EDT119 - Google TOS Privacy Changes, Magic Exercise Book, Screencastify, Quizizz x PhET, and more

Today on the Educational Duct Tape Podcast, we are tackling some major edtech updates and a fascinating book recommendation. We will dive into Google's new parent Permission Rules, a Google Classroom add-on that lets you edit assignments after sending them out. And Screencastify's big free plan upgrades, plus Quizizz, just teamed up with PhET simulations for interactive science learning and common sense media has a must read report on AI in K through 12 schools.

And before we wrap up, I'll share a book that's got me thinking. Let's get into it. Welcome. Welcome in everybody. Welcome into the Educational Duct Tape podcast. My name is Jake. I am a personalized learning and ed tech specialist here in Ohio, and you are listening to the EDU Duct Tape or Educational Duct Tape Podcast. A podcast that focuses on solving classroom problems, meeting classroom goals, addressing classroom needs, using educational technology as a tool.

So we view educational technology like duct tape. It's a tool that solves problems. It's never our goal to use duct tape. It's our goal to solve the problem or meet the goal or address the learning standard. Similarly, our goal is not to run out and use educational technology. It's to achieve specific things in our classrooms, and often, but not always. Educational technology is the perfect tool for doing that.

So typically we rotate between episodes with a guest and episodes where I share some updates from the education and educational technology space. Last week we had one of those updates, uh, episodes and so today should be a guest interview episode, but I reached out to my next three guests about being on the show. They all are totally in for appearing, but we have not scheduled those interviews just yet. We're working on that, so didn't get an interview done in time for today's show.

Hopefully we'll have one of those done and ready to go for next week. And then after that we'll have an updates episode, and then after that we'll have a interview episode and so on and so forth. Riding off into the sunsets of our educational. Career. So today I've got five educational technology updates and one just regular education update for you. And then again, next week we'll have an amazing visitor in to talk about a certain question, an educational duct tape question.

Before we dive into today's item, I do wanna request again like I did last week. Please help spread the word about the show. Um, I'm doing this to help and some of you reached out after last episode and said, thanks, Jake. This does help. You're informing things that I know about for my classroom or recommend for teachers in my schools if maybe they're a technology leadership team. So people did reach out and say, thank you for doing the show.

We appreciate it and I'm gonna keep going just for those people. If there's five people listening, uh, I'm gonna keep going. If there's four, I'm gonna keep going. There's a lot more than four or five. Uh, but I want. To support as many educators as possible. So please tell the educators in your life tune into the show. He gives you some updates. Uh, he'll tell, tell some cheesy jokes. Uh, you could tell them in person. You could write them a handwritten letter.

You could spray paint it on an overpass in your community. Um, spring break's coming up, you could pull it from the back of a, um. Airplane flying over the beach. You can get some of that paint the kids use to paint their cars, um, on homecoming week for homecoming to celebrate or when they're going to the state championship. You could, uh, paint on there. Watch the listen to the Educational Duct Tape podcast. Whatever you gotta do. I appreciate you support your support.

If you know somebody who you think would benefit from the show, please tell 'em about it or share on social media or, uh, review rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or anywhere where ratings. Are an option so that people can find the show and learn more about it. Okay, let's get into our updates for today.

First up in today's edition of Well-Intentioned Things that Are An Inconvenience, Google Workspace for Education has changed its terms of service to comply with privacy laws. So these changes went into effect on March 1st, a couple of days ago.

A little background info, the Google Workspace for Education Agreement that schools agree to covers certain things, uh, that they call core tools like Google Classroom Docs, slides and Drive and then there are other Google tools that are often used in schools like Maps and Translate, Google Earth, Google Arts and Culture, even the Chrome Web store in your Chromebooks. And these aren't explicitly covered under that Google Workspace for Education agreement 'cause they're not considered core tools.

