Waffle Bytes

 If you have Google Classroom on your mobile phone,  there is a new feature that will randomly select students for you and allow you to track who you have selected (and not selected). To use this feature, start by clicking on "People" at the bottom of your classroom -  Click on the icon in the upper right corner -  You will get a welcome screen, click on START to start using it -  It will randomly select a student.  You can choose from the following options: CALL LATER - will put them back in the "pool" to draw from  ABSENT - will move them to the absent list so they are not called again NEXT - will move them to the PICKED list  At any time, you can see the number of students you have not selected, selected or marked as absent - Clicking on any of those options will provide an actual list of students that are in each group -  At any time you can reset with the Reset button at the upper right corner -  If you select all the students, you ...

 There are new Host Controls available within Google Meet.  These features are still rolling out, so it may take up to two weeks to see some of them. You will know that you have access to Host Controls by seeing a blue shield in the lower left corner of a Meet -  When you click on it, you see a pop-up that has some options available to you -  1. Quick access - if it is on (the default) people within your organization DO NOT need to ask to join the Meet; if it is off (slider to the left and not blue-green) then EVERYONE will need to ask to join your Meet and you will have to let them in. 2. Share their screen - does everyone have the ability to share their screen, or just you.  This will determine if the Present Now in the lower right hand corner of the Meet is displayed to others - 3. Send chat messages - does everyone have the ability to chat during the Meet.  This will determine if the chat icon in the upper right hand corner of the Meet is displayed to o...

When adding material in Google Classroom, many people do not know that you are able to add that item to multiple Classrooms when you are creating it!   IN CLASSWORK: To add an item, such as an assignment or material, to multiple classes, when you are creating it look to the menu options on the right side under where it says "For" -  Click on that dropdown.  You will see a list of all your Classrooms with a checkbox next to each.  Check all the courses you want the item to be in -  After you are done, it will switch to tell you how many classes the item is going to be created in -  IN THE STREAM: when adding an announcement click on the dropdown under "For" -  Check all the classes you want the announcement in, then proceed as normal. That's all there is to saving time by creating items in multiple classes at one time. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Technology Tidbits, brought to you by Melinda Waffle (Calhoun Intermediate School Dist...

 After seeing a couple teachers laboriously type in the email of each student from a Google Classroom, it occurred to me I should show how you can easily email all - or even just some - of students in a Classroom.   First, click on the People tab at the top. If selecting all students, click on the top checkbox -   If selecting a subset of students, check the boxes next to the students you want to select -  Once you have the boxes check, click on Actions and select Email- A new email will open up in a new tab.  Notice that all the students are in the BCC field so they are not aware of who you did (or didn't) email which helps keep you FERPA compliant -  Compose your subject and email message, then send! Thank you for joining us for this episode of Technology Tidbits, brought to you by Melinda Waffle (Calhoun Intermediate School District), and CJ Walker and Du Bui (Jackson County Intermediate School District) - members of REMC - RITS

While helping students be able to find assignments is important, helping them know your expectations for assignments is just as important. Using a naming convention for assignment titles can help with both. Where it says "Question" or "Title" it is a temptation to post your question or title of the activity.   Don't.   Instead, use that space instead to put a short name that helps IDENTIFY the item - for both you and your students.  Come up with a naming convention that works for you.  There are a couple examples below.  You may consider starting the name with a descriptor so students know what you expect to happen with the activity -    Another trick to make it even more visual is to use small icons -  Thank you for joining us for this episode of Technology Tidbits, brought to you by Melinda Waffle (Calhoun Intermediate School District), and CJ Walker and Du Bui (Jackson County Intermediate School District)

Organization is huge for Google Classroom - both for you and your students.  The use of Topics not only helps you organize course material, but gives you the power to share any section directly with students.   Teachers will need to decide HOW they want to use Topics as there are multiple ways they can be used.  A couple examples:  1. Using topics to organize by week -  2. Using topics to organize by content (eg. a unit or project) - Notice in the week example, the current week is on top.  This is because you can re-order your topics at any time - either by drag & drop or by clicking on the More menu (3 stacked dots) to to right of the topic name and selecting Move up or Move down -  There are 2 ways to create topics.  1. by choosing Topic under the Create button 2. by creating a Topic when assigning it to an Assignment, Quiz, Question or Material  A very cool thing about Topics: each topical area has its own unique URL.  This m...

Organization is huge for Google Classroom - both for you and your students.  One key can be ONLY using the Stream for announcements.   (Here is the short video for this topic: Using Your Stream for Announcements .) Designating and setting up your stream as only being used for announcements keeps it "clean" and allows students to easily find past announcements - they are not buried among other notifications.  To do this, you will want to change 2 of your classroom settings. First, go to the G Classroom settings by clicking the Gear in the upper right corner Second, change the following 2 items shown in the box below -  1. Make the stream so students cannot add new posts by selecting either of the other 2 options (that students can only comment OR only the teacher can post and comment) 2. Hide all notifications of classwork from the stream This will simplify your stream so that only posts YOU (and any co-teachers) add show up.   Thank you for joining us ...