Join me May 9 for Creating Comics with Google Tools

I'll be presenting in a free Google for Education conference, Education on Air, at noon (EST) on May 9.

I'll show some very creative and practical tools for creating comics in projects for any class or subject. It's an often overlooked, flexible presentation tool students love. We'll also take some time to talk about creativity in school and I'll share how to use the comic tools in fun creativity games for the classroom.

You can join my event here.

More information about the Education on Air conference (with tons of presentations from people more talented than me) is here.

Follow me on Twitter to keep up with more information as the date approaches.

How to Create a Narrated Slideshow on a Chromebook Using Google Slides and WeVideo

I've had a few teachers ask for a project somewhere between a PowerPoint presentation and a full blown video project. I have been suggesting what I call a narrated slideshow and I made a tutorial to show them how to do it on a Chromebook.

This process uses Google Slides and WeVideo. I really like how the whole thing can be done on one device.

I recently updated the final video below to include:

• Correct terminology for the final step in WeVideo.
• Steps showing how to turn it in through Google Classroom.

Some of these steps are specific to the Chromebook, but the great thing about these tools is that you can use them on any computer as long as you have a microphone.

First, here's an example of what I mean by a narrated slideshow:


In part 1 I show a brief overview of creating the presentation and how to download the slides as image files.



In the second stage I show how to import the images into WeVideo and how to build the video presentation. (WeVideo was recently updated, so some screens won't be identical to what you see in this video.)



In Part 3 I explain how to record your narration. (WeVideo was recently updated. It looks like they fixed the problem I refer to in the video about showing the preview while recording.)


In this final step I show how to finalize the project as a video saved in WeVideo and Google Drive. I also show how to turn it in through Classroom.

Note: Be aware that the free version of WeVideo is limited to how many minutes of video you can export each month. If the students keep these under five minutes there shouldn't be a problem, but they need to be sure their work is as good as possible before exporting. Multiple exports of even short videos could end up exceeding the limit on free accounts.


Note about first four videos above:
The first four videos were recorded on a Chromebook. I normally make my video lessons on a PC with Camtasia. Here I used the SnagIt Chrome app and extension. I edited in WeVideo (using some premium features as part of a free month trial). I am happy with the results using the free tools, but they are not as polished as other tutorials I have created.

Going the distance where it counts

Transformation begins by asking the right questions.

Some people use what I call "checklist thinking". In my line of work, that means I talk about a teaching technique and they tell me whether or not they do that. (And of course the answer is usually affirmative.)

PBL? CHECK!

Formative assessment? CHECK!

I describe an ideal, they see some piece of it that looks something they did. "Yep, I do that."

But it's too simple to approach life as a series of yes/no questions.

A better question is often, "How much do you use...?" I call this a yardstick approach. It raises the question of measuring and differences in results.

• With it we acknowledge a distance between minimal practice and effective application. 
• We can start to assess where we are at. 
• We can identify important aspects that make results poor, good and best. 
• We can begin to identify steps to improve.

Checklist thinking leads to mediocrity. Yardstick thinking leads to growth.

As a last thought, I'll add that checklist thinking isn't all bad. I assure you I use it frequently, like when I mow my lawn and when I send a reminder email about a printer issue to our district tech. Is that done? CHECK!

Obviously we can't start rating ourselves on a scale for everything. The areas in our lives where we use the yardstick approach, though, are the areas we value most whether we admit it or not. The trick is to acknowledge our priorities and then evaluate the efforts accordingly.

Turning in Assignments in Google Classroom

**With recent updates to Classroom, this tutorial is no longer completely accurate. Please see my updated post showing Classroom from the teacher and student side.

Google Classroom has been quite popular with teachers in our district. That's no surprise, given its popularity everywhere! I love how easy it is for students and teachers to pick up the basics.

One problem we have is that students initially want to share their work with the teachers using the Share button. Many had been doing that for at least a year. Now that Google Classroom handles all the sharing automatically and organizes the folders, using the Share button can be a big inconvenience for the teacher.

I created a three minute tutorial that shows how to turn in work properly using Google Classroom. Everything is from the student's view, so this can be very helpful in class. Most teachers don't get to see the student side unless they're working with students, often after several have already made the mistake of sharing work incorrectly.

Besides addressing the Share and Turn In buttons, I also talk about the three ways in which the assignments are completed:

• Accessing a document the teacher created for the student
• Creating a new Google Docs, Slides or Sheets file
• Attaching a file previously created 

Here's the video. I also have a link below to a tipsheet that sums it all up in one page.

And here's the tipsheet.

Reflection assignments from the Mini-Documentary Project

A few weeks ago I posted resources from our mini-documentary project from our high school Communications and the Media class. As we were finishing the project, I realized the students needed time to reflect on all the learning that had taken place. I created these two assignments for this purpose.

This first short assignment was given when they collected most of the content for their videos, but before they finished editing.
Reflection Assignment 1

When the videos were completely finished, we gave students this longer reflection.
Reflection Assignment 2