So with this terms of service change, any of those tools that are not considered core tools are now blocked for students unless schools obtain specific parent permission for them. The good news first, again, core tools like docs, slides, drive, classroom. The main ones you're using are still fine. Second, once the school has obtained that parent permission, others will be fine as well. So it doesn't mean the end of using Google Earth, for example, in schools.

It just means you're gonna have to receive or obtain specific permission for doing so. And third, while this is annoying. This is inconvenient for sure. It's in the interest of improved student privacy, so that's a good thing. Uh, so this is all about compliance in terms of that privacy, specifically with COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and with similar global regulations, I assume as well. But for teachers and ed tech leaders, it means that.

Some go-to tools might suddenly be unavailable for students since this happened a few days ago on March 1st. You are probably already aware of how this impacts you. So I'm curious, did it impact you? I'd love to hear from you about what happened on March 1st when you came to school on that day. It was a weekend, it was a Saturday. So I guess when you came on Monday, on March 3rd, uh, were you, were there surprises? Were there things they're missing?

Did you go to use a certain thing in a lesson and you had to pivot and change? Did you know what was coming? Did you not know it was coming? Uh, what's your school doing to address this change? I'd love to hear about it. Let me know on x or Bluesky at #EduDuctTape. Or you could drop in a voice message to the show at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.

Have you ever assigned something in Google Classroom and then immediately realized, oh, I forgot a page. Or halfway through the unit you think, oh, I really wish I could add a reflection slide to every student's work. Wouldn't that be great? Or maybe you've dreamed of a single document or slideshow for an entire unit's guided notes, but let's be real. You didn't have them already on day one. Uh, I've been there. Well, good news. There's a new Google add-on that could do that.

Now. It's called Magic Exercise Book, and it comes from a UK based company called Not So Magic Apps. This tool lets you add pages or slides to every student's Google Doc or slides assignment, even after you've already assigned it to Google Classroom. No need to manually open each student's work and copy paste updates. Just launch the add-on. Select your update and push it to all students at once.

Sounds like magic to me, but they do call their company not so magic apps, so I guess it's not magic, it's just good technology. Maybe we'll just call it awesome. Now I know privacy is always a big question with third party tools. So here's the deal, having peaked at their privacy policy, magic exercise book collects no user data and does not access students' docs or slides directly. It just processes updates in Google Classroom. If you try it out, I'd love to hear how it goes.

Or if you have another tool that you use for this use case that you feel that can do it better, let me know. Find me on X or Bluesky #EduDuctTape. Or leave a voice message for the show at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape.

Let's shift from Google to what seems to be the most commonly used screen recorder in Google schools. Screencastify, because they just made some big changes to their free plan. For the most part, it's good news, but there are some caveats. So Screencastify free plan now includes some. Pretty powerful features for a free plan, some of which used to be locked behind a paywall, some of which are just new features.

You can now get access to their AI assistant, which could do things like generate video summaries and transcripts for your videos. Um, also you get captions, which can now be translated into over 50 languages, making your videos more accessible for all learners, as well as for multilingual learners. Plus you get viewer analytics, so you could track who's watching your videos and how they're engaging with the content. And there are also two new export options.

You can now download recordings as MP4 files or MP3 files. The free plan also includes, this is the big one in my opinion, unlimited Screencastify submit assignments, meaning as many times as you want to send out Screencastify submit assignments and have students record responses, you can do that.

So if you're looking for your replacement to flip previously known as Flipgrid, this might be it because for free, at least for now, you could do as many of those Screencastify submit, uh, assignments as you want. Of course, while that submit feature is now unlimited, there are still limitations, uh, elsewhere on Screencastify on the free plan. So first, the free plan is capped at 10 video recordings total. Now, that's different from your Screencastify submit assignments.

It's just 10 videos that you make, and each of those videos can be no longer than 30 minutes long. You also get 10 video captions and translations, 10 quizzes 'cause they can now add quizzes to videos and 10 uses of that AI assistant before you hit a limit. If you upgrade to the starter plan, you get unlimited videos, longer recording times up to 60 minutes each. Uh and unlimited video quizzes, plus extra features like a premium library of videos and more editing exports.

