G Gems 35: Extend yourself!

1. Voice typing in Google Sheets IS POSSIBLE with the Voice in Voice Typing extension from the Marketplace.  Just install the extension and double click in any cell to record the entry.

It's very accurate! Here's a demo video >>>

2. Have you tried Grammarly's tone detector yet? I've been using this for about 3 weeks now and it's proving quite entertaining as it tries to guide me to write appropriately worded content whilst correcting spelling and grammar.

I've enjoyed challenging it to see how accurate it is, and obviously, as a beta, it's still learning but it's been quite helpful beyond the novelty value on more than one occasion already. 

Grammarly guides you on the wording and tone of an email
as well as checking your spelling and grandma 😉

3. Check my links is a useful extension. It shows you which links are working properly and which ones are no longer valid for any pages or documents that you visit. Super handy for documents containing links to 3rd party sites, other documents or resources.

Activate the extension and it highlights links using the scale above.

Add Check my links here

You only get one shot (Sorry!)

I recently tweeted about my driving test...

It's something that I strongly believe in and always bothers me that the education system doesn't share the same approach.

If we are truly to motivate people to want to learn, they must see that a perceived failure at the first step is not in fact a failure at all. We've all said it to our classes and even our own children.. "We learn from our mistakes", "Every failure is one step closer to the solution", you know the drill. Yet the education system and its qualifications doesn't reflect this at all. Is it any wonder our young people get mixed messages and their self-esteem is adversely affected?

Returning to my first point, I failed my first driving test so chose to retake at a different location. One that in fact I was less familiar with, the intention being I might be more inclined to make my own decision based on the road situation than doing what perhaps I'd seen others do at that familiar junction where it went wrong the first time. The result was favourable and who knows whether that was down to my decision or just more driving experience by the time the second test came around.

Regardless, 26 years later I regard myself as a competent driver. I even helped my father pass his ADI course when he retrained to become an instructor by developing with him a step by step approach to parallel parking that he could then pass on to his students. Dad was a very successful driving instructor for many years, specialising in teaching those with disabilities. He was never concerned with a first time test pass, he was always concerned with the final test pass. I know his students appreciated this.

So how is it that in our current education system, resits/retakes are frowned upon and in some cases, have been withdrawn? How is it healthy for our young people to be told "you've got one shot at this, don't waste it".  

I'd replace second with another, but you get the sentiment

Young people are on their own in that exam room. No-one to offer them reassurance, no-one to bounce ideas off of, no-one to share the burden of what might be a make or break 60 - 120 minutes that will shape their lives forever. Is it any wonder that they are feeling the strain?

In the real world, I suspect very few of us would turn up for a big presentation with the boss without having tweaked it multiple times and run it past others, colleagues, friends and family, for their input or feedback. Imagine if your entire teaching career was based on the outcomes of a 15 minute 'drop-in' to your lesson last thing on Friday in the height of summer when it's 28 degrees out, everyone is ratty and you can't open the windows. Imagine the pressure you'd feel (I know, many probably don't need to imagine as you've been there).

In this day and age of innovation, collaboration and 10X thinking, we must embrace failure as an important step to success. So what if you don't get immediate success. 

What if we treated a student's learning journey like an application? (we keep telling the to apply their learning). What if students had Alpha and Beta opportunities to test their knowledge for flaws before a full release?  

What if these Alpha and Betas actually held credit?  Students would have nothing to lose and everything to gain and wouldn't this be a fairer reflection of the world they are heading in to?

I'm sure this would help students and us to better manage their mental health. Much like the new Ofsted EIF doesn't increase workload *coughs* , our current system of the first result counting for schools only serves to heap more pressure on students, directly or indirectly.

We have to ask ourselves what we want from our young people and what we want for their future. What will be important to and for them in their futures? (Not what was important to us)

I'm just rambling really, as a parent of a Year 11 I'm seeing a very different side now and it bothers me as you can tell.

We need to encourage innovation, encourage risk taking and encourage and celebrate the failures just as much as the successes as they are all part of the same journey.

G Gems 34: user accountability & tracking in G Suite

Google for Education's G Suite offers a wealth of tools for tracking purposes.

