Google Classroom Notifications

Are you confused by Google Classroom notifications? Is your email box or those of your students overflowing with notices? Or do you want to only get certain ones? Do you have parents looking for updates on assignments in Google Classroom?

I made this video in the spring and if you want written directions for these things, click here. Note: I did this in April, so it's possible a few things have changed slightly.

After the Fact podcast focuses on science

After the Fact is an excellent podcast that I've listened to sometimes. It's done by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Each week they take a specific statistic or data point and use it as a jumping off point for a discussion and interview. Some of these might work for your students, and even if they don't, you may find them of personal interest!

This season's theme is Conversations on Science—what it is, how it’s conducted and explained to the public, and how it affects our lives.

"During the pandemic, the world is living through a science experiment. We’ll examine that as well as how scientists build trust with nonscientists, how to increase diversity among researchers, and how science becomes public policy. We speak with scientists and researchers—from Dr. Anthony Fauci and Pew Biomedical Scholar Pamela Bjorkman, who are on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, to “Science Friday” host Ira Flatow and physicist and bestselling author Carlo Rovelli, who speak about the scientific process and why it matters."

Sidewalk Poetry Contest Deadline Wed 9/30

Beverly Main Streets & the Beverly Arts District is running a Sidewalk Poetry contest. Residents of any age are invited to submit poetry for the chance to get their words stamped in concrete! We will be embedding the four winning poems permanently into sidewalks downtown.
They will select four winners, whose poems will be embedded in sidewalks downtown, and who will receive a stipend of $150! Four runners up will have their poems shared online.

Click here to find out more about specific requirements for this contest.

The deadline is this Wednesday, September 30.

Mass. STEM Week Oct 19-23

Massachusetts STEM Week 2020 takes place from October 19 – 23 (inclusive of the weekend before and after), and is organized by the Executive Office of Education and the STEM Advisory Council in partnership with the state’s 9 Regional STEM Networks. It is a statewide effort to boost the interest, awareness and ability for all learners to envision themselves in STEM education and employment opportunities, and compliment the formal instruction happening in the Commonwealth beyond STEM week.
The theme for the third annual statewide STEM Week is “See Yourself in STEM,” with a particular focus on the power of mentoring. Women, people of color, first-generation students, low-income individuals, English language learners, and people with disabilities are underrepresented in STEM industries and make up an increasing portion of the overall workforce, but the demographics of STEM fields have remained largely the same. We need more young people to see themselves in STEM.


More info at https://www.massstemweek.org/

SEL Checkin Slides

How is everyone doing? Use these  great SEL checkin slides

• You can post these in your real or virtual classroom
• You can put the on a jamboard and have people circle what they feel like
• You can put it into a google form and ask kids to say how they're doing so you can share results anonymously and show them that everyone is somewhere different each day, but you can capture what they say in case you need to follow up
• You can have kids discuss in small groups
• You can use it with each other in staff meetings!
• etc. etc.

Apps in Self Service

I've made a list of apps that are currently in Self Service for the iPads, noting the subject or skill they apply to, what they are best at doing, a description that mostly comes from whatever the publisher puts in the app store and a link to the app store for more info.

We will probably have other ways to organize or communicate this info as the year goes on, and this list is in the process of being updated, but I wanted to get this to you now so that you have something to refer to easily. I know it's confusing to scan the list of apps without a little more info about some of them!

2020 Doodle For Google Winner

Congratulations to the 2020 Doodle for Google National Winner, Sharon Sara! - Google.com

Info about winners and how it works, etc. They haven't announced 2021 stuff yet - not sure when it usually goes up. This year the entries were due March 20, which I think has been the date for a number of years. They typically announce the theme and entry details in early January.

Google names fifth grader the winner of the US 2020 Doodle for Google contest - USA Today

2020 Winning Doodle

BPL Teen Book Club

Beverly Public Library's Teen Book Club: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Monday, September 28 from 4-5 PM - REMOTE via Zoom

Join us for a discussion of A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro. 

A Study in Charlotte is available as an eBook on hoopla– no wait!

Participants must register with their school email address. An invitation will be sent to participants the morning of the event.

Google Meet & Classroom Updates

Coming this fall to the computer on your desk... Attendance Tracking will be built into Google Meet

More details on what's coming to Meet and Classroom

Launching in October

• Blur or replace backgrounds so everyone feels more comfortable during distance-learning classes. Note: Admins can disable custom backgrounds as needed.
• Attendance tracking to see and track which students attended virtual class (G Suite Enterprise for Education)
• Breakout rooms so educators can split classes into simultaneous small group discussions (G Suite Enterprise for Education)

Launching later this year

• Hand-raising to help you identify students who may need help or have a question
• Q&A features to provide a way for students to ask questions without disrupting the flow of the class discussion or lesson, and polling to engage students to share their voice (G Suite Enterprise for Education)

Letters About Literature

 

Letters About Literature in Massachusetts is a commonwealth-wide personal and reflective writing initiative sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. The program invites students in Grades 4 through 12 to read a book of their choice, reflect on it, and write a personal letter to its author, explaining the impact this work had on them.


Letters are read in three grade-level categories:

Level I: Grades 4 through 6
Level II: Grades 7 and 8
Level III: Grades 9 through 12

One “top honor” writer and up to nine additional honors writers (depending on the number of submissions per category) are named in each level. The top honor writer receives a $200 cash award. All honors writers receive $25 book gift cards.

More details and eligibility is here.

The entry form will be available here Oct. 1 - submissions close January 15, 2021.

Letters About Literature Open Oct 1-Jan 15

Letters About Literature in Massachusetts is a commonwealth-wide personal and reflective writing initiative sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. The program invites students in Grades 4 through 12 to read a book of their choice, reflect on it, and write a personal letter to its author, explaining the impact this work had on them.

