Hello friends! I know – it has been a while…but that’s life.

I am so excited to share a great tool with you today that will make your teaching easier and more enjoyable while increasing the rigor in your classroom. It’s called Brisk for Teaching, and it’s an AI-powered platform that helps you create and deliver amazing and effective learning experiences for your students.

Brisk for Teaching is a Google Chrome add-on web-based tool that helps you create lessons and quizzes, deliver personalized feedback, and detect authenticity using AI. With Brisk, you can:

• Generate and customize content that matches your curriculum, standards, and objectives
• Create multiple choice, short response, and long response quizzes and assessments
• Provide instant and personalized feedback and guidance to your students based on their performance and progress
• Analyze and visualize your students’ data and insights to track their learning outcomes and identify their strengths and weaknesses
• Create questions based on the different levels of DOK

Brisk for Teaching is super easy to use and works with any device and browser. You can also integrate it with your existing tools and platforms, such as Google Docs, Google Forms, and more.

To show you how you can use Brisk for Teaching in your classroom, I have made a video that walks you through the main features and functions of the tool. You can watch the video below or click on this link to view it on YouTube:

Thank you for reading and watching. Happy teaching!

Whether you work in elementary, middle, or high school…it’s that time of year! The time of year that we start planning for the transition for many of our students to new grade levels or even different schools. As a middle school Vice Principal, I’ve been reflecting on what a huge transition our 8th graders will be going through on top of an already strange school year. Despite the difficulties of this year, I feel our school site has done an amazing job getting to know our students and trying to find ways to support them from a distance. If we have two years of knowledge of our students, I truly feel it is our duty to help pass along this information to our feeder schools to continue to offer the SEL support that will help them succeed in high school.

Below, you will see a sample of a spreadsheet that I created for our administrators, counselors, and teachers to collaborate on about some of our most struggling students on campus. These struggles can range from academics, attendance, and behavior. The goal of this collaborative spreadsheet is to share information about these student’s struggles and what has been working for them in the previous school years. It is not a spreadsheet to “warn” the high schools of students with bad behavior or grades. It is a spreadsheet that is designed to share concerns and ways to continue support for the students as they move into high school.

If you decide to use this collaborative spreadsheet, I highly encourage you to frame the conversations around the things that the students do well, as much as where they struggle. I also encourage you to remember that the end result is to share information with the following grade levels that will support the student, rather than harm them. I hope you enjoy this spreadsheet and find it useful in supporting your students as they move on to new adventures!

(View) (Copy)

What have you tried in your classroom or at your school to support students as they transition into new grade levels and/or schools? Share in the comments below!

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) has been a huge focus for our site over the last couple of years – especially during the last year during the pandemic and distance learning. SEL is “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” (CASEL) If you are unfamiliar with SEL, I highly encourage you to check out CASEL’s website as a good diving point, then conduct your own research to learn more about how it can support your students!

One way that we are promoting SEL this year is on our “SEL Wednesdays” which has been our asynchronous days at our school site. Teachers have been encouraged to assign a short assignment that promotes SEL for their students to complete. Recently, I found several great activities on Scholastic and converted one into an editable Google Slide Deck for students!

In this activity, students are challenged to complete an “Optimist or Pessimist” survey and score their responses to determine which quality they have. After this, students are challenged to analyze their score and talk about next steps to either maintain or change their outlook. Below, you will find a quick look at the activity, as well as the full view and copy version:

(View) (Copy)

Do you have any SEL activities you are willing to share? Drop them in the comments below!

Guys – this has been a crazy year in education. Actually, crazy is an understatement. One word probably can’t even describe how many of our educators feel right now. Crazy, tiring, overwhelming, exhausting, heartbreaking, and so many more words can describe this year. However, I know that there are some AMAZING success stories out there – and I want to hear them!

I want to put together a blog post of amazing success stories that are occurring during distance learning and/or hybrid. In addition to this, I am selfishly hoping it will inspire me with more ideas to support the students, teachers, parents, and staff members at my own site. Perhaps you will find some great ideas in the next blog post, too!

So, please, (pretty please?) take this short survey – thank you, friends!

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post and shared a survey called “The Teacher Transparency Challenge“. To this day, it is still one of my favorite things that I have ever done in my classroom. It was simple – I wanted to know how my students felt about my class and teaching. The transparent, unfiltered truth. I wanted to know if I was truly meeting the needs of ALL my students and if there was anything else I could do to help them be successful.

One of the comments from my student has always stayed with me. They said, “You could focus more on your quiet and introverted students, not just the loud and outgoing ones.” It totally changed how I taught my students going forward. It also completely changed how I interacted with students to this day. It helped me to remember that there are all sorts of students in my class and I need to support all of them equally.

During distance learning, I feel that it may be beneficial to revisit the Teacher Transparency Challenge – Distance Learning Style! I’ve updated the survey to include a section on distance learning. I highly encourage you to take a moment and give this survey to your students. I think we all know that distance learning is a struggle and you might feel hesitant about giving this out. Distance learning is hard and we are all struggling – no matter what our role might be. However, it is also incredibly important for your students to be heard during this time. It’s important for us to continue to be reflective educators. It’s important for us to continue to try to meet the needs of all of our students, to the best of our ability.

