Accessibility for all

Image of a computer keyboard wrapped in a chain with a padlock

 

“All technology is assistive technology”  Carol Allen’s words are ringing in my ears from this EdTech Show from last year hosted by Bukky Yusuf. All technology assists us, makes things easier, that’s why we use it. Some technology, though, is essential for some users. For example text to speech software is essential to some. Yet text to speech is also useful for many. Text to speech, on whatever platform you are using, is probably built in, it’s probably built into most websites you visit too (look for the icons offering accessibility as you hover). For people with slow processing speed, low reading ages, visual impairment and a variety of other additional needs text to speech is essential. Yet it can be really useful for many too. For proofreading an email or a document; does it make sense when it is read back aloud to the author? Are you following a recipe and would it be easier to hear it as you navigate the pasta machine?

By bringing tools in we not only include those students who may have different experiences to others; we can also create strong authentic learning experiences for many. Collecting group work summaries in a voice note gives the group an opportunity to consolidate their position before submission and clarify their conclusions. This promotes critical thinking, communication and of course collaboration. But in using a voice note, those who may find writing ideas more of a challenge than others are included. Handing out 8 coloured overlays in class to different students creates a different learning experience to handing out devices to students and those who need an overlay turning it on or bringing it up with their roaming settings. Student independence with technology is a key factor also.

We don’t know the best time for students to access adaptations or software to help. By including technology in our lesson activities we can create opportunities for those students using assistive technology to be included and to be independent. Technology exists to make our lives easier, to assist us and we can bring it into our classrooms to create inclusive spaces.

But where to start is always the question, how do I know what is good? We have a strong EdTech community on many social platforms and WomenEd have a new group on LinkedIn too (come on over!). Websites, like Common Sense Education, which have user reviews of apps and websites are helpful. UK based website Includedu is a repository of assistive technology apps and websites that have teacher provided reviews, how the listed technology supported their students with additional needs in their classroom. Community websites like this are powerful to grab information from but they are also a place to lend your voice.

What is your top tip for using technology in the classroom to support those facing additional challenges? I would love to know your thoughts.

Teaching Maths Online Issue 5

 Synchronous vs Asynchronous

On our journey to become asynchronous we had another lockdown. Full on big style lockdown, the time pressure of this was now more real than before, we kind of knew we weren't physically going into the building but now it was definite. Although colleges remain open in the lockdown initially, my adults and I were an honest bunch and we all recognised we had seen the last of each other for a while. I was very grateful to have had them in for their mock previously. We needed to get this online learning working better and quicker.

Gathering all the feedback from my learners whilst balancing my own workload I began looking at tools we could use. (My workload for info, I am contracted to teach the class for 3.25 hours and the class is 3.25 hours so there is no planning time, marking time covered in the contracted hours, this is common in FE unfortunately.) I like Transum, Maths Kitchen, Study Maths, Mathsbot, YouTube videos, PearDeck, Nearpod, Edpuzzle, the list goes on. My learners particularly liked Transum, Maths Kitchen and Study Maths. Transum has levelled progression and the learners were capable and confident to drop down a level or jump up a level depending on how the task was going. They particularly like the check it button that self marks part way through the task. Maths Kitchen gives levelled progression and videos if you get stuck. Study Maths has quick 10 questions that change all the time and are instantly marked.

The hyperdoc concept had worked but to create a hyperdoc of all the videos, tasks for the vast amount of content that we cover in class it would be a booklet of hyperdocs in no time at all, defeating the object of it being a one stop shop hyperdoc. I wanted to give them choice over the tasks to complete, if they preferred Transum they could do that, or if they wanted a Maths Kitchen, I wanted to give them a choice. Likewise I wanted to give them a choice over which videos they watched, there would be one of me explaining the topic with my nuances but I wanted to give them another option, I didn't want them to get stuck at any point. I decided on Google Forms, the same theory applies to Microsoft Forms too. I used branching logic, or go to section based on answer to create a path for my learners through their asynchronous work. Much like my favourite choose your won ending books of my childhood the principles applied nicely here to Forms.

I began with writing the learning intentions and giving them the video of my explanation. I did this by pasting a link into the form text, in Google Forms unless it is a YouTube video it cannot be inserted. I didn't want my learners heading to YouTube and becoming more lost, they were staying with me on this form! 

