History 15-16.” (ShakeUpLearning) 10. “Save time at the photocopier when you use the “make a copy for each student” feature. (Google for Education) 11. “Build reading comprehension with daily news with the Google Classroom share button on Newsela.” (Google Classroom) 12. “Set up Classroom for younger students who don’t have Gmail by having your admin create Drive accounts for them.” (Google for Education) 13. “It’s important to be able to manage student responses and provide feedback in a timely manner. The Question tool is quick to use and allows teachers to comment and assign a score to each post.” (Zahner History) https://www.learning.com/news/benefits-google-classroom-integration https://www.wired.com/2014/08/google-classrooms/ |
Click the image below to find my podcast at:
Archives
June 2020
Categories
All
AuthorBenjamin's educational experiences include teaching both 3rd and 4th grades all around the state of Iowa. His commitment to students has led to various local and state awards and honors such as being named the 2014 Iowa Technology Educator of the Year and authoring a section of a chapter in Dr. Todd Whittaker's book Start. Right. Now.: Teach and Lead for Excellence on maximizing student potential. |