WeVideo - use these videos to get started

At International School of Geneva - Campus des Nations we have a WeVideo subscription available to all students. We tend to try and focus the use of WeVideo on the younger students (Years 7 to 9) and Adobe Premiere Pro available (via the school's Adobe Creative Cloud subscription) on years 10 and 11.

These videos from @WTSVT act as a great introduction to WeVideo and show some of the features that make its use with a class effective and efficient →

Google Maps - stepping back in time with Google Street View’s archives

Using Google Maps you can access Google Street View’s imagery archives and see how a place has changed over time.

Work though this process to see for yourself →

1. Open Google Maps and go and find London Bridge.
2. Drag and drop the yellow ‘Pegman’ onto London Bridge.
3. → Left click on the yellow man at the bottom right of the map and, keeping the mouse button held down, drag him across the screen, only letting go when you are on top of London Bridge.
4. When Pegman lands, the map changes to show you Street View imagery. 'Turn around' until you are looking at the Shard.
5. A dark grey box appears at the top left of the map. Click the tiny clock symbol in the dark grey square.
6. Use the slider that appears to go further back in time, then click on the small image above the slider. Street View will then show you historical views. You can change the year by clicking on the slider again. You can also navigate your way around Street View just as you would in a more up-to-date map.
7. To exit Street View, click the back (left) arrow in the original dark grey box.

Historic imagery isn’t available for everywhere in Street View.

[Source]

Earning badges, certificates and accreditations to show your competencies

There are lots of 'edtech' companies out there producing some excellent applications for use in the classroom. The better companies are also focusing on ensuring they have the resources available for educators to learn how to maximise the use of their tools.

BadgEdTech is a great site that summarizes all the badges, certificates and accreditations out there for educators to earn.

Teacher tutorials on YouTube all in one place

You can find an explanation video on YouTube for most things! Hence the term 'University of YouTube' →

A teacher out there in EdTech world (and I am not sure who) has curated a whole spreadsheet of useful explanation videos for Google Workspace apps. Check out the spreadsheet here.

Edpuzzle

We are exploring the potential of Edpuzzle. Edpuzzle enables you to easily edit videos and turn them in engaging quizzes. The process is simple - find a video, add questions and assign it to your class.

If you would like to be part of the Foundation's subscription and associated network which enables easy sharing etc - please drop me an email and I will send you the necessary 'special' link.

A bit of educational technology history

Does anybody remember the BBC Micro? Those of you who do will be 'pleased' to know that it having it's 40th birthday this year! There is a video from the BBC News about it here.

My parents had one when I was a child. It was less for coding and more for playing Chuckie Egg and Arcadians.

On the subject of educational technology history there was a related Instagram post from the Foundation recently →

Replace your background in Google Meet

It would seem that this feature appeared for us this week.

You can now replace your background with an image of your choice. To get the best results you should sit yourself quite close to a wall behind you. The plainer the wall the better the results.

Waffle, hamburger, snowman and the shish kebab

There are no official names for the various icons that access menus in Google Chrome. Therefore we should adopt our own!

The waffle - the 3 by 3 set of 9 dots, found at the top of the screen in Gmail, Drive etc that brings up the matrix of other G Suite application.

The hamburger - the three horizontal lines like the bun and patty of a hamburger, found throughout Chrome to access settings.

The snowman - the vertical line of 3 dots, like the 'buttons' upon the chest of a snowman. Usually used to view additional configuration options - such as in Google Meet.

The shish kebab - the horizontal line of 3 dots like pieces of meat on a kebab. Not as common as the 'snowman' but also gives you access to more settings and commands.

[Credit for this idea → Chromebook Classroom - Those Crazy Chromebook Icons]

Google Meet now has a 'green room'

A Practical Guide for Teaching Summarising and Note-Taking

Not strictly a digital things - but with definite overlap with research skills and approaches to learning.

If found the Delete, Substitute and Keep: A Practical Guide for Teaching Summarising and Note-Taking post from David Rodger-Goodwin super interesting.

David is certainly worth a follow.

Badging digital skills with G Suite Skills from Canopy

I have been using G Suite Skills from Canopy with a group of students during Enrichment period and I am impressed. Using Google Classroom you assign the students badges to earn, such as 'Getting started with Google Drive' or 'Next steps with Google Slides'. The students are presented with tutorials to work through. The student get 'graded' for correct completion and for their efficiency.

Students build up their badges to earn extra badges that represent a level of competence with the whole of Google Workspace. We now have a core of Year 9 students with the Gold Google Workspace badge.

So far the number of students that have experience this at Campus des Nations is limited. If you can see a way we could integrate this into some of your lessons or the work of your department, please let me know.

Free online access to the Financial Times for you and your students

The Financial Times offers free online access to Diploma students and their teachers.

As a school we are registered. Go to Secondary Schools Subscription Page - type Campus des Nations into the 'Check if your school is already registered' box, choose Campus des Nations from the 'Select your school' list and then enter your school email address. You are then emailed a link to activate the subscription. At this point you can 'log in using Google' and use your school @ecolint.ch (or @learning.ecolint.ch) account.

There are all sorts of useful links and ideas on the Free FT for schools page here.

How to create a kahoot: Step-by-step guide and extra tips for teachers

A really useful step-by-step guide to Kahoot for those who are less aware of the global quizzing phenomenon.

We have a couple of 'seats' still available as part of the school's subscription.

Using Google Jamboard in your lessons

5 ways that Google Jamboard can save your Social Studies bacon is a great read which is full of ideas. The ideas could easily be integrated beyond the 'social studies' classroom.

All educators and students at Campus des Nations have access to Jamboard - just check the 'waffle'.

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

Adobe Flash Player is dead!

