Tag Archives: Chromebooks

A is for accessibility: How to make remote learning work for everyone

Editor’s note: Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and we’ll be sharing resources and tools for education, as well as accessibility features and updates for Android and Google Maps.

When it comes to equity and access in education, nothing is more important than making sure our digital tools are accessible to all learners—especially now as distance learning becomes the norm. I’m a proud member of the disability community, and I come from a family of special education teachers and paraprofessionals. So I’ve seen firsthand how creative educators and digital tools can elevate the learning experience for students with disabilities. It’s been amazing to see how tools like select-to-speak help students improve reading comprehension as they listen while reading along or assist students who have low vision. And tools like voice typing in Docs can greatly benefit students who have physical disabilities that limit their ability to use a keyboard.

This Global Accessibility Awareness DayI'm reminded of how far we’ve come in sharing inclusive tools for people with different abilities. But it doesn’t stop there. Everyday we strive to make our products and tools more inclusive for every learner, everywhere.

Applying technology to accessibility challenges

At Google, we’re always focused on how we can use new technologies, like artificial intelligence, to broaden digital accessibility. Since everyone learns in different ways, we’ve built tools and features right into our products, like G Suite for Education and Chromebooks, that can adapt to a range of needs and learning styles. For learners who are Deaf, hard of hearing, or need extra support to focus, you can turn on live captions in Google Slides and in Google Meet. On Chromebooks, students have access to built-in tools, like screen readers, including ChromeVox and Select-to-speak, and Chromebook apps and extensions from EdTech companies like Don Johnston, Grackle Docs, Crick Software, Scanning Pens and Text Help, with distance learning solutions on the Chromebook App Hub.

As more students learn from home, we’ve seen how features like these have helped students learn in ways that work best for them.

Helping all students shine during distance learning

Educators and students around the world are using Google tools to make learning more inclusive and accessible. Whether that’s using Sheets to make to-do lists for students, sharing the built-in magnification tools in Chromebooks to help those who are visually impaired, or using voice typing in Google Docs to dictate lesson plans or essays.

In Portage Public Schools in Portage, Michigan, teachers are taking advantage of accessibility features in Meet to help all of their students learn at their own pace. They use live captioning in Meet so that students who are Deaf or hard of hearing can follow along with the lesson. And with the ability to record and save meetings, every student can refer back to the material if they need to.

In Daegu, South Korea, about 100 teachers worked together to quickly build an e-learning content hub that included tools for special education students, such as Meet, Classroom and Translate. “In the epidemic situation, it was very clear that students in special education were placed in the blind spot of learning,” said one Daegu teacher. But thanks to digital accessibility features that were shared with students and parents, the teacher said, “I saw hope.”

Accessibility resources for schools

At a time when digital tools are creating the connection between students, classmates, and teachers, we need to prioritize accessibility so that no student is left behind. The good news is that support and tools are readily available for parents, guardians, educators and students:

The Guardian’s Guide to Accessibility helps parents and guardians learn about the tools their children use in school to learn, and the accessibility features built in.
Google’s Teach from Home website also includes a special Guardian’s Guide for children with disabilities who are learning at home due to COVID-19 school closures.
Educators and education leaders can find more resources on the Google for Education Teacher Center and watch accessibility trainings onYouTube.
The A11y Project website is another great resource with advice for developers of assistive technology, as well as lists and links for tools like screen readers.

Your stories of how technology is making learning accessible for more learners during COVID-19 help us and so many others learn new use cases. Please share how you're using accessibility tools and requests for how we can continue to meet the needs of more learners.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Accessibility ideas for distance learning during COVID-19

The massive shift towards distance learning presents many challenges for students, educators and guardians alike. But supporting students who have disabilities or require a hands-on approach in the classroom is an even greater challenge. Educators around the world are putting in long days to find creative ways to support all students in this new setting, especially students with disabilities. Here are some tips on using accessibility features to support all learners.

To help students stay organized and get work done

Distance learning has made it tougher for all students to pay attention and manage their time, and this can be especially hard for students with executive functioning challenges. These tools can hopefully help.

