Have you ever wanted to have selections automatically disappear in Google Forms? I have found myself needing this option a few times from group project selections, to field day activity choices, and even parent-teacher conference timeslots. In the video below I explain how to use a Google add-on plugin to automatically remove choices when a predetermined number of selections is reached. Below the video there is a step-by-step guide as well.
Step 1 Create a Google Form
Go to drive.google.com and go to New –> More –> Google Forms. A new tab will open when you hit Google Forms.
I’m a big fan of gamification in the classroom. I’m always looking for new ways to engage my students in safe but competitive areas so that they can flex their brain muscles. About a year ago I started using Quizizz and I haven’t looked back.
What is it?
Many educators are familiar with Kahoot! I like Kahoot! but my real problem with it is that all of the students need to be able to see the board and they have to go at the same pace. Quizizz is different in that it allows students to work from their device only and they are able to go at their own pace. The gamified component is there as well and students get live ranking updates.
Creating a Quizizz
Once you sign-up for a free account you are able to create a quiz via the menu bar at the top. You will be asked to give the quiz an image, set the name of the quiz, and set it as public or private.
After that, you will be taken to a page where you can enter in questions and answers.
You will be able to see a preview of the question on the right-hand side. You can include images in your question or just leave it as plain text. You also need to select a correct answer out of the answer choices you provided.
One of the other great features of Quizizz is that there is a searchable database of all of the public Quizizz’s out there. You can search by keyword and find loads of other quizzes with questions that you can place directly onto your quiz.
When you view public quizzes you are able to hit the red plus button and they will show up on your question list on the left. You can edit the questions later if you wish as well.
Once you are done with your quiz, hit the green “Finish” button on the top right of the page. You will then be given the chance to play/start a game or return back to your Quizizz dashboard.
Playing quizizz
When you are ready to start you hit the “Play Live!” button to begin. You will be taken to a page that gives you a few options on how to have students join the game. You can give them a web address along with a 6-digit code or you can set it as an assignment, announcement, or question in Google Classroom.
Once students start entering the game you will see their username and avatar show up. Once all of your students have entered, you can begin the game. Students may enter the game after it has started because Quizizz is based on student pacing, not class pacing. As students start answering questions, you will get live feedback on the numbers of correct and incorrect answers.
Checking for student understanding
Once students have completed the game they are able to review their answers. Once the teacher decides that the game is over they can end the game and get feedback on individual students or the class as a whole.
Individual feedback is shown in a grid pattern. Green checks are given for correct answers and red X’s are for incorrect answers. I usually try to group particular content questions together so that I can see if a student truly understood what was taking place or not. In the game settings, you can allow question order to be shuffled, but the results will always show in the original order.
You can also get a class view of each question to get a sense of how the class did on particular content questions. I use this as a way to check for understanding, question-wording, and to get suggestions from my students.
As you can see in the questions above, question #4 was overwhelming understood by the students, but question #5 proved to be an area of concern. This type of feedback allows me to go back and reteach items that were not properly understood and allows me to ask questions of my students to find out exactly what they didn’t understand.
As I said before, I’m a big fan of Quizizz. Not only does it allow me to get quick informal feedback on my students, it’s fun for them, and allows me to really check for their understanding. It also helps me quickly catch common problem areas and address them before they become bigger problems.
One of my favorite parts about Camtasia is its flexibility and ability to create exactly what I need. As a teacher, I like to make a lot of instructional tools for my students. I often create videos and capture my screen to teach various concepts.
Ever since GIFs have been enabled in Google Docs, I find myself creating a lot of animated GIFs to show students how to do things. This allows them to focus on the message instead of having to watch and listen to me. It also gives bite-sized info since only so much can be shown in a GIF. I find that documenting a process through a series of GIFs embedded in a Google Doc is more effective than capturing a whole video that walks them through the same process.
In the video above I review the process of making an animated GIF inside of Camtasia. There are several different settings which control the file size, screen size, and quality of the GIF; all of which are important to understand to get the best product possible.
This time last week I was trying to sleep, but not doing so successfully; the wind was howling, my brain was turned on, and I was excited for what the next day held. Eventually, I went to sleep and awoke the next morning at 4:30 AM and began my long day. I drove up to Hershey, PA to attend the PETE&C conference. I’ve attended the conference for all seven years of my teaching career and it’s one of the most valuable professional experiences I have each year.
The conference is centered around educational technology. I love hearing about different ways of doing things, learning about new tools, and connecting with people who share a common passion. Since I’ve been teaching in Maryland, I feel a little like a fish out of water when attending the conference. Luckily I get to connect with old coworkers and meet new people to keep me going.
I’ve reflected in video form last year and this (videos below), but I wanted to capture a few things in written form.
Resources
Here are a few resources that presenters at the conference shared with us:
After listening and interacting with people at the conference I have a few things that I would like to accomplish. My main goal for the remainder of this year is to really work on flipping my classroom. I want to empower students to work at their own pace and to explore things on their own.
