Canopy Education Magazine - Issue 2 by Canopy Education

canopy ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2022

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The magazine for teachers using

Google Workspace for Education

Share Share this magazine with colleagues and download specific articles from our website at canopy.education/magazine

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Hello...

WELCOME TO THE CANOPY EDUCATION MAGAZINE Andy Caffrey Google Certified Innovator & Trainer

CEO, Canopy Education CIC @MrCaffrey

Welcome to the Second Edition of the Canopy Education Magazine! In June we celebrate our second birthday as a Community Interest Company. At Canopy, we are passionate about using the power of digital technology to enhance teaching and learning. Put simply, we do things that make teaching and learning better for teachers and students. As a Community Interest Company based in the UK, our focus is on the impact we have on education. Our core aim is to make a difference to teaching and learning and this sits at the heart of our work. Our team of Google Certified Trainers, Coaches and Innovators are all teachers (or former teachers). Our products and services must always pass one simple test - would we use this in our own teaching? First and foremost, we are a Google Partner with Education Specialisation (the highest technical designation a partner can earn). We support schools, teachers and students using Google Workspace for Education. Our work includes:

CANOPY EDUCATION MAGAZINE You’re reading it right now! The magazine for teachers using Google Workspace for Education. Please share this with colleagues, download individual articles and use it to make a difference in your own school.

WORKSPACE SKILLS Student Certification for Google Workspace - created to train users at scale. We have awarded more than 300,000 digital badges! Our interactive Workspace Skills tutorials help students and staff learn by doing and interacting with the Google Workspace for Education tools.

TRAINING We have trained over 10,000 teachers to use Google Workspace for Education, including Google Certified Educator Level 1, Level 2, Google Certified Trainer, Coach and Innovator.

CONSULTANCY We help schools, districts and MultiAcademy Trusts to make the most from Google Workspace for Education, including technical support for the Admin Console. We carry out domain security audits and manage migrations (from one domain to another), so teachers can focus on teaching and learning with the assurance that their environment is set up safely and securely.

GOOGLE FOR EDUCATION EDITIONS Looking to upgrade your Google Workspace for Education? We can support schools with free trials and training to make the most from the paid editions. For schools who upgrade to Education Plus from Canopy, we offer access to Workspace Skills for free.

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Contents IN

THIS

ISSUE

SUMMER

5 Things You Forgot Google Classroom Can Do

Embedding Sustainability Education in FE using Google Workspace

Finding my voice and amplifying other voices

Google for Education Updates

Creating a Culture that Supports Social-Emotional Learning

Why Primary Students Need to Learn about Email

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Increasing student efficiency and competency with Google Workspace for Education Tools

Google Docs Smart Canvas: Brings Classwork to the Real World

Big Journeys Begin with Small Steps: Improving Hearing Accessibility

EdTech Tools to Support Your School's Digital Transformation

A Qualitative Analysis: Using Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education at Tring School

Pandemic Boosts Student Self-Confidence in Technology Use

2022

4 Superpowers Every Teacher Should Add to their Google Classroom with Bookwidgets

The Best Apps for a Touchscreen Device and Stylus

Jamboard

Supporting Teachers to achieve GCE Level 1 with Workspace Skills

Ask Canopy

THINGS YOU FORGOT

Google Classroom Can Do

Emma Pass Google Certified Trainer & Innovator

Hybrid English Teacher & Author of The Hybrid Teacher @emmabpass

Whether you are a long time expert or have only begun using the learning management system (LMS) Google Classroom, there

are a few fantastic features that tend to be forgotten but can help save you time and energy while teaching, grading, and creating.

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Reset/Turn Off Class Code

On your Google Classroom’s “Stream” clicking the three dots next to your classroom code will allow you to reset it with an entirely new combination of letters and numbers. This is especially helpful when your original code contains a confusing combination (a zero and a letter “O” for example). Similar looking letters and numbers can be confusing for any age student and create absolute chaos for a group of little learners. If the code is confusing in any way, just reset it.

Plus, a brand new feature in Google Classroom will allow you to temporarily turn off that code altogether, essentially locking down your class to any newcomers (especially pranksters or even hackers trying to wreak havoc on your carefully curated class) until you decide to regenerate the code.

Grade Calculations /Categories

Without diving into the philosophy of grades and what they should represent (mastery of skills vs effort vs completion, etc), if your school doesn’t have a policy on how to calculate your grades, it is something you might want to consider. The Google Classroom gradebook defaults to “No overall grade,” which means that while

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students will see scores you leave on individual assignments, they will not see a “Total” grade in their “View my work” section. This is an excellent option for primary schools that might use a non-numerical system of assessment. If you are planning on using Google Classroom to track and display grades, you can set your gradebook to “Total points,” meaning all graded work will represent the average score out of 100 (making a 10 point homework and a 10 point quiz “worth” the same when it comes to the overall grade.) This is the traditional way to structure grades, but might not reflect your students’ understanding the way you wish it would. Therefore, you also have the option to set your gradebook to “Weighted by category,” so that you can differentiate between the types of assignments students are completing and how much “weight” they should carry in determining the final grade. For example, in a standards-based-grading model you might have a “formative assessments” category (i.e. ongoing learning), representing 30% of the grade, and a “summative assessments” category (i.e. final assessment of understanding), representing 70%. If you decide to weight your grades, you’ll see the option to “Add grade category” at the bottom of the grading section in your settings. Once you’ve added a category name and percentage for the weight you’ll click “save” in the top right corner.

From there, each time you create a new assignment in Google Classroom, you will indicate which type of assignment your gradebook should calculate this grade under.

miscommunication about what you are referring to and to make sure it can be accessed immediately. Second, if you are teaching or training a group of people virtually and you have a task for them to complete on Google Classroom, simply “Copy link” and drop it into the chat box for instant access.

Whether you are keeping the total score turned off, using a total points method, or weighting your grades, all these features can be found in the “settings wheel” in your Google Classroom in the final section labelled “Grading.”

Copy Assignment Link

When looking at your assignments listed on the “Classwork” page in Google Classroom, you’ll notice the three dots to the far right side of the assignment title, when clicked, one of the options is “Copy link.” This will allow you to copy/paste a direct link to that assignment elsewhere.

How might this feature come in handy? First, when emailing a student and/or parent about an assignment, you can send them the direct link to that assignment to ensure no

Finally, if you are working on a project in Google Classroom that has multiple parts or grades for separate sections of the assignment, but you want your students to continue to work on the same document throughout, simply post the original assignment with the ongoing document attached (a daily or weekly journal or reading log is a good example), then every time you’d like students to work on this assignment, “Copy link” and paste it into a new Google Classroom assignment. That way you can post multiple grades for work done within the same document over a longer period of time.

04 Rubric Another useful but easily forgotten feature within Google Classroom are rubrics. Rubrics can be created within the assignment window on the right-hand column near the bottom. From there you’ll have the option to create a rubric, import a rubric from a spreadsheet, or reuse a rubric.

When creating a new rubric you have the

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ability to create multiple grading criteria for the assignment with as many “Levels” as you require (i.e. 1-10). One nice feature is the ability to toggle off the “Use scoring” feature, so that if your grades are non-numerical, you can forgo assigning any point values and instead title your level on the scale that you use (i.e. minus, check, plus). Bonus tip: don’t forget that emojis can replace any text in Google Classroom, so you can use emoji symbols in the place of level titles as well.

Because many teachers grade on a consistent grading scale (i.e. beginning, reaching, approaching, achieved), reusing your rubrics can save you a little bit of time in manually reentering those categories each time. Simply reuse any prior rubric and customize it for your current assignment.

Copy a Class

One feature that is not easily forgotten in Google Classroom is the “Reuse post” option for reusing assignments that you have created in another class or even from the previous year. In fact, many teachers who are seasoned Google Classroom users will “Reuse posts” from their previous year’s classes on a daily basis. For those teachers, let me introduce the “Copy” classroom feature. When you are on your Google Classroom dashboard (the page that allows you to see all your classes at once) you’ll notice the three dots at the top right-hand corner of the class icon. Once clicked, you’ll see the option to “Copy.”

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What this does is it creates a replica of your Google Classroom with every assignment set to “Draft”. All the students will be cleared from the class, the stream will be empty, and the settings reset, so you can customize your classroom for the new year and populate it with new students. These students won’t see any work that is in “draft” mode or any of the topics until you post them. To post an assignment from draft mode, you’ll click the three dots next to the assignment title, click “Edit,” update the assignment as needed (providing a due date and grade category if applicable) and then schedule or post.