If they were ready to practise, they would be taken to a choice of tasks to complete, if they wanted another video it took them to a YouTube video explaining the same topic. No matter what their route they all ended up at a final exam style question in the form and a self reflection score.

We trialled it synchronously first. We had 3 different topics to cover in our 3 hours. I inserted each of the Forms into one hyperdoc and wrote the timings on for each section. I ran one to ones with learners in those self study times. At the end I was exhausted, there was no difference for me, I still talked for 3 hours constantly be it in a group chat or a one to one. I gave them 45 minutes on each topic and we came back together for what was planned to be 15 minutes cover misconceptions chat but ended up just being a chat. The chat was fun. In the Form I also included a file upload question. Here the learners could upload a screenshot of their work on the task. This was less successful as many couldn't do screenshots so took photos on their phone and then sent them via our Hangouts messaging chat instead. Either way I still got evidence of how many correct they go in the task. So the chat time in the lesson became more about the technical features of the file upload section and by the third round of forms I had an almost 100% success rate of file uploads coming in.

At the end we chatted about how the lesson had gone, I am honest enough to say I am trying new things to help them and I need their feedback to decide on the next steps. Overwhelmingly this was their favourite lesson so far. We decided to make the switch to asynchronous from next lesson. (I best get some videos and forms made quickly!) The main feedback was they felt less pressure not being on a large call with all of us. They like the peer support but they all felt pressure. In the one to ones that I held this was expressed too, they didn't want to be the one with tab issues slowing people down. So that's it we are now trying asynchronous learning. 

3 forms with go to section based on answer enabled (branching logic in Microsoft forms) choice on video, choice on task, upload evidence of work, answer exam style question to assess, and give self evaluation score too. All pulling in to one Spreadsheet for me to analyse.

Easy done, never need to speak to them on a call again right? No! I have long been aware that the value of the teacher is in the explanations and tackling misconceptions not in delivering content. So in our 3 hour timed slot I will be available for one to ones for 45 minutes. Followed by 3 workshops all 45 minutes long. Where I will tackle misconceptions address errors, recap key points, the mini teaching we used to do in small groups in class. Sometimes I will invite learners specifically to come along. All have an opportunity to speak to me on a one to one basis, at present it is first booked first served. I would like this to be a rotation basis so that they all get time regularly. I am excited by this. I am excited by spending more quality time with my learners, at this moment I have no idea if it will work at all! Hope you're online teaching is going well.

teaching online - Issue 4

Synchronous vs Asynchronous

In class, as in face to face, I like to hold the learners hands a bit, in a non touching way! What I mean is, I give them choice but I guide them down a path I have planned for them. I recognise it in my teaching and have reflected on it lots. I struggle to define if it is my teaching style, my subject specific issues or teaching in further education specific. All my learners are resitters, do I know what's best for them? Probably? can I help them? definitely! Should I let go of their hands and give them more freedom? I wish I could but I can't!

Knowing this dilemma I ploughed into my online teaching in a synchronous manner. We sat online for 3 hours together doing maths. Little introduction chat, building community and connection. Retrieval practise task. Me give content input. Them do work. Reflections on that and check progress. Me do input, they do work etc etc. Openly admitting this may not be the best approach but it was successful in terms of progress of my learners. They progressed through the lesson like superstars. Did they enjoy themselves? Some did because of their success. (yes I asked them, I ask them a lot of questions to learn more about their experiences!) some didn't because it was exhausting. I get that, I was exhausted.

We synchronously worked together, timed tasks. Breakout rooms. Modelling of answers, misconceptions addressed, all whilst progressing through content after content. My subject is maths. It is content heavy. As a resitter in FE you sit what is designed as a 2 year course in 1 year. It is content heavy. My learners are adults. Whilst I have managed to support them in building community online, supporting each other online, we weren't all learning to our greatest potential. The 3 hours synchronous learning were tiring. 

I have waves of evidence of completed tasks, self reflections, assessment quiz scores, polls but it didn't feel right. I brought all of them physically in the building to sit a mock exam under exam conditions. Fear of CAG combined with an exercise in show what you know. I staggered start times to make sure I had 5-10 minutes with each of them before they began their exam. Each of them told me how much they were enjoying the course. How much they couldn't believe how well they were doing (even those that weren't which is lovely but concerning!) and I asked how does it feel in the class online. This is where feedback differed. Some loved it, some wanted more breakout rooms, some had huge wifi issues and hated breakout rooms. It was a real mixed bag of feedback. In my head we were always on a journey to learn asynchronously and meeting the learners confirmed this and accelerated the process.

