💥 Tech items - Some great product updates! Some great new tech tools and sites and more in this weeks tech update and tools!

The fall school year is a long ways away... but remember, the sun shines on those using tech tools and especially during these crazy times.

Hopefully things will be back to normal in the fall, but who knows.  One thing for sure... tech tools are great for both on-site and remote learning.  

• Now is the time to toss those worksheets and go digital.
• Now is the time to embrace Google Classroom for distributing and collecting materials.
• Now is the time to embrace SeeSaw in those younger grades.
• Now is the time to get rid of printed materials and go digital. (No reason for student notebooks with hundreds of pages.)Norris Staff - This summer there are a lot of tech opportunities available, check them out. Summer is a great time to learn those new tools to add them to your teaching toolbelt. 
• Reach out to our tech department, we are here to help!

Erskine's summer tech classes have gone virtual.  If you are interested, you will want to sign up with Doane ASAP.  They are going to start dropping classes without very many people in them sooner than usual! 

Some GoGuardian Product Updates to Help with Remote Learning

• A new Off-Task Alerts feature that automatically detects when a student goes off-task, relative to the classroom subject.  
• Major Chat updates, like audio notifications, offline messaging, chat archive, and so much more to help teachers stay connected to their students.
• Coming soon: A Present to Class feature that allows teachers to share their screens with students and enable their audio and/or video to teach remote sessions.

Google meet adds some more features.  -New grid view and more!

With Video conferencing getting used by everyone, I guess they keep adding requested features and battling for market share.

Present high-quality video and audio in Google Meet

See up to 16 Google Meet participants at once with tiled layout - They built this in so no need for that extension! (I would remove the extension if you have installed it.)

FYI - Zoom made a change to Settings on 4.23.2020 after 4pm. -Breakout Rooms turned off by default. 

This change affects Breakout Rooms. The change defaults the In Meeting (Advanced) setting to Remote Support. When this happens it stops Breakout Rooms. You cannot have both Remote Support and Breakout Rooms running at the same time.

To turn on Breakout Rooms users must go to Settings>In Meeting (Advanced)>Breakout Rooms = On and Remote Support = Off

Let us know if you have any questions. 

A few great tips from Tony Vincent  @tonyvincent

⭕ Generate arched text at http://Picfont.com. Save as a PNG and import into Google Slides, Google Drawings, Keynote, etc.  (Works great on a Chromebook too!)

Here's a collection of 50+ virtual manipulatives that might be helpful when doing live or recorded instructional videos and would also be great for when we are back in class in the fall too!  Check them out! 

This is cool!  Virtual Vacation to the past! A film taken from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1906, a few days before the earthquake destroyed the area. Now in color, 4K and 60fps. Check it out. 

New Google updates:

Start or join a Google Meet video meeting directly from Gmail

New features for Google Sites: Templates, announcement banners, and access for children with Google Accounts

Looks like the multiple signatures new feature just rolled out to us today. (4-27-20) I used the Gmail templates to accomplish the same thing... but those templates have a lot of uses to save you time.  Make sure you are using them!  They will save you a lot of time! 

Miscellaneous tech tools and resources: 

• Google's Teach from Home Hub has a variety of resources.  
• How to Use Google Meet - Detailed Video Tutorial
• Create documents that load much faster on slow internet connections.  Compressing images can make a big difference! https://tinypng.com/
• Click here: 10 online whiteboard options for remote learning
• PS: This hack to turn your phone into a document camera on a video call is SUPER cool! It's part of the post above!
• Tech Like A Pirate “Don’t just teach a lesson. Create an EXPERIENCE.”
• DitchThatTExtbook is adding new resources to the Ditch That Textbook eLearning Resources Page all the time! Check out new remote learning resources about lesson planning, feedback/assessment, video calls and more. We also have collected videos and podcast episodes to check out!