On Friday, I was so pleased to be able to return to one of my favorite days of the year, High-Interest Day at Brookfield Elementary School. This is a day where I have been able to bring the concepts of physics to k-5 graders. You may be asking yourself, "Elementary students doing physics?" YES! Not just experimenting, but understanding the concepts behind the physics of electricity and sound. This is a very special day I have had the opportunity to be involved in since 2017. So, how are we able to bring the concepts of electricity and sound traditionally taught to high school 11th and 12th graders to the elementary level? There are a few keys 1) make it a hands-on experience 2) remove the mathematical calculations and make it practical. In the past, I had the luck of bringing a handful of my physics students with me to guide the elementary students through the concepts that they had learned over the course of the year. But in my new role as a Teaching and Learning Speciali
Last year when we went 100% virtual virtual learning, my district was using Google Meet. This year, students have the option to attend face to face or virtually. To support those students who have chosen the virtual option, teachers are using the Pro version of Zoom instead of Google Meets. While there are many upsides to this, one major downside is the lack of free live closed captioning in Zoom. Zoom does have the ability to have an individual type in live captions, but we don't have the resources for that. There are also paid services that can be added to create live closed captions. But, I was looking for a free support option. To support those learners who would benefit from these captions, there are two workarounds for this. The first is using the tools generated by Google. I use Google Slides and Pear Deck for all of my presentations. When presenting in Google Slides, you can turn on auto closed captioning in the presentation menu. The audio picked up from the microphone i