WeVideo

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WeVideo – Make videos on any device, anywhere.

WeVideo is a cloud-based video editor that enables you create pro like videos on any device, including Chromebook, Windows, Mac, and Mobile. Cloud-based storage means there is no software to download and install, with the added flexibility of accessing your projects on any device. Get advanced with features like green screen to take your videos to the next level. Once you’ve finished your video, export in multiple formats and save directly to your Google Drive.

Sign-up

Sign-up and sign-in to WeVideo using your college Google account. This will make it easy to sign-in across all your devices and save your projects on Google Drive.

Let’s get started

To get started, select the type of project you’d like to create:

  • Video – Start a new video project;
  • Recording – Record your screen and webcam;
  • GIF – Create an animated GIF to embed in a presentation, website, or share on social media.

Import media

You can upload video and images directly from your device or add media stored on your Google Drive. After adding your media, simply drag it onto the timeline. WeVideo also includes a huge library of stock media footage.

Add transitions

To add a new transitions, click on the Transitions tab and drag the transition onto the timeline. Preview each transition by hovering your mouse over it and clicking Play.

Add audio

Add music and sound effects to your video. Browse the audio available in WeVideo or upload your own.

Add animated text

Use text for a title screen, credits, or label elements in your video project. Go to the text tab and then drag the text element onto the timeline. Afterwards, double click the text on the timeline to edit it.

Export and share your video

Exporting your video to share with the world is quick and easy. Press the finish button, name your project, select the appropriate resolution and press export. You can even ask WeVideo to save the export straight to your Google Drive.

WeVideo Academy

To learn more about WeVideo and discover how to creatively use video creation projects in the classroom go and explore the training available at the WeVideo Acadmey.

ClickView Videos

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The college has signed up for a ClickView subscription which provides access to a huge range of TV shows, movies and video content for students and staff to use.

It gives access to TV shows that have been on TV in the past couple of weeks but it does also allow you to request TV shows and movies too. Providing ClickView can access them, they will make it available and send you a link to access it. Just as an example, you can (at the time of writing) watch this morning’s episode of Newsround from CBBC, watch all episodes of Frozen Planet, or the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film.

You can log in with your college Google account at this link – https://online.clickview.co.uk

Access ClickView Videos for AS / A Level with this link

Digital Tools for Distance Learning

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At Barton Peveril, we use a variety of technologies to make courses more engaging and improve access to learning for students. Online learning technologies like Google Classroom have brought exciting opportunities to reconsider how we teach, engage with or involve learners in different ways.

In this guide, we will look at some of the online learning technologies we have available that can be taken advantage of for distance learning in the event of a college closure due to Covid-19.

Live Online Lessons

Google Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing tool that enables you to talk face to face with learners and engage with your class remotely. All your students need is Wi-Fi access and a device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet. 

Lesson content can be shared in a live video stream with groups ranging from a few people up to hundreds. Hangouts Meet includes the ability to share your screen, ideal for displaying a presentation or other content with the class. 

Google has recently made it possible to record a lesson hosted in Hangouts Meet as a video in your Google Drive. All lessons must be recorded, and if you wish these recordings can be shared in Google Classroom afterwards for students who couldn’t make it.

To improve the remote learning experience for teachers and students using Hangouts Meet, Google have made several improvements:

  • Only meeting creators can mute or remote other participants in a meeting;
  • Students cannot start/stop a meeting being recorded.

Learn more about Google Hangouts Meet >>

Assignments and Feedback

Google Classroom is a well-established online learning tool at Barton Peveril that you can use to keep students engaged while they’re at home. For instance, start a virtual class discussion to explore lesson content and talk about what they’re learning. You can also give students feedback about their work in Classroom when marking an assignment.

Tracking student understanding and progress can be achieved through combining Classroom with Google Forms. Quizzes in Forms offer automatic marking and enable you to embed content such as images and videos. When you share a Google Forms quiz using Classroom, you can easily assign it as an automatically marked assignment.

