G Suite Gems 2

Frustrated by the inability to insert audio in Google Slides? Not any more!

audioforslides   

Yes, the wonderful team at @EdTechteam have released this great and much welcome tool to allow you to insert audio files into Slides direct from your Drive.

Watch their demo here 👍 . 

Google Classroom  

I've long wanted to be able to see all of a student's work in one place in classroom
AND NOW I CAN!  Thank you ditchthattextbook.com for bringing this to my attention ⬇⬇⬇

• In the Students tab, click a student’s name to see all of his/her assignments,questions and quizzes — as well as status of work, grades, attached files and an icon for private comments. 
• Click here for full instructions

QUIZIZZ 

quizizz.com is very similar to the popular kahoot game but progress can be time limited and is not dependent on other students. Sign up for free and link your quizzes or any from the library direct to your Google Classrooms. 

G Suite Gems 3

Using G Suite to celebrate hard work and reduce workload.

   

Use Google Forms with Autocrat to create a feedback loop in your setting. 

A while ago now, I was searching for a way to recognise all the hard work and effort of colleagues that can sometimes, and unintentionally, go unrewarded. I approached my Head with a proposal for what we call a "Pat on the back". 

The loop is simple; colleagues have access to the google form via our website (staff only area using page level permissions in old sites) and if they feel a colleague deserves some recognition for anything, they can submit a form with their reason. 

On submission the Autocrat add-on generates a PDF (from a google docs template) which is emailed directly to the Head and her PA. A short 5 minute meeting is then set up where the member of staff is invited to meet with the Head and the citation/reason is shared with them and the Head thanks them for making a difference to a colleagues working life.  The PDF is then also kept on the person's file.

This has proved a very popular feedback loop and our Head really enjoys both receiving the citations and also meeting with the staff to congratulate them. Many are often unaware that they have been given a "pat on the back". 

It's really simple, takes very little time but sometimes a little goes a long way, especially when everyone is working their socks off. 

Why not give it a try and give your colleagues a virtual 'pat on the back" and see what effect it has on them?

Another way that we've used add-ons in our organisation has massively reduced the admin workload. I work across 2 secondary academies and previously our parental consultation and pupil target setting process was very heavily paper-based, often requiring folders to be prepared weeks in advance with hard copies of various data, forms to be completed and records to be kept.

By using a google sheet containing all pupils, we've been able to completely remove the need for paper copies as all notes are now made in the sheet itself (using filter views to avoid any filtering or sorting issues). Staff record the notes from the pupil meetings including attendance, SEND matters, parental concerns and 3 SMART targets. A parent email address is also collected and FormMule then sends parents a copy of the meeting notes which can be referred to at any time.    

At the next meeting later in the year, previous targets are reviewed and RAG rated and new discussions held and documented for the cycle to start again. Our admin team estimate that this change has saved them weeks of work!  

G Suite Gems 1

My first blogpost in years, my previous ones were all about cycling.

It's been a busy week for me, both in and beyond the classroom but I've taken great pleasure from being able to share my experience with G Suite and Social Media with colleagues from other schools as well as a local Chamber of Commerce who wanted an deeper insight into what G Suite has to offer.

Having conducted 2 face to face meetings, one video call and a 3 hour training session I can't believe it's only Wednesday night. (Almost time for The Apprentice)

I've been exploring further options this week, trying to find apps, extensions and options that will save colleagues time and effort, maybe even money! Below are some of the things I've shared with others who didn't know about them. That's the point isn't it, if you don't know, you don't know you don't know!

1. Sparkline in Sheets 

What a great little formula for showing a trend line graph! One colleague nearly fell off her chair when she saw this and how easy it was to create - just click in a cell, enter =sparkline and then choose the range. It's as easy as that and boom, you get a mini graph for each row of data. Copy down for individual graphs for a whole group.

2. Quill.org

Another free tool that could be especially useful for English teachers and especially those working with young people who need help with sentence structure etc. There's a free trial activity on the homepage and the subsequent analytics are very easy to work with. Why not give it a try?

3.  the new INSERT IMAGE option

I'm loving the drop down in Slides which has made things so much quicker. Simply choose now between upload from my computer, search the web, Drive, Google photos etc and drop the pictures straight in to your document. Great!