Cyber Sandwiches and the Concurrent Group Project Work Around

Schools around the country are bringing students into schools in a concurrent fashion. This usually means that some students spend their entire time at home online while other students go in two days a week for in person learning - also in the same class with those who are online.

The difficult issue is that those in person have to face forward and not turn to their neighbor peers. This makes it hard to do group work. But there are work arounds.

Obviously if all of your students have smartphones and don't mind sharing numbers, they can text. Another thought is to open a Google Doc and start a conversation on the upper right side on the icon that looks like a thought bubble.

But another way to consider it is to make a Cyber Sandwich. This means that students start the work on their own and then share in a document when they are done and that is where the texting can come through. This page has a great overview (video below explains it) and a template for the learning.

Comments

Homework Reminders

When I want to quickly contact my online students, I use Remind.com . It allows you to send a text without knowing their phone numbers. Additionally you can set a time for it to be sent. You can add a link and/or upload a document. If you choose, you can also text individual students. All of the texts are recorded and kept as long as you keep the class. Above is a video giving you a great overview and here are several videos explaining how to use different parts of it. If you use Blackboard, the video below shows you how to embed Remind texts into a Blackboard page.

How to Make Your Own Flip & Tutorial Videos

Over the years I have made lots of video tutorial for my blog followers and flip videos for my students . Every single one of them have been made using Screencastomatic . You can purchase your own yearly subscription, but I have not only never paid, but also never even set up a free account. You don't need to since you can make the video and then just upload it onto YouTube. Watch the video above and you will be able to see how to record, add you talking (or not) to the recording and to upload it - all in less than two minutes. Go forth and make your own tutorials and teach lots of others. In a later post I'll show you how to organize your YouTube video library.

Tech Conferences

On March 7th and 8th I will be at the South by Southwest Education conference in Austin. Another conference that I have enjoyed is the ISTE one which this year is in Denver from June 26-29 . The key, if you can do so is to find someone else to pay for you. For example I am doing work for TES (more on that coming later) and so they are paying my entry ticket. So why bother? Well first off you will meet lots of tech minded people like yourself and make some connections that you can work with when you return home. Secondly there are lots of companies showing all of their latest wares and then, there are talks and demonstrations - literally hundreds of them. If you can't get the big ones, look for one close to home. Here is a place to start.

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