Engaging YouTube for Everyone!

Hello VUSD Teachers!

As you have heard, Safari Montage will no longer be available after this school year.  I wanted to begin offering you some quality alternatives.  In this post, I will be highlighting several YouTube channels that are worth subscribing to.  

YouTube has become a powerful product in education.  It is the second largest search engine and the second most visited site in the world, right after Google.  Used wisely, it can be a valuable resource to teachers, students, and families.

For the Littles:

By now, we have all seen the adorable videos of our principals reading bedtime stories to their students.   While reading in person to a child is always preferred, not all children have this opportunity.  The benefits of hearing a story read aloud are many.

• Read Alouds provide a model for students of fluent reading and expression
• Video books often have accompanying music or sound effects to set the mood and increase engagement
• The speed can be adjusted, paused or rewound if needed
• Can be watched independently by the child
• Are often narrated with multiple voices for different characters

If you would like to offer your students the opportunity to view quality children's literature videos, here are some great YouTube channels. 

This is a channel that contains books being read by the authors.

The narrator for these books uses puppets and fun voices while reading.  

There are also comments and questions during the story to dig deeper.

Grandpa Tom uses panning and zooming to follow all the action on each page. 

He also has awesome engaging voices for the story characters.

Little Readers has a large content base along with some convenient

playlists to choose a group of your favorite stories.

FYI:  One of our retired teachers, Gary Eisenberg, has created his own YouTube Channel as well with a variety of topics, including a pretty extensive Science Collection.  Check it out here.

For the Tweens and Teens: 

Important Tip: Review videos before showing to students, as some are definitely more appropriate for older students or adults.

Crash Course has always been one of my all time favorite YouTube channels!  You name the topic and they have an engaging, informational video that includes humor and quality insights. They have amazing World and US History playlists that your students will love.

Crash Course Kids is a wonderful Science content channel.  Think of an even more hip version of Bill Nye!  It started as a 5th grade Science channel but has taken off to include more grade level content.  Your students will love it!

SciShow is an amazingly fun Science YouTube channel.   Remember John Green, the author of 

The Fault in our Stars?

Well he is also the host of this YouTube channel which contains amazing content videos.  Be careful though, as you may become addicted yourself!

Simple History visualizes the past and brings to life through animated videos

Let's Talk about Math!

Math can be a challenge for many of our students.  We all know about Khan Academy, and it certainly is a quality production however it may not be for everyone.  Here are several highly recommended Math YouTube Channels worth checking out!

MashupMath focuses on reaching the visual learner.  The videos are colorful, engaging and contain excellent visuals.  This site focuses on elementary, middle school math,  algebra, and geometry

Math Antics focuses on upper Elementary math concepts.  The host provides visually rich examples that simplifies concepts and ideas.

Mario's mission with this channel is to reach the struggling learner.  He is a math tutor by profession who understands how frustrating math can be for many students.  His videos are mainly middle to high school level math

Krista King bills herself as your geeky, trusty math tutor.  She uses a digital whiteboard to explain in great detail math from middle school all the way to advanced college calculus.

My Secret Math Tutor is another great channel with engaging, topic specific math tutorials. Mainly Algebra and beyond 

"Videos about numbers - It's that simple" according to the Channel information.  Numberphile is highly endorsed.  Take it for a spin on just about math topic!

EdCamp FSUSD Open for Registration

Everyone who has the opportunity should check out what our neighbors are hosting next Fall at Cordelia Hills Elementary on September 14th. Fairfield-Suisun Unified is hosting another EdCamp.

Take a minute and register for the free ticket. You can attend and meet educators from around the area who are excited to share ideas for the classroom.

bit.ly/EdcampFSUSD19

Please check it out and look for me there!


Tweets by EdCampFSUSD

Show and Tell Time

As we near the end of our fourth year of full Google Integration, wouldn't it be nice to have the ability to collaborate and share our technology triumphs, struggles and experiments, no matter how big or small, with one another?  In order to facilitate this, we are creating two platforms for this purpose.  

Click here to see the beginnings of a website which will highlight tech projects created by students and teachers.  The site is in its infancy right now but you will get the idea.  (Click on the Drawings, Slides and Sites buttons for now).  If you have work you would like to submit, just share a link with either Andrew or myself.