I began drawing on all the tools, tricks and websites I knew of as to how best to deliver asynchronous learning for adults. The bit that my learners liked was my explanations of things, they made more sense than when they found a video online. This is feedback I have had before from previous classes who were face to face. Interestingly what I teach in content is no different to others. The tasks I set are exam booklets from Corbett maths or the old 1MA0 ones, again widely used and incredibly dull. The bit they like is the bit of me that I give in that connection, that relationship. Essentially they would say this about any teacher, because it is 'their' teacher the one that they listen to and work with. I saw it in school a lot, when teaching a split class they would side with one teacher over the other and the teacher that they preferred would hear all about how awful the other teacher was. The 'awful' teacher would get poor behaviour and the cycle would go on. Teaching online I was conscious of this and wanted to help my students stay with me and be connected to my teaching.

We trialled hyperdocs synchronously, aiming to be able to do them asynchronously in the future, a one stop shop where everything that they needed would be in one place. Amazing I thought, surely this couldn't go wrong. It did. Wifi issues meant tab management became an issue. Losing where the hyperdoc was because of too many tabs open was another issue. Wifi issues of being on a video call and having a hyperdoc open. The frustration from my learners was tangible but we laughed about it and we got through it. Some were frustrated at having to wait for others to sort their tabs out, some were frustrated at being left behind because they couldn't find their tabs! We talked through it at the end of the session and one learner said 'I need to be in a classroom, this isn't for me'. 

I paused and reflected and asked if we could talk later, the learner said yes and we did. In that chat I offered them a face to face class with another teacher. It was a flat no because I was 'their' teacher. I asked why they felt they needed to be in a classroom. They confided their lack of digital skills was worrying them. I was shocked. This learner had managed everything I had asked of them so far online but still they lacked confidence. We explored this further and their children were helping them online but also mocking them so they felt inadequate. Now I can't do much about kids mocking parents, mine do it! But that confidence part I can help with. I explained how pleased I was with their work so far and they were buzzing and retracted their comment and wanted to stay. 

I reflected on this and all the other parts of my teaching and spoke to my line manager. They said, same as younger students, adults just need to know they are doing OK once in a while too. They were right. I needed to build in more opportunities for little chats with me in traditional lesson time. If I am delivering content this can't happen as well, I need to make the shift to asynchronous, even though some say they feel they are not ready!

Screencastify

I moved into Ed tech a couple of years ago and one of the first things I was asked to do was to pass my master caster course. Nope, me either! An embarrassed Google later and I discovered Screencastify. It's a great recording tool in Google Chrome that allows you to record your screen with or without your webcam included or just record your webcam. The beauty of working on a chrome book is that you always have a webcam and microphone ready to go. Screencastify is not paying me for this post. No one pays me for my posts. There are alternatives to Screencastify; Loom, Screencastomatic, Awesome Screenshot, Nimbus, Hippo Video and We Video to name a few. All have their merits and a place in my heart and much of what I'm about to talk about can be achieved on all these tools. But none with the ease that I have found with Screencastify. 

I have openly admitted that I struggle with questioning in my lessons. I can ask for the answer, I can ask for someone to explain the answer but I can't pick pose pause pounce bounce or any other iterations. Questioning is not my strength. Likewise feedback. I can do right or wrong, I can do corrections needed. I can do next steps or go back over this, but, I can't do Star or any other iterations. I'm not sure if it's me or if its subject specific but I am not the best at either. I am especially poor at giving feedback on mock papers. I have built Google forms to help (and blogged about these previously, read about them here) but when I am marking I am going through a process and because I have three papers for each of my 22 learners per group, I don't have the time or the inclination to handwrite this process down. This is where Screencastify changed the game. 