Of course, you are not obligated to reuse all the work from your previous year, you can always delete an assignment or leave it as a draft, but the option to copy an entire class can be a huge time-saver for teachers who are repeating a class multiple times. Be warned, however, you want to begin copying your class at least a day in advance from when you need to use it - it can take a bit of time to copy all your assignments if you have a full year’s worth!

EMBEDDING SUSTAINABILITY IN FURTHER EDUCATION WITH DIGITAL TOOLS

Mia Pledger Digital Innovation Lead, Greater Brighton MET

@ItsMiasTweets Google Certified Trainer & Coach

There’s no denying that sustainability has been critically important for students globally over the last few years; and following the school climate strikes started by Greta Thunberg in 2018, schools, colleges and governments have started to listen and make changes to their curriculums. In 2020, the Climate Action Roadmap was launched to help FE (Further Education) colleges

reach “net zero” across a number of strands, one of which is teaching, learning and research. Within this strand, colleges are advised to deliver carbon literacy training to staff and students as well as support staff in embedding sustainability within their curriculums. In this academic year I have been leading the development of carbon literacy awareness for Greater Brighton Metropolitan College (GBMET) as part of the wider Greener Sussex collaboration between colleges and employers in the area. This

has involved launching a short L3 Carbon Literacy Qualification for students developed by The Carbon Literacy Project, as well as training and supporting tutors to embed sustainability within existing courses. As a member of the digital team I was keen to utilise Google Workspace and other digital tools to support the delivery of this content (with the added benefit of Google being carbon neutral since 2007). In this article I will share some useful features that helped me to do this effectively.

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Online Carbon Literacy Training The materials provided by the Carbon Literacy Project (developed with Manchester Metropolitan University) consisted of five modules with slides that could be delivered to students either online or face-to-face. Using the online delivery resources, we decided to adapt them so the majority of the course could be self-paced, allowing our students to dip in and out of the content around their main course and other commitments. Delivering in this

way also meant the course was paper-free and removed the need for students to travel to in-person lessons, making it more sustainable. We adapted the course to be delivered via Google Classroom, making use of a number of Workspace features and other tools to support students throughout and scaffold their learning.

Utilising Google Classroom Scheduling Posts The five modules were designed to be completed over five weeks and each week I posted on the Stream to let the learners know the topic and tasks for that week. Using the ‘schedule’ feature meant that I could save time by writing these posts in advance and setting them to post on the Classroom at the same time each week.

learners to navigate to the weekly tasks. Although I posted announcements reminding students of their work on a weekly basis, all modules were available to students from the beginning, which allowed them to work flexibly and at their own pace.

Questions Topics On the Classwork page the topics were organised by module, making it easy for the

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At the end of each week I’d post a “Question” under that week’s topic to help learners consolidate their knowledge and allow me to check their understanding of the content. Additionally, the setting “students can reply to each other” was turned on to facilitate discussion.

Google Forms

Google Meet The course consisted of some synchronous webinars to support students with their final assignment. Making use of the Google Meet link within the Classroom made this easy for learners to find and meant that only the students who were enrolled in the course could join the meeting.

Rubrics For their final assignment, learners had to write individual and group pledges for reducing their carbon footprint. This was assigned in Classroom so that it was easy to manage, submit, and mark. Turning the criteria into a rubric meant that learners could easily see what was expected of them as well as speed up the marking process.

Google Forms are a great tool for assessment and can be used for quizzes and surveys. In this course we used Forms for pre-course and post-course questionnaires which helped with evaluating the impact that the course had on the learners. The responses to both Forms were linked to different tabs on a single Google Sheet which allowed for easy comparison and analysis.

Interactive StudentPaced Slides Adding interactivity to Google Slides can help with ongoing formative assessment and student engagement which ultimately supports student learning. Two great add-ons for Google Slides are Pear Deck and Nearpod which allow teachers to scatter interactive questions throughout the slides. We used these interactive tools within our Google Slides lessons, then set the slides as Classroom Assignments within each module in Google Classroom that students could work through at their own pace while tracking their own progress. All of these features and tools supported the transformation of this course into one that was interactive, engaging and accessible to all learners.

Additional Resources The ultimate goal was to embed carbon literacy and sustainability within all FE courses so that it is relevant to the course and the chosen profession of the students, preparing them for a more sustainable

future. If you’re looking to integrate some sustainability related content into your courses, here are a few more tools and activities which can be used across all subjects.

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Jamboard

Quizlet

Jamboard is a great all round tool for quick collaborative starter activities. Teachers in a number of subjects at GBMET including Hair & Beauty and Motor Vehicle have been using it to understand student’s prior knowledge about sustainability in their course areas.

Quizlet is a digital flashcard tool that has been used across subject areas to help introduce key sustainability terms to students. It has been particularly successful in Catering and Hair & Beauty to introduce students to labels and certifications to look out for on the products they use.

Your Plan, Your Planet

Canva

Your Plan, Your Planet is a great interactive tool from Google which helps you to understand the environmental impact of everyday actions and how you can reduce them. This was used in the Carbon Literacy course to support a module on Carbon Footprints but is also a great starter activity in any subject to get students thinking about their own impact.

Finally, students in some subjects have been asked to create social media posts to promote their top sustainable tips related to their profession. Canva is a great tool for this as it’s an easy to use, browser-based design tool with hundreds of templates to help learners get started - plus it is free for educators!

canopy.education/monday

FINDING MY VOICE AND AMPLIFYING OTHER VOICES

Lawrence Tijjani Google Certified Innovator & Trainer

CEO and FOUNDER, Happy2Host Education @JustAGuy_LT

When attending Edtech conferences, training, or events, the lack of diversity in panel guests and even in the audience struck a strange cord inside of me. I often wondered to myself, does anyone else see this? Even at London based events, I looked around the room and saw I was the only black person, which puzzled me even more. My question was answered at an event, when diversity and inclusion was mentioned

in the closing. I sat up and smiled as I thought it had finally been noticed. However, a wave of disappointment hit instead, the focus of the speech was on the desire to see more women at EdTech events. I was confused. The room was full of white men and women, whilst the three of us from ethnic background sat at the same table, peering at the rest of the audience. I did not feel seen, nor did I feel comfortable enough to challenge the speaker. At that moment in time, hearing the priority that just didn’t seem to align with the evidence in front of me, felt like a topic I shouldn’t broach. If I’m totally honest, I was grateful to be included and didn’t want to come across as problematic. But it bothered me. It

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bothered me even more that I said nothing. In fact, 18 months later it still bothered me when George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the police in the US acted as a catalyst and gave me the confidence to use my voice. I began initiating conversations with key

people in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) about the lack of racial diversity in the EdTech sector, but more importantly the conversations about what we could do to change this. I felt comforted that people did see the issue as I did and were committed to taking action.

DIVERSE EDTECH EDUCATORS After a number of discussions with people from the Google Applied Digital Skills team, UK funding was found to create a programme for Diverse EdTech Educators (educators that are from African or Asian background). The programme’s goal was to help educators through their Google for Education certification to Trainer status. The rationale for the programme was to help create a pipeline of Google Trainers and not have that age-old argument that

there are no black or Asian trainers to call on, we wanted to remove this barrier.

While the aim of the programme was to get this group of educators through certification, it wasn't the most important part. At the very minimum, I wanted them to feel confident, credible, and visible within their own organisations and communities. Secondly, I wanted to provide opportunities for these diverse educators after the programme. I wanted to share opportunities such as being able to present at conferences and training opportunities within other schools. I saw that with more diverse trainers, audience members with an ethnic background would be empowered to ask “how can I get involved in what you're doing?”.

HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED IN WHAT YOU'RE DOING?

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WHAT HAVE SOME OF THE GRADUATES DONE SINCE THE END OF THE PROGRAMME? Delivered on UK Google for Education Webinars

Delivered at BETT 2022

Delivered sessions at Canopy Live

Lead training on the new Diverse EdTech Educators programme (cohort 2 & 3)

Created content for Google for Education Every time I see one of the graduates present at an event I am filled with such a sense of pride. They are talented, innovative, and ready to step out of their

comfort zones. I’m grateful that I was able to be a part of the supporting community that enabled them to develop and showcase their skills.

INCLUSIVE GOOGLE TRAINER COMMUNITY After running the first cohort of Diverse EdTech Educators, I was approached to run a wider diversity and inclusion programme that worked with a wide range of underrepresented educators who felt they needed support to become more visible and gain the Google Trainer status. Factors such as age, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and disability were used to create The Inclusive Google Trainer Community. This programme taught me a great deal. Instead of talking about my experiences as a black man, it shifted to listening to others express how stereotypes and other barriers affected their confidence in claiming a space in the EdTech world.

after a long day when all she wanted was to remove her hijab, so she could relax and express herself authentically in the sessions. I also recall a white female colleague who expressed that in large group settings she often lost her voice, especially with men present who she felt dominated the space. She expressed that the dynamic felt far too similar to her day to day and so she preferred the small group settings. I was humbled here in a different way, challenged to unravel my own unconscious biases and reflect even deeper on what it means to run an equitable and diverse organisation.