And then there's also a pro plan and special plans for schools and districts that give you even more features, but still those additions to the free plan: access to an AI assistant, captions, translated captions, viewer analytics, downloading MP4 or MP3 files and unlimited Screencastify submit assignments. Those sound pretty great. Now, whenever a tool is handling videos and student submissions, privacy is always a concern.

So, uh, checked around on their website, Screencastify makes it clear that they don't own your videos. They don't sell your data and they don't show you ads at all. Their entire business model, they say on the site is subscription based, meaning they make money from paid plans, so they don't need to make money from collecting or monetizing your information or showing you ads.

They're also certified coppa, FERPA, and SOPPA compliant, and state that they collect only the minimum amount of data needed to operate the software. So if you're already a Screencastify user. Did these updates to the free plan make a difference for you? Did they give you new things you didn't have before? Did you lose things? Which free offering is your favorite? Let us know on X or Bluesky or the SpeakPipe for the show.

If you're here listening to me, you probably have the same thoughts as me about AI and education. We see the potential, we see the advantages, but we also see the risks. And if you're like me, you're also wondering what does AI implementation actually look like in schools across the country, aside from the ones that I'm in. Well, common Sense Media recently released a white paper called Generative AI in K through 12 education Challenges and opportunities.

It dives into how AI is already being used in schools, what risks it brings, and how educators can navigate this rapidly evolving landscape. A few key takeaways from the report. Number one, most schools don't yet have clear AI policies, which let's be honest, is something we all suspected. Second, AI powered tools are already in classrooms helping with lesson planning, grading feedback, but many districts are still figuring out how to regulate AI responsibly.

Also, we probably saw that one coming third takeaway, some of the risks that they mentioned include AI's tendency to generate inaccurate or biased content, privacy concerns, and of course, the big question of cheating and plagiarism. No surprises here either. And fourth, they point out that AI also presents opportunities like personalizing, learning, translation support, and reducing administrative workload for teachers.

You know this because you've heard me and my guests talk about a lot of these things before too, so not a lot of surprises here, but it's valuable to have a researched white paper that takes this from what we suspected to something that we can confirm and more importantly, we can act on. The report also highlights how some schools are actively incorporating AI into their curriculum, as well as how others are taking a much more cautious approach.

If you want to dive deeper into this report, which I recommend, I'll drop the link in the show notes. If you read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Were there any surprises in this report? Let us know. On social media or on SpeakPipe.

Alright, science teachers, this one is for you. If you've used PhET interactive simulations before, that's PhET PhET Interactive Simulations. You already know how amazing they are. They're so good at helping students explore physics and chemistry concepts, things you normally can't do in the classroom. Uh, and explore them visually so that they could be almost hands-on.

And if you haven't used PhET simulations yet, and you're a science teacher, pause this, check them out, and then come back to the show. Are you back now that you're in love with PhET, which I'm sure you are, if you went and looked at it, you're going to be in love with this news. Quizizz has teamed up with PhET to bring something really valuable to science classrooms built in formative assessment and self-assessment tools for these incredible simulations.

So now, instead of students just interacting with a PhET simulation and you hoping they understand the concept, or them filling out maybe a worksheet on the side while they're doing it, you can embed Quizizz, questions directly alongside the simulation to check for understanding in real time. This means that students can explore and test ideas in the simulations and get immediate feedback on their learning all in one place.

And they can act on that feedback because there's an auto grading option, and you can get some formative assessment data out of it too. And here's the best part, I. This integration is available to everyone. Any Quizizz user can find and use ready-made simulation sets from the Quizizz library, and even create their own simulation-based sets. So originally they said free users could use the ones that existed. Paid users could also create their own sets. Now they said, you know what?