Use Calendar reminders to help students remember deadlines, and view due dates in the class Calendar in Google Classroom.
Encourage students to organize their assignments in Google Classroom or Google Keep, or in Google Drive.
Suggest students use Chromebooks in full-screen mode when working on assignments to minimize distractions.
Students can use Virtual Desks on Chromebooks or the Dualless Chrome extension for students who may benefit from seeing multiple Chrome windows on a single Chromebook monitor. For example, students can view a video lesson on one side of the screen, and a written assignment on the other side.
To help students manage their time, use the Stopwatch & Timer Chrome extension to create large on-screen timers.
Break up lessons into shorter parts, which can be beneficial for students with attention challenges.
Instead of doing video calls with the whole class, consider breaking the class into smaller groups, where each group meets one or two times per week. Prioritize 1:1 video calls for students who need it most.
For students used to working alongside teaching aides in class, you can create a Google Doc in which students can ask questions and get help in real time from their tutors, family members or support staff.

To help students and parents create a space for learning

Now that many of us are doing everything from home—teaching, learning, playing, and working—finding time for it all can be challenging. But it’s important to help students, especially those with learning challenges, carve out space and time to focus on schoolwork.

Dedicate a space (even if it’s small) for learning time only. If possible, avoid spaces near windows, open doors, or noisy areas of homes.
Suggest that students with attention challenges sit on swivel chairs, if available, to let off some energy. Fidget toys like spinners can also help students focus during lessons.
For students using text-to-speech tools, headphones can be helpful, especially if they’re listening during a video class with other students.

To ensure your lessons are accessible

Many Google tools have accessibility functions built in:

If you’re using G Suite for Education, you can enable captioning in Meet or in Slides. Captions can be helpful for students who are Deaf or have hearing loss, or those learning English—but also students in a noisy home environment.
Record your presentations in Meet or tools like Screencast-O-Matic or Screencastify for students to watch on their own as homework. This can help you make the most of live lessons, when you want to encourage as much interaction as possible.
Learn from your peers who are sharing stories with Google about engaging students through distance learning. Visit the COVID-19 distance learning resource page and Teach from Home for help.

To learn more and watch some tutorials, watch these videos, our G Suite accessibility user guide or join a Google Group. And find more on the Teacher Center, YouTube, and the Chromebook App Hub. Now is an important time to learn from each other—if you have other ideas, we encourage you to share them via this Google Form to help educators around the world benefit from your experience.

Helping teachers keep teaching

As billions of students are out of school due to COVID-19, we're sharing resources, product features and strategies to help teachers keep teaching.

View all 8 articles

Source: The Official Google Blog

What’s new in Chrome OS: Easy navigation in Chromebook tablet mode

With the latest Chrome OS update, Chromebook tablet mode is simpler to navigate thanks to new gestures, the launch of Quick shelf, and updates to Chrome browser that are tailored specifically for tablet mode.

What is Chromebook “tablet mode”?

Chromebooks, which all run on Chrome OS, help you to get things done and keep you entertained. All 2-in-1 Chromebooks work as both a high-performing laptop and a tablet. If you have a convertible Chromebook, fold your screen back on its hinge and your Chromebook transitions to tablet mode. Or if you’re using a detachable Chromebook like the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, then you can fully remove the keyboard to activate tablet mode.

Navigate tablet mode with gestures

We've built new gestures for Chromebook tablet mode, which make it easier for you to navigate using touch.

Now, to get to your tablet mode’s Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

You can also see all the windows and apps open on your Chromebook with a similar gesture. Swipe up from the bottom of your screen and hold at the end of the motion, and you’ll see an overview of the windows and apps running on your Chromebook.

If you’re browsing in tablet mode, you can navigate between web pages faster now. Just swipe from the left side of the screen to go back to the previous page.

Enjoy more screen space

We’ve redesigned the shelf on Chromebook to give you more space on your screen for windows and apps. Now, when you’re in tablet mode, you can access your pinned apps and other programs that are running from the Quick shelf. To summon the Quick shelf, just make a small swipe up from the bottom of your screen.

Even when you’re using Chromebook in laptop mode, the shelf is now more compact to give you more space to focus on your task at-hand. This is especially useful if you’re multitasking with various windows.

Speaking of making the most of your screen space, we’ve also extended picture-in-picture to all Google Play Store apps on Chromebook, even for tablet mode. Now when you’re watching a TV show or video on YouTube, Prime Video, Hulu or other apps, you can minimize the video screen and watch it while you’re doing other things on your Chromebook.

Use Chrome, tailored for tablet mode

This update will allow you to more easily manage Chrome tabs with a touch-friendly tab strip while in tablet mode. When you’re browsing, you’ll be able to open a new tab with a big button, reorder tabs by dragging, and close tabs by swiping up.

