Kahoot

Kahoot provides a way for students to answer questions through multiple choice or true/false using any device that they have.  It's a great substitute for the old ActivInspire Voters.  With the COVID-19 Virus, Kahoot is allowing free access to their Pro Features for the rest of the school year.  This opens up open-ended questions, puzzles, polls, and the ability to include informational slides in between questions!   You may create an account using your Google information.  Students do not need to create an account - they will use a code you post of your Kahoot to access it.

Tutorial: Click here for a 5 Minute Overview of Kahoot!

Teacher Access: www.getkahoot.com
Student Access: www.kahoot.it

Zoom (Video Conferencing)

      Zoom is a great resource for being able to have a live class, small group, or 1:1 tutoring session with students.  (You can use Zoom to show the lesson, but use other platforms like Google Classroom, Classflow, Seesaw, etc to distribute materials).  You have the ability to share your computer screen with your students and they are able to share their screens with you.  Zoom does have a whiteboard feature as well that you can pull up anytime and annotate on during a lesson.  You may also just use it to record a lesson for you to then send to students at a later time.

      Setting up a meeting is fairly easy.  Go to www.zoom.com.  You may sign in with Google information or create a new username and password.  After setting up a meeting, you can send a link to students/parents via any communication tool you use.  They only need to do a small install that takes a couple seconds before being able to join a meeting.  With the COVID-19 outbreak, the founder of the company has lifted restrictions on teacher accounts - allowing you to have multiple participants for more than 40 minutes!

      Security is something we all must consider as teachers.  Zoom allows you to record the session and downloads the video to your computer after the session is done.  Included with the download is a video only file, a transcript of any chats that occured, and one other file.  If you are concerned about space on your computer, transfer it to an external drive, upload it to Google Drive, or other video storage platform.  Please make sure you keep the security settings locked down!  When setting up a video conference, you have the option to see participants' video feeds or not.  You may want to select not to see students' faces until you have an agreement with each parent that you have permission to video conference.  They can still participate, just no one can see each other (except you and what you share from your screen).  Just a reminder about confidentialty here!  Students can not be taped or video taped without parental consent!  I have a Google Form that I am going to create and have parents fill out ahead of time (just in case).

Some other tips if you choose to do a video conference...

• Do not have any music playing in the background (intellectual rights issues can come up if you post your video online.
• Ask students to mute their side unless they have something to share - it can be distracting if someone's sibling is crying or a dog barking in the background.
• Students and parents can see what's in the background
• You can setup a virtual background to block out everything behind you that works really well.
• Make sure everyone in the area is aware that you are recording, students are watching, and students are listening.  
• Keep in mind, if you are sharing your whole screen, your students/parents will see what ever is on your computer screen.  If you select to share only a particular window, then they won't see other content that's on your computer.  

Click here for a tutorial on how to use Zoom!

Setting Up Google Classroom (Updated 3/20)

        Google Classroom is a great resource for posting lessons, sharing documents, and having students complete assignments.

• Click here for a Zoom Video Conference with fellow teachers 3/18/2020.  
• The first couple of minutes talks about how Zoom works.
• Learn the layout of Google Classroom.
• Learn how to create a class and add students to that class.
• Learn how to create an assignment and assign it to students.
• See how to make an interactive lesson using the assignment feature and Google Draw.

Here's some other helpful resources...

• Here's the District's Resources for Google Classroom!
• Click here for Google Classroom's Support page.
• The NEW Google Classroom YouTube Video - this video shows some of the key features of Google Classroom.
• Here's another Google Classroom YouTube Video.

OTHER WEBINARS ON THE SAME TOPIC

• Support Staff Webinar - Special Education, School Pscycologists, ELL Tutors, Speech/Language, Special Areas
• General Teachers Webinar - This one goes in depth on creating a lesson and showing all the different options attaching tasks for students to complete.

Going Paperless (for Teachers) with Kami

Here are the steps I recently went over with teachers during our workshop in getting ready to use Kami.  These steps are to help you put in place a system that replaces using paper and pencil for many teacher tasks.  This is how I manage using Kami with Google Drive; however, there are a couple different ways that you can use Kami and organize your files.

Step 1 - Log in to the Chrome Browser using your school account information.

• If you have assessments that you would like to use with Kami, make sure they are uploaded to your Google Drive or if a folder has been shared with you, make sure you add it to your 'My Drive."