I’ll never forget a conversation with a Muslim female colleague who was keen to participate in the programme but felt uncomfortable with having her camera on

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WHY DOES ALL THIS MATTER? By having a more diverse EdTech sector it allows us to better serve our customers who are ultimately our students. This stems from the hardware we purchase, the software we develop, and the sessions we create. Making as much of it as accessible as possible to students and educators across all social, racial, and disability barriers is important. Additionally, those using the technology in the classroom with their students need to know it is there to support all students. Diversity and inclusion is a broad and complex topic, but If I try to simplify what I think are the nuts and bolts, I’d say it’s about creating an environment where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. There will be mistakes made along the way, but this must not stop us from taking action. We, as a

sector, must be brave, keep talking and listening as it is better to make mistakes than to take no action at all. I would like to thank all the allies and supporters of the programmes I have worked on, the colleagues and Google for Education partners who have really championed this work. A special thanks has to go to Ben Rouse, for talking with me and challenging me to bring these programmes to life. The hard work has started and progress is being made but there is still much work to be done. If you feel inspired to get involved, have a go at answering some of the questions below and then discuss them with your colleagues.

QUESTIONS FOR THOSE OF US IN EDTECH COMMUNITY ON DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION:

01.

Are you aware of the underrepresented groups in your organisation?

02. What are you doing to amplify their voices? 03.

Is diversity & inclusion part of your mission statement?

04. How are you creating spaces to have difficult conversations? 05. What does your leadership team look like?

06. What individual contributions are you making to support diversity & inclusion? 07.

What are my blind spots?

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Canopy Live 21 OCTOBER 2022 ST

JOIN THE TEAM FROM CANOPY AS WE

EXPLORE THE IMPACT TECHNOLOGY CAN HAVE ON TEACHING AND LEARNING

THESTUDIO, 7 CANNON ST, BIRMINGHAM, UK

OPEN CALL FOR PRESENTERS Want to present a session on using technology to enhance teaching and learning? Contact us at hello@canopy.education

Updates

GOOGLE FOR EDUCATION UPDATES

DROPDOWN CHIPS Launched Typing @ in Google Docs now brings up a menu of smart chips to add. One of the most useful for teachers is Dropdown Chips, which allow you to create drop down menus within the document. Great for “fill in the blank” (cloze reading) activities.

PRACTICE SETS Launching -Soon Practice Sets is a new assignment type, coming soon to Google Classroom. Students get real-time feedback as they complete practice set questions and if they get stuck, it will offer hints and videos to help them solve the question. Practice sets will be available to schools with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Education Plus.

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GOOGLE UPDATES 06/2022

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS You can now copy and paste using Keyboard Shortcuts! Google Drive files in your Chrome browser. This saves you time by allowing you to copy one or more files and move them to new locations in Drive, and across multiple tabs, with fewer clicks. We have updated our Google Drive Workspace Skills Tutorials to reflect this update.

GOOGLE SITES MIGRATION Still using Classic Google Sites? Time is running out to transfer over to New Sites. Starting December 1, 2022, you will no longer be able to edit any remaining classic Sites in your domain. Starting January 1, 2023, Classic Sites will no longer be viewable unless they are converted to new Google Sites.

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Creating a Culture that Supports

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Jon Neale VP Education, Mote @JNealeUK Google Certified Innovator & Trainer

WHY I became a teacher to help young people discover their passions and realise their true potential. I quickly realised that content knowledge alone is not sufficient to achieve this goal! Adding Social Emotional Learning (SEL) into their everyday activities, helps learners build a skillset that will help them throughout their time in the classroom and beyond! The process of SEL focuses around the development of the many approaches in which young people become empowered to

navigate emotions and enjoy empathetic interactions with others. Students with strong social and emotional skills find themselves able to engage more deeply in learning and other areas of school life. Furthermore, these skills continue to pay dividends long after students have left the classroom. From the foundations built in school, adults that continue to respect and work on these skills are well equipped to enjoy a happier and healthier life.

HOW We can start by creating a positive classroom environment where all students feel safe and respected. Activities to support this includes teamwork, listening to

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each other, creating a culture of growth mindset and understanding different points of view. This is best nurtured by educators and other role models that embrace,

recognise and exemplify these positive behaviours. It's important to have the wider community involved; parents can help by engaging in school-wide SEL initiatives and, once understood, reinforcing these same

behaviours and practices at home. Having a regular routine can help create a sense of calm and predictability. When children feel comfortable talking about their feelings, they're more likely to be successful in managing them whether at school or at home.

WHAT Effective implementation of SEL across a school is not without its challenges. One potential issue that educators need to be aware of when creating safe spaces for these types of conversations arises from the nature some topics may present. A key component involves building a culture of acceptance and trust; this becomes possible only through allowing individuals space to express themselves authentically. There are an increasing number of ways in which technology supports SEL in schools. Carefully crafted apps encourage positive behaviour whilst helping young people develop skills of communication and empathy. Additionally, tools such as Mote, which allows users to leave voice comments throughout Google Workspace, leverage the power of voice as a vehicle for personal

connection in a way that text alone cannot. Technology can also help parents - apps offering tips and advice on everything from sleep schedules to dealing with difficult emotions. With so many apps and tools available, there has never been a better time for schools to find a solution that best supports their unique environment and a culture with SEL at the forefront. In summary: social emotional learning is essential to every school community! It teaches us how to respect differences; accept others as they are; whilst building important skills that help us work together to soar over any hurdles that life may present us with!

I’d be delighted to connect with you to hear about how you make SEL work in your school and understand how you implement a digital strategy to accelerate its growth with voice. Drop by our booth at ISTE - number 1749

n e t s i L me to m

www.mote.fyi/mzhsxnr

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WHY PRIMARY STUDENTS NEED TO

LEARN ABOUT EMAIL

Cat Lamin EdTech Consultant @CatLamin Google Certified Innovator, Trainer & Coach

I often find myself having conversations with primary schools about whether or not email has a place in the curriculum. Invariably, the same reasons against it crop up time and time again (see below), but I argue that not only is it a good idea to explore email with our students, it is absolutely essential - and, hopefully, I can persuade you of the same. If I asked you what age you were when you first had an email account, I’m sure the answer would vary hugely depending on your age, your past jobs, and various other

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factors. Email has existed since the 1970s, but only became widely used in the 80s and 90s - I remember the excitement of setting up my first Hotmail account in the late 90s, as a teenager. For our students, however, email has existed their entire lives and is something that they will invariably need to use at some point. They’ve likely already encountered many services, from gaming to educational services, that require an email address in order for the user to sign up. Whether schools provide them with an email address or not, it is likely that before they leave primary school, they will have access to an email account somehow.

In fact, in England, the National Curriculum for Computing states that pupils need to: Understand computer networks, including the internet; how they can provide multiple services, such as the World Wide Web, and the opportunities they offer for communication and collaboration. Use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise acceptable/unacceptable behaviour; identify a range of ways to report concerns about content and contact. We cannot properly cover these points without supporting children to understand how to use email responsibly and respectfully. So, let’s tackle some of those arguments against using email.

Students are too young I’ve always found this to be a bizarre argument - we teach children about formal letter writing in Key Stage 1 (K-1 grades), so why wouldn’t we teach them about writing emails too? In fact, writing an email is a great way to teach the difference between formal and informal writing. We can spend time teaching children about how the tone of an email would change if they were writing an email to their friend as opposed to their teacher or another adult within the school. Personally, I would recommend teaching email from around age 7 and spend

the first few lessons focusing on how to write a formal email, considering structure and content. You can then talk about informal writing techniques, like emojis, which children absolutely love, and explain that in a formal email you probably would not want to include an emoji, but if you were emailing a friend, you would maybe include two or three (but not 30, as some children tend to do when first given access to email!). You could even set up email buddies so that children are emailing someone in a different class, a different school or even a different part of the world.

Emails are no longer used I’ve seen people argue that there is no point in teaching email since most young people don’t use it, preferring instead to use messaging services. While this is an

interesting argument, I don’t think we are anywhere near a point in the future where emails won’t be used at all, and it is essential that young people are equipped with the

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skills they need to thrive in the future workplace. Not only that; by teaching children how to use email, we're helping them to understand what it means to be a responsible digital citizen, and how to ensure they are using tech in a way that is sensible and thoughtful. We can help children to understand what it means to ‘spam’ and how tone matters in digital communication.

