Creating Student Voice with FlipGrid

Teachers,

You can give students a voice in their learning by using an awesome tool called FlipGrid.  Students can quickly post video responses and reflections, and, if enabled by the teacher, can post responses to each other.  It's like the big brother to SeeSaw.

Flipgrid is free and can be used easily in all content areas K-12, and works on a laptop, iPad, or smartphone.   The FlipGrid iPad App should be available in Self Service for all teachers and students.  It works really well with Google Classroom, Canvas,  Apple Schoolwork, and other LMS.

Teachers and students will log in to FlipGrid using either 

• their school Google account (preferred)
  
• a QR Code
  
• a class code
  
• or their ClassLink Launchpad - click here to read more

Please check out a grid that I built at this link. Whether you are new to the District or have been around a while, please consider completing these two tasks on my Grid: Task 1:  Introduce yourself and share something that makes you smile Task 2:  Share a personal goal that you have.

These short videos will be shared will all collaborators.

Please let me know if you or your team have any questions or need help implementing this in your classrooms.

A little note:  on the laptops, the Adobe Flash plugin will be required.  You can download it from this link OR it may be downloaded from Self Service, which is in your applications folder.  

ClassLink Launchpad

One impairment to instruction can be the large number of accounts and passwords that our students need to use on different websites.  There are often times where valuable class time is spent getting every student logged in to a site when it would be much better spent using the intended tools.

To help this, our District has a subscription to a service called ClassLink

ClassLink allows a single sign-on for staff and students for the many websites that require a username and password.  In other words, you don't have to remember, or forget, all of those accounts.	All teachers and students can log in using their school Google account:
All K-4 students can log in using a QR Code.  These are printed on cards for every student.	Here is a very short video of what it looks like for a K-4 student to log in using a QR code: Step 1:  Open the ClassLink App Step 2: Tap on the Scan icon Step 3: Hold your QR Code in front of the camera
For the accounts that are specific to you, such as Infinite Campus or Aleks, you only need to log in the first time through ClassLink, and it will do the rest. Click here to get started. This link will give you a Quick Guide that you can use or share with your students.
Video Tutorial 1: Getting started with ClassLink
Video Tutorial 2:  How to customize your screen

Google Boomerang Extension

Do you find yourself occasionally sending emails at odd times of the evening or night?  Sending numerous email late at night can sometimes cause undue stress on the recipients.  If you are like me, replying to emails can often be easiest to do though as the day is winding down.

Let's say you have that email all ready to send out, but it's pushing 11:00 at night and it will be just as important at 7:30 the next morning.  Instead of putting it in your drafts, where you may end up forgetting it, what if you could schedule its delivery whenever you want.....

There is a gmail extension called Google Boomerang that allows you to schedule your emails.  

Click here to get started with Google Boomerang.  It's easy to install.  If you try it out and decide that it's not for you, it can be quickly removed.  This is installed as a gmail extension in your Chrome web browser.

There are many other extensions available through the Chrome Web Store.  Not all of them are worthy of trying out.  If you are looking for some feedback about an extension, let me know.