I was sat marking a paper and I wanted to give the student full marks, the page was full of working out! The final answer was incorrect but not a million miles away. Yet I had to score the answer zero. Imagine being that learner and seeing that effort not being rewarded with a single mark. Previously I would have written, "you've gone on the wrong track, let's have a chat". That was the best I could do in the time allocated to mark that question. Not insightful for the learner, and requiring them to ask me for more information. The change is now I sit with my chrome book open as I mark and when I come to a question like this, I flick on Screencastify with my webcam only and chat as I mark. (the chrome book isn't fully open as to see what I'm writing the camera needs to be angled so the chrome book is partially open which often results in my colleagues entering my room to check today isn't the day I finally lose it as they think I'm talking to myself! I need a sign for my door to say recording in process!!!) 

I can orate to the learner how I am marking their answer. I can explain that if you used an incorrect method that arrived at this answer it is automatically a zero mark answer. I can explain that if you had carried on with this piece of working out here part way down the page you would have got 2 marks but because it was replaced with this working out it is a zero. This is powerful because the learner can hear my voice. They can hear my empathy, they can hear the effort I have put in to marking their work. I can flash them the mark scheme and show them what it says, this informs the learner and helps them decide on what they will do next. The learner doesn't have to come to me for feedback. I can post this just to them on Google classroom and they can privately reflect. They can reply with video too if they want to have another attempt. Or they can reply with their thoughts and feelings on my marking. This powerful because they can see their mistakes and the impact these had in a 1 minute video and they don't have to leave their house! They don't need to be in class to hear this, they don't need to ask a peer "what did you get for Q8 I got nothing but I wrote loads?". Screencastify is helping create a clarity in what we need to do next to improve. 

Once I have marked a batch of papers, much like a chief examiner, I can pick out things that went well as a theme and not so well. I can use my analysis grid (I have blogged about these before read about my love of them here!) I can see as a group what we did well on and what we can improve on. I can record this as a video with Screencastify. Very quickly I can explain an overall class picture, I can hide the names on my analysis grid and include my webcam as I talk over the whole class results. Including my webcam is not something I enjoy but I recognise the power of my learners feeling connected and seeing my expressions as I explain. I can explain that because we all did well on this we won't be coming back to it in class so it's something the learner needs to keep ticking over at home. I can explain that because we didn't do well on this as a class that we are going to need to spend a bit of time on it next lesson and what I need the learners to do to prepare. Screencastify is helping create a clarity in what our next steps are. 

If there is a particular question that many have done poorly on, I can model answers. I can quickly open Screencastify, webcam only, tilt my chrome book and model my working out on certain questions. I can show my learners what we were looking for. I can explain it in the way that we learnt it in class, using the examples we looked at linking to the event of the lesson, triggering memories in my learners. I can explain my frustrations at poor exam etiquette and illegible handwriting. My learners can reflect on this exam without leaving their home, just by picking up their phone they can see my Google classroom video on whole class feedback. Screencastify is helping create a clarity with that feedback. 

This was all before COVID and before things changed. Screencastify has now come more to the forefront as we look at blended learning becoming the normal. I can now talk over my slides like I would have done in class. I can share my screen and flick between resources. I can embed my webcam so my learners can see my face and feel connected to me. Screencastify allows me to plan as normal (ish) I can record my content that allows those outside the classroom to learn at their own pace. It allows them to go back over things they are unclear on. It helps them personalise their own learning in developing their understanding of the content. 

I also love to use Screencastify to orate my curation of resources. I have been using it to talk over my lesson plan and record why I chose that approach and that tool or that website for colleagues to help them begin planning for blended learning. But this is also powerful for my learners. I am now giving them choice boards of much wider choices as I am no longer constrained  by device limits or photocopying limits. In this choice though I want to explain why I have chosen what I have chosen as a resource and at what point in the learning journey a learner might want to access that resource. I can explain that "this website is great for this but I think it would sequence better if you practised with this task before you give the website activity a go". I can give my learners choice but explain why I have curated in this way. I can also orate my expectations of the tasks and how I will be giving feedback. Screencastify is helping me create clarity in why and what we are doing. 

The incredible ease of using Screencastify in a GSuite environment is that it automatically saves to My Drive. You can change the sharing settings to all within the domain in one click. In one click you can share your video to Google classroom. In one click you can export as an Mp4. In one click you can open the editor and begin easily editing and inserting more clips. It launches from chrome on 1 click too. It is an easy to use tool. I appreciate I have a premium account, and lack of editing and video length are an issue for free accounts, but I don't think premium is prohibitively expensive. Yes, I accept premium is significantly better than a free account. But all the one click sharing tools that I just described are available on the free account. And let's be honest if you're talking for more than 5 minutes about 1 thing to your learners they may have stopped listening anyway so a free account may help you keep it concise! 