Another key skill that is supported by writing emails is, of course, touch typing. Again, some people may argue that with the increase in use of tablets and touchscreen devices this is not something children need to learn, but for anyone in a role that involves a significant amount of typing, a touchscreen just doesn’t work as well.

Students can learn it themselves at home Just as children could learn to read and write at home, they could figure out how to use email by themselves or with their parents, but our role as educators is to help children learn about how. to use technology safely and respectfully. We have a responsibility to explain to learners how to send and receive emails, as

well as what to do if they receive something that makes them feel uncomfortable or unhappy. It is far better for children to learn about sending and receiving emails in a safe environment, such as through their schools' Google Workspace for Education domain, then to leave them to figure it out themselves - particularly if the school is using Google Vault, meaning that any emails that are sent can be recovered and reviewed, even if the student deletes all trace of them.

What about the safeguarding risk? One of the things I absolutely love about using Gmail for teaching email is that it’s a service that can be carefully managed by whoever is responsible for Admin on your school’s domain. Gmail can be turned on or off by Organisational Unit (OU), but not only that - rules can be set up to define by whom emails can be sent or received. For young learners, email can be restricted so that students are only able to receive emails

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from within your school domain, meaning there is no risk of anyone external sending emails to your students. You can also approve certain domains, so if you are able to find a school to set up “email buddies”, you can allow emails from just that domain to come through. I recently spoke to Lloyd Newey, a year 3

(second grade) teacher and assistant head at Grange Park Primary school; we were talking about how to use Gmail to teach about “phishing emails”. We came up with the idea of sending an email from an account that was similar to his, but obviously incorrect (something like l10yd@schooladdress.com), which included a Google Form to “win” a prize. Of course the email included an instruction to not tell anyone. The idea was to trick the students into filling in the form before explaining that

they had been “phished”, and subsequently leading to a discussion about how they might have been able to identify that the email was fake, and how they could be careful to avoid being tricked again in the future. Lloyd then connected the session to Google’s Be Internet Legends, a free digital citizenship curriculum, to drive home the point about how to stay safe when using emails.

What if a student sends an inappropriate email to one of their classmates? There is always a risk that children will send inappropriate emails, and no matter how much teaching we do around the topic, it will almost certainly happen at least once. There are a number of things we can put in place to ensure that any risk is minimised. Firstly, your Google Workspace for Education admin can set up a filter which checks for any offensive words in emails you can search for lists online which will not only include the rude words, but also potential alternate spellings of words that children use to get around filters. With a filter in place you can decide on a number of options. Firstly, you could quarantine all emails containing potentially offensive words. This would mean that emails would be blocked, pending manual review, and could cause delays in important emails, but would also ensure that no one receives an email that might upset them. Alternatively, you could simply set up an alert which notifies certain members of staff if something inappropriate comes through, giving you an opportunity to speak to the

student involved and make it clear that emails are monitored, while avoiding the need to review all potentially dodgy emails. Every school is different and your school will need to decide what would work best for you. However, if you are going to quarantine emails, make sure that at least two members of staff are able to review and approve emails just in case something important is held up and there’s no one able to release it. It is important that we explain to our students what they should do if they receive something that makes them feel uncomfortable or scared. An important aspect of online safety is ensuring that children know who to speak to, because, while most children won’t experience any issues online, there is always a risk, especially as they get older and use

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technology more independently. In my time in the classroom I had a couple of situations where emails were sent that needed investigating. The first was a year 5 (fourth grade) student who sent a sweary email to his classmates in the school holidays. Rather than jumping to the worstcase scenario, we were able to speak to his parents and confirm that he was at home when the email was sent. Our IT team identified that the IP address that the email was sent from was different to all the other logins from his account and therefore was not his home address; the most likely scenario was that he’d given his password to someone who had thought it would be a very funny prank to send a rude email from his account. The second was a young man who thought it would be funny to email a young lady in the class something that, while not containing

an offensive word, was not appropriate and would have made her feel very uncomfortable had she actually read it (fortunately, at that point, the children were only learning about sending emails to a teacher and so she happened to comment that she’d received an email from her classmate, which her teacher read first). He realised as soon as he had sent it that he probably shouldn’t have and deleted the email from his sent items and trash. Once again, using Google Vault, the email was recovered and added to the young man’s safeguarding file. So, while it might be easier to not explore email with primary aged students, it is our responsibility to introduce children to it so that they’re prepared for whatever the future may hold; and, if you’re using Google Workspace for Education, you can make sure that it’s a safe environment to teach best practices.

Top ideas for teaching emails to primary students: Connect with other Google Educators around the world and set up email penpals - the Google for Education community would be a great way to explore the world we live in whilst teaching computing skills too. Set up a dummy email account so that pupils can send emails to historical figures or fictional characters, i.e. Queen Victoria or Zeus, depending on what they’re learning about. Send fake phishing emails to show learners the importance of critical thinking when opening emails.

Start each day or week with an email to your students, setting a friendship goal to spread positivity in your classroom via email. Use emails to teach persuasive writing by suggesting learners persuade the head teacher to shorten the school day or change the school uniform (get the head’s permission first of course, or set up another dummy account).

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BLACKBURN CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL - WORKSPACE SKILLS

INCREASING STUDENT EFFICIENCY WITH GOOGLE WORKSPACE AND COMPETENCY FOR EDUCATION TOOLS

WHO? Blackburn Central High School is an urban high school located in Blackburn, Lancashire, England with approximately 900 students and 107 staff members.

BACKGROUND Reuben Robertson (@RRO_edtech), Head of Teaching and Learning for EdTech at Blackburn High School first heard about Google Workspace Skills from a colleague at a neighbouring school. He was impressed by the interactive tutorials, interval scheduler,

and self-paced learning to increase efficiency and competency. Reuben was impressed by the focus on transferable skills enforced through the use of Workspace Skills.

CHALLENGE How to increase student efficiency and competency with Google Workspace for Education tools?

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SOLUTION Reuben first launched Workspace Skills with his staff in October of 2020 in order to help develop their skills using Google Workspace for Education tools. He has seen a noticeable difference in the skills of his staff and how the tools are being used in the classroom. Workspace Skills has helped his teachers develop valuable knowledge and hands-on experience and is documented continuing professional development. Currently 74% of his staff have completed the tutorials.

Workspace Skills has helped mould the shift in digital literacy with our transgression into a Google for Education School. The first steps were taken to train our staff and now our pupils. It has seen the competency of all our users from SLT all the way down to pupils increase significantly

Reuben Robertson Google Certified Trainer

Leader of BCHS Edtech @RRO_edtech

Workspace Skills was then launched with his Year 7 (6th grade) students in October of 2021. He used the interval scheduler to assign the Workspace Skills tutorials by tool beginning with Google Drive and Classroom. He then added Docs and Slides. Students were given half an hour a week in their Form class (homeroom/advisory class) to work through the tutorials. Reuben said, “Workspace Skills has made a big difference and is working for us. I appreciate what it does.” He appreciates that the tutorials guide the students and can see that learning is taking place.

After completing the tutorials, I now feel more confident knowing that if I ever need to make a Slide presentation and record data on Sheets or anything similar, I would know how to do it. - Student, Blackburn Central High School

RESULTS Reuben reflected on the difference between lessons with year 10 (9th grade) students and year 7 (6th grade) students using Google Workspace for Education tools. Reuben’s year 7 students have earned an average of 12 badges per student since the October 2021 launch of Workspace Skills. When he conducts a lesson with these students, he is able to focus on the learning outcomes and not on teaching how to use the technology tool. When he is with year 10 (9th grade) students, though they may be proficient with TikTok and Snapchat, the focus of the lesson is not on the learning outcomes, instead the focus must be on how to use the tools. Reuben has a Workspace Skills use goal of 80% by the end of the 2021-2022 school year for both staff and students. Over the halfterm break, he planned to open up the tutorials to his year 11 students (10th grade). While Workspace Skills is not required for this group of students, those who choose to complete the tutorials will learn additional skills and it will be noted on their certificate of achievement. Reuben talked about the value of knowing the Google tools for the students who will be continuing their educational journey as well as those who will be entering the workforce. Reuben sees the value in the transferable skills explored in Workspace Skills.

TRY OUT A WORKSPACE SKILLS TUTORIAL WWW.CANOPY.CLICK/TRY

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GOOGLE DOCS SMART CANVAS BRINGS CLASSWORK TO THE REAL WORLD Tom Mullaney Google Certified Innovator & Trainer

Professional Development Consultant @TomEMullaney

Google Docs' Smart Canvas updates are transforming the word processing app into a comprehensive tool for classroom teachers. These updates help teachers make Google Docs that engage 21st-century learners. Here are some Smart Canvas features teachers can use with their students:

SMART CHIPS Smart Chips are interactive links to Google Workspace, files, Calendar events, and collaborators. They display a conspicuous icon that pops for students.

paste its sharing URL into the Doc. The option to change it to a Smart Chip will appear.

