Day 4 of the 12 Days of #EdTech Tips for the Holidays
Today: Google Calendar Out of Office
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Google Calendar is a calendar application that is part of the Google suite of online productivity tools. One of its features is the ability to set an "out of office" status, which lets other people know that you are not available to attend meetings or respond to emails. When you set an out of office status, you can specify a time period during which you will be unavailable, as well as a message to be sent to anyone who tries to schedule a meeting with you during that time. This can be useful if you are going on vacation, working from home, or otherwise unable to respond to work-related communications.

Feel free to leave us a comment about this tip. 

1. Share your lesson or unit plans with colleagues on a consistent basis. 
2. Conduct informal conversations about what is happening in your classroom. 
3. Leverage social media to post pictures and information about learning experiences taking place in your classroom. 
4. Present about a best practice or tech tool at an upcoming faculty meeting or staff inservice day. 
​5. Curate a blog or newsletter to keep parents and guardians in the loop about classroom happenings. 

Register Today! 
Digital Paraprofessional Institute 
​A ​4 module professional development experience designed for school paraprofessionals providing them the ability to learn at their own pace. Training will center on key apps in the Google Suite that provide paraprofessionals with the knowledge to use the apps and the skills to help the students they assist.
Click here to learn more. 

Have you read the book Small Teaching by James M. Lang? If not, you should check it out. It provides solid examples of various ways teachers can implement specific teaching methods to bolster student knowledge and engagement. Another great resource specific to the topic of retrieval practice is a website called retrievalpractice.org. This website is full of ideas and resources to help teachers help students with retrieving information that was gained during a lesson or unit study.

This got the Evolving Educator team thinking about ways that teachers can utilize Google Workspace tools to help promote student success. Take Google Forms for example. Teachers can assign a reading assignment for homework and then quickly conduct a short answer of multiple choice quiz at the beginning of class. Then, the teacher can teach a lesson pertaining to the reading assignment. Immediately following the lesson, students once again briefly assess students by giving a Google Forms quiz. The use of very brief assessments helps students with retrieving information that was learned during the homework assignment as well as the lesson.

Another way Google tools can be used to help with improving comprehension of the topic at hand is to consistently use Google Classroom and Google Calendar to post assignment due dates, communicate information and assessment dates. This helps students with staying on task and understanding what is expected of them in the near or distant future. Committing to Google Classroom and Google Calendar for communication and organization purposes aligns with promoting the success of students both in the physical and virtual world.

Finally, a tried and true method to help with student success is the use of flashcards for studying purposes. Leveraging Google Slides to make virtual flashcards can help students prepare for an upcoming assessment. Have students work in pairs or small groups to create their very own slide deck. From there, the best way to view the slides is by downloading the Google Slides app on a tablet or smartphone. That way students can tap/flip through the virtual study guide they so proudly created.

Are you looking for ways to professionally develop your office staff? Consider registering your team for the Digital Secretary Institute. Cohort 1 starts in November and Cohort 2 starts in January. Click here to learn more and access the registration page.

Did you know that Google now has an an online whiteboard? It’s called Canvas and be accessed by following these steps…
1. Open a tab in whatever browser you are comfortable with using.
2. Enter this web address: https://canvas.apps.chrome/
3. Find the toolbar located on the left hand side of the page. From there, you can select various types of drawing tools and colors.
4. You can save or share your work by clicking the 3 dots in the upper right hand corner.
5. You can create a new drawing by clicking the home button in the upper left hand corner of page.

Google Classroom now gives users the ability to utilize add-ons while posting assignments. Make sure to check out this new feature while building out your new classes. 

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