#EduGIF Guy. Speaker. Tech Integration Specialist. Google Apps for Edu Trainer. Nerd. #EduDuctTape Podcast Host.
This bonus episode features plenty of laughs, tons of fun, and a handful of edtech tips. Tune in to hear me join Meredith Akers, Darryl Legaspi, and Elizabeth King as we have some fun, do some improv, learn about the Google Slides Master Slide, and try out one of my favorite Pear Deck activities!
Continue reading #EduDuctTape BONUS: ImprovEDCon with Meredith Akers, Elizabeth King, and Darryl Legaspi
Google Jamboard is a good tool for collaborative activities in the classroom or virtual learning environment, but it’s missing some features that could make it an amazing tool. Among those absent features is the ability to design your frames (the “slides” in a “Jam”) in ways that you might design a Google Slide.
Well, don’t let that stop you! You can create your backgrounds and templates in Google Slides and then turn them into Jamboard backgrounds!
And, here’s a little bonus: You could have one Slides file with all of your Jamboard backgrounds and templates in it! Oooh – organized!
Check out the process – and a bonus tip for a quicker way to upload the image – in the #EduGIF below and then, under the animation, check out some step-by-step instructions! You can also view a video, with explanations here.
Continue reading Create Google Jamboard Backgrounds in Google Slides
This bonus episode features an episode of the Education Today podcast where I was fortunate enough to join Scott Nunes to talk about teaching during the pandemic, edtech after the pandemic, Pear Deck, Nearpod, Flipgrid, Otus, Schoology, speech translation tools, transcription tools, Adobe Spark, and more!
Continue reading #EduDuctTape BONUS: Education Today with Scott Nunes
James Varlack says that “Engagement is developed.” So, in his interview, I asked him how he develops his engaging instruction. We discuss how James works toward each of the 3 types of student engagement–emotional, behavioral, and cognitive–in both analog and digital ways. We discuss Jamboard, Google Docs, Google Slides, Padlet, Whiteboard.chat, Whiteboard.fi, Microsoft Teams whiteboard, Google Arts & Culture
Continue reading #EduDuctTape – James Varlack – Developing Engaging Instruction
This is NOT a sponsored post. However, when it was initially posted, mote did provide me with access to an Unlimited account to try it out + is gave away FREE 1-year Unlimited licenses to 5 of my readers! (those prizes have already been given out) All opinions in the post, however, are my own.
🗣️ U!
🗣️ D!
🗣️ L!
UDL, or Universal Design for Learning, is the practice of making your students’ learning experiences–the content delivery, the demonstrations of learning, all of it–universally accessible.
And that means that we need to deliver content in as many modalities as possible. This is why I was super excited when Google unveiled the ability to add audio in Google Slides. However, my excitement was dampened by the lack of a straightforward process to adding said audio.
Record the audio here, save it there, upload it here, then add it to your Slides.
Can’t we just record the audio in Slides and have it appear in Slides? Please!?
Well, the team at mote has our back on this. Their awesome Chrome extension has been rocking feedback and other classroom processes with the superpower of adding audio comments in Google Classroom, Google Docs, and more. Then they let us use mote while we were surfing the web in Chrome. But now they’ve really outdone themselves . . .
👉 Use the extension to record while you’re in Google Slides and it pops it right onto your Slide. 🤯
Check it out in the #EduGIF below and then, at the bottom, enter to win one of 5 FREE Unlimited mote licenses!
Isn’t that awesome? So slick, so easy, and so good for tons of different learning scenarios.
While the super generous free version gives you these capabilities with audio recordings of up to 30 seconds in length, some of you Chatty Cathys and Talkative Tommys may need a few more ticks of the Apple Watch. That’s where the Essential and Unlimited plans and their 90 second-limit come in. You can learn more about the plans here.
This bonus episode features a roundtable discussion from the Teachers on Fire podcast about educational technology tools in 2020 and 2021. I am joined by Tim Cavey, Chris Nesi, Gabriel Carillo, Eric Guise, Scott Nunes, and Alfonso Mendoza, to talk about more than a dozen edtech tools!
Continue reading #EduDuctTape BONUS: Teachers On Fire – EDTECH PODCASTERS Shout Out the Best Learning Tools of 2020
Claudio and I talk about hearing from our students with tools that empower them to create. Specifically, Adobe’s tools Spark Video, Premiere Rush, Premiere Pro, Spark Post, Spark Page, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco, and Audition. Also, audience questions about sites to use for surprise inclement weather folders for elementary schoolers and a Google Sheets conundrum. Continue reading #EduDuctTape – Claudio Zavala: Hearing from Your Learners with Adobe’s Creativity Tools
Recording this episode with Knikole Taylor put a huge 😃 smile 😃 on my face right when I needed it. We had so much fun talking and I think you’ll have a blast listening. You’ll barely even notice that, by the time you’re done, you will have learned about 7 different tools for #FormativeAssessment (Pear Deck, Nearpod, Jamboard, Padlet, Mentimeter, Formative, and Classkick)!
Listen on YouTube here
This is a sponsored post. All opinions, however, are my own.
For years, one of the most common questions that I heard as an educational technology trainer, speaker, and coach was “I’m a math teacher. How can I use edtech in my class?”
I had lots of answers that I was excited about. I advocated for Desmos activities, Flipgrid topics for sharing strategies, spreadsheets for investigating patterns, and more. One thing that was always tough, though, was actually entering mathematical representations into digital spaces. Some spaces were built for it, like Desmos, and some spaces had a pen tool, like Flipgrid, but others were not set up well for it, like Google Docs, Slides, and Forms.
Until EquatIO® came along. With its “Make math digital” tagline, Texthelp’s tool gave teachers and students the ability to easily enter equations and graphs into Docs, Slides, Forms, and more. At that time, there were quite a few math and science teachers who were very excited about the capabilities that EquatIO gave them. They enjoyed using them to create content, activities, and assignments for their students. And, for some of them, they even had their students use EquatIO to respond or create content of their own.
From my observations, some math teachers may have thought that EquatIO was a misspelling of equation. Until early 2020, that is. When math classes, along with all of the other classes in schools, moved online, educators needed a way to create, as EquatIO calls it, “Make math digital.”
And I think that EquatIO is one tool that they should consider to support their digital math instruction.
EquatIO–which is free for teachers–has 8 main features that I’d like to share with you. The first 5 relate to entering math and science expressions into digital spaces. Let’s look at those first.
Check out these input options in the EduGIF below and then read on to learn more about each.
Continue reading Using EquatIO® to Support Digital Math Instruction