Add a Smart Chip by typing the @ symbol. Then type the name of a file, collaborator, or event to bring up the specific item. For Google Drive files and YouTube videos, the easiest way to add a Smart Chip is to

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PAGELESS DOCS Most internet creators publish products made to be consumed on the computer screen, not the printed page. Now students and teachers can use “File…Page Setup” to

free the Google Doc of page boundaries! Pageless Docs help with viewing wide tables and images on the screen.

LINKED TEXT PREVIEWS Hyperlinks add interactivity to Google Docs. Students can now preview many links by clicking once to see a preview. Tip: If you paste a URL in a Google Doc, Docs will prompt you to replace the URL with its title, making the text more accessible.

PREVIEW PANELS View any linked Google Doc, Google Slides presentation, or YouTube video right in Google Docs - no new tab needed! Click the link once and select “Open preview.”

TABLE UPDATES Tables in Google Docs have increased in functionality. Teachers can now: Right-click and select “Table properties” and use the right sidebar to customize tables. Pin a table header row that repeats on each page. Designate a table row that should not split across a page break. Use new scroll over buttons to add and move columns and rows or sort data.

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WATERMARKS Teachers and students can add watermark images or text to the background of Google Docs pages. Use watermarks to label a file a “Draft.” Go to “Insert…Watermark” to use this feature.

CHECKLISTS Use the Checklist button (to the left of the bullets button) to make items a checklist. Have students check off tasks in a Doc or keep group projects on track. Checked

items cause strikethrough text.

USE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR MEETING NOTES & EMAIL DRAFTS Google Docs now has templates called Building Blocks. Insert them by typing the @ symbol or “Insert…Building Blocks”.

Meeting notes prompt the user to search their Google Calendar for a meeting to add notes to. There are several Building Blocks including: Meeting notes Email draft Product roadmap

Review tracker Project assets Launch content tracker

Type an email draft in Docs and click the blue Gmail icon to preview in Gmail.

GOOGLE MAPS SMART CHIPS & SIDE PANELS Have students preview map locations with the Google Maps Smart Chip. Click the “Maps” icon in the right-side panel.

Search for a location, click the “copy link” button, and paste it into the Doc.

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You will be prompted to replace the link with the Google Maps Smart Chip. Students can click once and then “Open preview” to see the location in the Google Maps right side panel.

EMOJI REACTIONS There is now a third collaboration button in Docs alongside “suggestions” and “comments” emoji reactions.

Use emoji reactions to give students a voice about options they consider in collaborative docs. Hover over any emoji reactions to see which collaborators shared that reaction.

DROPDOWNS Users can now add customizable dropdown menus in Google Docs. Click Insert and Dropdown to add a dropdown menu.

Dropdowns include the option to add custom options so students can express

their opinion even if the options do not capture it.

Consider copy and pasting drop downs into Google Docs to build rubrics within student assignments.

INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE REMINDERS Teachers and students now receive reminders and suggestions if they use language that is not inclusive.

These exciting updates make Google Docs more interactive and engaging for students. Take advantage of them in your classroom!

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BIG JOURNEYS BEGIN WITH SMALL STEPS

IMPROVING HEARING ACCESSIBILITY

Tracey Green Itinerant Educational Specialist, Montreal Oral School for the Deaf Teacher of the Deaf, LSLS cert. AVed

Chris Webb

Math Teacher, John Rennie High School @Crippit Google Certified Innovator & Trainer

A Partnership between John Rennie High School and the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf At the start of a new school year as a teacher in Quebec, Canada, it is not uncommon to get an email or visit from a Montreal Oral School for the Deaf (MOSD) Itinerant Educational Specialist (IES) if there is a student with hearing loss in your class. Although seemingly inconsequential, therein lies how a journey towards improved hearing accessibility began for John Rennie High School (JRHS). This year JRHS, part of the Lester B Pearson School Board (LBPSB), collaborated with the staff from MOSD, engaging in conversations about best practices for working with a student with hearing loss, common

misconceptions around hearing loss, and listening technology. These conversations have led to a wonderful partnership, friendship and school-wide accessibility initiative aimed at improving access to information for students with hearing loss. The initiative has also included raising awareness of the d/Deaf community and creating a more accessible classroom and school environment for all and ultimately created systemic change throughout our school for our students with hearing loss. We hope that outlining our experiences will spark change and inspire other schools to work towards more inclusive measures too.

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True accessibility initiatives fit the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework whereby, "What is essential for some is beneficial for all." While we don’t pretend to be experts in UDL, it has certainly become a passion of ours as we work towards a truly accessible school environment, and ultimately a more accessible and accepting society at large.

What is essential for some is beneficial for all

ASSISTIVE LISTENING TECHNOLOGY The collaboration with MOSD has allowed JRHS to explore what it means to have hearing loss, d/Deaf identity formation, and improve on accessibility in the classroom and throughout the school. The premise of the auditory-verbal approach is that children, with appropriately fitted listening technology can learn to listen and to speak. These listening devices include Hearing Aids (HAs), Cochlear Implants (CIs) and BoneAnchored Hearing Systems (BAHs). On any given day at school, students with hearing loss will ask their teachers and/or peers to wear a remote microphone in the classroom to support their access to information. Remote microphones (e.g. FM/DM system, Mini-mic) allow the student

increased ease of listening by bringing the teacher’s voice directly to their listening device thereby overriding distance, background noise and reverberation often present in the dynamic classroom environments. Classrooms can be difficult environments to listen in, with background noise reaching up to 65dB. This can make it challenging for students with hearing loss, as well as those without, making assistive listening technology vitally important for these students.

ITINERANT EDUCATIONAL SPECIALIST (IES) The MOSD Itinerant Educational Specialist (IES) is part of the educational team at the school. In addition to working with the students on their listening, spoken language, and self-determination skills, the IES contributes to the student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP), supports the teaching staff and facilitates the student’s

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integration into the mainstream school environment. Each IES works closely with an MOSD audiologist to ensure their students’ listening devices are working optimally and maximize their competency in a listening environment. This may include scenarios outside that of the classroom, such as preparing for their driving tests, managing

challenging listening environments at a restaurant or their part-time jobs etc. For many of our students with hearing loss in Quebec, MOSD sessions are held twice a week, and incorporate concepts, vocabulary and themes from the classroom into auditory training tasks (to build confidence as a listener). Classroom teachers need not be concerned when a student is pulled out for one-on-one work with their IES because they know that, thanks to learning management systems like Google

Classroom and collaborative/cloud based documents like Google Docs, the classroom material is at their fingertips and the student is getting meaningful support catering to their specific needs. Knowing and having access to what is being worked on in class, and what an IES may need to focus on not only allows for more personalised instruction, but allows the time with each student to be more productive, fosters students’ self-determination and facilitates academic success.

GOOGLE WORKSPACE Google Workspace for Education has become a mainstay in the Lester B. Pearson School Board, and is used by professionals, administrators, teachers and students alike every day. The flexibility of Google Workspace allows for collaboration with all stakeholders in real-time. Sharing new research, important documents, videos and more are made easier when working within the LBPSB domain. As mentioned above, teachers and IES use Google Workspace to maintain consistency when working with their shared students, but are also exploring Google Chrome extensions, such as TextHelp Read & Write for Google, to support reading

comprehension, note-taking and the editing of written work, as well as utilizing Google Meet for its excellent automatic captioning for meetings when students and teachers were not in the same space.

Taken from the Google Workspace Updates blog

PROJECT BASED LEARNING: INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER The tools that exist within Workspace not only allow us to collaborate as teachers, but also allow us to work more closely with our students. One of our students with hearing loss took over our School Board’s Instagram

account for the day. This initiative aimed to raise awareness of the d/Deaf community, and the complexities of life as a student with hearing loss in the mainstream school environment. As part of the takeover,

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followers got a glimpse of a day in the life of a student with hearing loss: picking up the FM/DM system in the morning, the support inside and outside of the classroom by their IES (e.g. auditory training, self advocacy skills, troubleshooting listening technology) and showing how Cochlear Implants work. This initiative wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration through Google Workspace; including coordinating the need to arrive early to pick up the remote microphone, or keeping spare batteries for listening devices on hand, plus creating,

editing, and posting material. Google Classroom, Docs, Slides, Meet, Keep, Photos and Gmail all played a vital part in that oneday project. This endeavor shared with the greater public the impact of hearing loss on everyday tasks such as the battery of a Cochlear Implant processor dying in the middle of class. This means the student has no access to soundan experience unfamiliar to most. The complete takeover is available as a highlight on the MOSD and LBPSB Instagram accounts.

