Google Slides Choice Board

I’m not gonna lie, this remote learning situation took me all the WAY back to the drawing board. I couldn’t think of a single thing that I was going to do that would actually be worth trying to do with up-in-the-air, potentially-permanently-ungraded online lessons. So rather than trying to replicate my classroom experience without the assurance that anyone would even be virtually present for it, I decided to make it as simple, yet as flexible as it could be (with a half hour per day cap).

I actually spent the days during “Phase I,” where the district forbade any work but review materials straight from headquarters–for state-tested subjects only, of course–poring over every option I could find, including working though some local online PD on the subject.

I had collected about 80 options and narrowed them down to 35, when it occurred to me: they’re never gonna read more than 10. Plus an informal Twitter poll response helped me streamline my online goals:

Yes. That’s what I want. I don’t have a vocab list I’m particularly married to–especially with all the quarantined uncertainty–so all I REALLY want to make sure they do is read and hear some Spanish and then maybe try to write or speak some. Of course all THEY really want to do is play Duolingo most of the time, so that would make a good center block for a good old-fashioned Tic-Tac-Toe! Then there’s Sr. Wooly and LyricsTraining to cut down on the preparation, plus I know I’ve got some handy infograph Pinterest boards floating around…And yes, yes, I could do some grammar as a sort of security blanket like when I was actually teaching an Online Class (though even then I could arrange face-to-face meet-ups at local restaurants! 😞)

All of these great ideas, so I could even do a little bit of rotating in order to switch out less popular or useful things!

But…how would they turn them all in? Would my “teleworking” end up an endless cycle of checking different websites for nugget scores, XP, mock social media posts, and Google Docs?? Could they submit some of it on Seesaw? Different assignments on Google Classroom??

Then my son’s miraculous teacher from back in third grade posted her hyper doc on Facebook, and the light went on!

EVERYTHING could be submitted in a Google Slide! In ONE presentation per week!

Setup

Another confession: I hate getting request to share notifications on Google Slides. They feel like needling reminders that I goofed. SO, here’s the Week 2 choice board I sent out to my kids, free on TPT with links removed.

Some things I hope you like about it:

• Instructions on the first slide, plus more detail on the individual slides
• Links from the board to the turn-in slides
• Navigational links ON the turn-in slides, so kids can automatically follow in a row (I was not pleased with random L shapes I was getting…)
• Easy to post to Classroom – just be sure you select “Each student will get a copy.”

By all means, use it! But FIRST you will need to …

1. Make sure you have a Sr. Wooly subscription and that the songs fit with what your kids have done and would be into.
2. Create your own Flipgrids and topics (no invading mine!) and link them in the slide.
3. Download the FREE “Buenas Noticias” PDF to link to (I put mine in Google Drive and made it accessible only to students).

Also, this is totally your template. Substitute in and out! This week, I’ve made my Flipgrid a TikTok, the news Muy Interesante, and Pinterest cooking a recipe! I also scrambled the order so they weren’t just doing LyricsTraining/Duolingo/Journal EVERY WEEK. Downside: I had to get rid of all of my carefully organized navigational links rather than redo them all from scratch when I remembered.

So there you have it!

Everything I’m sending students while we’re on coronocation:

1. Daily videos
2. Instagram Worksheets (shifting to Slides format, to get all images though)
3. Assessment-type stuff like quiz corrections or small-group conversation prep for Google Meet
4. These choice boards!