Google Meet – Students

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Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that also allows you to share your screen with attendees.

Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that enables you to take part in an online lesson. Lesson content can be shared with you in a live video stream as if you were in a physical classroom. You can use it on the web at meet.google.com, on your Android device and on iOS devices.

Before you start please ensure you follow our video conferencing etiquette guide to ensure your classmates are able to learn in a fair environment without interuption.

Joining a video meeting

Joining a video meeting can be done in a number of different ways depending on how it’s been set up. But most likely you’ll just need to check your lesson in Google Classroom where your teacher will put a link for the video meeting, if you simply click that link you will be taken straight in to the digital lesson.

If your teacher has created a video meeting in a different way, there are other ways to join. You can click the link in your calendar appointment, or your meeting text or email. You can type in the meeting code on the Hangouts Web website or even dial in to the meeting on a physical phone so you can still hear what is being said if you don’t have access to a computer.

Calendar Appointment
Email Link
Meeting Code
Phone Dial In

Change your computer’s Video & Audio settings

Meet will pick up your default camera, speaker and microphone which in most cases will be the only ones you have however if you plug in alternative devices to use instead, it should then automatically pick these up instead of any built-in device.

More information can be found here and steps for changing the settings within the mobile apps can be found here.

BBC iPlayer

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BBC iPlayer lets you watch BBC content from your computer, Smart TV or mobile device.

BBC iPlayer isn’t just for catching up on last night’s Eastenders or rewatching Gavin & Stacey for the 17th time, you can also find a lot of educational material in its depths. You can watch the latest episodes of QI to learn more quirky facts about the world or explore the hundreds of episodes of Science and Nature documentaries. There’s also great comedy and entertainment shows for when you have finished your work for the day and need to relax.

David Attenborough alone can take you through Climate Change for your Science lesson research, the different ecosystems around the world for your Geography research or even the early years of making nature documentaries for Media lesson research.

Some more examples of programmes that can aid your research are below:

Criminology – Jack the Ripper

Engineering – The Limit: Trickiest Tunnel

Music – Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

Sport – Shane Williams: Rugby, Concussion and Me

Dance – The Royal Ballet: Mayerling

Don’t forget though that some episodes are only available for a limited time and can be removed from iPlayer at any time.

You can look through all the episodes and series available for each subject on the BBC iPlayer website or click one of these categories; History, Documentaries, Science & Nature, Music.

Sribbl

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Scribbl is an online transcript creator for Google Meets. It’s simple to use, once you’ve signed, you just add Scribble as a member of the Meet session and it will automatically transcribe everything that is said in your Meet.

Their FAQ page has a tonne of information to help you see if this is right for you – https://www.scribbl.co/faq

It’s Easy

Step 1: Create a free Scribbl account
Step 2: Launch a Google Meet
Step 3: Copy/Paste Google Meet call in details into Scribbl Home Screen
Step 4: Click “Join Scribbl to Call”

Pricing

You get 240 minutes for free, that can be a number of small sessions or one big meet that you want transcribed. After you’ve hit 240 minutes you can purchase more minutes. It works out roughly 3p per minute but you need to purchase them in chunks of 120 minutes and upwards.

Digital Learning Group visit Bett 2020

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This year the digital learning group attended Bett at ExCel London in January. Bett is the largest EdTech show in the UK, featuring a wide array of education technology to explore and seminars to learn from. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the highlights from Bett.

Read more

Google Meet – Staff

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Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that also allows you to share your screen with attendees.

Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that enables you to to talk face to face and share your screen with others. Lesson content can be shared in a live video stream with groups ranging from a few people up to hundreds of users. You can use it on the web at meet.google.com, on your Android device and on iOS devices. You can either just jump straight into a Video Meeting or schedule one for a later date and time in Google Calendar.

One of the best features of Hangouts Meet is it’s ability to provide live captions/subtitles which can be turned on by anyone who needs it.

We’ve written up a quick run through of Hangouts Meet and how to get started below.

STUDENTS ARE ASKED TO FOLLOW THIS VIDEO CONFERENCING ETIQUETTE GUIDE TO ENSURE YOU CAN TEACH WITHOUT INTERUPTION.

Starting a video meeting

You can start a new session by opening Hangouts Meet in the web or in the app and clicking Start a new meeting or pressing the Plus + icon.

In both methods, once you’ve set up the meeting, you’ll then be offered the chance to invite people to join you.