This change is coming first to the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, which will be available for purchase within the next couple of months. We’ll then bring the tab strip to other Chromebooks with tablet mode soon.

We’re also making updates to Chrome OS to keep Chromebooks hassle-free— especially in these moments when technology helps us stay connected to each other. So we’re listening closely to feedback that Chromebook owners provide on our Chromebook Community to keep adapting our software to the evolving climate.

Stay tuned for more from us soon. If you're new to Chromebook and want to get up to speed quickly, check out this article for more information and tips for using your Chromebook at home.

Source: The Official Google Blog

5 tips for effective distance learning during school closures

For the foreseeable future, most teachers will be teaching in front of a screen instead of a classroom. For educators who are new to distance learning, it can be challenging to know where to start. So we asked our Certified Innovators, a passionate community of Google for Education experts transforming education across the world, to share their best practices and strategies.

Continue live teaching online

Marcello Baroni, high school, teacher of graphic design, Scuola d'Arte A. Fantoni Bergamo Italy

With schools closed, our whole school has been conducting distance lessons with Google Meet. That’s 650 students, 22 classes, 30 teachers, 20 tutors, and coordinators all connected virtually, so learning isn’t disrupted. We’ll be using Meet in the future to keep all students connected, wherever they are.

Teachers and students are also finding Google Classroom helpful to stay connected and engaged. Here are tips for using Classroom during periods of high demand. And to avoid connectivity issues, consider pre-recording lessons and posting to Classroom, or use the livestream feature in Google Meet.

Create digital office hours

Michael Kaufman, Tech Integration Coach, American School Foundation of Guadalajara

Digital office hours are a great way to ensure remote students still get one-on-one support from their teachers. I use Google Calendar and Hangouts Meet to create digital office hours. The two tools together make it easy to organize your hours and create a space for live interaction between the teacher and students in a distance learning situation.

Here is my YouTube video that guides you through creating digital office hours with Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar.

Use offline features to support students with limited or no home internet access

Mykel Williams, 7th Grade Math, Baldwin County Alabama

Even if students have limited or no internet access at home, remote learning can be done using offline features for Chromebooks. Our students can still access Drive offline and they can download video lectures from Google Classroom to watch later if they don’t have internet at home.

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Build a digital learning hub

Kyle Pace, Director of Technology, Grain Valley Schools

Using Google Sites—a simple website building tool—you can build a central hub for resources, important updates, and reminders can help students stay organized and keep parents and guardians in the loop, too. Students can also use Sites to create digital portfolios and share their work with teachers, guardians, and peers. Our teachers do a fantastic job of using Google Sites to keep parents and students up-to-date throughout the school year. Each team has its own dedicated site with important information and reminders, which helps learning stay on track.

Want to get started with Sites? Check out this tutorial.

Provide one-on-one guidance remotely

Abbey Sarault, 9th Grade biology and medical detectives, Abington

If a student is absent, has trouble accessing the internet, or even just needs a refresher on how to do something, videos can be a huge help, especially when students can download and replay them. With the Screencastify extension, it’s easy to record your screen and share the video with students directly in Classroom. You can also use videos to explain new tools and approaches to help students get the hang of distance learning. Here’s how I used ScreenCastify to guide absent students through an assignment.

Teach from Home is our resource to help teachers who are teaching remotely. For more distance learning tips and information, follow along on Twitter and Facebook. If you have tips for supporting remote students, share them with us here. And if you’re just getting started using remote learning tools, check out the Teacher Center, where you can find 101 trainings and lots more.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Chromebook accessibility tools for distance learning

Around the world, 1.5 billion students are now adjusting to learning from home. For students with disabilities, this adjustment is even more difficult without hands-on classroom instruction and support from teachers and learning specialists.

For educators and families using Chromebooks, there are a variety of built-in accessibility features to customize students’ learning experience and make them even more helpful. We’ve put together a list of some of these tools to explore as you navigate at-home learning for students with disabilities.

Supporting students who are low vision

To help students see screens more easily, you can find instructions for locating and turning on several Chromebook accessibility features in this Chromebook Help article. Here are a few examples of things you can try, based on students’ needs:

Increase the size of the cursor, or increase text size for better visibility.
Add ahighlighted circle around the cursor when moving the mouse, text caret when typing, or keyboard-focused item when tabbing. These colorful rings appear when the items are in motion to draw greater visual focus, and then fade away.
For students with light sensitivity or eye strain, you can turn on high-contrast mode to invert colors across the Chromebook (or add this Chrome extension for web browsing in high contrast).
Increase the size of browser or app content, or make everything on the screen—including app icons and Chrome tabs—larger for greater visibility.
For higher levels of zoom, try thefullscreen or docked magnifiers in Chromebook accessibility settings. The fullscreen magnifier zooms the entire screen, whereas the docked magnifier makes the top one-third of the screen a magnified area. Learn more in this Chromebook magnification tutorial.