Letters are read in three grade-level categories:

• Level I: Grades 4 through 6
• Level II: Grades 7 and 8
• Level III: Grades 9 through 12

One “top honor” writer and up to nine additional honors writers (depending on the number of submissions per category) are named in each level. The top honor writer receives a $200 cash award. All honors writers receive $25 book gift cards.

More details and eligibility is here.

The entry form will be available here Oct. 1 - submissions close January 15, 2021.

Managing Google Classroom Notifications

 In case you are baffled or overwhelmed by Google Classroom notifications, I have a couple of resources I made last spring about them, with info for parents, students, and for teachers. The options and interfaces are different for each. There may have been some slight updates to the options but it should be pretty much the same.

Google doc: Managing GC Notifications

Video:  Managing Google Classroom Notifications - April 2020

RBG for BMS

If you want some resources about RBG to share with your students, you can use the articles and videos and materials in this presentation.

Why you should read this out loud

...people consistently remember words and texts better if they read them aloud than if they read them silently. This memory-boosting effect of reading aloud is particularly strong in children.

MacLeod has named this phenomenon the “production effect”. It means that producing written words – that’s to say, reading them out loud – improves our memory of them.

Read this article in BBC Future: Why you should read this out loud

Denise Lydon also recommends: Slides and ladders: The importance of fluency with older readers during COVID-19

BrainPOP

We are in the process of renewing our BrainPOP subscription. It's available now. It will have single signon but that's not set up quite yet.

In the meantime, you can email me to ask for the username and password. You can post it in a Google Classroom but make sure it doesn't get posted on any publicly available pages because that's a violation of our terms of service.

I'll give you some more information about ways you can use BrainPOP beside just having the kids watch the movies and access the quizzes, but in the meantime, those are pretty useful by themselves.

Kamilah Drummond and Summer Stories

I know many of you found Kamilah Drummond's talk this morning really interesting and inspiring. I could not have asked for a better tie-in to Summer Stories!

I just want to highlight this because it's substantially different from past "Summer Reading." It's not just a renaming; Barb Fecteau (BHS librarian) and I conceived of Summer Stories as substantial re-branding and a new direction.

Students were asked to engage in different types of stories this summer, making at least one selection from each of two choice boards. One board is about consuming story (reading, watching, listening) and one is about connecting with others about story through sharing and creating. Students could do the first part by reading a chapter book, but there were many other choices, and the most important part, to me, was about the connecting -- connecting with one's own stories and knowledge, and connecting with other people, both in and outside our community. Just one way some people did this was by sharing stories they'd discovered on this padlet.

ELA teachers will be developing their own activities and/or assignments this fall to leverage Summer Stories. There will not be one day when this all happens, and the assignments will not be given to me to grade this year, although I am more than happy to collaborate with teachers as it works for them and their classes.

If anyone has any questions, please check the Summer Stories website or ask me.

eBook Options for This Year

Ebook options for this year will be available this fall

• Commonwealth ebooks through Sora
• All Access eBooks
• Public Library CONNECT
• Hoopla through BPL
• Epic!

Ask me for info about any of these

Mask Info for Families

Jodi Elder and the Health Office shared this with me today to post online as well - some of you may want to include it with info going home. 

A Family's Guide to Safely Wearing Masks at School

Getting iPads Ready for the School Year

This was posted on Homeward Bound for parents:

Now is the time to make sure your child's iPad is ready for the school year!

You can walk through the step-by-step presentation, or access the information in a 2-page checklist, whichever works best for you!

We strongly recommend that you have your 6th to 8th grader do these steps soon so you know that they are ready to get online the first day of school.

The weird physics of upside down buoyancy

Discover article a about it:
These Tiny Boats Can Float Upside Down on Levitating Liquid
It might look like a magic trick, or an optical illusion of sorts. But no, your eyes don’t deceive you — that little boat you see above does, indeed, float upside down.

A good magician doesn’t reveal their tricks. Scientists, however, do the exact opposite. A team of researchers in France detail this phenomenon in a new study published today in Nature, showing how vigorously shaking a container full of silicone oil or glycerol can create a levitating pocket of liquid that allows these small boats to float upside down.

“These phenomena are so counter-intuitive,” says Emmanuel Fort, a coauthor on the study. “People who came to see the experiment in the lab thought it was a trick or thought it was science fiction,” like the levitating pools in the movie Tomorrowland. And the researchers themselves were also taken aback by the sheer strangeness of it all. Fort, a professor at ESPCI Paris and a researcher at the Langevin Institute, describes the research as “a succession of surprises and astonishment.”

Postcard Day & Postcrossing

World Postcard Day is on Thursday, October 1!


Find out more about it here https://worldpostcardday.com/

Would you like your students to write and send postcards for World Postcard Day? I would like to help:

• Provide a lesson plan & resources (see attached from World Postcard Day website)
• Provide customized materials, screencasts, or come visit your class to show my postcard collection, etc. - just ask!
• Put out a call to families to ask them to donate postcards they may have around the house
• Order some of this year's World Postcard Day postcard to be custom printed (see design below) - cost is about 50 cents/card for small numbers (upt to 250) and less per unit for more cards.

Seek PTO support for custom printed postcards and stamps if needed?

Also - I am somewhat obsessed with Postcrossing, a free service where I send and receive postcards to/from all over the world. I've set up a school account for it and you can see the cards I've already received (and sent) on this blog. I would like to get some kids engaged in this. Please let me know if you are interested and I can tell you more about it and give you some idea of what we can do with it. Here's the card I got today from Russia!