Using Google Podcasts

You can find Google Podcasts in your 'waffle'. This is a great option if you want students to listen to podcasts without having to download or subscribe to a service or application.

classtechtips.com has a great article about 'How to Use Google Podcasts with Students' here.

Using podcasts as a teaching resource

Podcasts have a massive potential as a teaching resource. It is always interesting to ask a class to listen to an audio podcast rather than watch a video.

There are many different sources of podcasts out there. Podcasts tend to range in duration from 10 minutes to 60 minutes+. I would suggest that podcasts around 25 minutes long are a 'sweet spot' in terms of the topic depth that can be explored and optimal student engagement time.

A couple of series that are worth checking out →

• 50 Things that made the Modern Economy - all 10 minutes long
• 39 Ways to Save the Planet - all 14 minutes long

podcasts.geographyalltheway.com is a app I 'built' that curates 200+ podcasts useful for the teaching of IB DP Geography.

The whole app is driven by a Google Sheets spreadsheet. If you are interested in the potential of such things - get in contact.

Resizing the left-side navigation of Gmail

You can now resize the Chat and Rooms sections in the left-side navigation of Gmail.

This makes it easier to stay on top of your most important conversations and navigate to relevant chats faster.

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates - Resize the Chat and Rooms sections in Gmail on the web

Take your Google Calendar offline

You can now enable offline support for Google Calendar on Google Chrome. When enabled, you can view your calendar and events from four weeks prior or any time in the future by week, day, or month.

This is particularly useful when you’re offline or have unreliable internet access. 

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates - Enable offline support for Google Calendar on web from your computer