Whether that be tracking user access and trends, collaborators' input, document updates or as an audit trail for email conversations.

Here's a summary of some of the tools I and my colleagues use regularly both in the classroom and in the office.

Activity Dashboard
The activity dashboard for Google documents, available by clicking the sparkling icon (top right) 

gives document owners full access to see who has viewed the document, who has been shared the document as well as a trend timeline of when it was accessed.

This proves very useful when sharing documents with a number of users to contribute and update as you can easily see who has been working on the document and who hasn't at a glance.

Version history
This feature is often overlooked by new users to G Suite. You can access via the file menu or by clicking the hyperlink at the top centre of the toolbar that usually reads something like "all changes saved to drive" or "last edit made X minutes ago by ......"

The side bar will open up giving you the various autosaved versions of the document from its very beginning, including which users have made changes (using a handy colour code).

All versions can be renamed (I often rename version 1 "original") and also copied at any time.

Any previous version can also be restored with a single click if changes are rejected.

Cell history
This great new feature works like version history but for each specific cell within Google Sheets.
Using this feature you can exactly which user has updated a cell and the timestamp. Where a cell has been edited multiple times a full history is visible by edit, user and timestamp.

Comment history
Within Google docs, once a comment has been resolved, it flies away. However, click on the comment icon (top right) and the full comment history can be brought back at any time.

Perfect for demonstrating an ongoing dialogue on the progress or changes within any document.

Gmail delegated access - allows access to send on behalf of a service account/team account within your domain (but shows who you're dealing with)

To set up delegated access for another user, from the main account go to settings > accounts and invite specific users.

Those users will then get an alert asking them to verify their account. It can take about 30 minutes for the change to take effect but soon they'll be able to select the delegated account in the drop down.

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If delegated access to Gmail accounts isn't for you or your organisation you could consider setting up a Google Group as a collaborative inbox.

Collaborative inboxes allow members of the google group to send and share across the group with all messages arriving via Gmail ( I use the forum option in my Gmail settings).

Reward and Retention in Education - a view

As someone who has been in education now for over 20 years, I've had my fair share of performance reviews or appraisals both as an employee and as a manager. In the early years it's fair to say lip service was paid to this process and targets were at best 'wooly'. It was often a box ticking exercise that was really not valued at all by those on the ground.

In more recent years, I've seen the process tighten to specific target areas, a much higher demand for physical evidence and impact and even suggested or designated targets for individuals in some cases. 

Whilst I agree that individual performance targets should benefit the organisation as a whole and be linked in some part to the strategic vision of the organisation, I believe there also has to be an element of personal indulgence for this to be truly valued and for there to be staff buy-in.

For those of us in the classroom, we can always look to improve our practice but how are we rewarded for this? In many cases I suspect the 'reward' is still having a job and not being subject to a support/improvement plan. Is fear really a reward? Does this promote a positive approach to personal development? Does it encourage risk taking? I think not.

For new teachers, there's the incentive to move up the pay scale but before long there is little room to improve unless the Leadership spine is for you. I've been there, climbing the ladder rapidly at an early stage. It felt good, it felt like I was a valuable member of the team and making a difference. However, as accountability become more and more about outcomes and less about real people, the workload expected grew and grew. 

Having worked my way up through middle leadership to senior leadership, all the way to Head of School, I quickly realised that it's a very lonely place and not one I wanted to inhabit. It wasn't right for me for many reasons, both professionally and personally but walking away was the right option for me. 

I was fortunate to be able to secure a position with a TLR very quickly, focusing on areas that interest me. It was a welcome relief and although the drop in wages was notable, it was worth it for my own peace of mind, my family and my mental health. 

School Leadership - I'm glad I did it, I don't regret it but would I do it again?  No thank you. I'm not on the Leadership spine anymore and have no desire to be. I'm 43.

Through various experiences in recent years, both first and second hand, I have found my attitudes have changed. I still want my students and my school to produce the best outcomes possible, but due to my close working relationship with my support staff colleagues, I now see and appreciate a very different side and I hope it's made me a better colleague to work with. 