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES The decision to offer American Sign Language (ASL) classes this year was born out of an off-hand conversation amongst students, some with hearing loss and others typically hearing. Interestingly, while some had been exposed to ASL previously, none

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had a solid understanding of Deaf Culture, and the people who use sign language. What first began as an 8-week introductory course for Grades 9 to 11 quickly garnered interest from the younger grades as well. Delivered by an ASL interpreter (a parent

of a JRHS student), the weekly lunchtime classes have provided an opportunity to learn fingerspelling, phrases and practice ASL with their peers. Likewise, students are given the opportunity to discover more about the nuances of living with hearing loss

and communicating with spoken language vs. Deaf culture. This has been an amazing experience thus far, and provides a unique communicative opportunity and life skill that can be applied throughout their lives.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING FOR THE MASSES The Theatre space at JRHS is used for a wide variety of events from plays, music concerts, conferences and rentals. As the space is so widely used by both students, staff and the community, as a result of our partnership with MOSD, it was decided that a WiFibased assistive listening system from Listen Everywhere would be installed in the space to allow users of the space a more equitable listening experience. This technology allows a user to stream the audio directly to their device (phone or tablet), and listen via their personal assistive listening technology, headphones or even noise-cancelling earbuds. This allows anyone to take advantage of the audio stream anonymously

and with dignity. The likemindedness about improving access to information for learning’s sake has been the impetus for our collaborative work this year. In each situation, it was found to be “necessary for some yet beneficial for all.” We remain committed to further exploring the tenets of UDL and improving accessibility for the wider school community. However, we would be remiss if we did not highlight the extraordinary devotion of time, patience and effort that those with hearing loss and their families undertake when choosing listening and

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spoken language, and mainstream schooling. Assistive listening technology enhances the experience and certainly eases some of the burden, but is by no means a

‘cure-all’. This is just the start of a journey, a neverending list of ideas is constantly added to, a friendship is born and no matter what happens in the future, we will know that through these projects we have made a difference in the lives of our students with hearing loss and ultimately the greater school population. We’re excited for what is still to come.

JOHN RENNIE HIGH SCHOOL, LESTER B. PEARSON SCHOOL BOARD JRHS is a Grade 7 to 11 Public High School located in Pointe Claire, Quebec. The school has continued to grow in recent years to a population of over 1400 students, having one of the highest success rates in the school board and offers a number of enrichment programs including the Provincial Sport-Etudes program. LBPSB is the largest English Language school board in Quebec covering the area between Verdun and the Ontario border. In recent years, JRHS has had a number of students with varying degrees of hearing loss join their school community from MOSD.

THE MONTREAL ORAL SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF The MOSD is a private special needs school in the public interest and is the only auditory-verbal school in Quebec. Its mission is to teach children with hearing loss to listen and to speak. MOSD services include: support from our dedicated in-house audiologists, early intervention (0-3 years), preschool (4-5 years) and elementary (5-12 years) education, tele-intervention services and mainstream schooling support services for students attending their neighborhood school (kindergarten through Grade 11). Itinerant Educational Specialists (IES) support the students and school teams across 8 school boards and service centres across Quebec.

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EDTECH TOOLS

TO SUPPORT YOUR SCHOOL'S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Rhodri T Smith Google Certified Trainer

Digital Integration Lead, Cubitt Town Primary School @TechwithRhodri

Digital transformation is happening in schools across the world and its momentum is receiving greater traction, thereby enabling us as teachers to serve the “Digital Citizens of Tomorrow”. With more schools now opting for 1:1 devices and the idea of

technology being integrated into classrooms becoming apparent to senior leaders, now is an exciting time for educators to trial and deepen their understanding of the technologies and apps available, as well as think of innovative ways to harness these tools to

effectively support learning in the classroom on a daily basis. At Cubitt Town primary school we have found the following Chromebooks Apps and web-based programs transformative in our digital transformation.

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Google Workspace Google Workspace offers a range of apps that are highly effective in the classroom and used by students on a daily basis. Whether you’re word processing using Docs, creating presentations using Slides, or designing posters using Jamboard, Google Workspace is an effective way to create and store (on Google Drive) resources across the school. Teachers can access planning documents easily from different locations and students can access learning material easily from home. Working online offers an opportunity to collaborate on documents in real-time during lessons and in the planning process. Workspace can be accessed from any device with an internet connection so it is a great solution for schools that are using

Chromebooks, iPads, or Windows devices. If you would like to use these tools and are wondering how to begin your student's journey. Take a look at Canopy’s Workspace Skills offer. They are selfdirected online tutorials for Google Workspace which teach the skills needed to utilise these apps effectively in the classroom.

Canva or Adobe Express Canva and Adobe are useful for creating artwork, posters, and digital content with simple to use interfaces. Whether it is a specific art lesson, depicting a

scene in literacy, or propaganda art from WW2, these lesson outcomes can be created digitally with ease by using these apps.

Soundtrap Similar to GarageBand, Soundtrap is an effective app for music lessons but can be used in a variety of different ways. It is a collaborative,

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easy-to-use online audio recording tool for the classroom. Whether you’re creating music tracks or recording a podcast about Roman Britain, Soundtrap is the app best suited for your students. It complies with the Teach Computing Curriculum and music lessons will never be the same after trying this easy-to-use app.

Book Creator Book Creator is a teacher favourite and an app used across the curriculum. Book Creator is a wonderful app that lets students become published authors of multimedia ebooks. You’re able to add voice recordings and videos to make your book come to life. It is highly effective in recording scientific investigation with its video recording ability.

The Impact on Students’ Learning It is fair to say our students are technology hungry and are willing to innovate when they gain the experience of new tools and apps. When utilised effectively in the

classroom, at Cubitt Town we have seen an improvement in teaching and learning across the whole school. Engagement in learning has increased,

creativity has flourished, and the outcomes produced have been truly amazing to see.

We are preparing our students to become the Digital Citizens of Tomorrow and we owe it to them to facilitate their learning for the future.

A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF

USING CHROMEBOOKS AND GOOGLE WORKSPACE FOR EDUCATION AT TRING SCHOOL

Tring School is a mixed, comprehensive secondary school in Hertfordshire, England and is part of the Ridgeway Learning Partnership. There are approximately 1500 students on roll and 200 staff. In 2015, Tring School started using Google Workspace for Education and rolled out a one-to-one Chromebook scheme in 2016.

Emma Ferris Google Certified Trainer

Digital Learning Lead, Tring School @emmaferris123

At its inception, the vision for the use of Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education was primarily focused on its impact in the classroom. In 2021, a case study was conducted to investigate this impact. This involved interviews with students and teaching staff across a range of subject areas and with a range of teaching experience. Students were chosen

to reflect a mix of gender, academic ability, socio-economic background and digital literacy. They were all chosen from Key Stage 3 to represent students who had only been at Tring School since the introduction of the one-to-one Chromebook scheme. Following the interviews, a thematic analysis was conducted to identify common themes and sub-themes from respondents.

The interview consisted of five open-ended questions: How much did you know about Chromebooks/Google Workspace for Education before joining Tring School? If you were moving schools, would Google be a consideration?

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What benefits do you think Chromebooks/Google Workspace gives students and staff? Any disadvantages?

Impact on work life balance?

FINDINGS PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF PRODUCTS When asked about their prior knowledge of Chromebooks and/or Google for Education, the majority of respondents acknowledged that they had little experience of using either, although some staff had heard of both. Students had either no or limited experience of using

Chromebooks at primary school or during the first national lockdown; a small number had previously used them in only certain subjects and had to share devices. They were generally positive about their prior experience of using Chromebooks, although acknowledged the limitations.

BENEFITS OF PRODUCTS Thematic analysis of the interviews found the most common benefits were efficiency and independence. The majority of respondents cited the ability to access all resources in one place, easy collaboration and increased student ownership, allowing them to access and complete tasks without as much overview and input from

teachers. Less common themes that were mentioned by teachers included marking, increased pace of lessons, increased engagement both in school and as part of home learning as well as not needing to print as much. Students mentioned the increased support from teachers being able to see their work.

