Using Google Meet in Google Classroom

Google is currently making fixes to address the glitches in Google Meet: students joining a Meet before the teacher starts it, students being able to mute or remove the teacher and others, and students rejoining a Meet. Google Meet is also now integrated with Google Classroom. These changes are slowly rolling out. Continue to create nicknamed Meets, which will eventually enable the student restrictions. Check out the videos below from @ericcurts and @rangathetrainer for sneak peeks and to learn about the new features.

Coronavirus Updates and Resources

Governor Kate Brown announced a statewide school closure for students in Oregon from Monday, March 16 through Tuesday, April 28. Read more information and see regular updates here.

PPS Coronavirus Updates
As the United States and rest of the world deal with the outbreak of COVID-19, commonly called the Coronavirus, Portland Public Schools is closely monitoring the situation and is making updates and resources available to our families and staff. Below are updates we have sent, via email, to our families on COVID-19.

Extended Spring Break Home Learning Resources
Above students and parents will find a collection of links to learning activities. The “CLEVER” icon will link students to a familiar Clever Student Portal with links to many learning applications from the classroom. Clever will require that students log in using their PPS user name (@student.pps.net) and password. If your students has forgotten their logon info, parents can email support@pps.net to request info by email. Please be sure email from an email address listed on your child’s registration, provide your student’s first, last name, date of birth, and parents full name on record.

The grade level activity links are curated lists of additional fun, creative, and engaging learning activities students will enjoy. Most of these will not require students to log in with their PPS account.

Online Learning & Tips for Teachers
Check out this webpage for a compiled list of webinars about distance learning, as well as as some other teacher resources.

PPS is transitioning from O365/Outlook to Gmail

March 2 – BESC Staff & Early Adopters
This group will have Gmail and Google Calendar running alongside their Outlook email. Staff have the option of working in either platform but it is recommended to use one in order to minimize confusion.

March 23 – All Staff & 9-12 Grade Students
All users with existing PPS Email and Calendar services including students in grades 9-12 will be transitioned to Gmail and Google Calendar. After April 6, 2020, access to Outlook email and calendar will no longer be supported.

More info and FAQs available at pps.net/gmail-faq.

Learning Technologies Updates

How to Manage Multiple Google Accounts
Check out this G Suite for Education tip, our first in a monthly series.
For a full tutorial and video from Shake Up Learning, visit this link. For your staff, download and print this poster and put it up next to your copier! #CopierPD

Google Classroom
Lots of confusion around Google Classroom as the failed Edupoint/Synergy Gradebook sync led us to opt-in all class sections for the Google Classroom/Synergy sync. Several teacher teachers are seeing duplicate sections and students are being kicked out of classrooms. Please know that our team is working hard to resolve these issues and strange one-off situations. Some good news: in October, any classes that have no activity and have not been accessed will automatically be archived. We have gotten reports of students accessing these empty Google Classrooms and posting comments and replies on the stream.

Netop Vision
We’ve received several reports about how kids are already getting around the screen sharing in Vision. Teacher and student devices must be on the same network. Students may choose another wireless access point after they’ve signed in to the Chromebook to sidestep screen sharing. There was also another report of students turning off notifications to bypass the screen sharing dialog box, but we haven’t been able to replicate that error. Check your teacher settings and the settings we’ve turned on here:

End-of-Year Google Classroom Cleanup Tips

Check out these great end-of-year Google Classroom cleanup tips from Eric Curts. He also includes a podcast version and a video version in the link above. 

As the school year winds down, most teachers go through some sort of check-out procedure for their physical classrooms, making sure everything is properly organized or put away for the summer. In much the same way, you may want to do some clean-up and close-out steps for your digital classroom … Google Classroom.

Free Summer PD! Save the Date for Camp Chromebook, June 19, 2019

Join us for another Camp Chromebook on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at Northwest Regional ESD in Hillsboro, OR. This is a *free* professional learning opportunity for any educators interested in learning more about Google Apps and G Suite for Education tools and how to integrate them into your classroom instruction using best practices and relevant strategies. All levels welcome. Sessions will be posted on the website when the schedule is finalized.

Register here for the event to save your spot! We also need volunteers to facilitate sessions–do that here. ALL educators are welcome. Please help us spread the word and share this with any interested colleagues. 

About the camp:

  • Will run from 8am – 1pm for a full day of fun.
  • Bring your own device (Chromebook or laptop recommended).
  • Four session times, each one 55 minutes long.
  • Each session time slot will have multiple workshops to choose from, you pick what you want to learn more about.
  • PDUs will be available.
  • Visit the Camp Chromebook website for more information.

Google Forms Locked Mode Quizzes Beta

We just got notice that we joined the Google Forms locked mode Quizzes beta. This is a unique opportunity for you all to pilot a new unreleased feature in this product. Please review the details for the beta below:

Locked Mode Quizzes in Google Forms
Locked mode in Quizzes in Google Forms is a new way to keep students focused and distraction-free during tests and quizzes. Available only on managed Chromebooks, locked mode prevents students from navigating away from the Quiz in their Chrome browser until they submit their answers. Teachers can enable locked mode with a simple checkbox in Google Forms, giving them full control over assessments. For more information, check out the official blog post.

Here is a step-by-step guide, brief animated tutorial, and new Help Center instructions to make learning how to use locked mode even easier.

Feedback
For locked mode Quizzes, we ask that you submit feedback through the “Send feedback” button in Forms. In the case where respondents are able to escape locked mode and open browsers during quizzes, please send us feedback using this form. We’d like to help resolve any issues as quickly as possible, so we appreciate the feedback.

In addition, throughout the betas you may be asked to fill out surveys on your overall experience with locked mode quizzes.

Updated Roadmap for Classic and New Google Sites

Read the full post from Google.

Google has updated plans for Google Sites and there are two key items:

  1. Build more enterprise-focused features into new Sites (including ones from classic Sites): Google listened to extensive feedback from customers and have identified a number of features in classic Sites that are particularly valuable to larger organizations. They plan to add comparable functionality for those features, along with new and unique features, to new Sites. They believe these will help you use new Sites in different and exciting ways, while making the transition process to new Sites easier and more streamlined. See below for more details on specific features.
  2. The final date to transition from classic Sites to new Sites will be the end of 2021: Also based on customer feedback, they realize that classic Sites still offers unique value to our enterprise customers today. Google will continue to invest in maintaining core classic Sites functionality until end of year 2021.

More features coming to new Sites

  • Create richer, more customized sites
  • Create and manage larger sites

Transitioning from classic Sites to new Sites
In 2016 Google announced a new version of Google Sites, and in 2017 they announced that new Sites would eventually become the only version of Google Sites. They’ve heard feedback that classic Sites remains valuable for customers. They plan to maintain core classic Sites functionality. This will extend the deadline to transition from classic to new Sites to the end of 2021.

G Suite/Google Apps User Surveys

Hope you can help IT by filling out these G Suite/Google Apps use surveys. One is for administrators and one if for teachers. Results will help guide future use of G Suite, as well as professional learning opportunities offered to district staff, and strengthen support. Please share and pass on to your admins and colleagues.

G Suite/Google Apps for Education Teacher Survey
https://goo.gl/kd1xLJ
Please fill out this brief survey to help us determine the use of Google Apps in your classroom and school.

G Suite/Google Apps for Education Admin Survey
https://goo.gl/zq17c3
Please fill out this brief survey to help us determine the use of Google Apps in your daily work and at your school.