Scheduling a video meeting

To schedule a meeting for the future, simply head to Calendar and create an event then click on Add Conferencing and it will automatically create a Hangouts Meet session ready for the set date and time.

You can then invite guests to the event and they’ll all receive the information to join the video call.

Joining a video meeting

Joining a video meeting can be done in a number of different ways depending on how it’s been set up. You can click the link in your calendar appointment, or your meeting text or email. You can type in the meeting code on the Hangouts Web website or even dial in to the meeting on a physical phone.

Calendar Appointment
Email Link
Meeting Code
Phone Dial In

Adding people to a meeting

If you need to add more people to a meeting after the initial setup that is easy to do using one of two methods.

Option 1 – Click the People tab in the top right then Add People and enter their email addresses.

Option 2 – Click the meeting name in the bottom left corner of the screen and copy the joining info so you can then paste that in to your own email to whoever you want.

You can find more information here including how to remove people.

Change your computer’s Video & Audio settings

Meet will pick up your default camera, speaker and microphone which in most cases will be the only ones you have however if you plug in alternative devices to use instead, it should then automatically pick these up instead of any built-in device.

More information can be found here and steps for changing the settings within the mobile apps can be found here.

Sharing your screen

Sharing or ‘Presenting’ your screen is possible on computers and iOS devices but not currently supported on Android devices. On the computer you can opt to share your whole screen or just an individual window whereas on the iOS device you can only share your whole screen.

To present on your computer just look for the Present now button in the bottom right of the meeting window then select if you want to share your entire screen or a window. Sharing just a window will allow you to share just a presentation or document whilst allowing you to continue working on your computer.

More information including how to take over presenting from someone else can be found here.

Canva

With Canva, you can easily create beautiful documents & designs for any occasion and purpose. From social media posts to presentations, you can browse more than 65,000 editable templates or you can start from scratch if you’re feeling adventurous.

Canva also makes it easy for you to access millions of stock images, illustrations, icons and fonts inside the app. Our media library content is available for use in all your designs.

You can also:

  • Store, organize and edit your images in a breeze
  • Customize your templates and share them with your team to edit
  • Publish your designs anywhere to reach your audience

Did you know, as a Teacher you can get Canva Pro for free and can unlock it for up to 30 students in your class! All you have to do is sign up at Canva then fill in the form at this link.

Some of the pre-made templates you can use include:

  • Posters
  • Logos
  • Magazine Covers
  • Certificates
  • Book Covers
  • Calendars
  • Invitations
  • Infographics
  • Tickets
  • Desktop Wallpapers
  • Menus
  • Recipe Card

You can take a more in-depth look at all the available templates here.

All the images below were created using some of the ready-made templates that Canva has. You can add animated GIFs to your posts too.

ThingLink

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ThingLink allows you to seamlessly make any photo, video or 360 content into an interactive experience with text, links, sound, images, videos and calls to action.

You can narrate a 360 tour, make an infographic, create an interactive treasure map or just document your holiday. There are so many possibilities with ThingLink.

Want to learn more about ThingLink? Take a look at their slide-deck.

The example below I made quickly in 5 minutes, hover your mouse and click on the little information tags on the image. Scroll down to the bottom to see a 360 example from Nagh-Jahan Square in Iran,

Spiral

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Spiral is a quick way to carry out formative assessments in the classroom or during distance learning.


Engage students in lessons and at home with simple to use everyday learning activities.

Spiral Lite is the free version of Spiral, within this you get access to Google Classroom integration, the Spiral Dashboard and many more features including Quickfire Lite, a tool that allows you to ask a verbal question in the class or on a Meet and the student can respond from any device.

Launch an activity or post an assignment to be completed asynchronously

Students connect with the activity using a simple code on any device

Students answers appear live so they can learn from each other

Or you can review, grade and feedback assignments off-line

Free Features

  • In Class
    • Run live activities with students, review and grade them
  • Quickfire Lite
    • Live assessments
  • Dashboard
    • Build activities and assignments
  • Feedback and Grading
    • Realtime feedback
    • Build evidence of student learning
  • Timeline and Exit Tickets
    • Record of each class session
    • Record of each student’s learning
    • Share results with parents
  • Google Classroom Integration
    • Import class list
  • Student Dashboard
    • Students can see all assigned work
    • Can see grades

Quickfire Lite

Take a look at the video below to see about how you can use Quickfire Lite for classroom based or virtual teaching.