DISADVANTAGES OF PRODUCTS Thematic analysis of the interviews found the most common disadvantages were reduced opportunities to practise handwriting, distraction, and technical issues, such as lack of internet or

Chromebooks not being sufficiently charged. Handwriting was mentioned by both students and teachers. Staff also mentioned feeling that they were always being introduced to something new,

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rather than being able to solidify and embed prior knowledge. Less common disadvantages that were mentioned included looking at screens for

most of the day. Students mentioned finding some of the e-safety tools limiting, giving examples of common words such as “butterfly” being blocked because it contains the word “butt”.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE USING THE PRODUCTS Students did not feel any impact on their work-life balance. Responses to this question were more varied among staff, however, with some mentioning positive aspects and some negative. Positive aspects included being able to give quicker and better quality feedback to students, feeling more prepared and not having to print or

photocopy very much. Negative aspects included increased workload when setting cover work (substitute lesson plans), although it was noted that this is generally of a better quality; and finding it difficult to not take work home, especially with regard to pastoral (social and emotional) issues.

DESIRE TO CONTINUE USING CHROMEBOOKS & GOOGLE FOR EDUCATION All respondents felt that the ability to carry on using Chromebooks/Google for Education would be an important component when considering moving to a new school. Staff who teach practical (hands-on) subjects acknowledged that facilities for their subject would be a more important factor, however.

CONCLUSION This study found that there has been a positive impact at the school from using Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education. Many respondents have highlighted the benefits of these tools and state that it has changed the way they work. A strong indicator of the advantages of this way of teaching and learning is that 100% of respondents would factor in these products when choosing their next

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institutions. In some cases, this has also helped with staff retention. The case study also provided some areas to work on. These include support for new staff, consideration of how often and when new tools are introduced, and handwriting for students, especially as exams are handwritten.

RECOMMENDATIONS Increase support for new staff New staff could benefit from increased technology support when joining the school. This could be in the form of a “Google buddy” to give them someone more experienced to ask questions to. The Level 1 Google Certified Educator course and/or Workspace Skills could be introduced as part of the new staff induction programme. New staff could benefit from more time spent in departments focusing on how Google tools are used in their subject-specific teaching. One strategy would be to co-plan a lesson and post it on Google Classroom.

Consider how new tools are introduced Staff feel that they are exposed to too many new ideas and tools too often. To reduce this, new tools should be carefully considered and launched in a staggered manner, as this would give enough time to embed and use the tool before moving on to the next idea. This could be done on a half-term or termly basis. It should also be made clearer where tools are suggestions or necessary.

Provide more opportunities to improve handwriting skills Because exams are still largely handwritten, both students and staff are concerned about students' sole experience of handwriting being during these exams. Dedicating time to maintain handwriting skills would be beneficial to students. One strategy could be to utilise touchscreen devices and handwriting apps designed for Chromebooks so students can practise these skills, while maintaining the consistency of their digital workflow. Another option could be for more departments to follow the current model used in the English department, where the majority of classwork is completed digitally, but assessments and exams are always handwritten. Finally, the school could look at ways to make more assessments available digitally to suit the way that students largely work.

Read the full version at www.canopy.click/tring

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PANDEMIC BOOSTS STUDENT

SELF-CONFIDENCE IN TECHNOLOGY USE

Matt Jessop HT and NLE at Crosthwaite C.E. Primary School @mejessop

In 2017 the concept of a pandemic bringing the country to a halt, with national lockdowns, schools closed for months on end, and tens of thousands of preventable deaths, was the stuff of science fiction. Prior to the pandemic both the finances and time dedicated to the successful adoption and implementation of Education Technology (EdTech) were limited, mainly by budgetary restraints and other pressures; despite the fact that those using EdTech were further enhancing teaching and learning. At Crosthwaite C.E. Primary School, we saw the start of our digital journey in 2017, with plans of impressive scope, high expectations, and challenging

targets, yet all attainable – and all attained within the five-year target set, in-part due to the pandemic. Establishments like ours that were able to provide devices for each pupil were also able to facilitate communication and collaboration between learners and families, supporting those suffering from social isolation and anxiety as a result of the pandemic issues and lockdowns.

DIGITAL JOURNEY & MISSION All learners to be digitally competent and have the necessary digital skills and knowledge to support their future learning and lives

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The start of 2022 saw the end of Phase 1 of our digital journey and, as with many others, we have been able to reflect and evaluate where we are and how our school’s digital journey and mission (“All learners to be digitally competent and have the necessary digital skills and knowledge to support their future learning and lives”) has helped get us through the lockdown period, how digitalskills have been embedded across our curriculum, and reflect upon the other significant benefits, most notably an increase in pupil self-confidence. All our children have individual talents and all are different learners. Some are very confident and some require more support when trying to learn new skills – sometimes because they find it difficult, often because they lack self-belief. Our current upper Key Stage 2 (years 5 and 6) children have been using Google Workspace for Education and various other hardware, software, apps, and extensions since they started year 1. By the time they leave us in year 6, we’ve observed that they are all extremely competent and confident with their digital skills.

area year-on-year better than all other areas of our school. When we discussed the opportunities they have had during the pandemic and as a part of their continued digital journey, it was clear to see that the work students had done remotely with teachers, the work they had done as part of projects with other schools using Google Workspace –including schools in other continents where they have taught and led groups – has had a hugely positive impact on their self-belief. Children that started year 1 unsure of the new Chromebooks and all the features of Workspace were now able to confidently collaborate with numerous others while using multiple features, instructing and supporting as required, whilst also participating.

Initially, we thought it was unusual to see such growth across the board. Some students excel at reading and some at maths, but it is remarkable for whole year groups to excel in one This increased confidence, alongside always improving skills and knowledge, was also evident in the work the year 5/6 class did with a local School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) and their annual intake of School Direct students. For four

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years now our year 5/6 class has worked with the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) students for a day, showing them Google Workspace, its various features and how they enhanced teaching, learning, collaboration, communication, and assessment. The first year, staff worked with small groups of children to plan what they would show, share, and model. The second-year we saw children more confident – as a mixed-age class some students had done it once before. Years 3 and 4 of the ITT instructions saw children with no prior experience work confidently 1:1 - remotely one year and in-person in the Autumn of 2021 - with an ITT student they had never met to demonstrate the multiple features and benefits of Google Workspace and various other programmes. The confidence, competence, patience, and enthusiasm for doing this, shown by all children (including those with an Education Health and Care Plan EHCP), was amazing. Using this technology for years, and using it so comprehensively during lockdowns, had given all the students a powerful, and fully justified, confidence in themselves and their own abilities. The final example of how confident children had become was at the British Educational Training and Technology show (BETT) in 2022. We took our whole year 6 to the

show for two days and they made their mark! Children that used to be shy in class successfully completed their allocated task to source new screens, evaluate the options there, judge winners, and establish a relationship with one of the award winning companies. As a result, we will now be working with a company from Croatia to have our own chatbot on the school website within the next year! All year 6 children were also presenting – half as part of the #KidsDoBett project and the other half as part of a presentation by Technology Pedagogy Education Association (TPEA). The wealth of skills and knowledge the students gained from their digital journeys at our school from the beginning of our implementation in 2017 and through the pandemic to today, not only presents them with vital life skills that are greater than many adults, but also provides them with a wonderful boost to their confidence which then has a hugely positive impact on other aspects of their education and life.

Using this technology for years, and using it so comprehensively during lockdowns, had given all the students a powerful, and fully justified, confidence in themselves and their own abilities.

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4SUPERPOWERS Every Teacher Should Add to their Google Classroom

with BookWidgets

Lucie Renard Interactive Learning Expert, Bookwidgets @BookWidgets

If you’re using Google Classroom, you already know the superpowers of this platform to provide every teacher the ability to connect with their students, share classroom assignments, collect student work, provide grades, give feedback, and hold digital classroom meetings. But what if even more was possible? Google has enabled integration tools so you can customize your class to fit specific needs; and with BookWidgets integration you can add these four additional superpowers to your Google Classroom:

01.

Add a Template Library

The BookWidgets library allows you to create interactive lesson activities, or widgets, like crossword puzzles, timelines, webquests, whiteboards, and quizzes in all subject areas and grade levels. The lesson templates have settings that make it easy to adapt and make your lessons accessible for students with special needs or tailor them to your lesson type. Is it a formative or a summative evaluation? Homework? Exercises with immediate feedback for practicing? How about exercises that succeed each other inside a learning path? A complete digital

lesson? A learning game to repeat a lesson? This digital library has over 40 digital lesson templates teachers can tailor to fit their needs.

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02.

Create Auto-Graded Assignments

With BookWidgets worksheet and quiz lesson templates, you can create selfgrading assignments. You can add lots of interactivity using 35 different kinds of questions. You can also include multimedia elements in your assignments like audio, video, and images. Go to bookwidgets.com/play and enter this code - PBA5EPF - to see an example widget with all kinds of possible question types within BookWidgets.

03.

Monitor Students’ Work in Real-Time

Monitor students in real-time when they are working on your BookWidgets assignment inside Google Classroom. You can follow up on your students and help where needed. You can discover students that need greater

04.

challenges and you can immediately help struggling learners all through the use of your Live Widgets Dashboard, which is accessible from inside your Google Classroom.