Friends – I promise that I am only encouraging you to be reflective. This is not coming from a place of judgment because I know how much teachers are rocking it during distance learning! I only want to encourage you to continue to be reflective for kids.

Below, you will find the “View” version of the survey, as well as a “Copy” version:

Click HERE to make your own copy.

Have you given any distance learning surveys at your site? What were your “aha” moments?

Woot woot! Google recently launched new “Host Control” features for Google Meet! If you are quiet, you can hear the cheers of thousands of teachers around the world. While there are still many things that I wish Google Meet had the ability to do, these are excellent new features that are available to everyone.

One thing I have noticed recently is that there are some other great, new features coming out…but they aren’t necessarily available to all users. It depends on whether or not your district has an Education or Enterprise account. From what I can see, it does look like the host controls features will be available to all users in education accounts. As an example, I currently have access to these controls in my district EDU account, however, I do not have access to these controls in personal Google account. For any meetings that are organized in a personal account, only the meeting creator can mute or remove participants.

Here’s a breakdown of these new features that you can find in your settings menu:

Here’s a short GIF to show you how to access these settings:

Have you used these new controls with students? If so, share how it is going in the comments below! I have noticed that many users are having different experiences with Google products recently and I would love to hear if it is working the way we hope it does.

I have been seeing a TON of posts from educator friends over the last couple of weeks about products that would benefit them during distance learning. So, I decided to put together a list of items that I have personally used in either my home or work office. I hope that you find these items useful and that they will provide some helpful structure or support during your distance learning experience.

Adjustable Height 36″ Standing Desk – Amazon
Sitting all day is rough on your body. Personally, I feel so much better when I alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. However, standing desks can be CRAZY expensive. Fortunately, I found an awesome standing desk that can be placed on top of your existing desk for only $150.

I added this to my work office last year and absolutely love it. It has enough space for two monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, and a spot for my phone. It also has a very easy and light to light the desk from sitting to standing.

24″ Acer Monitor – Amazon
I love these monitors! The price is incredibly affordable and the quality is great. I purchased two of them for my home office and put them on arms attached to my desk. Later, we purchased some for my work office and two of them perfectly fit on the standing desk above.

Seriously, such a great buy for such an amazing price of only $109! And pro-tip, if you are currently working on a laptop, purchase an HDMI cable (or whatever works with your laptop), plug it into the monitor, and now you have dual screens!

Logitech Webcam & Microphone – Amazon

Nearly 90% of the time I work on desktop computers that do not come with webcams or microphones. Logitech is easily one of the best brands for webcams.

I have this webcam in my home office and the quality is great. Bonus? There is a microphone in it which means you don’t have to purchase a second item. This webcam is a little more on the expensive end but you won’t be disappointed.

Wireless Keyboard/Mouse – Amazon
If you are spending every day working on your laptop, it can definitely be tough on your hands.  If you decide to purchase an extra monitor, I highly encourage you to purchase a keyboard/mouse combo to use instead of your laptop keyboard.

Seriously, you won’t regret it and neither will your hands!

Laptop Stand – Amazon
A couple of years ago, I worked from home full-time and put my laptop on this stand, plugged it into dual monitors and had three screens to work from. It was awesome.

I love this little stand. It’s super affordable and I’ve used it with both my laptop and Chromebook. It’s also a great way to add some extra space to your work station.

Phone Stand – Amazon
Never miss another message with this cheap, yet sturdy, phone stand. I have this set up in my home office and always use it. At work, I have the standing desk above and use the phone stand that is built into the desk.

I love that it has an area for your phone cord to go through so you can charge it while it’s sitting on the stand. Finally, it’s really great if you find yourself on a long phone call and want to put your phone on speaker.

Everlasting Comfort Seat  – Amazon
Okay, okay. Try not to laugh at me but…this is super comfy! I don’t use it all the time, however, it was a huge help when I threw out my back in the spring and was having trouble sitting for long periods of time.

While I have a comfy seat that works for me 99% of the time, I know a lot of friends working from their kitchen tables. Check this out and protect your back!

As we continue on our distance learning journey, one of the greatest struggles I hear from teachers is the inability to write or draw on a whiteboard, particularly for subject areas like Math. Obviously, as a former math teacher, that definitely strikes home for me!

Years ago, I flipped my classroom and it was one of the best things I have ever done. However, it would take forever to write out the math, especially for complicated Math problems. As an example, try to accurate explain how to solve an equation like 3(x+4) – 6(x+2) = 7x – 5 without writing it out. It would take forever and it wasn’t as easy for kids to visualize.

At the time, I didn’t own a touchscreen device so I purchased a drawing tablet and it quickly became one of my favorite tools. All I had to do was plug it into my computer and I could write on my screen! More importantly, purchasing a decent drawing tablet only costs between $40 to $80. Obviously this is way more affordable than purchasing a new laptop for over $1,000.  Our site purchased the XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 for our Math teachers and I have already heard great feedback from them!