I used to teach at an online school where flipping was kind of what we did, but I want to take it to another level. In Aaron Sams workshop he talked about the different versions of flipping and how the quality of what you produce really matters now. I want to make high-quality content for my students but I also want to share that content out. I’ve really been evaluating how I share my teaching out and how I show off my classroom. I’m ready to really explore what it means to open a classroom up and be a content creator instead of a consumer.
Google recently announced a few changes to Google Classroom. Some of them are meant for admin-level people, but the thing I’m most excited about is an update for me, the teacher, and for our students. As you can tell from the title, this update allows the teacher to assign items to individual students. I posted a video going over all of the ins and outs below.
Here’s how to do it
If you are not a video person. Here is a breakdown of what you need to know.
Step 1
To begin with, you will need to add an assignment just like you would normally do. Go down to the plus, “+,” sign on the bottom right of the screen and then click on “Creat Assignment.
Step 2
Click on the new “All Students” drop down.
Step 3
Deselect “All Students” and check the students that you want to assign something for. You can do this for as many or as few students as you wish. Once you are done, hit the “Assign” button like normal. You will notice that the number of students showing as not done will only reflect the number of students you selected.
Editing your selections
Luckily you can edit your selections easily and add additional students or subtract students from the assignment. To do this go to the edit menu.
From there you will see the number of students you assigned to the lesson. Click on the drop down and edit your selections.
And hit “Save.”
It’s as simple as that. Thanks Google!
Future suggestions
I would like to see Google add the ability to create groups of students so that I could quickly make multiple different assignments for mass numbers of students. Right now I have to go through and check each student. If I have 150 students, that means that I need to click 150 checkboxes. A grouping feature would allow me to select a group and have it assign to multiple students in that group, saving me a bit of time, effort, and stopping me from making as many mistakes.
I’m a massive fan of what Google has been doing in the education field. My students and I use their products every day. I teach others how to use Google Classroom and other G Suite Apps and I often find myself being asked questions about Google products during my school day. After talking to a few educator friends and doing some research, albeit brief, online, I’ve decided to work towards becoming a Google Certified Educator Level 1.
I’m always looking to further my education, skills, and experience (as all educators should) and I feel like this is a natural next step in my process. The basic process that Google puts forward is that you sign-up, take 13 Units of at-your-own-pace instruction/training, and then take a 180 minute exam to test your skills.
I started the process tonight and found the content enjoyable and easily digestible. As I’m very familiar with the basics of Google products, I didn’t think the intro stuff would be too hard. And it wasn’t. The final quiz of the unit left me with a few problems because it was marking questions wrong that I knew were right. I figured out that you must capitalize your fill in the blank responses and I was able to move along from there.
I hope to work towards completing all of the units before winter break and take the test over break. The test costs $10 and I honestly don’t know if passing it does anything for my career, but I’m really more interested in what I can learn from it.
In the past I was an online educator for high school students and I currently sell online courses on a variety of subjects, so I’m interest to see how Google does the whole online education thing. I’ve seen what they have done with Google Classroom (love it) and I want to see how deeply rooted the choices in Google Classroom are to their own instruction.
Wish me luck, it’s time to be professionally developed!
Something that I have found myself needing to do from time to time is to link a slide in a Google Slide presentation to another slide. During our Back to School Night I wanted to make a single presentation, since most of the info is the same, but be able to switch from class to class seamlessly. Linking slides to other slides was the way I decided to tackle the problem. Below is a video on how to do it.
Google has made some really nice updates to Google Classroom over the past few months. They are getting closer and closer to an ideal LMS. I’ve outlined some of my past grievances with Google Classroom, and it sounds like they are listening to feedback. Many of the issues I raised are still there, but the new additions are super helpful for many reasons.
Questions
Towards the beginning of the school year Google added “Questions” as a type of item to add to your classroom. Previously the only items that were in there were Announcements and Assignments. Questions added a nice way to give a quick formative assessment or feedback tool. It was slightly limited, but still worked. They added options now to allow for different types of questions; short answer or multiple choice. The process for creating questions is shown below:
For the entirety of my teacher profession, I have been able to attend the PETE&C conference. It’s an educational technology conference held in Hershey, PA and it has been one of the most rewarding, enlightening, and professionally stimulating conferences that I have ever been to. For the past two years, I have gone solo (previously I went with a group of teachers from my school) and I decided that I should do more to promote this conference to my colleagues and my district.
I will have a bigger debriefing post on here at some point soon, but I wanted to share the video reflection that I created to help remind me of what I learned and discussed with some wonderful educators.
I’m a big believer in conferences to enhance professional growth. For the past several years I’ve attended the PETE&C conference and I’ve gotten pretty good at bringing just the right amount of stuff with me to ensure that I am both productive and mobile. (more…)
To begin with, you will need to add an assignment just like you would normally do. Go down to the plus, “+,” sign on the bottom right of the screen and then click on “Creat Assignment.
I’m a massive fan of what Google has been doing in the education field. My students and I use their products every day. I teach others how to use 
