POST STAFF DEVELOPMENT DROP IN SESSIONS
I thought it may be helpful for you all to see some of the questions asked during my drop in PD. If you’re unfamiliar, I host these to help my colleagues with specific and individualized requests, but in a group setting over Zoom. It might sound weird, but some people just show up to hear others’ questions and learn; other people appear, ask their question and leave. It has resulted in some really awesome conversations and honest PD. So without being too long winded, here are today’s questions;
“I find the time it takes for me to scan documents [on his iPad] to Notability and share with students over Google Classroom to be too lengthy, with the files sometimes ending up too big and long for quick turn around. Can I change the file quality or something to make this go quicker?”
ANSWER:
Not quite – but Notability has recently updated and allows for cloud sharing, PLUS I use Google Drive Backup for easy Google Integration that also takes less time over all so let me break both of those things down really quick for you.
- By clicking “Create Public Link” after tapping Share in Notability you will be asked to create account, one time, and will then be provided with a link for sharing purposes of this note.

It is important to know the following about this link sharing system:
📝 You can only share 10 at a time (not quite sure why still) but it isn’t a limit due to payment, we own the paid for app
📝Once shared the viewer will be brought to a web based version of the note with them option to download as a PDF or bring directly as a NOTE to Notability if they want to save or annotate over.
📝If you update the note over time you will have the option to say “share” and “update” or “stop sharing” – meaning the LINK will bring students to the updated web based version (it won’t change in Notability itself)
2. Google Backup in Notability’s Auto Back Up makes life easier for sharing in general.

As you can tell from the photo, by going into Settings and turning on Notability’s backup to Google Drive, a folder gets made in drive, and as long as you’re on the internet a Folder of your choosing receives all of your Notes in the format you choose.
This means now if you’re posting in Google Classroom and you want to add a note from the app, just find the folder and attach from Drive, instead of worrying about grabbing it from elsewhere!
“I assigned two options for an assignment in Google Classroom as separate assignments on accident, but students only need one graded. When I return something without a grade it goes to the students “To Do” list. How can I make it after the fact they aren’t penalized for not doing the assignment for one of them, but so that I know it’s graded and completed.”
Edit the assignment you don’t want for some students and click the students option in the top right once editing, deselect students from the option, and they will be exempt! For example if I wanted to deselect Amanda from below I would uncheck her name so she isn’t held responsible for it.

“My current Zoom set up is launching the meeting on my laptop & sharing my screen, then joining with my iPad and annotating over the screen that’s being shared with a pencil. How do I save the annotations if I want to provide the notes to students?”
This is tricky – when you are annotating on the iPad or the laptop the Annotation toolbar has a save button to the far right that will save to your camera roll or desktop!