Helping students read and understand text

Features that read text out loud can be useful for students with visual impairments, learning and processing challenges, or even students learning a new language.

Select-to-speak lets students hear the text they choose on-screen spoken out loud, with word-by-word visual highlighting for better audio and visual connection.
With Chromevox, the built-in screen reader for Chromebooks, students can navigate around the Chromebook interface using audio spoken feedback or braille. To hear whatever text is under the cursor, turn on Speak text under the mouse in ChromeVox options. This is most beneficial for students who have significant vision loss.
Add the Read&Write Chrome extension from Texthelp for spelling and grammar checks, talking and picture dictionaries, text-to-speech and additional reading and writing supports- all in one easy to use toolbar.
For students with dyslexia, try the OpenDyslexic Font Chrome extension to replace web page fonts with a more readable font. Or use the BeeLine Reader Chrome extension to color-code text to reduce eye strain and help students better track from one line of text to the next. You can also use the Thomas Jockin font in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Guiding students with writing challenges or mobility impairments

Students can continue to develop writing skills while they’re learning from home.

Students can use their voice to enter text by enabling dictation in Chromebook accessibility settings, which works in edit fields across the device. If dictating longer assignments, students can also use voice typing in Google Docs to access a rich set of editing and formatting voice commands. Dictating writing assignments can also be very helpful for students who get a little stuck and want to get thoughts flowing by speaking instead of typing.
Students with mobility impairments can use features like the on-screen keyboard to type using a mouse or pointer device, or automatic clicks to hover over items to click or scroll.
Try the Co:Writer Chrome extension for word prediction and completion, as well as excellent grammar help. Don Johnston is offering free access to this and other eLearning tools. Districts, schools, and education practitioners can submit a request for access.

How to get started with Chromebook accessibility tools

We just shared a 12-part video series with training for G Suite and Chromebook Accessibility features made by teachers for teachers. These videos highlight teachers’ experience using these features in the classroom, as well as what type of diverse learner specific features benefit. For more, you can watch these videos from the Google team, read our G Suite accessibility user guide, or join a Google Group to ask questions and get real time answers. To find great accessibility apps and ideas on how to use them, check out the Chromebook App Hub, and for training, head to the Teacher Center.

We’re also eager to hear your ideas—leave your thoughts in this Google Form and help educators benefit from your experience.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Works With Chromebook helps you find Chromebook accessories

A charger that gives you power when you need it, cables that ensure you can make important connections, a mouse that helps you work more efficiently—these accessories make it easier to work and play on your Chromebook. To help you find your next accessory, look for the Works With Chromebook logo on products in stores and online.

You’ll begin to see the Works With Chromebook badge on certified accessories in the U.S., Canada and Japan. We’ve tested these accessories to ensure they comply with Chromebook’s compatibility standards. Once you see the badge, you can be sure the product works seamlessly with your Chromebook.

Works With Chromebook certified accessories come from leading brands—including AbleNet, Anker, Belkin, Brydge, Cable Matters, Elecom, Hyper, Kensington, Logitech, Plugable, Satechi, StarTech, and Targus. Find Works With Chromebook accessories at Amazon.com, Best Buy (U.S. and Canada), Walmart.com, and Bic Camera (Japan), with other retailers and countries coming soon.

For more information about Works With Chromebook, check out the Chromebook website.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Works With Chromebook helps you find Chromebook accessories

For more information about Works With Chromebook, check out the Chromebook website.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Even without internet at home, students can keep learning

If your school is operating virtually as a result of COVID-19, you may be wondering how to continue teaching students who don’t have access to the internet at home, or who only have low-bandwidth access. Fortunately, there are many ways to keep Chromebooks and G Suite up and running even when online access is slow or unavailable. We’ve pulled together ideas for educators and school IT teams who want to encourage all students to keep learning, regardless of their online access.

For edtech and IT teams: The basics of enabling offline access

Using Chromebooks and G Suite without Wi-Fi or low connectivity is relatively easy, but you may want to enlist your EdTech and IT teams to set up offline access for everyone. Here are the key steps in the process, along with useful Google support links.