Everybody could do this for free. You could both use and find, uh, PhET simulations inside of Quizizz with questions already built, or you could build your own. Now paid Quizizz, school and district plans do unlock some additional question types as always, uh, but the basic question types are available with the PhET simulations for free. Um, otherwise all users have access to this collaboration.

Also, I will point out on that point, if you're using the free Quizizz plan, you'll want to keep an eye on your activity limit. You can, from what I've been told, only have up to 20 activities at a time. But you can archive old ones to make room for new content. As you can tell, I've been being mindful lately about also sharing EdTech tools, privacy and data security policies.

So Quizizz states that they adhere to federal, state and privacy laws like FERPA and COPPA, and meet strict state level privacy requirements for places like California and Texas and New York. As well as others. They're also members of the School Data Privacy Consortium, SDPC, and Access for Learning A4L. Uh, so they're working to meet as many district specific privacy requirements as possible. Okay, science teachers, I need to hear from you on this one.

If you try this out in Quizizz, let me know what you think of it. How'd it go? Share on X or Bluesky or on SpeakPipe. Links and details are in the show notes.

Alright, this next one is not ed tech, but it's a book that caught my attention while I was looking on technology. So maybe it kind of counts and I think a lot of you anyhow are gonna like this book recommendation and find it just as interesting as I did. I first heard about it on Bluesky from Rick Wormeli and after reading an excerpt of the book online, I'm eager to dive into the full book. Haven't yet, but I'm really eager to, I read the entire excerpt.

I, I thought I was just gonna take a quick peek at it, but I ended up reading the whole thing 'cause I was so into it. It is called Change the Wallpaper: Transforming Cultural Patterns to Build More Just Communities and it is by Nilanjana Dasgupta. Uh, the premise is fascinating, and it's also timely as there are shifts happening in our country right now that, uh, well, I, I won't even go there, but by saying I'm interested in this book, you'll know where I stand on other things too.

Anyhow, let me get away from that topic. This book is all about how small shifts in our everyday environments can lead to real structural change in our communities and our workplaces, and most importantly for us, our schools. So Dasgupta, a social psychologist, argues that instead of relying on things like bias training or symbolic acts, we should focus on changing the wallpaper around us. Now, I'm not a fan of actual wallpaper, but I am a fan of this metaphor.

When she says wallpaper, what she means is kind of our surroundings, the local cultures that we interact with every day. She suggests rethinking how our physical spaces representation and social norms shape inequality. Often in ways we don't even notice. But the good news is that this book sets out to disrupt those patterns, change that wallpaper and intentionally design environments that foster inclusion. Understanding and collective action.

Dasgupta says that she is drawing on research across 10 different disciplines, from psychology and education to urban planning and sociology, so that she could show us exactly how cultural forces push us apart or bring us together, and most importantly, how we could shift towards bringing us together. Using changes in the wallpaper. If you're someone who's interested in creating more equitable classrooms or schools or communities, this one might be worth checking out.

I'll drop a link to the excerpt I read in the show notes, but if you do end up reading the full book as I plan to, let me know what you think of it. Again, you could share about that on X or Bluesky #EduDuctTape. Or head over to the speakpipe at speakpipe.com/EduDuctTape.

Alright folks, that's all I've got for you today in today's education update roundup. I really want to hear from you about these updates. You know the drill, reach out on Bluesky or X using #EduDuctTape or record a voice message at speakpipe.com/eduDuctTape. Please consider sharing about the show, uh, to the education friends in your life who you think would benefit from these updates.

Please make sure you're subscribed so you hear next week's episode, which hopefully will have one of the amazing, uh, guests. That I'm featuring in the next few episodes. Hopefully we'll have that interview recorded and ready to go for you. So make sure you're subscribed in whatever your favorite podcast app is so that you don't miss it. Hopefully you'll be here. But most of all, thanks for everything you do for learners. Um, I appreciate you. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week.