Step 2 - Add a folder to your bookmarks bar.

• Learn how to show your bookmarks bar, add folders to it, and add websites to those folders.
• Don't forget to bookmark Kami!
• This is not neccessary, but will be a big help organizationally if you are toggling between a desktop and an iPad or other device.  
• Click here to see how to add the Booksmark bar to your screen across different platforms.

Step 3 - Go to https://www.kamiapp.com/ and create an account.

• Verify in the settings that you are automatically synced with Google Drive and that you 'install' the Chrome extension to your Chrome browser.

Step 4 - Open a file through Kami's website and bookmarking it.

• Here you will learn an organizational trick when it comes to using Kami for Assessment or other teacher purposes.

Step 5 - Opening a file and using Kami to annotate on an assessment or other document.

• Here you will learn what to do when you are assessing a student or using Kami with some other document.

Step 6 - Using Kami with an assessment that is given multiple times a year.  (Using the 'Make a Copy' Feature)

• Here you will learn a trick for those assessments that you give to all your students multiple times a year.  

Step 7 - Organizing your files in Google Drive.

• Here you will learn how to organize your files to make it easier to manage all the documents you will be creating.

Tips and Tricks - How to Create Your Own Checklists / Notetaking Tools to use with Kami.

How to Log into Chrome Browser

Logging into Chrome Browser is very helpful when working with sites that support Google Login.  If you are logged in to your Chrome Browser, when you visit a site that supports Google Login you will click the Google Sign-in button the first time and then be automatically signed in on your return visit.  Signing into your browser also helps sync your bookmarks across devices, which is really helpful when you work across two or more devices.  Here are the steps to follow....

For a desktop / laptop...

1. Open Chrome Browser.
2. Click on the 'People' button (to the left of the three dots).
3. Click 'Sign in to Chrome.'
4. Enter your username and password.  
5. Then, sign in.  Once you have done this, it will save your information for you.  You will not have to sign in each time you open the browser.  (If your organization has strict password requirements, you may need to periodically enter your password to verify that you are who you say you are).  
6. If you are using multiple devices and want to synce your bookmarks - make sure that you select 'turn sync on.'

For an iPad...

1. Open Chrome Browser.
2. Click on the three dots in the top right corner.
3. Click 'Settings.'
4. Enter your username and password.  
5. Then, sign in.  Once you have done this, it will save your information for you.  You will not have to sign in each time you open the browser.  (If your organization has strict password requirements, you may need to periodically enter your password to verify that you are who you say you are).  
6. If you are using multiple devices and want to synce your bookmarks - make sure that you select 'turn sync on.'

It's a good idea to be aware of what it means to sync your information.  See this post about the difference between signing in to Google, signing in to the Chrome Browser, and what it means to sync data across devices.

Tips and Tricks with Kami

Here are some tips and tricks for using Kami in your classroom...

Taking Notes

• Use the grayed areas on the side to scroll up and down.
• Click on the gray area after selecting a new tool to move the toolbar out of the way.

File Management Tips

• Creating 'Copies' of an Assessment
1. From Kami, access the assessment from Google Drive.
2. Once open, click on the OPEN FILE icon (top right).
3. Click on VIEW ALL (at the bottom of the menu).
4. Click CREATE A NEW COPY.     (It will create a copy in your Kami Uploads Folder).
5. At the top of the screen, click on the crazy file name and change it to what you like.
6. The file is initially saved in the Kami Uploads folder.  You can go into Google Drive and drag it into whatever folder you like!
• ****This is great for Concepts of Print, Letter ID, F&P Summary Forms, Sight Words, Conferring Notes, Lesson Plans, etc because you can easily toggle between files.  Just follow steps 1-3.  Then instead of creating a new copy, click on the file you would like!****

• F&P's
• File Name - List the Date, Level, F/NF, Instruction/Indepedent, Student Name.  It will order your files chronologically in Drive for you :).

• Finding Files in Google Drive from Kami - Click NAME to sort files ABC, click LAST MODIFIED to sort files newest to oldest.

Accessing Dreambox at Home through Clever for Students

   

If you would like your students to log-in to Dreambox through Clever, click this link!  Students will be able to log in to Clever with the same username and password as what they use to log in to Chromebooks.  Once in, students will be able to click the Dreambox icon and be able to play Dreambox!  The Google Doc is setup to be sent home for parents.