Learn more about Google Classroom >>

Recorded Lessons

Screencastify allows you to record your screen, perfect for creating recorded lessons for a flipped classroom or distance learning. It is available as an extension in Google Chrome that can be used from a Chromebook, PC, or Mac. In addition to recording your screen, it combines annotation tools, adds a voice over with your microphone, while also including a picture-in-picture overlay of your webcam. Everything you record is saved to Google Drive so you can easily share the video with students in Google Classroom.

Screencastify is giving educators a premium upgrade to increase from the 5 minute limit in the free version. Go to account.screencastify.com/user/subscribe and use “redeem coupon” with the code CAST_COVID.

Learn more about Screencastify >>

Distance Learning Resources

Useful resources we’ve found from across the internet:

Access to premium versions of educational apps made free during the Covid-19 school closures:

The Student Room

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The Student Room is the UK’s biggest student forum with free online tools to help you learn and boost your grades.

The Student Room is an online forum specifically for students, you can get tips on revision or help in working out how to find your perfect university place. There are discussions on so many different topics and you can ask questions for anything you need help with.

They have over 10 million users each month and over 240,000 posts a month too. 

There’s not just help with education, there are forums for relationship and health advice as well as careers and finance. Providing you are aged between 14 & 24 and are a student in the UK, this site is aimed at you!
Check out the A-Level forums where there are over 180,000 resources available across all the major exam boards including AQA, Edexcel, OCR & WJEC that covers all of the below subject areas:

  • Accounting
  • Biology
  • Business
  • Business Studies
  • Chemistry
  • Classical Civilization
  • Computing
  • Economics
  • English Language
  • English Language & Literature
  • English Literature
  • Environmental Science/Studies
  • Ethics
  • French
  • Geography
  • Government & Politics
  • Health & Social Care
  • History
  • ICT
  • Law
  • Mathematics
  • Media Studies
  • Music
  • Philosophy
  • Physical Education
  • Physics
  • Psychology
  • Religious Studies
  • Sociology
  • Spanish

Student Health

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Student Health App provides useful and reliable health information for students – all in one single place.

How does the app benefit students?

Students looking for reliable health information can use the app to:

  • find reassurance and advice about physical and mental health concerns
  • feel more confident about looking after their health and wellbeing
  • know where to find support when they need it
  • You can use the app offline, so the content is always available.

What are the benefits to colleges?

Universities and colleges can use the app for free to:

  • enable students to make informed choices about their physical and mental health
  • encourage students to self-care when it’s safe to do so
  • help students navigate local support and choose services wisely

Provide wide-ranging health information

You can find reassurance, information and advice on more than 125 topics relevant to students:

  • Mental health: How to tackle stress, depression and anxiety, and how to manage self-harm and suicidal thoughts
  • First Aid & Emergencies: Find out what to do next – from unconsciousness to asthma attacks, burns and head injury
  • Alcohol & Drugs: Know the score on smoking, alcohol and common drugs – and how to manage a drug overdose
  • Love and Relationships: Discover what’s to know about healthy relationships, abuse, contraception and sexually transmitted infections
  • Healthy Living: How to stay healthy and well at uni – and how to keep active
  • Safety: How to be safe on nights out, prevent accidents and avoid online dangers
  • NHS: How to navigate NHS Services effectively and choose services sensibly

Can I trust the app?

The Student Health App is:

There’s no need to sign up, and the app does not collect any personal user data (similar to an e-book). The app also doesn’t contain any advertising.

In partnership with the University of Bristol Students’ Health Service, the app has been co-created by medical doctors and students and is certified by the NHS England Information Standard as a source of clear, reliable and relevant health information.

Freedom

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Freedom helps you reclaim focus and productivity.

News, social media, shopping, videos…​these apps and websites are engineered to monopolize your time and attention. With Freedom, you can easily turn off the distractions that harm your productivity and wellbeing. Freedom gives you control.