Keep in mind that people need to go through this process while they still have online access. Consider taking a few minutes to guide students and staff through the process while they’re on school Wi-Fi networks.

Step 1: To help students, teachers and staff work in G Suite offline, the first step is to enable offline access for all users. Your IT or EdTech team can do this from G Suite’s admin console using these instructions for managed devices; in the Features and Applications section of the Admin console, administrators can click “Allow users to enable offline access.”

Step 2: G Suite users also need to download the Google Docs Offline extension for Chrome Browser, which will allow them to use Google Docs, Sheets, Drive and Slides without online access.

Step 3: Finally, people should turn on offline access for the G Suite applications they’d like to use before they go offline. Share these instructions for opening G Suite files offline. It’s a good idea to ask students to test that offline access is working properly; help them turn off W-iFi access and try to access a G Suite file. Students can download notes from Slides, Docs, and more, and download the lectures from Classroom and Drive to watch later if they do not have internet at home.

For teachers: Things to do offline

Remind students that even if they don’t have Wi-Fi access away from school, there’s a lot that they can do with their Chromebooks:

Read and respond to emails. Once the IT administrator enables offline access, they can read and write emails. The emails are sent as soon as students get back online.
Take, view and edit photos and videos.
Take notes in the Google Keep app.
Work on Google Docs, Sheets, and Drive files.

For edtech and IT teams: Chrome extensions that work offline

Encourage students to use Chrome extensions that help them do classwork while offline--and ask your edtech or IT team to push out the extensions to all G Suite and Chromebook users. Search theChromebook App Hub or the Chrome Web Store using the “runs offline” option to find useful extensions, or start with Screencastify for recording and editing videos and Soundtrap for recording and saving audio files.

Tips from teachers

Teachers are already brainstorming creative ways to help students without home online access continue their studies:

Create a “file upload” feature in Google Forms:Eric Lawson, director of technology at Maine’s York School Department, shared that you can create a Google Form directly from Google Classroom. One of the question options in Google Forms is to create a “file upload.” This allows for students to work on podcasts, videos, journals, infographics, etc. and simply submit them to their teacher through a form. On a day where students may not have internet access, they can still work on their project offline on their Chromebooks at home and then submit the file when they have access.

Offer mobile hotspot access:At Grain Valley Schools in Missouri, Kyle Pace, director of technology, plans to remind students that they can check out mobile hotspot devices from the school’s libraries--just as they’d check out books.

If you use Google Classroom and want to make sure students can view assignments offline, follow this YouTube tutorial from Stewart Lee, technology integration coordinator with Anderson School District 3 in South Carolina.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Preparing students to learn from home with Chromebooks

As educators and IT administrators prepare for potential school closures due to COVID-19, we’re offering free access to advanced Hangouts Meet features, as well as resources and tips for teaching classes remotely.

School admins can quickly and securely prepare their school's Chromebooks to go home with students. Educators and IT administrators can also use our new resource hub to find materials, resources and training—and we'll continue adding to this as additional resources become available.

Sending Chromebooks home for distance learning

Chromebooks are remotely managed through the Google Admin console, making it simple for schools and IT administrators to deploy and manage thousands of devices. There’s no need to manually install software or login to a device to apply settings—admins simply flip a switch online and every device updates its applications and settings automatically. These same capabilities make it just as easy to turn school-based Chromebooks into take-home devices for students to continue learning in times of need. For example:

Admins can restrict device access to managed student accounts or set “Off Hours” when students can sign in with their personal accounts.

Admins can use URL blacklists to set content restrictions and ensure that students are held to the same responsible-use policies off-campus as they are inside their classrooms.

Admins can enable and share applications for notetaking, podcasting, video editing, book publishing, drawing, screencasting, and other schoolwork—providing digital tools and resources to fill in for classroom supplies they might not have at home.

For more information, please see our Help Center article on how to prepare Chromebooks for e-learning days at home.

Using Chromebooks from home

Even if students don’t have WiFi access, they can access their Google Drive, and edit and save files offline. And they can take photos, record videos and screencasts while offline on Chromebooks.

Sharing information with families

Some parents and guardians might not be familiar with Chromebooks and how they differ from other computers. Admins might consider sending an email home to parents to explain how these devices work and how to assist students at home with our Guardian's Guide to Chromebooks. It’s important to share information with families about how to manage their child’s Chromebooks, including activity controls and which sites to allow. Schools might also consider sharing their distance learning plans with families so they might know how to support the transition.

