A poem written in Teams by my class: Our Magic Box . We are looking at poetry most days. Seems like a good thing to do in the environment. Short texts & hopefully fun.
Kind: Notes
short content: a post or status update with just plain content and typically without a title
Morning Conversation, I love the emojis at the end.
Flipping Teams
Some notes, part of a ragged collection on lockdown learning.
So far I’ve been following a pretty standard pattern for our class team meetings. 1 hour a day 5 or six items running from a prepared PowerPoint.
I think most of the pupils enjoy it or at least the ones that have turned up come back.
I try to give as much time to them to talk as I can, but it is difficult getting contributions when we don’t know who is going to talk. I do a fair bit of round the class and some shout out when you have an answer!
My main problem is the slides failing to show up on the pupils screens. I don’t think I’ve managed a meeting where everybody has seen the slides in a timely fashion. My screen is white/black is a common cry.
We had a meeting this morning where less than half the class turned up, so only 12 in the meeting. I gave up trying to use the slides as there were too many problems. This was with a 1.9mb powerpoint so I am not sure where the problem lies? I have generally a very basic approach to slide decks. No transitions, very few images, lean & mean.
I’d really like to know how to get the slides to work a wee bit better. I even tried turning my video off to see if that would help, but it didn’t make much difference. As I’ve no idea about the pupils connection it is difficult to even guess.
I had though earlier that flipped learning might be the way to go, and do link or embed some videos on our blog. I got the impression that they were not much watched. I am now thinking that it might be better to make my own videos and ask the class watch them just before the meet. This will of course mean more prep.
So my classes timetable for tomorrow looks like:
- 12:45 – 1:45 Minecraft
- 1:45 – 2:00 time to watch a couple of wee videos uploaded to Teams.
- 2:00 – 3:00 Team meeting
In other news:
I thought hands up in Teams had reached the iPad, but it seems not.
I am beginning. To see a drop off in participation, or in the sending me ‘work’ via Teams, e-Portfolios or email. I don’t think the May holiday helped, although I had a few pupils posting and even opened Minecraft up for a while on Monday. Maybe changing things up a bit in the meetings will help.
@TesScotland Why would I?
Translation in google sheets
Interesting: Tweets MPs Delete (@deletedbyMPs) from Politwoops – All deleted tweets from politicians who have an API
Lockdown Learning 21 May 2020 – Teacher Taught
Some notes, part of a ragged collection on lockdown learning.
Teaching via blogs, teams and meets it a bit like throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks. I am not getting the same bunch turning up everyday. This makes planning a series of lessons difficult. Or continuing something.
My team meetings consist of some of the following:
– A bit of chat, perhaps “round the room” sharing news although if that happens every day most folk dry up after 2 or 3
– A few maths questions, pupIls note down answers and then we review and discuss.
– “Number talks”
– Tables bingo
– Every week we take a poem: read it on the first day; discuss words the next; Poetic techniques the next and do a bit of writing the next two. 10 minutes a day.
– A general knowledge quiz
– Discussions of some of the tasks on the weekly blog post.
I try to keep it moving along, light and happy.
We tried 5 minutes drawing with soft music one day this week, it seemed to go down well. I’ve done the same with writing. On paper then pasted into the chat. Again using poetry keeping it short.
Of course this is interrupted by pupils dropping out, trying to get back in! Mics not working, audio dropping etc.
I also run a Minecraft Education Server for an hour or so everyday. I mostly step back. Stick on the text to speech and try and get some prep done. Not particularly successfully. Every so often I wander about amazed at what is being done. It is a pretty open ended task, a Virtual Banton. It seems to develop in fits and starts. It drops away then an idea picks up. Fascinating to watch. I’ve never had more than 7 pupils in at once.
Today I was completely surprised, two of the class wanted to ‘give’ me the school uniform. It seems in Minecraft there are ways to pass on these thing. Some instructions in chat followed, but they were to complicated for me. One pupil then decided to make a video. And drop it in teams. 2 minutes later job done. I’ve got my uniform on.
Text of a pupil blog post today, “I know I’m like two weeks late with this work but here it is.”
Lockdown Learning 18 May 2020 – virtual devices
Notes to self as I try and teach myself to teach remotely.
Powerpoint note, how annoying is Design Ideas. To turn it off you need to turn off all MS services in the privacy tab of the prefs. And relaunch app. And it didn’t seem to work for me. Back to Keynote – Export for me.
Teams
I am putting Announcements in 2 channels, then the next day removing them from the main channel and taking away the right to reply.
Got loopback working today. Dropping the Pass-Thru might have done the trick. This means I can mix in audio, Farrago in the meet today, with my mic.
The Hands Up option turned up in Teams meeting for most of my class today. Good news was it seems to be in iOS as well as PC & mac.
Had a few more slides with photos today. These proved to be ‘laggy’ for some of the class. The children found that opening the chat and closing it seems to force a screen refresh and of the the slide shows up.
Tried having 5 minutes silent drawing in the meeting. I had my phone camera on my paper and some music in the background (loopback). It seemed to go down well.
Some audio mixing links
A few useful links for mixing audio and sending to Teams from a Mac.
How to share System Audio in Microsoft Teams | Bastian Kroggel
This is not about the pros and cons of Teams. This is not about whether it is better than Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, Rocket.Chat or Jitsi. It is about a single feature that is so widely used in Zoom that I did not even think a serious competitor can lack the function – sharing your system audio with your colleagues and audience while presenting something on your screen.
The use case for that is pretty easily outlined: Prerecorded videos, reruns of an earlier session, or just some basic background music – all of that exceeds the basic capabilities of Microsoft Teams in its current iteration.
Rogue Amoeba | Using Loopback to add audio to voice chat (VoIP)
Loopback enables you to combine the audio from multiple sources, including microphones and applications, then provide that combined audio to voice chat applications to be heard by all participants.
And
You won’t use the Pass-Thru source which is included by default, so remove it by clicking to highlight it, then pressing the Delete button.
I wonder if removing Pass-Thru makes much difference.
How to Send Computer Audio Over Skype or Zoom | Music Learning Hub
Audio Recording Setup | Preston Lamb Consulting, LLC
BlackHole is a modern macOS virtual audio driver that allows applications to pass audio to other applications with zero additional latency.
Lockdown Learning 15 May 2020 – Children are bonkers
Notes to self as I try and teach myself to teach remotely. See More lockdown learning for some sort of background.
Experimenting with Farrago & loopback to merge different audio devices into Team meeting, not successful so far, mic seems to lose volume & extra background noise. Seems like a good idea, can bring in other audio to meeting.
An online lesson that goes a bit wrong really effects my mood. Given the circumstances this is going to happen quite often. A lot of my eggs in one hour.
North Lanarkshire have decided that all Teams should follow a naming pattern, NLC School Name Class Name. This really spoils the readability of posts when I want to mention the class.
You can turn on text to speech in Minecraft, then you can listen to the chat while working. The music is quite relaxing too.
Children are bonkers.
