BuzzIn.live ~ The simple online buzzer system!

BuzzIn.live

The quick and easy way to play a buzz-in game with your students.

Created by Scott Aten, January 29, 2020

Every once in-awhile someone asks me for something that is a new challenge for me. Last week Mr. Froelich at GHS came to my office with this question, "Do you know of an buzzer game that I can use with my students?". My first thought was something like kahoot, but he didn't want something that
required him to build all the question. He just wanted a simple way for students use their phones (or Chromebooks) to "buzz-in" on questions that he would ask out loud. Here is what I found: BuzzIn.live.

This site is silly simple to use. As the teacher you go to the site and click the "Host" button. Once there you will see a unique join code is created for you. Students then go to buzzin.live website on their device (phones/Chromebooks) and click the "Join" button. Once there they type in the join code you have provided and type their name (or whatever they want to use as their name). That is it, the game is ready for you to ask a question to the class.

During the game you will see the order in which the students "buzz in". You can then clear the board for the next question and continue on for as long as you would like.

In the settings area you can:

1. Choose to see just the first person to buzz (default is to see them all in order of buzzing)
2. Turn on/off the buzzing sounds of the student devices
3. When a buzz sound is played on the Host device
4. Disable/Enable others to join a game later

This is what the student device looks like.

They just tap the big green "BUZZ" button if they know the answer. That sends their name to the Host device. Really cool! Students do not need to be on the school network to play.

I went back to ask Mr. Froelich how it went and he said it was a success and was easy to use with his class.

Next time you are looking for a quick and fun way to review with your students, give buzzin.live a try!

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Random Name Selector

Use the Mobile Google Classroom app to randomly select students.

Created by Scott Aten, January 17, 2020

Just heard about this cool feature available on the phone app version of Google Classroom. It has the built-in "Student Random Name Selector" that uses the names of the students in your Google
Classroom. It will keep track of what students have been called on, who is absent in the class, allow you to skip a student until later, and show you how many students that have not answered a question. If you use Popsicle sticks with names on them to randomly select a student to answer questions, then this may be a nice alternative. Here is how it works...

1. Just download the Google Classroom app on your phone
2. Open your Google Classroom
3. Click on the "People" button
4. In the upper right corner you will see this buttonclick it.

[See a video walktrhough of the app on my phone] Another option that I have talked about in the past is to use Flippity.net and use the random
name selector from that site. Here is a demo of what the random Name Picker looks like using Flippity.

If you would like help with Flippity, please feel free to schedule me. Both are great options to ensure you are getting all of your students involved with the discussion.

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Report Card Time Saver

Use Google speech to text to dictate comments

Created by Scott Aten, January 9, 2020

It is that time of the year again "Report Cards". Report Card time can be very stressful. Along with entering all those grades, many teachers want to provide a meaningful comment for each student. A great time saver can be to use the built in Google speech to text feature to dictate your comment and them copy and paste it into the comment field in ProgressBook.

Here is how the "Speech to Text" or "Voice Typing" feature works in Google Docs.

This great feature is available for students as well, so consider modeling this for them at some point as well. It is like having your own personal secretary to dictate messages.

There are many other great features of Google demonstrated in the Green Google Training Center.

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team