HOTSpot - Cory - Keep YouTube Videos Inside a Google Doc

Google Docs is a great place to house so many assignments and graphic organizers, and I recently shared how hyperdoc-ing is a wonderful way to connect a myriad of resources in a lesson.  Alas, you don’t always want your hyperlink whisking your students off to YouTube with the endless ads and rabbit trails for them to follow. This workaround is a simple and effective way to keep videos viewable inside the document and avoid the trap of wandering the web.

TwosDay - Bob - YouTube Shortcuts

Many classroom teachers use YouTube content to supplement their lessons. Hidden within a right-click menu are some useful shortcuts that will allow you to loop, link, embed, as well as speed up and slow down video content.

TwosDays - Brandon - Edpuzzle Live

Keep your classroom fresh and exciting by adding interactive video as part of your lessons.  Edpuzzle has added the ability to watch a video as a class and collect individual feedback from all students.  You can hold your kids accountable and freshen up your lessons at the same time!  Use a video as a core part of your lesson and then pause at times to lecture or teach live.  As you go, Edpuzzle will collect student responses that you can use to go more in depth or even a different direction if needed.

TwosDays - Chris - Edpuzzle Notes

Using video can be a powerful piece of anyone's curriculum. Whether it's a video of you or something you grab from YouTube, giving students the ability to watch, rewatch, and pause can make a big impact on students who learn at a different pace from their peers.  With the help of our Literacy Coaches, I realized that this piece of technology offered a whole lot more than what I was using. Using the comment feature of Edpuzzle allowed me to purposely pause my students at key points in the video to take notes, reflect, and record their understanding so that they now had something they could take away.

TwosDays - Cory- Audio in Google Slides

Trying to put audio in a slide was, at best, a workaround by inserting a Youtube video off the displayed screen.  Thankfully, Google has added an audio feature that allows you to throw an audio clip on a slide and automatically play it as you go through your presentation. Better yet, it hides the icon so that you know it is there, but it will not show in presentation mode.  No more spinning wheels and advertisements to wait for your sound to play on a video.  Think of all the clips you could store on your daily slide as examples and artifacts for the coming year!

TwosDay - Cory - Student Side of Audio in Slides

Everyone now has the audio in Slides feature that you may have thought about employing for some of your own presentations in the classroom.  Start trying to think about how your students might use it to show some authentic work or the process that they went through.  The power for audio in collaboration, feedback, and even reflection can be a useful tool for your curriculum.

TwosDays - Amanda - Mastery Manager and PDG Help

It’s that time of year again where we get a lot of questions in the HOTSpot regarding Mastery Manager and PDGs. Check out some tips in this video and stop in for help! The first tip is pretty basic but important: where do you find the reports option for creating and working with your PDGs? The other tips involve how to use the other functions that are available within an individual assessment. As always, stop by if you would like help with Mastery Manager!

TwosDay - Sean - Cleaner Email Communication

Email chains can get out of control but still contain important information. Sometimes we want to loop someone else into the info exchange that’s happening, but adding them to the conversation can get messy and may not actually be appropriate.

Maybe we exchange a few emails with a student and want to send the parent an email that references that exchange? Maybe we have an email conversation with a few colleagues and now we want to ask our department sup a question about something throughout that exchange.

Now there’s an easier and, in my opinion, most importantly, cleaner way to do that by attaching an email to an email.