Editor’s Note: This week, we’re joining thousands of educators and students at ISTE in Philadelphia. Visit us at booth 2200, where you can demo the latest Chromebook devices and classroom technology from Google and our partners. Follow along on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.

It’s crucial for us, and at the heart of our mission, to provide teachers with effective classroom technology that lets them create supportive learning environments. This includes giving educators tools to communicate with parents and guardians, and work with them as partners—because we know learning isn’t limited to the classroom. This year at ISTE, we’re showcasing our digital citizenship and online safety platforms. These products can help parents and guardians aid students’ digital wellbeing, enable parents and guardians to have visibility and participation in the classroom and strengthen the connection between the home and the classroom.

Using tech to communicate with parents and guardians 

• The Chromebook App Hub, a new place for educators to find apps and ideas for how to use them in the classroom, has many apps for family engagement. Head to the App Hub to learn about Seesaw, ClassDojo, Remind and more.  

• Google Classroom offers guardian summary emails. This option allows guardians to receive daily or weekly email digests of their child’s activities in Google Classroom, including upcoming or missing work and different assignments posted in each class.  Educators also told us they use Google Slides or Google Sites to have students create monthly recaps or ongoing portfolios. This is a great way to help students take ownership over their learning. 

• Hangouts Meet can help teachers regularly check in with parents, especially when in-person parent-teacher conferences are not possible. Virtual meetings and home visits can be easily scheduled using Google Calendar Appointment Slots. Guardians can connect with educators from anywhere via video call to see examples of their child’s progress. 

• Google Forms can be used to collect trip permission slips, coordinate volunteers or submit questions or concerns to teachers during off hours. Educators can use Forms and Sheets to set up an easy way to contact parents. Extensions like Form Publisher can help with mail merges and formatting.

The school to home connection

Each school, classroom and teacher makes different decisions about classroom technology. Regardless of the type of technology, it’s important for teachers to foster the conversation of why their school or classroom has chosen it, what you’re doing with it in the classroom, how families can continue using it at home. Here’s how to get students talking about technology, from school to home. 

• Share the Guardian’s Guide to Chromebooks with students’ families to help them understand how Chromebooks are being used in the classroom and send a letter home on how parents and guardians can foster a conversation with their children about the technology they’re using in class. 

• Send parents and guardians to the Google for Education website to help them understand how students and educators are protected with Google’s best-in-class privacy and security. They can also learn about classroom technology like G Suite for Education, Chromebooks, Google Expeditions and more. 

• Share the G Suite Learning Centerwith parents and guardians who want to become more familiar with G Suite tools being used in their child’s school. 

• Use Tour Creator so students and their teachers can create their own virtual reality tours of their school or classroom—or even a topic they are learning in school—to share with family members and guardians. 

Digital citizenship and online safety resources

Technology, when used responsibly, can be a powerful resource that can unlock entire worlds. It’s important to teach kids how to navigate the internet responsibly. It’s also crucial to set expectations around how much screen time is appropriate each day, when screens are okay and what activities are appropriate to engage in on their devices. Here are some resources and tools to help parents set digital rules.

• FOSI online safety lessons: Help students learn how to safely navigate the web and develop skills for school, work, and life. We partnered with the Family Online Safety Institute to build five new lessons to help families stay safe online when it comes to digital wellbeing and screen time.

• ConnectSafely: Read the Parent Guides from our partners who are dedicated to educating users of connected technology about safety, privacy and security. Share guides with parents and guardians on social media, cyberbullying, EdTech, Media Literacy & Fake News, Cybersecurity and more. 

• Teacher Center Resources: Check out the Teacher Center

  https://teachercenter.withgoogle.com/

  , which hosts a bountiful database of helpful tools and trainings for educators. The digital citizenship and safety resource page features materials that easily guide student(s) through. 

• Family Link and Be Internet Awesome: With Family Link, manage the quantity of children's screen time(daily time limits, device bedtime, locking the device remotely) and the quality as well (app approvals, website whitelisting/blacklisting. You can also see how much time kids are spending in apps, and hide apps on their device. And use Be Internet Awesome’s  family resources to teach students how to be safe, confident explorers of the online world. 

As teachers and parents guide the next generation of digital citizens, we’re continuing to offer new ways to foster a safe and supportive learning environment for students, teachers and families. From exploratory tools in classrooms that can be used at home, to accessible platforms that encourage confident and safe online exploration, we’ll continue to make it our goal to provide tools that go beyond the classroom. 

Editor’s Note: This week, we’re joining thousands of educators and students at ISTE in Philadelphia. Visit us at booth 2200, where you can demo the latest Chromebook devices and classroom technology from Google and our partners.  Follow along on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.