More resources for distance learning

As families support students learning at home, we’re here to help. You can find resources on our distance learning hub and watch our webinar on distance learning strategies. We’re inspired by the ideas and resources educational leaders are sharing with each other. To continue the conversation and share your own ideas, join us on Google Educator Groups, Twitter and Facebook.

Source: The Official Google Blog

With school closures, teachers can keep their lessons going remotely

I spent more than a decade working in schools as a teacher and administrator. Whenever there was an event that caused the school to close, I found a way to ensure that students didn’t lose valuable learning time. We call this “distance learning” and many teachers, whether they work in a virtual school or are faced with a unique event, are exploring how to make it work. Currently, we’re facing such an event. Concerns over the transmission of COVID-19 are closing schools across the globe, and millions of students are unable to physically attend school.

To help with this, we recently announced that advanced Hangouts Meet features are available for free to anyone who uses G Suite around the world. This means you’ll be able to put up to 250 people on a Hangouts Meet call—an entire class or group of classes can join a lesson simultaneously. You’ll get live-streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within your domain, so that you can do a virtual school assembly or stream a lecture. Plus, you can record meetings and save them to Google Drive. When students can’t join the lesson, they’ll be able to access the content later.

For educators preparing for potential school closures—or currently facing them—here are a few other ways to handle distance learning.

Keep students engaged while they’re at home

Virtual learning can be isolating and disengaging for students. Sitting in front of a screen for hours watching videos may compel a student to fast forward or even skip a lesson altogether. To keep them engaged, open up virtual discussions about what they’re learning. In a lesson exploring the water cycle, challenge students to pause the video and join a discussion in Google Classroom (using the Stream) about the last time they experienced a thunderstorm. You can also use comments in Google Docs and Classroom to have a two-way discussion with students as you give feedback on their work—another great strategy to engage when you can’t see them in person.

Frequently assess student learning

Formative assessments help you make sure students are continuing to progress while away from school. Check for understanding during group instruction by asking a poll question in the middle of a lesson and showing the results in real time. This can also help you “take attendance” in a virtual setting. Quizzes in Google Forms offer auto-grading features, allow you to embed videos, images, and as many answer choices as you want. You can also assign graded discussions in Google Classroom, and students can demonstrate their knowledge through project-based learning assignments using Slide presentations, Docs or Sites.

Continue to connect with Hangouts Meet

When students’ routines are disrupted, many realize how much they actually miss the structure of school, and learning with their teacher. It’s important to maintain that feeling of comfort and safety during a time of uncertainty.

If your students have Wi-Fi access, you can see them virtually on Hangouts Meet. You can also use this platform to create video discussion sections for students to engage with one another and support their peers who might be struggling with concepts. Turn on live captions to help students focus, and so that students who are deaf or hard of hearing can read spoken language during the call.

Scheduling is another challenge that may arise. Using Calendar Appointment Slots, students who need extra help can sign up to meet 1:1 or in small groups with you. Due to intermittent or lack of Wi-Fi access, or shifting childcare solutions, not all students may be able to join a virtual classroom at the same time. Your instruction will likely be a mixture of live video and sharing recordings of your lessons for students who couldn’t make it. Thankfully, advanced features in Hangouts Meet allow you to record your lessons to share with students.

Check in with how your students are feeling

Social Emotional Learning can continue in a distance learning setting as well. Just as you can use Hangouts Meet to “be” there for your students and maintain your classroom culture, you can provide other ways for students to share and process their emotions while away from school. Using Google Forms, create mood check-ins for students to share their emotional state on a daily basis. Within the Form, students can request a conference with the teacher if they need extra support. You can also set up a private blog for students to reflect on the experience by journaling or recording video reflections.

Think beyond the clock

With distance learning, you don’t have to worry about time constraints of the normal school day: rushing students into the classroom or hurrying to finish your lesson before the bell rings. Students can take more time on some activities and breeze through lessons that come naturally to them. Take advantage of this opportunity and design your lessons to include more “choose your own adventure” activities rather than a fixed schedule of lectures and lessons.

Explore more approaches to distance learning

As educators and administrators set up contingency plans and consider making classrooms fully virtual, we’re here to help. We’ve seen educational leaders reaching out to one another, sharing ideas and providing support through Google Educator Groups, and other social networks, including Twitter and Facebook. Check out this webinar on distance learning strategies, find resources in the Teacher Center, and continue to share ways you support remote learners.