If you need to focus on your work, break a habit, or simply improve your relationship with technology, Freedom can help. By blocking distracting websites and apps, you’ll be more focused and productive. You’ll develop healthier, more intentional digital habits, that give you control over your time and attention.

Freedom is used by millions of people each day and includes companies like Google, Apple & Microsoft as well as MIT and Harvard Universities as their customers.

Why do I need to block apps or the internet?

You lose 23 minutes each time

Studies show that every time you check email, a social feed, or respond to a notification, your mind requires 23 minutes of re-focus time to get back on task

Multitasking is 40% less productive

While we may feel incredibly productive jumping around putting out a lot of fires, we’re actually 40% less productive when multitasking. This links back to re-focus time too.

Willpower is a finite resource

Ignoring distractions takes effort that results in a temporary depletion of willpower. While we try to ignore it, the digital world is designed to win the battle.

Distractions are habit-forming

It’s easy to say “just turn it off” or “just quit it”, but research shows that it’s not easy to do. Our brains crave the rewards triggered by our digital distractions.

Free Features

Block Websites

Whether it’s Facebook, BBC News, or YouTube, block an unlimited number of distracting websites so you can focus on what matters.

Block Apps

Spending too much time on apps? Freedom lets you block time-wasting apps—from email clients to your favourite addicting games.

Block the Internet

When you need a break or a focus boost, block the whole internet with the click of a button. Save yourself from any distraction.

Block All Except

Create custom whitelists. Block all websites except for the ones you need to access. Keep access to websites you use for research for example.

Additional Browser Extensions

Freedom have built a number of free browser extensions that complement the main app. These extensions are currently supported on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera. You can find the links to these extensions at the bottom of their downloads page.

Pause

Pause challenges you to momentarily pause and reflect before visiting a distracting website.

Limit

Limit allows you to limit your time spent on distracting websites.

Insight

Insight shows you where you are spending your time online.

Flat.IO

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Flat IO – Write your music scores online with the easiest tool for creating sheet music together.

User friendly online music notation software that gives you all the tools that you need to make your own sheet music. You can write, listen, share and discover music scores right in your web browser on any device.

Invite your friends to compose your music scores online collaboratively. A single musical composition can be opened and edited in real time by multiple people using different devices at the same time.

  • Your music notation editor online in your web browser
  • Real-time collaboration and offline edition if you lose your internet connection
  • Compose with your MIDI devices: plug your device and play!
  • MusicXML, MIDI, PDF and Audio (MP3 and WAV) compatibility
  • Read and write music notation and guitar tablatures, together
  • Smart History: Browse all the modifications you made, note after note
  • Collaborate with video within Google Hangouts
  • Percussion instruments and notation to create amazing drum scores
  • Online digital and visual metronome to help you to practice easily

For teachers there is an Education version available. Flat for Education is designed for your music classroom. You can use it on any device to access and create your musical compositions or music education activities. Flat has a unique collaborative experience: let your students work in real-time on the same sheet music, whether you are in the classroom or working from home. It can also integrate with Google Classroom to make it easier with your classes.

Examples

You can see all the most popular creations on Flat.IO on their ‘Popular‘ page. We’ve added a few examples below:

Lil Nas X – Old Town Road made on Flat.IO using a Classical Guitar, Horn in C, Clarinet, Grand Piano and a Tuba.

The Ghostbusters Theme Song with a Grand Piano and a Drumset.

The Shaun the Sheep Theme Song made on Flat.IO using 2 Banjo’s and a Tin Whistle.

Camila Cabello – Havana made on Flat.IO using just a Grand Piano.

Speechnotes

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Speechnotes is an online Speech-to-Text notepad. For thinkers, bloggers, writers, drivers, joggers, busy people and anyone who prefers fast & easy typing.

Speechnotes is an online speech to text, designed to save time and to help turn your ideas into neat, clean notes.