At ISTE 2019, we’re highlighting a wide range of apps and integrations that make learning more accessible for students of diverse strengths, abilities and needs. We work closely with developers to ensure these accessibility-focused tools and integrations work with our own products, and evolve based on the needs of students and educators who share their feedback with us. Here’s how G Suite and Chromebooks power apps that make learning more inclusive:

• Capti Voice reads aloud documents, books and webpages to students, translates words and passages in more than 100 languages. Students and educators who have a G Suite for Education account can access the app from Google Drive on any web platform. This is especially helpful for students with vision loss, dyslexia, ADHD or motor challenges.

• Crick Software: One of the first augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) apps—designed to support students with impairments in spoken or written language—created for Chromebook users, Crick Software supports writers at various levels of experience and ability with word grids that help build sentences. This tool also reads passages back so students can check their work with ease. 

• Scanning Pens: The ReaderPen reads aloud as a student scans the pen over written text, aiding students who need extra support with reading. Students scan the text directly into a Google Doc, upload the audio recordings to a Chromebook or Android device so that they can easily reference the information later.

• Bulb: Students and educators can create, curate, and share work in a digital portfolio directly from Google Classroom, and access their Bulb portfolio work in Google Drive. Students can share work created in Bulb directly back to Google Classroom, and lessons can be evaluated in Bulb and graded in Google Classroom. 

• Slooh: Slooh's innovative space lab is a global network of virtual robotic telescopes controlled by students (of all ages) and teachers in curriculum-driven, self-guided space exploration. Through Slooh’s integration with Google for Education, teachers can make assignments and track student progress.

Expanding personalized learning with the Chromebook App Hub

We’re also working with educational apps focused on cultivating personalized learning environments, improving organization, and optimizing assessments. Here are some partners offering expanded functionality in G Suite, Google Classroom, and Chromebooks, all featured in the brand new Chromebook App Hub.

• Seesaw has new creative tools optimized for students using Chromebooks. Students can select files from Google Drive, annotate, and curate them into their Seesaw portfolios to share with teachers, parents/guardians, and classmates on Chromebooks. Teachers  can import rosters from Google Classroom to Seesaw in just a few clicks—making sharing and demonstrating student learning seamless. Check out Seesaw on the Chromebook App Hub.

• Backpack for Google Drive by Amplified Labs: Students curate, reflect upon, and showcase digital learning materials against a district-defined skills framework. Backpack manages all of the sharing and organization in Google Drive and connects with Google Classroom rosters and assignments. Check out Backpack for Google Drive on the Chromebook App Hub.

• Kahoot! makes it easy to create, share and play fun learning games or quizzes in minutes. Their single sign-on feature allows Google users to effortlessly log into their Kahoot! account, and their Google Classroom integration enables educators to share Kahoot! homework challenges with their students in one click. Check out Kahoot! on the Chromebook App Hub.

How can we reduce plastic in our oceans? In today’s classrooms, teachers use project-based learning (or PBL) so that students can come up with potential solutions to real-world problems like this. With PBL, students identify the problem, research a solution and support it with evidence—all while learning valuable skills they’ll use long after graduation. Brainstorming these dynamic solutions can be an exciting and creative challenge for young minds. Technology can help motivate and spark imagination in ways that static textbooks can’t.

Last week at SXSW EDU, we helped educators experience the power of technology-enhanced PBL first-hand, with a demo on how to create differentiated and personalized learning using technology in the classroom. The interactive demo let people get hands-on with educational tools from G Suite for Education, Chromebooks, Jamboard, Google Expeditions AR and VR and engaging third-party applications.

Even if you didn’t attend SXSW EDU, you can recreate the lesson on removing plastic from our oceans with your students. Follow this guide to bring the magic of Google tools to your students and facilitate a collaborative, intelligent, connected and creative learning space.

Assignment 1: Setting the stage

First, you’ll need to introduce the challenge of reducing plastic in our oceans and identify key facts about pollution in our oceans.

Step 1: Use Google Classroom to introduce the task.

You can use Google Classroom to create individual copies of materials for each student, in just one click. As an example, click here to make a copy of this lesson plan. If you’re using a different Learning Management System (LMS), Course Kit lets you integrate that LMS with G Suite.

Step 2: Use “Explore” to find and cite a key quote.

Open the Google Doc provided in Step 1 and click the “Explore” button in the bottom-right of the document. The “Explore” functionality makes it easy to add citations to materials you referenced across the web.

Step 3: In the Google Sheet, use “Explore” to analyze waste data for Austin, Texas.

Here, the “Explore” feature leverages the same machine learning technology used by Google Search and Google Assistant.

