Tech doing the work

I have found some routines that have helped me stay organized and kept my work load reasonable(<--what does that even mean???). 

1. Templates for Posts

I have been using a consistent template for my Google Classroom posts that keeps us organized. I reference it each day and point it out during each transition. I have a separate Class that has no students and is used ONLY for templates. Its a lifesaver.

The names of the posts align exactly with my gradebook to keep us all organized. When I pull grades from Classroom to Aeries, it is easy to find them and easy to fix any changes. This only works if you make sure all things that are graded in your gradebook are also assignments in Google Classroom. Last year I did all materials posts and it was a nightmare.

Make sure you have turned off the posts to stream and keep everything in classwork.

Also emojis make things fun. :)

2. Recording Lessons During Zoom

I record during one class if I am doing any notes. These are then posted as links as a comment on that day's post. To stay organized, I made folders and download the zoom recordings directly to those folders. In each folder is the video and any saved screen shots from zoom annotation. The folder is what I link on the post.

3. Attendance

I use zoom reports for attendance and it has saved so much class time and sanity. Students come in late or leave early. Zoom reports keep track of log in times and length of time in the room.

Each meeting is saved as an entry so I have all my old records.

I can see times when they were in the waiting room AND I can show unique users to total my instructional time.

3. Zoom Times Posted

Each class has their zoom schedule posted as their section ID. This way it shows up and they don't forget. 

I also posted the zoom codes on their classroom's calendar. It was hard for some of them to learn but now I see many of them using it.

4. Break Out Rooms Management

My favorite hack so far is using google slides to manage breakout rooms. Students go to their slide based on their breakout room number and work together. Is is easy to visually see off task/lost students. Ed Campos was the amazingness behind this one!

I am going to attempt a Quizlet Live in breakout rooms soon. Hopefully it goes well!!!

5. Our schedule is mostly traditional, but we added a student support window of 30 minutes before lunch. It is used for students who need travel time to get their school lunch. It is also when teachers are available for office hours. Last year I sat on a zoom and waited for students and they would either drop in and see someone and leave immediately (shy) or they wouldn't come at all. So I switched to an appointment system with Calendly. It was amazing, but even though they extended their free trial for me to finish the year, I couldn't spend more money. This year, with zoom integrating with Google Calendar, I was able to make appointments with the built in appointment feature in calendar. Sam Shah

posted a nice tutorial about this as well. 

Essentially when you make a new event on your calendar, you can select appointment slots. If you have the zoom extension downloaded from chrome the blue button on the bottom will show up. 

Then you select a time range and length of meeting.

I added the link to the appointment calendar to my email signature block and my classroom. This is what they see when they click. It automatically puts it on both of your calendars when they select it. Google even adds the name of the person making the event automatically. If they don't show up, I label it NO SHOW and send them a notification. It is great because they get time just for them knowing no one will interrupt AND they can invite friends to the zoom. 

The only thing I have noticed is it seems like it uses the same zoom code for every appointment, so rather than jumping around, you can sit in the one room and utilize the waiting room. 

I had a couple of last years students email me asking for help and they were able to join me via this link as well. Its been great.

Well I have survived 3 weeks of distance learning so far and I am trying to stay positive despite all the opportunities not to be! Good luck out there.