PDFs and blended learning

It maybe summer but my head is full of blended learning ideas. I am a huge fan of Puentedura's SAMR model. When we think about what we are planning for (which is still unclear in terms of live in person and live online, certainly for me!) I want to make things as easy as possible. For me and my learners. I would love to rip up the rule book and start again. Make a completely new way of learning maths. A project based curriculum completely interactive. Make some apps. Create some platform games. Use GoPro cameras to track journeys and explore the maths. But...I'm not going to. 1) I am not capable or capable of creating a team who are capable of helping me achieve this at this time. 2) I have no budget for this. 3) As things stand my job is to prepare learners for a paper based written GCSE maths exam. My project based learning can come in in elements but ultimately I have to prepare them for the paper based element. 

When I look at Puentedura's SAMR model, I need to substitute that paper based element onto online in the first instance. Working in FE I have learners that have sat the exam before. They will be expecting a similar experience, I have a lot of content to cover and I need to make things as simple as possible. Sure we will spend time learning about the apps we need to use like Google Classroom. We will learn about logging in to systems correctly. We will spend time helping those who need accessibility features turn them on. To support all of this their material and content need to be as easy to use as possible.

For years we have been fortunate in maths to have Corbett Maths with brilliant pdf workbooks of exam style questions, and answers, on every topic as well as videos! For years I would have been lost without this resource. It saves my life weekly in class when I need to put my hand on something, I know Corbett Maths will have it. I am going to be honest I don't have time to sit and make beautiful interactive activities every week for all 5 different levels of ability of students I am expecting in my adult FE GCSE maths class, sorry. What I need is a way to make existing content, that I know works, interactive and accessible quickly, so that if I do have a spare 5 I can choose to spend that making a brilliant new innovative resource.

I created a workflow that looks like this, take the pdf resource, pop it through a pdf to slides converter. My favourite is ilovepdf I like this one because it is easy, it has never let me down and it converts maths nicely. I use the pdf to ppt to make a slides presentation from the pdf. I like to do this as it makes each page 1 slide in a  slide deck, so if I want to differentiate I can chop and change using the slide deck to remove or add in slides. I then save the ppt as a Google Slides, but that's just me, if you use ppt, leave it as a PowerPoint presentation. I then insert text boxes over where the answers should be written. I change the line colour of the text box so that it stands out and I type in 'please enter your answer here'. This bit takes time but CTRL D in Google Slides is duplicate, so once you have 1 you can duplicate. CTRL C and CTRL V also work. Because ilovepdf keeps the pages as they were in the original pdf the text boxes tend to be in the same place on each page so I can select all the text boxes on a page and CTRL C and CTRL V them onto the next one in most cases. I am not endorsed by ilovepdf, and there may be alternatives you prefer

I have shared this with colleagues and it seems a popular way of working. Staff are keen to substitute their existing paper based pdfs into a digital format to get ready for teaching, however we are going to be teaching in September. Job done, sorted! Even exam papers can be done this way, fabulous! Then the thought popped into my head that because ilovepdf converts the pdf as a mix of images and text it makes it hard for screen readers to read the converted file out. Back to the drawing board...so I thought and then I remembered about Texthelp's pdf reader! Again I am not endorsed by Texthelp, you may have an alternative that you prefer! There is a video of installing the pdf reader on our Driving Digital You Tube Channel, as well as Google Classroom tutorials, here.

Texthelp pdf reader allows the user to have the pdf read aloud. You can screen mask making it easier to read. You can add text over a pdf. You can freehand draw over a pdf. This can then be saved, printed or shared to Google Classroom. I am lucky that where I work pays for premium Texthelp products, if yours doesn't many of the features are available for free. You can annotate the pdf, so to differentiate you could add in a note saying this Q for those aiming for a grade 4 and this question for those aiming for a 5 and so on. Students will need to open the pdf in the pdf reader to see this. After spending a little time teaching students how to use the pdf reader, this could be a workflow for you. The tool works in Google Chrome as a web based tool, so on any device that use has a Chrome browser installed.