Step 4:Takethis quiz in Google Forms to test your knowledge on the topic.

Google Forms automatically grades your students’ work—saving you from having to do it manually—and give them feedback on how they did.

Bonus:Test out the new “locked mode", only available on managed Chromebooks.

This new feature (which is currently in beta) prevents students from navigating away from the Quiz until they submit their answers.

Assignment 2: Dissect the problem and dig deeper

Next, students will use research skills to understand the root of the plastic problem and collaborate with experts and peers.  

Step 1:Use Google Earth to explore real data on plastic moving across the oceans.

You can also use have your students use Google MyMaps to compare the size of the Pacific garbage patch to several US states.

Step 2: Use Hangouts Meet to meet experts in the field.

Hangouts Meet is a great tool to connect students with experts and each other though secure video and messaging.

Step 3:Go on a virtual reality tour of the ocean with Google Expeditions.

This tour is just one of more than 150 AR and 900 VR tours you and your students can experience. You can now view and guide tours you’ve created yourself using Tour Creator on both Android and iOS.

Step 4:Use a Jamboard to work together to discuss what you’ve learned so far.

Now that your students have dug into the problem, they can collaborate on the Jamboard or Jamboard app to answer key questions about the plastic problem and discuss what they have learned while researching.

Bonus:If you have a Vernier©️ sensor, use the Science Journal Android app to run an experiment testing how oxygen levels are affected by plastic in the ocean. Science Journal transforms devices, like you phone, into a pocket-sized tool for conduct fun science experiments—no fancy equipment required.

Assignment 3: Generate creative solutions

Finally, uplevel the lesson even more by generating creative solutions to the plastic problem based on everything we learned during instruction and research. Here’s a guide that suggests specific tools to use.

Step 1:Create a VR tour with Tour Creator.

Your students can help increase awareness of the plastic problem by creating their own immersive, 360° tours right from their computers. With this creative challenge, students can sharpen critical thinking and creativity skills, while building something they can add to a digital portfolio.

Step 2:Create a website using Google Sites to outline possible solutions.

Sites gives you an easy-to-use tool to build websites, host course curriculum and encourage students to build their development skills.

Step 3:Use Teachable Machine to create your own trash sorter.

Your students can make it easier to recycle by training their computers to recognize and sort different types of trash using Teachable Machine, an AI experiment that requires no coding.

Step 4: Make an automatic stop-motion animation with Google Photos.

With Google Photos, you can store and edit an unlimited amount of photos to use in your lessons.

Step 5: If you have a Jamboard, you can use it to collaboratively review and workshop creative solutions to removing plastic from the ocean. No physical Jamboard? No problem, check out the free web-based version.

Whether your students prefer to learn through video, reading, collaboration, hands-on experimentation or testing, Google tools allow you provide an engaging educational experience for every type of learner.  

Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Harriet Ogilvie, a teacher at Lundavra Primary School in Fort William, Scotland. Harriet was one of the many teachers who recently joined us at BETT 2019 to share stories about using technology that engages students and transforms learning. Below, Harriet explains how she and other Lundavra teachers help students build communication skills and create online portfolios using G Suite for Education.

At Lundavra Primary School, students and teachers encourage parents and other local residents to visit our schools and learn about what’s happening in our classrooms. It’s important to us that we connect the Fort William community to the life of the school. To make this happen, we invite everyone in the area to “Community Cafes,” once-a-month social events featuring student singing, homemade baked goods and a book exchange.

After the Community Cafes, students with Chromebooks in hand ask people if they enjoyed attending, and what they’d like to see at future Cafes. The students enter responses into Google Forms, which is helpful for us teachers as we plan our future community events—plus, it’s much easier to keep track of than paper forms that wouldn’t be returned. When students are getting this feedback using Google Forms, they can connect and communicate with fellow students, teachers and people in the community. Students learn language and communication skills as they formulate questions to ask attendees and start conversations with adults.

For students, gaining digital skills and building confidence often starts in the Community Cafes, but continues through students’ development of learning portfolios, which are records of their classroom projects and their accomplishments. The portfolios help pupils take ownership of their learning and show what they've accomplished to peers and parents.

These portfolios used to be on paper. When we switched to online portfolios, students could be more creative in telling stories about their academic careers—for instance, by creating video book reports and adding photos of themselves and their classmates. They build portfolios using Google Sites—a much more flexible and engaging tool than paper portfolios that weren't easy to share and frequently misplaced. Students use the Padlet app with their Chromebooks to write regular reflections about their work, and embed the Padlet pages into their Google Sites. Using YouTube, students work with their peers to create vlogs about stories they write themselves. By the time students reach Year 7, they can teach their younger classmates how to build online portfolios—a confidence-building exercise for those about to move on to secondary school.

