Michelle Baragar | Ed Tech Framework

CESD Google Classrooms – Archiving

by Michelle Baragar | Mar 29, 2022 | GSuite

Why do some classrooms have small text that says “Leave class, don’t archive?”

Those classrooms are shared classrooms that may have up to 20 teachers in our district added to them as teachers. (20 is the limit that Google Classroom currently has). When you archive it to get it off your screen, you archive it for the 19 others who may not be done using it.

If it is cluttering your screen, you have a couple choices.

When you are on the screen that has the “cards”, as shown on this screen, you can drag the cards around, meaning you can put ones you don’t use regularly down at the bottom of the screen.

You also have the choice to “leave class”. This will unenrol you from classrooms that have been shared to you that you are no longer using. Doing this does not remove the classroom from any other teachers as archiving does, and it gets rid of it permanently for you.

All CESD owned classrooms are now marked with the message “Leave class, dont archive!” to make it very clear which classrooms are shared classrooms. This should save you having to double check on them to be certain.

Coding Stories – Screenless Coding for Div 1

by Michelle Baragar | Feb 22, 2022 | Coding, GSuite

20 No-Prep Coding Lessons that do not involve screens

Theme: Growth Mindset

When we ask children to retell a story, the process is linear. There is a set sequence of events, and deviating from that sequence is incorrect in the retelling process. As is the case with retelling a plot sequence, coding is also a linear process.

To begin to cultivate the concrete-sequential nature of coding, literature is a natural place to start. These coding stories all involve the reading of a children’s book. All of them include a Youtube link to someone (the author or the publishing company whenever possible) to make them a good fit for remote learning as well as in-class learning.

Students listen to the story. They then cut out the “buttons” (arrows that they glue to the paper to retell the story). Starting at the icon containing the triangle (the start button), they glue the arrows to the coding story grid, using the images on the grid to guide the direction the arrows must point in.

The goal is to use as few steps as possible in the retelling. An example is provided based on the story “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie”. You can see in the image that students could bring the mouse to the cookie using two different paths, both using the same number of arrows (five in total). Either answer would be correct. A path that uses more than five arrows to arrive at the cookie would be, through the lens of coding, incorrect and would need a reduction of steps, as a reduction would be possible.

The booklet of 20 coding stories can be found on our CESD Teacher Share website!

Password Protect Google Forms Assessments

by Michelle Baragar | Jan 20, 2022 | GSuite

If you are giving a Google Forms assessment to multiple classes, security is a consideration. Different teachers approach this security differently, but it is worthwhile noting that Google Forms can be password protected to limit students’ ability to access the form before you want them to have access.

This video is an example of not being able to go through the door when it comes to tech, but rather finding a window by which to accomplish the desired task. There is no button to toggle to password protect your forms assessments, but if you follow the easy and innovative process shown in the below video, you will have a new level of security to apply to your assessments!!

Let’s Go in Through the Window.

Intro and Outro Videos for Christmas Concerts

by Michelle Baragar | Dec 3, 2021 | GSuite

To try to help your December run a little more smoothly, I have built a selection of video intros and outros that schools can use for their Covid Christmas Concerts and other December activities that need to be pre-recorded in light of the current provincial restrictions.

To the left are a couple samples, but there are a few more in this Google Drive folder. Most of the intro/outro files have space where you can put your school’s name or logo onto the video using your preferred video editing application.

MBot for the Classroom

by Michelle Baragar | Nov 1, 2021 | GSuite

The MBot is an engaging robot that can be used with beginning coders, and expands to be a great resource for more advanced coders as well.

The MBot is more fragile than some of the robots that were designed for younger children, so extra care is needed for these robots. When programming the MBot, it is best to lay the MBot on its back, or put something under it that takes its tires off the desk; if it drives off a student’s desk, it will break something – likely one of the motors that power the wheels!!

To use MBot with a Chromebook, you will need to install the mLink extension to your profile and your students’ profiles.