Utilize the Dashboard for Review & Feedback

After students have finished an auto-graded assignment in Google Classroom, you can navigate to the BookWidgets reporting dashboard. Here, you can review your students’ work, add comments, change the automatically given grades, and use filters to hide the correct answers so you can focus on answers that need your attention. When done, you return the work to your students within Google Classroom. You can

even choose what kind of feedback they will see: as a group or as an individual student.

If you are ready to superpower your Google Classroom, here’s what you need to do to: 01. Install the BookWidgets Google Classroom Chrome extension in your Chrome browser. 02. Go to Google Classroom in your Chrome browser (students do not need access to Chrome) 03. Go to “Classwork” and click on the “Create” button, you will now see a BookWidgets button too. Click on it and unlock these new superpowers in Google Classroom.

Good luck and start widgeteering!

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THE BEST APPS FOR A

TOUCHSCREEN DEVICE AND STYLUS

Emma Pass Google Certified Trainer & Innovator

Hybrid English Teacher & Author of The Hybrid Teacher @emmabpass

One of the most common questions I get as an online language arts teacher, whose assignments are all digital, is: “What about handwriting?” And while I agree that handwriting is still an important skill for students to learn, I don’t think you need pen and paper to practice. These days many personal learning devices are either tablets, laptops, or Chromebooks with touch screen capabilities. Those that aren’t can be updated to access touchscreen programs through the help of

a device like the One by Wacom, a pentablet that can be connected to student devices through a USB port and allow students to handwrite, draw, select and move objects with a pen-like stylus tool. Because handwriting and fine motor skills are important to practice, and every device is capable of becoming a touch screen, here are my top five favourite apps for a touchscreen device and stylus pen to use in your classroom.

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JAMBOARD

JAMBOARD.GOOGLE.COM

Google’s digital whiteboard solution is designed to be used on a touchscreen. It gives you the classic whiteboard pen and marker options, with the addition of the power of Google. You can insert documents from your Drive to annotate on, select images from a Google Image search to illustrate an idea, or even use the “autodraw” feature to turn your stick figurines into works of art.

Jamboard is a free product through Google Workspace.

CURSIVE

CURSIVE.APPS.CHROME

Cursive is a handwriting app by Google that allows users to create and store pages within categorised “notebooks.” Cursive acts much like pen and paper, with the additional features of being able to select, move, and resize images and text. Plus there are some neat shortcuts that make Cursive even easier than taking notes on pen and paper. Cursive is free and web-based, but

best used on a Chromebook.

Try slashing through a mistake and watch it disappear

EQUATIO BY TEXTHELP

TEXTHELP.COM/EN-GB/PRODUCTS/EQUATIO/

Math is one of the subjects that is both most restricted by computer based assignments and can benefit most from touchscreen devices and products like Equatio. A web app and Chrome Extension, Equatio integrates with digital documents like Google Docs or Forms and Microsoft Word, to give both teachers and students the ability to hand write (or speak) math equations in an Equatio text box, which then transforms into text that can be inserted into the document. This is particularly helpful

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for equations that require symbols not readily available on word processing documents. Equatio is free for teachers and students and can be used on any device. Equatio is free for teachers and students and can be used on any device.

KAMI

KAMIAPP.COM

Kami is a premier PDF editor. You can use Kami with your touchscreen devices to complete worksheets, annotate documents, peer review work, and even complete art projects. Kami has a wide range of pen tools, line thicknesses, and colours to choose from, as well as plenty of other features (such as video and audio commenting) that make it a fantastic tool for augmenting an old worksheet for the digital age. Kami has a

SQUID

WWW.SQUIDNOTES.COM/EDU

Squid is another note taking and annotation tool, but where it really differs from the other products is in its “active pen technology.” Squid recognizes the pressure applied by the user’s stylus to mimic pen and paper writing. The harder the pressure the thicker the line, the softer the pressure the lighter the line. It is truly remarkable how similar it feels to writing on pen and paper, plus there are loads of other neat features, like pre-loaded page styles ranging from simple lined and graph paper to complex math graphs. Squid is free to use with premium features available and that it works on both Android and Chromebook devices.

free and premium version, it is web-based and available for any device.

Jamboard

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RIVER VALLEY SCHOOL

SUPPORTING TEACHERS TO ACHIEVE GCE LEVEL 1 WITH WORKSPACE SKILLS

CHALLENGE How to train teachers to use Google Workspace confidently, efficiently and effectively?

WHO? River Valley School is an independent Pre-K to Grade 6 school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. At River Valley School, students are immersed in hands-on, inquiry and projectbased learning experiences that challenge them to question, explore and create.

BACKGROUND Educational ICT Coordinator Geoff Jones (@geoff_jo), learned about Workspace Skills from a professional learning workspace he attended. Geoff was intrigued by the interactive training and signed up to try out the tutorials with his teachers.

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After joining River Valley School in 2021, Geoff noticed that while teachers had been using Google Workspace for Education, there was a need to increase the knowledge, understanding, and possibilities offered by the Google tools for his teachers. He wanted to develop a common language and understanding of the Google tools so they could better support students.

SOLUTION After learning about Workspace Skills at a training he attended himself, Geoff piloted Workspace Skills, a series of interactive tutorials, with a small group at River Valley School.

Based on the increase in digital literacy skills of those who tried Workspace Skills, Geoff decided to launch Workspace Skills with educators across the school in order to support the development of digital literacy skills. Use of Workspace Skills with River Valley School educators also inspired Geoff to offer a province-wide virtual Professional Learning opportunity called “Putting Google on your CV.” The participants were enthusiastic about the differentiated learning offered throughout the interactive tutorials and Geoff notes that “Workspace Skills really allows for differentiation within a teaching body-it allows me to support everyone.”

“Workspace Skills really supports the different learning styles of teachers within a teaching body and supports everyone. I especially enjoyed the hands-on learning aspect”

Geoff Jones Google Certified Trainer

Educational ICT Coordinator @geoff_jo

WORKSPACE SKILLS Workspace Skills is a series of interactive tutorials that help students and teachers make the most from Google Workspace for Education. Each tutorial is unique with

intuitive scaffolding to support the learners as they are guided through real-world examples of tool usage. Beyond video tutorials, users click, drag, and engage with the content as they learn and obtain competence and efficiency scores where they can see the most efficient route to completing a Google task (i.e. organising a file in Drive). The tutorials are issued as assignments in Google Classroom and results are recorded in the class Gradebook. Facilitators can choose the pace and pathway for their learners.

RESULTS River Valley School administration has set the goal that by June 2023 all teachers earn their Google for Education Certified Level 1 certification. As of May 2022, a quarter of the educators at have reached this goal. Geoff notes that River Valley School is in a “good place to reach their 100% certification goal and hopes to offer an in-person training and exam session in the coming months.” Geoff has found that “Workspace Skills is a well-rounded program that covers many Google platforms and provides users with a complete training in how to use the basic and practical functions of each” and has helped his teachers to develop confidence, competence and efficiency in using Google Workspace for Education.

TRY OUT A WORKSPACE SKILLS TUTORIAL

WWW.CANOPY.CLICK/TRY

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Ask Canopy Do you have a question about Google Workspace for Education? Drop us an email at hello@canopy.education to get your question answered in our next edition. How can I buy Google Certified Educator Exam Vouchers in bulk for my teachers?

We noticed customers running into problems when Google Certified Educator Exam Vouchers expire. So Canopy built a tool to issue vouchers and avoid wasted purchases the voucher sender. You will receive a unique pin to share with your teachers that allows them to request a voucher when they are ready to take the exam. To order vouchers in bulk or via the voucher sender email rachel@canopy.education

How do I know how much storage my domain is using?

Because Google has introduced Storage Limits (100 TB of pooled storage), the Education Plus and Teaching and Learning Upgrade has additional storage based on the number of licences that you purchase, you can find out about your users' storage in the Admin Console. Go to 'storage' in the left-hand side menu to see the amount of space used by users and shared drives.

Why does my Google Meet stop my lesson recording?

Google recently introduced a feature that stops a Google Meet if you are the only person in the call. So, if you are using Meet to record your in-person lesson and are the only person in the call, there is a risk that Meet won’t record the whole lesson. This feature will be ON by default but can be turned off in Google Meet >> Settings >> General.

How much does Chrome OS Flex cost?

Chrome OS Flex takes older Windows and MAC Devices, replacing the operating system to turn them into Chrome Devices. Chrome OS Flex is free to use, but to manage the device within your admin console you need a Chrome Education Upgrade (currently £30/$40). Contact us for more details.

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