Blended Learning

Here are some ideas to use blended learning in your classroom.  Click on the links below to explore these ideas.

*Pear Deck - This program is an add-on to Google slides and makes your slide presentation interactive. https://app.peardeck.com/home/

*Flipgrid - Student voice is covered using this program.  Students reply to your prompts using video.   This is a great way to make sure ALL students are engagened in your lesson. *https://info.flipgrid.com/

*TED ED Lessons - TED Talks for students https://ed.ted.com/

*Edpuzzle - Showing videos?  Why not check for engagement during the video?  This program lets you pause the video to ask questions and then resumes when the students have answered. https://edpuzzle.com/

* TES Blendspace - This website stores your videos by lesson.  You can create your own or use thousands that have already been created for all subject areas.  https://www.tes.com/lessons

*Remote Learning Workshop This website walks you through setting up your classroom for remote learning.  https://minds-in-bloom.com/remote_learning_workshop/

*Happy Numbers - (Elementary) While you teach small groups, Happy Numbers individualizes math instruction for the rest of the class, and gives you actionable insights about student growth. https://happynumbers.com/?utm_source=invite&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=invite

I'm here to help you get started or create blended lessons.  Just email or call me - [email protected]  903-695-2541 ext. 2043

Have fun teaching!!

Avoid Pop-Up Ads in YouTube

This tip can be used when adding videos to digital lessons, inserting videos into Hyperdocs, or by opening the video before you want to use it for teaching.  It is a quick and easy fix to remove ads.

To remove the ads that appear before a video: 

Type _popup before the question mark on the web address of any YouTube video

This it will take off all of the ads and any other surrounding videos that the students could possibly click on. 

For example, this video on adding fractions has a YouTube URL of:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQipFjAoT8

If you change it and add the _popup, it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tDQipFjAoT8

Now it opens full screen without any annoying ads.  

The end of the video will still have suggestions for what to watch next and there maybe a banner ad across the bottom.  I have not found a solution for that except to pay for ad removal.  If you know how to make YouTube better, please email me.

It is important for teachers to keep these students connected with the classroom.  Integrating Google Meet with your Google Classroom can help you do that.

 Here are a few simple steps to add Google Meet to your Google Classroom:

1) Open the Google Classroom where you want to add Google Meet

2) On the header of the Stream page click on the area to setup a Google Meet link

3) Click "Generate Meet link" to create the link.

4)  You can have a meeting with students anytime you click the link.

5)  You can share the link or add it to assignments to have a meeting anytime.

6)  You can schedule a meeting using Google Calendar.

I hope you will add this feature to your classroom to keep your students connected and engaged.  

Let me know if I can help you get this started.