This brings me on to my support staff colleagues, for whom I have the highest regard.

These are our colleagues, who work tirelessly day to day to keep schools running smoothly. They answer the phone to angry parents, they deal with last minute or incomplete requests from teachers and in some cases there is very much an 'us and them' culture. It's a sad truth that some teachers don't value their support staff colleagues.  They take them for granted or play the "that's an admin job" card all too often. What many fail to appreciate is just how hard these people work and for how little reward.

When budgets are cut, support staff are often the first to go. When staff leave, either through redundancies or natural wastage, in truth the work doesn't go away, it just gets passed on to already stretched colleagues in the offices. Rarely is a fuss made because support staff, just like teachers, want the best for the school and the students however, for those at or near the top of their pay band, where is the incentive to improve, take on more work or take on more CPD?  The reward is certainly not financial. Not in a million years will educational budgets extend to annual or christmas bonuses for those who do a fantastic job.

What if it were different? 

Ok, so we can accept there is never going to be money for pay bonuses for staff in schools, but that doesn't mean people can't be rewarded.

We talk a lot in schools about rewards for students but how do we reward staff? Do we say thank you enough and is it sincere?  Do we take the time to really say how grateful we are to colleagues for going the extra mile, or do we just squeeze it into our busy schedules in such a way that it carries no real gravitas? Do we present rewards to our staff in the same way we do our students? Do we ask staff what rewards they would like?

These are all things we would do if addressing a student body/council as part of a review of a student reward system so why don't we do it for staff? 

Picture the scene: 

Gary, a senior leader,  line manages Jenny, an office manager. Gary receives a message (face to face or via email) from a member of staff to say that Jenny has been a great help to them and gone far beyond what is expected of her just to make something happen effectively and efficiently by a deadline.  The member of staff has bought Jenny some chocolates as a thank you but wants her manager to be aware too.

Gary goes to see Jenny and invites her to the canteen where he gets them both a coffee and they sit down for a chat. Gary mentions during the chat that he has heard what a great job jenny did for her colleagues and thanks her personally, asking questions about what she actually did and why she did it.  Gary learns that Jenny has a keen interest in a coaching staff in terms of task prioritisation that she had not been able to explore before because she's always so busy. Gary thanks Jenny again and they both get a lot out of the short chat over coffee.

Gary speaks to his leadership colleagues about this later and Jenny is offered to opportunity to lead some staff training on prioritisation. In return for this additional work, that will undoubtedly benefit individual staff and the school overall, Jenny is given an additional day of in lieu for Christmas shopping on a day of her choice in December.  All she has to do is ensure the office is not left unmanned that day so she organises her team.

Jenny feels valued both professionally and personally. What was the cost to Gary? 1 cup of coffee, 15 minutes of time and 1 day of office time versus bespoke CPD sessions for those in need, improved efficiency and a positive relationship and ethos. Jenny benefits, her colleagues benefit, the school benefits and her family benefits. Other follow Gary's example and Jenny does the same with her team. It become infectious.

This may sound, to some, like an impossible dream or an oversimplification but it really shouldn't be. Budgets are tight, but add up the costs involved with staff absence due to illness against the cost of some coffees and days off in lieu and I bet there's a clear winner. 

We need to talk to each other about what we value and what drives us, because it certainly isn't the pursuit of that big Christmas bonus in the payslip. 

Good will goes a long way when budgets are tight. I'm a firm believer that people work for people, not organisations and if we treat people well, value them, listen to them and thank them sincerely we all benefit.

If you've read these ramblings, please, if you do nothing else, take time out to thank a colleague tomorrow for something they've done for you. A little goes a long way so find out what motivates them, what drives them and how they would like to be rewarded.

Whether it's a cake, a biscuit, a small bunch of flowers, a coffee or some time out to kick a ball about or just to sit in the sun for 5 minutes of calm - make it happen.

Taking time out of your day for a genuine gesture of thanks may just make them feel more valued, refreshed and it could be the difference between them having a great weekend or dreading coming back on Monday. You can guarantee it certainly won't be their performance targets motivating them.