What I like about this as a workflow is that it is accessible for all. There are no barriers. Students who have additional needs don't need to draw attention to themselves, they can access the work and join in with the rest of the class. Imagine if you needed a pdf read aloud and you were studying from home with no printer to make it larger or clearer, you would feel pretty alone. I love the fact that we can teach digital skills and independent learning skills to learners in how to add pdf reader and access it whilst making work accessible for students, that sounds like a good workflow to me!

The other beautiful thing about the Texthelp pdf reader is the freehand draw. I don't know about you but I have been sent a million pdfs to sign recently via email for return to works, policies, kids clubs, membership forms and so on. I have a printer but I don't have the time to print the pdf sign it and scan it back in. Nor do I think that is a good use of my time or paper, ink and electricity. So now I freehand draw my signature on and download it and email it back. Time saving, yes please!

Blended Learning Quick Wins

I have just published my blog on what I plan for September and I wanted to follow it up with how I will do it. 

Cast your mind back to a lesson that required cutting paper. Perhaps they were making their own loop cards, or cutting triangles to prove Pythagoras. Remember the times you needed to stick work into books. Your lesson was planned, it ran well, but you probably had a frantic 5 minutes at one point because of the extra equipment, I know I did. In my experience finding the scissors posed a challenge, including the left handed ones. Finding the glue sticks too. Handing them out in the class, realising some students had 3 pairs and others had none. Losing glue sticks lids, the time lost to equipment diverted from valuable learning. All of this happened on more than 1 occasion to me and can still heighten anxiety, including now when I reflect. What caused me the problems was the extra equipment, to make things flow I like to give my learners everything that they will need all in 1 place. In my physical classroom I have a helpdesk where they can come up and grab maybe a device to check an idea, watch a video. It might have the scaffolding sheet for the topic, a broken down task. It might have the help sheet or template to help write a cheat sheet or multiplication grids pre drawn. It may have foreign language dictionaries. Everything that they need to access the lesson themselves, helping them be independent no matter how much assistance they need to get there.

Blended learning is going to be no different. I am going to want to put everything in one place for them. Hyperdocs then come into their own as do Hyperbooks. A hyperbook is a notebook digitally held, maybe for a unit of work. A hyperdoc is a lesson plan of everything they need for the lesson. There are different types of hyperdocs. Ones that guide through each stage of a topic, discover, explain, explore and others that are choice board in style.  I can see benefits of all of these. Mainly they help the learners be independent and progress through their learning at their own pace. The true meaning of asynchronous learning. Slidesmania is my go to place for these things. Well worth checking out. Imagine a hyperbook of tabs all within shape space and measure. Once for area, one for perimeter, one for circles, sectors, compound shapes, problem solving tiling questions, sounds good! Sounds like a lot of work from the teacher, but when was teaching not a lot of work? We are planning for a new way of learning and perhaps we could save some time in this and insert a video on the first page of each section that already exists? Is there a youtube video we could insert? Yes of course there is! Can I take a moment to recomment the brilliant Mars Maths videos, worth checking out! All we need to do in Google Slides is click Insert>Video and search for the best video for our needs.

 The beauty of Google Slides we can start the video at certain points, so only the first 2 minutes are relevant to your group? No problem! Use the start and end times! 

I accept building a hyperbook on a series of lessons within a unit is a lot of work, but ready made videos can be a real help. Like Alice Keeler says 'stop pretending Google doesn't exist' Let's use the videos that are available. Personally I will be mixing it up. I like the way I explain certain topics, you can see in my blog about, SASSYLASS for Pythagoras, ADAM for ratio, TERRY for transformations and DIN0 for nth term. I will be using a mixture of Loom, Screencastify, Hippo Video and Screencastomatic to record my explanations. I will be recording my desktop whilst I talk over my slides that I would normally use in class.

I have begun doing this for lessons and recording over my slides. In what would have been a 3 hour lesson previously I have found the actual teacher talk element is only 20 minutes when recorded. I have used the exact same slides I would talk over in class. No editing. What I found that when I would normally set them to work on the topic I have explained I have asked them to pause the video. This means that I can edit the videos into shorter videos later or leave it as 1 long video. I found that the problem with doing this is I am assuming they will get to the end point I am anticipating. I think there needs to be a mix of my own videos and ready made ones. I can select and curate existing videos to show progression, of topics I think they will get to and signpost it as such. This one is only if you got 100% on the quiz on that one. This one is if you struggled in that quiz. You get my meaning. This will all be trial and error but I was surprised that in a 3 hour lesson I only talk for 20 minutes! It feels a lot longer!

