Thursday Nov 17, 2022

Episode #2 - Classroom Screen

Hello and welcome to episode number two of the one-five. I am your podcast hostess - Tricia Louis - the self-designated tech goddess and I will be coming to you regularly in this audio podcast format with great edtech tools, tips, and tricks.

This week’s episode will actually focus on a tool that made it into my first newsletter that I published back in January of 2018. OK - that does not seem like that long ago, but in the ever-changing techworld 2018 could be seen as the “dark ages”!

So, what is the tool that we are going to learn about today? It is Classroom Screen! What is classroom screen? Classroom screen is a widget filled website that is device agnostic (which means it can work on any type of desktop, laptop, or tablet/mobile device) that can be used in conjunction with a projector or interactive flatpanel.

Once you go to the classroom screen website - it is classroomscreen.com - in your web browser you can opt to just “launch now” to give it a try and it will open up....speaking of browsers, my preferred browser is chrome on my pc/mac - so when listening to this podcast just know that any web tools that I recommend work best in chrome. Anyhow, back to classroom screen - now that you have launched classroom screen you are going to see an array of widgets across the bottom of the screen. Starting from left to right we have:

Background - where you can choose the background of your classroom screen

Random Name - a random name picker for your class - you can copy/paste a list in

Dice - Roll up to three 6 sided dice

Sound Level - Use this widget in conjunction with the mic on your device to have a visualization of the noise/sound level in your room

Media - bring in an image, youtube video, live webcam footage, or embed code from another application

QR code - input a website and get an instant QR code your students can scan

Draw - a nifty whiteboard tool

Text - a simple text box to showcase text

Work Symbols - created symbols to remind your students with a visual cue

Traffic Light - another visual cue for your students

Timer - set a timer and chose your alarm sound

Stopwatch - use to time a certain activity (with lap button)

Clock - show digital and analog clock

Calendar - show a calendar on your screen.

You can have any or all of the widgets open at once and you can have different instances of the same widget.

Once you choose your widgets, you can close the widget array to give you a bit more real-estate on your screen.

Now we just played with the launch version - but if you want more features, click on the home icon in the upper left corner of classroom screen. You can login with an email/google account and have some options with the free account, but of course there are more with the PRO account (which is currently at $30/year) - the most crucial feature of the PRO account is being able to save your screens - so you can preload them with backgrounds/widgets/content and not have to create it live. You can also save name lists for the random name picker in the PRO version.

I have used the FREE version for a very long time, but I can see the benefit of the pro version if you decide to use this heavily in your classroom.

Well, there it is a quick overview of classroom screen! If you have any questions about the content shared in this podcast, you are free to contact me at any time through the contact me section on my website - tricialouis.com - or via social media. You can find me @talouis on Twitter or @talouistech on Facebook or Instagram.

Keep in mind the information shared on this podcast may take additional clearances from your tech department to work properly in your district, school, or classroom. I have vetted all of the information shared on this podcast but also remember that services/sites can change or become unavailable without a lot of notice.

Episode #2 - Classroom Screen

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