The next option allows you to share independently with each other.  We have created a VUSD Collaboration Community on Google+ just for VUSD STAFF.  (Google+ still exists for G-Suite accounts only). Think of this as a District Pinterest type page.  Click on the image below to access.  You may be asked to join Google+ if you have not done so already.  You will need to join using your District Google account rather than your personal GMail account.  Then click the Ask to Join button.

Please submit your own examples, ideas, questions and more.  We are looking for both student and teacher examples of how you have used technology, particularly G-Suite, but would love to include other applications as well.  We would love to see some student portfolios using Google Sites or Google Slides if you have them.  Do your students use any kind of blogs? Have they done any Screencast Tutorials or projects?

As teachers, have you found a way to use technology in your job to improve efficiency and inspire creativity?  Let's share!

Please feel free to get started on these platforms.  Let's worker smarter, not harder - together.  

Links to these two platforms will appear on your Clever Portal under District Resources.

Google Slides Closed Captioning!

Google Slides Now Supports Closed Captioning!

This feature has been added for quite a while now (since October 2018 or so), and I just found out about it last week. Closed Captioning for live presentations in google Slides is the coolest new feature and I want all of you readers to know about it. I made a short video showing off how easy it is to use and will add that link as soon as the video is ready.

But this post couldn't wait. So I'd instead like to share with you the resources I used once I heard about this feature. I absolutely could not believe that google Slides would make a live closed captioning as you presented your slide show, so I googled some other educator's videos of them using the feature.

Basically, you start a google Slides presentation in Present mode, and then click the closed caption button at the bottom:
 Then, you will have to give permission for the application to use your microphone on your computer. As you speak, it will display text below your slides with the same accuracy as the google docs voice typing feature.

Here is the video that I watched twice through from friEdTechnology. She shows how to use this with screencast! Your students can even use this implementation to record and caption their own presentations in class.

And here is Ditch That Textbook's video.

Please test out this awesome feature in your classroom and impress your students and colleagues!

Lockdown Mode in Google Forms is HERE!

The BETA version of Lockdown Mode in Google Forms is now available to all VUSD Teachers!

What is it?

Lockdown Mode in Google Forms prevents your students from opening additional tabs while taking a quiz/test through Google Forms.  This behaves much like a Secure Browser.  It is only available on Chromebooks - not PCs.

To turn it on, go to the Settings (gear) icon and select Quizzes.  Toggle on the Locked Mode option.

Give it a try and let me know if you have any problems at all.  Here is a video/tutorial from one of my favorite Tech Coaches as well.

While I've got your attention.......

I've come across a very cool Chrome Extension that turns any website into an interactive lesson.  It's called Insert Learning.  Watch a very brief 6 minute introduction here.

Annotate, insert questions, videos and discussion opportunities on any website page and assign it through Google Classroom.  Receive consolidated student responses through a Teacher Dashboard.  The extension is cleared through our system.  Teachers and students will need to download it here.

This is a great option for anyone who discusses current events, science, history and more.

Google's Personal Research Assistant

This is the time of year when many of your students will be doing research papers of one kind or another.  I have a couple of invaluable resources to share with you and your students.  These resources will assist your students in finding relevant, reliable information while reducing wasted time scanning through massive google search results.

To start, Google has developed a new curriculum called Applied Digital Skills.  This curriculum has lessons targeted to several different age groups and contains a "Share with Classroom" link for easy distribution.  There are two lessons which specifically teach about Research.

Research and Writing  This lesson states that it is geared toward adult learners, however, it contains some great information for secondary students about organizing, planning and checking sites for credibility.  You can pick and choose the video lessons contained in the overall lesson to have your students review.

Research and Develop a Topic  This lesson is geared toward Late Elementary and above.  Part of the lesson instruction contains how to program a welcome screen.  This lesson can be skipped if you want to focus only on the research component.


Next, there is a an absolutely fabulous resource built right in to Google Docs for all students.  It's called Explore, however, I like to refer to it as my Research Assistant.  This amazing little feature will read your paper and offer suggestions for related articles, websites, images and more.  It will also allow you to automatically cite your sources in proper citation format with just the click of a button.  Check it out in the video below.

Remember, if you would like Andrew or myself to come and demonstrate this feature to your class, just hit us up and we will schedule a visit.  It's truly the best part of our jobs!