OK what about questions? Could we insert hyperlinks to a quiz in our hyperbook? I think so! 

Quizzes are quite easy, if not easier to replicate online. I think many have been using Kahoot for a while in the physical classroom. Now you can assign Kahoots for home learning. You could insert the link on a page in a hyperbook, the beauty of Google Slides is you just need to click INSERT>LINK or use CTRL+K. There are lots of existing quizzes already on Kahoot.

Another favourite for quizzing is Quizizz. You can post the quiz to your class and they can do it at home. Again there is a wide library of quizzes to choose from, so if the one you are looking for doesn't exist on Kahoot, Quizziz is a good place to look. If both of these are familiar to you and you want to change things up a bit, there are lots of others but Assistments is a good tool too. The old Transum quizzes, although can't be assigned and tracked are still great. 

Transum was around when I began teaching, starter of the day was everyone's form time activity! I like to insert the link to Transum in the hyperbook in Google Slides and ask the learner to insert a screenshot of their results underneath when finished.

Many of them are levelled and differentiated allowing learners to push on if they are finding it easy. I like that there is no sign in, they show progression, sure I accept I don't hold all the results in a nice Google Sheet, but I could type them up myself if I really wanted to! Transum has self marking on all sorts of activities and topics so for me it's on my list of places to link to.

Don't forget that in our Hyperbook, because it is in Google slides we can insert our own Google sliddes from our lesson presentation to help learners follow the topic too! Copy and paste in our summary slides or our nice examples into the hyperbook, sure! In our hyperbook then we have video, explanations, questions. All in one place! I think that if we could create a hyperbook on a unit sectioned by topic it would be a great experience for our learners. I'm now thinking it doesn't seem that much work? Maybe a little more but I think I see a way of suing some stuff that already exists?

Now what about robust questions? Teaching GCSE resit in FE means there have to be some GCSE exam questions in there. I am a big fan of both the old 1MA0 topic questions which you can find from Mr Barton here and the Corbett maths ones here. In my physical classroom I love handing these out as my consolidation exercise. Putting what we have learned in the lesson into exam context practise. But we have a problem. They are paper based pdfs, much like the real GCSE! (Which will obviously have to move on...but we will save that for another day!) This is where I hit a snag, how can I move these online? Then I hit upon ilovepdf and my life was complete! 

I convert the pdf to powerpoint. I then save the powerpoint at Google Slides. 

Once in Google Slides I insert textboxes for learners to insert their answer. This bit is fiddly but they could insert their own, I'm just being super organised! I plan to share these with the answers so it can be self marked. Whoa you say, self marking, they will all get 100% surely! Ah but the beauty of Google Slides is we can use FILE>VERSION HISTORY and see when the changes were made and what it originally looked like! 

Obviously not all my ideas are acceiboe for all, I am HUGE fan of Texthelp and for those with additional needs I would leave the pdf as is and encourage them to use the pdf reader from Texthelp. We can then screenshot or save their edited version. I haven't gone into it too much on here as I wanted to present an affordable acheivable work flow. We could use this method for all but not everyone subscribes to Texthelp products. 

There are a thousand more ideas that I could talk about for blended or distance learning but I have tried to keep it as simple as possible and as free as possible. Through my work I have seen that not all schools have access or subscriptions. I think and feel it is doable to create a unit workbook using a Slidesmania template. Inserting videos, inserting self marking quizzes and linking to exam workbooks in Google Slides format. What would be really great if we got learners to find the videos that spoke to them, if they created the content in their workbook. They research the topic, curate the resources, and design their own template. That is my aim but I know that as new as blended learning will be for me in September it will be multiplied and magnified for my learners and we can build to the top of any learning mountain. But to start with we are at the base camp and I need to help them pack their rucksack with all the right tools for the job and I think a hyperbook is the way to go!

Here is my rough first draft, welcome to copy and adapt, please click FILE>MAKE A COPY. Many thanks to Slidesmania for the template.

Example