Remote Teaching
Helpful tips, advice and approaches to support remote teaching
Problem Solving Tech Issues
Keep all apps and operating systems updated. This seems to be a common issue for both devices at home and school.
The only effective way of managing this with so many variables and households involved is to ensure everyone has the latest updates for both apps and operating system, via frequent reminders.
If you still experience issues because the technology is too old, an alternative is to use the browser version (web app) of the app with your chosen web browser. These are often simplified versions of the app service, but have all the features needed.
Apps like See-Saw, Showbie, Firefly, Google Classroom work within a browser and still require the log-in details.
If students are sharing a device at home they may need reminding to log out of an app or web app, before handing the device over to their sibling.
Apps for Remote Lessons
Polls, quizzes and collaboration spaces
The apps listed in this section are good examples of apps that also work as a web app.
A web app means it can work in the web browser of any device. This is helpful if your students are using different branded devices at home or may have an old device.
Polls, quizzes, word clouds and collaboration spaces are an effective and fun way to find out what students know, what they are thinking and maybe feeling as well as gathering and using students views.
Word Clouds are a bit old school in the world of tech, but great fun and an effective method for giving all students an anonymous voice and for the teacher to receive almost instant feedback. Mentimeter has several options for polls, quizzes and word clouds and can be duplicated for use by other staff. Who can make the best template?
https://www.mentimeter.com/features/word-cloud
You will need to create an account and the free version will limit you to the number of clouds and polls you can create. I suggest screen grabbing any word cloud or poll outcomes you want to save and then delete the project, that way you can create another for free.
Students typically access your poll, quiz, word cloud or collaboration space by using a QR code or short code, automatically generated for you.
Collaboration Spaces
The two most popular collaboration spaces apps/web apps are Padlet and Jamboard from Google. The advantage of these examples is that you can give students feedback as a whole class or as an individual student, but note the feedback will be there for the whole class to see.
Jamboard
https://jamboard.google.com
Jamboard provides space for students to collaborate and once ground rules are established and student territory mapped out, endless possibilities await. Short answers can be recorded live on live sticky notes; methodology demonstrated by teacher or student using a stylus or pencil; interactive games like Tic- Tac -Toe and Connect 4 can be created; interactive plenaries are possible at any point during a lesson. A little set-up is needed but all boards are stored in your account and if you have a gmail account or your school is a Google School, using Jamboard is the best option.
Padlet
https://en-gb.padlet.com
Alternatively Padlet is a popular collaboration space app/web app and has been used in many schools for years. Create your Padlet Wall and share with your class via a link or QR code. Add an audio recording, photo, PDF, or video to the wall, students can then view this in real time and work from an instruction or example. Students can then post their work, experiment or example to the same wall. In settings turn on Moderate Posts, giving you control over all student posts. Save Padlet Wall as a PDF or Screen Shot. The free version of Padlet allows only five walls.
Here is an example I made for Modern Foreign Language teachers.
Quiz Apps
Everyone Loves a Quiz!
There are more and more quiz apps available. I have included the three most popular.
All three listed below have extensive searchable libraries of quizzes made by teachers that are linked to curriculum areas. For the UK relevant quizzes make sure you add KS into your search term.
Kahoot
https://kahoot.com
Socrative
https://www.socrative.com
Quizlet
https://quizlet.com/en-gb
Finally in this section another app to consider is Nearpod.
Nearpod
https://nearpod.com
Nearpod has been around since the early days of the iPad. The app allows you to do all of the above; build presentations, using your existing Power Point or Keynote projects, incorporating quick quizzes, polls, links to videos and websites using a series of slide style templates. You then share the presentation with your class using a self generating unique code. As you advance through your slide based presentation, the slides will update on your student devices in real time, they can't leap ahead, but will stay with your focus.
Keynote for remote teaching
Keynote is much more that a presentation app. Three key areas of remote teaching that Keynote supports are;
- Keynote Live
- Keynote Collaboration
- Using Screen Record and Keynote to make Explaining Videos