Pear Deck Now Lets Teachers Record and Upload Audio

Pear Deck just released the ability to add audio and it is awesome. Probably one of the easiest ways I've discovered to add audio to your presentations and interactive slide activities. Right now this is just part of the Google Slides Pear Deck Add-on, but I am thinking it will soon be an option in PowerPoint.

How awesome is it that you can now share your voice with your students. Connections matter and this is another great way that you can make sure your students are connected and engaged! I also love that you can upload music and other audio files to supplement images and text. 

Adjusting To Working at Home - Tech and Home Office Tips and Resources

I've been working at home for almost two months now and I've begun to think about what I need to efficiently work at home. Today I wanted to share the top 10 things I think every home office should have to maximize the space. 

Curiosity Matters - Unique YouTube Channels to Engage Curious Learners

Curiosity still matters and it is an essential skill for all lifelong learners. Learners need to challenge themselves to explore something new as often as they can. I'm not just talking about content or learning how to do something you need to get done. I'm thinking about exploring something unexpected, something unique. 

"There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men." John Locke

I think we sometimes get so caught up in what we have to learn that we forget to explore something we could learn. Today I wanted to share a couple YouTube channels that inspire me to explore something unexpected. How would you use these with your students? 

Earth Day 2020 - Introducing TED-Ed Earth School for Remote Learning

Today I discovered a new resource from TED-Ed and it looks like an awesome remote learning resource for educators and students.

Audio in Google Slides - Enhancing The Learning Experience

Did you know that you can insert audio files into Google Slides? Google started the rollout of this feature about a year ago and it should be available for all users by 2020. Creators can embed MP3 and WAV audio files from Drive into Slides. 

Pear Deck Student Paced for Remote Learning

Pear Deck is an incredible resource that supports student engagement and student voice through formative assessment, exit slips, reflections, interactive questions, discussion prompts, and more. Teachers can use Pear Deck to add interactive questions to any presentation. Pear Deck can be used during live Remote Learning Experiences using Zoom or Google Hangout or students can explore the deck on at their own pace using the student-paced mode.

Agenda Templates for Remote Learning

One of the struggles with remote learning is making sure our students and parents know what they need to do and where to find the resources they need. Many teachers are using Google Classroom or other LMS to distribute and organize lessons and activities. I think it is also important to have a site, doc, calendar, or slide deck agenda to help parents and students stay on top of the work.

I've started to collect some sample remote learning agenda templates for teachers in this folder. What are you using? Send it my way and I'll add it to this folder. 

Additional Remote Learning Resources

Formative Assessment Resources for Remote Learning

There are quite a few awesome formative assessment resources that teachers can use to engage students, but I am going to start this post discussing some of my thoughts about assessments in remote learning experiences. If you are just looking for the tools, just scroll down a bit and they are all there. 

I've seen this question quite a few times over the last few weeks, "How do I prevent students from "cheating" on a test when they are home?"
I've also been reading quite a few posts about secure tests and preventing students from "cheating" on tests and quizzes. Many educators are recommending different "secure" assessment tools or asking the parents to "supervise" their children as they take the tests. The idea is that we can stop students from cheating on the traditional multiple-choice or short answer assessments. Here are a few reasons why I think that this is the wrong question and the wrong mindset for remote learning.

• If students don't value the learning experience, most will take the easiest path. Often they don't even think that they are cheating. They are just using all of the resources at their disposal. 
• There is no assessment tool that can guarantee a student is not using a second device to find answers. 
• Many parents may not have the time or even the inclination to supervise their students during an assessment. Even if they do, some students are very good at hiding what they are doing from parents. 
• Even the best students may choose to find help because they believe everyone else is doing it.
• Online assessments are stressful for many students and there is just too much stress in the world right now.
• Instead of focusing on just vocabulary and content assessment, let's engage students in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication as we engage them in formative assessments. 

Instead of securing our assessments, let's focus on this question, "How can we use formative assessments to engage students in understanding what they know and what they don't know in a fun and creative way?"

Getting Started With Flipgrid - Videos, Whiteboards, and Screencasts

Zoom and Google Hangout/Meet have both become very popular for synchronous remote learning experiences. Synchronous learning definitely has a place as we look for a way to engage students outside of our classrooms, but I also think we need to make sure that we are not relying only on these types of experiences for our students. 

Asynchronous learning with videos should also be something we should be leveraging to engage our students. I think one of the best tools to engage students in asynchronous learning is Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a free platform that allows both teachers and students to create and respond to videos in a safe and secure online environment. It also has some awesome features that can make the learning experience fun.