Birds of a Feather

Are you looking for new ways to engage your students that are not only student-friendly but are also teacher friendly? You are going to love the ease of use of Whiteboard.fi. How does it work? Go to Whiteboard.fi and select New Class. Give your class a name and select Create New Class. Students can join at Whiteboard.fi with a join code, via a shared URL, or by scanning a QR code. No one has to create an account. Each time you want to use Whiteboard.fi, you repeat the process. The code changes for each new session.

Did I mention that Whiteboard.fi works on any device? That’s right, it’s device agnostic. It works on iPads, Chromebooks, laptops, etc… But, how do you get students to respond? You can post a question orally or use your teacher whiteboard to post a question for the students to view. As the students begin to respond, you see their responses in real-time. Worried about student confidentiality? Students only see the teacher screen and their own responses. You even have the ability to push your whiteboard directly to students. You can embed a word problem, push the slide to the students, and have them respond in real-time. Studying text features? Take a picture of a book and have the students label the different text features they see. Want to ask another question? You can clear everyone's whiteboard to start fresh or you can add a new page. Done with the session? You can save all of the whiteboards as a pdf or do nothing. All work will be deleted when you close the session. Formative assessments have never been easier!

I would love to hear how you plan on using Whiteboard.fi with your students. Share your ideas via Twitter and tag me @TechCoachFikac or post your thoughts on our campus Schoology Group.

Have you wanted to use Zoom Breakout Rooms with your students, but worry about monitoring all of the simultaneous conversations? With the Breakout Room feature, you can pre-assign Breakout Rooms and create opportunities for your Roomies (in-person students) to collaborate with your Zoomies (virtual students). By utilizing this type of learning model, you are fostering a social and emotional learning experience that allows virtual students to connect and learn with their in-person peers in a small controlled environment. No need for you to worry either, you can easily monitor all of the various conversations occurring within your classroom via your Roomies. Everybody wins!

In order to utilize the Breakout Room feature, you will need to navigate to your Zoom settings and scroll down to In Meeting (Advanced) to turn on Breakout Rooms and the "assign participants when scheduling" feature.

This past week, I had the opportunity to assist a teacher in creating a digital citizenship lesson for her students. I had the lesson ready to share with the teacher when I realized the lesson also needed to be available in Spanish. Because it was already late in the day, I did not want to burden the teacher with one more thing. Thankfully, @TechCoachCisco came to my rescue and showed me how to utilize the Google Slides Translate Add-On. This little add-on took my lesson and translated it within a few seconds. I was then able to share the lesson with the teacher for a quick proofread and we were done and ready for our co-teach lesson the following day. @TechCoachCisco also reminded about the Google Doc Translate feature too. I know these two tools will definitely lighten the workload for my bilingual teachers. Who doesn't want to work smarter and not harder?

To install the Google Slides Translate Add-on, navigate to the Add-ons menu, and select Get Add-Ons. Using the search feature look for Slides Translate. Select Slides Translate from the Search Results. On the next screen, select Install and then select Continue to start the installation process. Next, you will need to connect your NISD account to Slides Translate. Just one more step, select Allow to give Slides Translate access to your Google Account. And that’s it! Navigate back to the Add-ons menu and you will now see the Slides Translate add-on installed. Before you begin the translation, you will want to make a copy of your Google Slide to house your translated copy of your original slide. When you are ready to translate your Google Slide, highlight the text you want to be translated, click the Add-ons menu, select Google Translate, and Open Translate. Choose from the five languages available (English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish) and watch the magic occur. With just one click, the highlighted text will be replaced with your translated text. *Note, this add-on has been reviewed and whitelisted for use within the NISD Domain.

How does the translate feature work in Google Docs? The process is a little easier than the one explained above. Open the Google Doc you would like to translate. Navigate to the Tools menu, and select Translate document. In the new window that appears, rename the copy of your original document, use the drop-down menu to select from the extensive language list, and click Translate. A translated version of your original document will appear in a new tab and will automatically be saved to your Google Drive. Did you notice there were over 100 different languages to choose from?

I know these two tools will definitely lighten the workload for my bilingual teachers. Who doesn't want to work smarter and not harder? Watch the video below to see how easy it is!

Northside ISD: Academic Technology

Elementary Academic Technology Coach

Email: michelle.fikac@nisd.net
Location: 6632 Bandera Road, Building E Leon Valley, TX, USA
Phone: 210.397.9404
Facebook: facebook.com/NISDAcadTech
Twitter: @TechCoachFikac

October 16 Edition

• Folder Organization for the New Grading Cycle
• New Schoology App Available: Edpuzzle
• Fall into Learning! Elementary Academic Technology Fall Mini-Summit

October 12 Edition

• Accessing a Student Grade Report in Schoology
• Attendance Matters - Zoom Attendance Reports Can Help
  

October 1st Edition

• Using Grading Columns in Schoology
  
• Zoom Scheduler
• Schoology Assignments and Due Dates

September 21st Edition

• Utilizing Grading Groups to Differentiate Instruction
• Sharing Lesson Resources with your Team via Schoology
  
  

September 14th Edition

• Reordering Your Schoology Courses Dashboard and the Course Switcher
• Zoom Anyone?
• Zoom Reminders
• Lights, Camera, Action, and a Screencastify Upgrade Just for You!