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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:

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.

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.

Google Meet – Staff

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

Google 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 Google Meet is its 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 Google Meet and how to get started below.

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

Google Meet Set Up

Starting a Starting & adding people

Follow the guide below on how to set a Google Meet instantly, how to add others whilst in the meet.

Scheduling a video meeting and inviting guests

Follow the guide below on how to set this up and how to invite guests ahead of time. You will need Google Calendar.

Setting up Google Meet in Google Classroom

Follow the guide on the left on how to set this up for students to join in Google Classroom

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 Google Meet site or join via a smartphone using the Google Meet App

Calendar Appointment
Email Link
Meeting Code
Mobile app

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 a particular tab, your entire screen or a window. Sharing just a window will allow you to share just multiple tabs you have open if you have more than one 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.

Muting a class

If you wish to mute your class, you will need to click on the “People” icon. In the People settings you will see the “All Muted” option, click on this and a toggle option saying “Let everyone turn on their microphone” will come up. Toggling this will disable your students to turn their microphone back on. To let your students have their microphone back on, you will to toggle this back on so they can enable their microphone again.

More information including how to muting a class can be found here.

How to record and transcribe

To record in Google Meet, you require Google teaching license and the host of the Google Meet to be able to record. In the Google Meet. By clicking the 3 dots in the bottom task bar, you click on “Manage recording” then adjust the settings if you wish to transcribe the meeting or not. After click “Start Recording”. Once the meeting is finished, you can click “Stop recording” or end the call. The recording will automatically save into your Google Drive.

More information including how to record in Google Meet can be found here.