In the video below, I will share how to set up your drawing tablet and use it with Google Jamboard and Screencastify:

Important Resources:

• X-Pen Drivers
• XP-Pen StarG640 ($40 – Small Tablet)
• XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 ($70 – Large Tablet)

A few years, I shared a set of calendars that I created for my school site to help students say organized. Well, back by popular demand…Here are the 2020/2021 calendars!

As many schools will be in distance learning this school year, I hope that these calendars can provide some structure for both students and teachers. Below you will find a description of the calendars, preview and a link to make your own copy. Feel free to steal and use during the upcoming school year! Enjoy!

Academic Calendars for Students

At one of my previous school sites, our students were given a year-long, physical agenda to track their daily assignments.  As a school policy, our students were required to fill this out and teachers would sign/stamp that students had filled out the daily agenda at the beginning of class.  It was a great system for students and taught them how to be organized.  As our district went 1-1, our site did not purchase these agendas since there was technology that could replace them at no cost.  Unfortunately, I have noticed that using Google Calendar is not exactly what the teachers are looking to use in their classrooms and/or they are not comfortable using it themselves.  Although I am a big Google Calendar user and have had success with my students, I can see their concern.  The calendar isn’t broken up by subject type and all of the information a student writes does not show up on the calendar view.  For my students, they were used to navigating Google Calendar but I decided to create something that more teachers would want to use with their students.

2019/2020 Weekly Academic Calendar (Link)

• Students can use this Slide Deck to track assignments, plan for projects, and more!
• Students can quickly navigate by clicking on the months at the beginning of the Slide Deck or in the “Timeline” at the bottom of each slide.
• Students/Teachers can delete any unused months from the template.

Click HERE to make your own copy.

2019/2020 Monthly Academic Calendar (Link)

• Students can use this Slide Deck to track assignments, plan for projects, and more!
• Students can quickly navigate by clicking on the months at the beginning of the Slide Deck or in the “Timeline” at the bottom of each slide.
• Students/Teachers can delete any unused months from the template.

Click HERE to make your own copy.

When I was in the classroom, I loved creating my lesson plans in Google Docs. It was a great living document that I could easily manipulate and add comments for future years. It’s also a great way to create plans across a department, collaborate and assign tasks!

Lesson Plan Calendar (Link)

• Teachers can use this Slide Deck to create lesson plans for their classes.
• Teachers can add comments as reminders for future planning.
• Teachers can share with other teachers, collaborate and assign tasks to others.

Click HERE to make a copy.

Student Project Planning Goals & Objectives

The calendars above were primarily created to help students track assignments.  Once I started building those calendars, I started thinking about how I could create something for the 20Time Projects that my students would be doing in my AVID and Tech classes next year.  Immediately, I realized I had already created something useful while working on my Google Innovator Project.  For my project, I created a monthly planning process with new goals, ongoing goals, questions/comments/ideas, and status check.

Below are some “project planning” Slide Decks:

Weekly Project Planning Goals (Link)

• Students can use this Slide Deck when planning weekly goals for 20 Time Projects, Genius Hour, and PBL.
• Students can duplicate the following slide for the number of weeks of the project.
• When students complete tasks on the “New” and “Ongoing Goals”, students can right click and change to check marks.

Click HERE to make your own copy.

Monthly Project Planning Goals (Link)

• Students can use this Slide Deck when planning weekly goals for 20 Time Projects, Genius Hour, and PBL.
• Students can duplicate the following slide for the number of weeks of the project.
• When students complete tasks on the “New” and “Ongoing Goals”, students can right click and change to check marks.

Click HERE to make your own copy.

Finally, below you will find a mindfulness calendar which would be a great support for SEL during distance learning or even the regular school year.

Mindfulness Calendar (Link)

• • Students can use this Slide Deck when planning weekly goals for 20 Time Projects, Genius Hour, and PBL.
  • Students can duplicate the following slide for the number of weeks of the project.
  • When students complete tasks on the “New” and “Ongoing Goals”, students can right click and change to check marks.

Click HERE for your own copy.

Feel free to use these with your class.  If you do, I would love your feedback and any ideas that you have to improve these resources!

In April and May, I Heart EDU released a variety of professional development webinars to support teachers with distance learning. I’m so glad many of you were able to tune in to these videos and I hope to plan a couple more soon!

Today, I am sharing a webinar on Jamboard and Google Meet that I had previously not posted due to my summer hiatus. In this webinar, Rosalinda Jaimes shares how to use Jamboard and Google Meet to amplify learning during distance learning.

I’m ashamed to admit it – but I had never used Jamboard until this presentation! I’m so disappointed that I didn’t because this would have been an AMAZING tool in the Math classroom.

Below you will find the YouTube video and helpful links to get you going with Jamboard. Enjoy!

• Presentation
• Jamboard Product Page
• YouTube
• Tech Fairies Website
• What is Google Jamboard? Blog Post

Have you used Google Jamboard in the classroom? If so, share in the comments below!