Teachers and students need tools that encourage students to leave their comfort zones. In our case, the tools in the background are from Google: Videos, portfolios, surveys, documents and online research that inspire students to choose how they want to learn and create. Every time students use Google tools, they learn skills that go beyond the lesson at hand. When they build their online portfolios, students learn how to organize content; when they teach younger students how to use Google Sites, they learn about leadership. And when teachers create assignments in Google Classroom and provide comments while students are working, students learn to give and receive feedback and collaborate with others. We’re excited to find new ways to use Google to help our students become confident, engaged learners.

Editor’s note: This week, we’re joining thousands of educators and students at BETT in London. Visit us at booth C230, where you can demo a range of Chromebooks designed for education, including the brand new Chrome OS tablet. Follow along on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news and updates.

Power up a Chromebook and watch as it transports students to the Taj Mahal, the Great Barrier Reef or a state-of-the-art science lab. It’s like magic, except the magicians are the teachers who inspire engaged and focused learning. As the leaders of these journeys, teachers give students the opportunity to explore the limits of their imagination—all on a device that’s simple to use and easy to navigate. While we’re here at BETT, we’re exploring more ways to bring magic moments to the classroom. So open up a Chromebook, and try out a few of the things it can do.

Secure and accessible, out of the box

2. Explore built-in security and accessibility features:When you customize your security settings with multi-layered security, automatic updates, individual profiles and data protection, they’ll follow you no matter what device you log into. Learn more about customizing settings in G Suite and on Chromebooks to support all learners—including those with visual aids, auditory aids and more.

3. Become an Internet Legend:With our online safety program developed in partnership with the experts at Parent Zone, all Key Stage 2 primary school teachers can now order the Be Internet Legends curriculum pack for free. It’s available in new languages, including Arabic, Belgian, Italian, Polish and will soon be available in Turkish.

Plan with efficiency, collaborate & explore, check for understanding

4. Plan with Classroom and Course Kit:In addition to the new Classwork page, Classroom has a refreshed look and feel. And if you love G Suite but use a different LMS, you can now use Course Kit, a free toolkit that incorporates G Suite into your existing LMS.

5. Collaborate with Jamboard: Create, edit, and view Jams (a “Jam” is a collaborative whiteboard space) on your Chromebook or from a Chrome browser with Jamboard or the Jamboard app. You can now modify frames, switch quickly from selection to drawing and use familiar keyboard shortcuts when jamming. Soon, you’ll also be able to add images. Head over to Workbench for a new course on student agency and engagement using Jamboard.

6. Explore the world in Augmented and Virtual reality:Now students can create VR tours using Tour Creator on their Chromebooks, and view them together through a guided experience using the Expeditions Android app (coming soon to iOS). We’re also translating our most popular VR and AR tours into Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

7. Sign up for the locked mode and Gradebook betas:On managed Chromebooks, locked mode prevents students from browsing away from the Quiz until they submit their answers. The new Gradebook in Google Classroom lets you check grades, see average grades by student or assignment, and choose to calculate grades by weighted average or total points-based.

Bringing learning to life with STEAM

9. Prepare for the future with Applied Digital Skills: Students learn critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity and digital skills with new lessons mapped to the UK Essential Digital Skills Framework and the Computing National Curriculum in England, all on the new UK English Applied Digital Skills website.

10. Get hands on with Science Journal:Now, you can sign in with your G Suite for Education account to save and access your experiments across your devices using Google Drive. Check out new training modules and lessons on the Google for Education Teacher Center and Scholastic. For more hands-on science, order the new Science Kit from Arduino for middle school science classrooms, or try out Science Journal’s Android app with Vernier's new Go Direct line of classroom sensors.

11. Travel the globe with Google Earth:Bring the whole world to each desk in your classroom, no download required. Students can quiz their animal knowledge in Street View, learn about weather, volcanoes and sea surface temperature with map layers, measure area and distance, and see 3D views of buildings and landmarks.

Supporting educators through professional development

12. Learn with the Teacher Center:We’ve added new trainings on Jamboard, CS First, Applied Digital Skills and Science Journal. To support educators globally, the Teacher Center is now localized in 17 languages, with Italian coming later this year.

13. Engage with the education community:Looking for an expert? Coming soon, an updated Google for Education Directory can help you find a local expert to assist a school in any number of areas including teacher trainings, transformation support and advice from other schools. Looking for in-person interaction?  We just announced our 2019 Innovation Academies, with more locations including Stockholm and London, so apply now.

Visit us at BETT this week to check out the entire ecosystem of our tools, and if you’re not able to be with us in London, stay tuned on Twitter for more news.