Adobe stopped supporting Flash Player beginning December 31, 2020, as they previously announced in July 2017.

In addition, to help secure users’ systems, Adobe blocked Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021. Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems.

If you believe that some of the teaching resources you reply upon are Flash based - now would be the time to explore alternatives!

Read more here → adobe.com - Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page

Google Earth skills progression

Recently the Individuals and Societies department have been integrating Google Earth Projects into various units. Year 9 students are using Google Earth to design and document a flight from Southampton to Cape Town in 1937. Some Year 11 students will be using Google Earth to present their knowledge and understanding of glacial landforms.

The Google Earth skills progression that has been developed to support the integrations can be found in the Campus des Nations Digital Toolbox.

Ever wondered about Google Earth imagery? This video does a good job in explain it all.

Smart compose and spelling autocorrect available when adding comments in Google Docs

Smart compose and spelling autocorrect are now available when adding comments in Google Docs. These features help you compose comments quickly and with confidence by reducing the chance of spelling and grammatical errors and suggesting relevant contextual phrases. 

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates Smart compose and spelling autocorrect available when adding comments in Google Docs

Anki flashcards are part of an 'active recall' and 'spaced repetition' revision approach

Anki is a free to install (Windows and Mac) application that is used to make and review flashcards. The application, which is popular with university medical and law students, is based upon enabling spaced repetition. As a user reviews a deck they indicate how easy or hard they found the content. This will then determine how soon after the user sees that card again.

Read more here → Using Anki flashcards as an IB DP Diploma student

EDU in 90: The Latest, January 2021

A couple of useful Google Meet updates in this latest video from the Google for Education team.

Additional language support for live captions in Google Meet

Live captions are the automatically generated subtitles as everyone speaks during a video call. Google have expanding live captions in Google Meet to French, German, Portuguese and Spanish (Spain and Latin America) speakers. They were previously only available in English.

Live captions allow deaf and hard of hearing users, users with different primary languages, and users in noisy environments to participate more fully in meetings.

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates - Additional language support for live captions in Google Meet

Create and work with documents that contain multiple page orientations in Google Docs

For documents created in Google Docs, you can now change the page orientation on a per-section basis. This will allow you to make room for wider content such as tables and images that can benefit from extra horizontal space.

You’ll also be able to edit, import, and export Microsoft Word documents that contain both portrait and landscape oriented pages.

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates - Create and work with documents that contain multiple page orientations in Google Docs

Upgrade your worldview

A little something from me with my 'geography hat' on →

Gapminder Worldview Upgrader is a fun educational tool created to help people rid themselves of common systematic misconceptions about global development.

Have a go → test yourself and see how you do!

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Customize text style and appearance in Google Sites

Those of you using Google Sites can now adjust text size, color, font, spacing, and more while typing in a text box. This significantly expands control over how individual words, paragraphs, pages, and sections look.

In 2021, Google will add the ability to create themes, which will allow users to easily set fonts, colors, and styles across your whole site.

Read more here → Customize text style and appearance in Google Sites

Google Earth in the Classroom

Worth 7 minutes of anybody's time! Google Earth doesn't just have to live in the Individuals and Societies classrooms. Any teacher who is interested in integrating Google Earth (or Maps) into their lessons - please get in contact!

Google Arts & Culture - The First Journey Around The World

Google Arts & Culture, the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Spanish National Commission of the First World Tour have released a new project →  “The First Journey around the World” which explores the details of the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation.

In 1519, an expedition commanded by Ferdinand Magellan set sail from the port of Seville, Spain. The approximately 245 crew members aboard the five ships went in search of a new western route to the Maluku Islands (formerly the Moluccas or Spice Islands) in Indonesia. The voyage ended three years later, with the return of a single ship captained by Juan Sebastián Elcano. He and the 17 survivors became the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single expedition.

You can dive into historical documents and maps, see where the expedition made landfall, take a virtual tour of a replica of the Nao Victoria, the only ship that returned to Seville, or discover the spices of animals encountered during the expedition.

“The First Journey Around the World” is available to everyone through the Google Arts & Culture site and via its iOS and Android apps.

Some Google Meet settings are now “sticky”

Google has changing the behavior of some Google Meet settings for G Suite for Education and Enterprise for Education customers. Specifically, certain settings are now “sticky.” This means that if you turn them on or off during a meeting, they will be saved for any future meetings that use the same meeting code.

This change will apply to these settings:

• Quick access
• Prevent students from sharing their screen
• Prevent students from sending chat messages

Read more here → Some Google Meet settings now “sticky” for Education users

Read&Write for Google Chrome quick reference guide

EDU in 90: What's New in Docs

Converting PDFs to Google Docs

You can convert image and PDF files to text with Google Drive!

1. On your computer, go to Google Drive.
2. Right-click on the desired file.
3. Click Open with → Google Docs.
4. The image file will be converted to a Google Doc, but some formatting might not transfer:
   • Bold, italics, font size, font type, and line breaks are most likely to be retained.
   • Lists, tables, columns, footnotes, and endnotes are likely not be detected.

Read more here → Improvements to PDFs imported to Google Docs

Group conversations in Hangouts will begin to appear in Google Chat

Starting December 3, 2020, Google are making changes to how group conversations work in Google Chat.

One of of the key changes for us is the compatibility with classic Hangouts. Group conversations in Hangouts will begin to appear in Google Chat over the coming weeks. This will allow your users to move from Hangouts to Chat without losing context. In addition, 1:1 messages, updated group conversations, and unthreaded rooms from Chat will begin to appear in Hangouts - however I would recommend moving your focus to Chat.

Read more here → Changes to Google Chat group conversations and classic Hangouts coming December 3, 2020