Friday, February 27, 2015

Updates to Google Classroom and WeVideo this week


A few program updates this week that changed while I was in the middle of using both programs with students.
  1. Google Classroom has been updated and you can now modify your theme.
    Checkout the blog for more details.
    I loved this new feature!  I was working with a class to invite them into Google Classroom, Monday morning and the teacher asked me if she could modify the theme for her cooking class. I told her unfortunately that was not possible.  Later that date I saw a tweet stating Google had updated Classroom features to change themes.  The students had made mozzarella and we changed the theme to reflect the class.   In addition, many students installed the Classroom mobile app and took pictures of their work and added to the classroom.

    Last week I planned a project and materials for a Poetry Project using WeVideo, halfway through the project this week WeVideo made changes to their online editor. See below for more details.
  2. WeVideo makes updates to their online video Editor
    The latest updates to WeVideo's online video editor consolidated the features of the "basic" and "advanced" editors into one product. In combining the two editors into one WeVideo made it easier to edit the tracks in your video productions. You can now simply click on a track to edit it. The other big update to WeVideo is the new option to preview your visuals while recording a voice-over at the same time. (blog post)
While working on the Poetry projects I converted the rubrics into a Google Spreadsheet and hope to introduce Classroon with Doctopus and Goobric to streamline the grading process.  We collected all the published Poetry Projects links using a Google Form for multiple classes. This is going to allow teachers to streamline their evidence and collaborate on assessments.

It's great working with teachers to integrate into the classroom but it can be a little tricky when updates happen midway through the project.  We were able to adjust and I am so please to have streamlined this project with teachers.



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