Hi everyone, it’s Sam Kary from The New EdTech Classroom and welcome to Tech Tip Tuesday.
Today's tip is to set up a class list in Google Contacts for all of your students’ emails.
Now why would you want to do this? Let me show you a couple of examples. First, let’s
say we’re here on Google Jamboard and you want to share this Jamboard with your entire
class. You could share the document by giving unrestricted access to it, but that method
isn't very private and when students come in they'll all be entering as anonymous users,
which isn't ideal. You could also share it with your entire class by assigning it via
Google Classroom, but sometimes you might just want to create a quick Jamboard without
going through that extra step. Without a Google Contacts class list, you'll be stuck manually
entering all of your students’ emails in order to share this Jamboard with them. Instead,
once you set up a class list in Google Contacts, you'll be able to simply enter the name of
that list and it will auto-populate all of your students’ individual emails. The same
is true for other Google apps. So let's say you're over here in Gmail. Once you've already
set up your class list, you'll only need to type the name of the list in order to populate
every student email address from your class. To create a class list, let's start over here
in Google Classroom. I'll go over to the ‘People’ tab and select the ‘Action’ box underneath
students. Then on the drop-down menu, I'll choose ‘Email.’ Once I’ve selected to
email all my students, an email template will pop up with all my students’ email addresses.
You're going to want a copy and paste all of these student email addresses into Google
Contacts in order to make your class list. So I'll click on the BCC box with their emails,
choose Command-A on a Mac or click Control-A on a PC to select all, and then click command
or control-C in order to copy all these addresses. It doesn't really matter whether or not you
pull these in from Google Classroom, all that matters is that you have a list of all your
students’ emails and that you're able to copy and paste them into Google Contacts.
Then I'll head over to Google Contacts, which you can find at contacts.google.com. Right
now you'll see that I don't have any contacts added yet to this account. To create my class
list, I’ll first click ‘Create Label,’ and then I'll create a label with the name
of my class. For example, I can label it, “9th Grade Class List 2021.” Then I'll
click ‘Save.’ You’ll notice that if I click on the label I just created, there
currently aren't any contacts under that label, so I need to bring them in. I'll do that by
going up to ‘Create Contact’ and then select ‘Create Multiple Contacts.’ Since
I’ve already copied all of my student email addresses, I'll hit Command-V on a Mac or
Ctrl-V on a PC to paste all of the email addresses in. And you also have the option to import
multiple contacts with a csv file here. Once you paste it in all of those contacts you'll
also just want to make sure that you've added those contacts under the correct label, which
you can verify here. Once you're ready, click ‘Create’ and you'll see that all the email
addresses you just copied and pasted have now been added to your ninth grade class list.
Now, if you go back to Google Jamboard, when sharing the document, just start typing “9th
grade class list,” select your class list, and you'll see that all of my student emails
have automatically populated in the share notification window. Similarly if I hop over
here to Gmail again to compose a new email, all I’ll need to do is start typing “9th
grade class list 2021” and that will auto-populate all the students’ email addresses from that
class list in the ‘To’ window. Creating lists in Google Contacts obviously isn't limited
to student emails. You might also find it helpful to create contact lists for parents
or even groups of teachers you frequently email or share documents with. I hope you
found today's tech tip useful and if you have any questions or ideas about creating class
lists yourself, please put those in the comments below. Thanks so much for watching my video
to the end. If you're interested in learning all about how to use instructional technology
to increase student engagement, personalize instruction, provide authentic learning experiences,
improve communication with families, optimize organization systems, and so much more, then
check out my online course, The 21st Century Classroom. In the video description, you'll
find a link to 21centuryclass.com where you can learn more about the course, as well sign
up for the latest enrollment updates. In the video description you’ll also find the link
to my website, where you can find additional resources for teaching with technology, as
well as links to my social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn,
and TikTok, where I post 60-second quick tips about teaching with technology. Thanks again
for watching and have a great week!