Speechnotes uses the latest audio recognition technology to produce the best results in the shortest amount of time! With over 90% accuracy and one-click syncing to Google Drive, Speechnotes is perfect for your college work. It’s powered by Google’s Speech-to-Text engine and will autosave after every change, just like Google Docs.

For many of us, key-typing is slow and thus time-consuming. Speechnotes lets you type at the speed of speech (slow & clear speech). 

Speechnotes lets you move from voice-typing (dictation) to key-typing seamlessly. This way, you can dictate when convenient and type when more appropriate. You can also dictate and edit your text results right away, and continue dictating. No need to go through app modes or even stop dictation. 

Insert punctuation marks by speech (voice commands) or by a single click.

It works completely in your chrome browser and doesn’t require any downloads or installs to work although if you have an Android device you can get an app for your phone which includes a homepage widget to make it easier to start.

The video below from the team at Simpletivity is a great example of Speechnotes, skip forward to 1:15 to see it in action.

Soundtrap

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Soundtrap let’s you record instruments, vocals and use loops to make music anywhere.

Soundtrap for Education is a cloud-based platform that enables students to create music or podcasts. With Soundtrap, students can collaborate on projects using an extensive collection of quality loops, effects, and software instruments from anywhere in the world pretty much on any device. It also integrates with Google Classroom for effortless collaboration.

It’s worth noting that Students can’t sign up for this without a teacher already signing up beforehand. There is a free trial available for teachers and after that there is reduced pricing available for education.

For example, start a new song using all the built in professional loops and software instruments on your tablet when on the bus, continue on your Chromebook when arriving at home, invite a couple of friends, who are working on Mac and Windows devices, and conduct a video chat from within the studio coming up with the bass line for the song and finally find a didgeridoo player in the Soundtrap community laying down a unique ending of the song; you are all working in the same project seeing and hearing all the changes. It’s like Google Docs, but for music production!

See how teachers are using Soundtrap across subjects:

Steps for Getting Started with Soundtrap

Step 1:  Create a free school trial account at www.soundtrap.com/edu 

  • Select ‘Start as a Teacher’ to set up your trial account
  • All new trial accounts will get free access to Soundtrap for Education until the end of the term/semester (during the COVID-19 closures)
  • All trial accounts will be given 500 seats by default

Step 2: Invite others or roster students with one of the following methods:

  • Google Classroom integration, click here for instructions
  • Invite by group code, click here for instructions

Congratulations! You have registered your users on Soundtrap!

Step 3: Start incorporating Soundtrap into your classes! 

Step 4: The following are essential skills to review:

Step 5: Support and Community

Cove

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Cove allows you to create music to capture your mood and express how you feel.

Instead of words, create music to reflect emotions like joy, sadness, calm and anger. You can store your music in a personal journal, or send them to someone and let the music do the talking. Expressing your emotions can be hard. It can be easier if you make music! Cove is trusted by doctors and therapists as a safe and secure way to look after your mental health.

The app is built on the principles of musical theory; it has 6 harmonically evolving sounds to get you started and you can build on these and play around with the tones, without having to know the ins and outs of music.

There are no right or wrong sounds for people to use or create, the aim is that people create pieces of music than resonate emotionally with them.

When you start, you choose from four base moods – playful, longing, calm, struggling. These serve as the basis for your piece of music. The display looks like water, so when you’re adding to your tune by tapping the screen, your taps appear as stones in the water – creating your own personal cove (aha).

How does it work?

Cove is like a mood journal, except instead of using words to express how you feel, you use music.

To create music, choose from six different moods – calm, struggling, longing, playful, clouded and gentle.

Once you’ve selected your mood, you can then easily add and remove different musical effects.

Store your music in a private journal to revisit at any time. Add some personal thoughts and tags.

NOTE – Cove is not a substitute for professional therapy, and not suitable for those experiencing severe distress or suicidal thoughts. If you find yourself really struggling, in the app there are helpful links to organisations who can help you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone.