Tech Tuesday Tips

Do you use both Google Chrome and Calendar?  Need to quickly add a meeting to your calendar? Don't  open a new tab and enter it manually... just add it  right from Chrome’s address bar! This trick will take a few simple steps of setup, but once you’re done, you can type an event in natural language right in the address bar—such as “Faculty Meeting on Thursday at 3 pm”—and a new event will be created. We will use Chrome's ability to have special search engines to set this functionality up. First, right-click on the address bar and select “Edit search engines”. Once you get to the Search engines dialog box, under Other search engines , enter a name, such as “Add Event” , in the first box. In the middle box, enter a keyword, such as “cal” , to type into the address bar to activate this custom search engine.  Next, copy the following URL and paste it into the last box (it should be all on one line). http://www.google.com/calendar/event?ctext=+%s+&acti

During a recent Google Slides training, teachers mentioned that they miss MS PowerPoint's "record audio narrations" feature. The following instructions help you accomplish a similar outcome through video. ViewedIt, a Chrome extension, is an easy way to create , share , and track video views. Do you want to record your device screen or browser tab? Do you want to add narration / music to Google Slides? Or, do you want to create a webcam recording? ViewedIt does all of this with just a few simple clicks. After video is created, it can be shared via email and social networks. ViewedIt is integrated with Gmail. It will add a thumbnail image of your video in a Gmail message. When you send a ViewedIt video using Gmail, the viewer's email address is tagged to each view. You will receive notifications stating what percentage of the video was viewed. Videos sent through other types of email or social networking will not be linked to a specific user. You can trac

One of the best features in Google Docs, Slides and Drawings was the Research Tool. Through the Research Tool, which allowed authors to do research simultaneously as they write or edit a document. From one place, you could search different Google services including: Scholar, Images, Quotes, Dictionary.  The great thing about the Research tool is that it allowed an author to easily insert citations and links to a document. Once an image, document, or resource was picked , the user click on “cite” and Google Doc automatically inserts the citation according to the style wanted ( MLA or APA, or Chicago).  Unfortunately, in September 2016, Google dropped the Research tool for the Explore tool in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. While this tool still provides the insights, design tools, and research recommendations that the old tool did, the citations feature was mysteriously missing!   Last week, Google improved upon the Explore tool and brought citations back!  Students writing res

Quizlet Live is an in-class, team based learning game. It puts the students in randomized teams (automatically) and gives each group different questions within the study set. Each team is made up of 3 or 4 students with a randomly assigned animal team name. (You can reshuffle the teams until you are satisfied with the groupings.) Each member of the group has different answers and only one person has the correct answer. The group needs to work together to get the correct answer to get the points.  Incorrect answers reset the team’s progress to zero. The first team to match all 12 terms correctly in a row wins. At the end of the game, teams see what they matched correctly and incorrectly. In the teacher mode, you must have the following to do Quizlet Live: At least 12 questions and answers in the set At least 6 students ready to play 10 to 20 minutes of class time To create this on your own: Website to set up your Quizlet account:   https://quizlet.com/ Sign u

I was doing some research for a resource visit last week, and I came across this great resource from the University of Colorado Boulder. It is called PhET and it provides free interactive math and science simulations.   Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery. The simulations are written in Java, Flash or HTML5, and can be run online or downloaded to your computer. All simulations are open source and are free to all students and teachers. They are great to show on your interactive board. Here's a short video introduction to the PhET simulations: A couple of my favorite simulations are the Plinko Probability simulation, Balancing Chemical Equations simulation, and John Travoltage . Check out PhET and see how you can use it in your classroom!

This idea comes from working with Kathy Laney at Hicksville. We were looking at how to convert a paper form presentation rubric and came up with the idea of using a google form and submitting a record each time the student does a presentation. The results are tabulated in a spreadsheet  Here is a link to make a copy of the Form https://goo.gl/KHNgTA Once you have the copy of the form in your drive you will need to open it and click on the responses tab and create a new spreadsheet to hold your results. (click the Green icon)  You will notice that the questions from the form correspond to columns in the spreadsheet. Each question has one answer (a checkbox) with the value X. Checking a box will result in an X in that column in the spreadsheet which makes it easy to see at a glance who has been assessed and what they scored. To customize you can delete the demo students and add your own by editing the first question. Intermediate Ti

Have you ever heard of Google Keep? Its a little known google app that lives in your gSuite account and if you have not tried it for few months it may be worth your while to give it another look. So what is Google Keep? If you are familiar with Evernote or even Apple's notes app then you probably have some idea. Basically a note taking program that syncs across all your devices. So what are some of the uses that you can put it to? Save your shortened urls or QR codes Take notes at a parent teacher conference. Capture photos of a conference presentation. Record a voice memo Make a shopping list Share action items with your team. Google Keep is available in apps and as a chrome application. It works in iOS and Android as well as in your favorite browser. Give it a try and see if you find it useful. I certainly did this week.

It is helpful to create shared files in Drive so that multiple people can view, comment, and/or edit them. It is even better to create shared folders. The difference between a shared folder versus just a shared file is that you can set the permissions to the folder to be view, comment, or edit and then anything (doc, slide show, sheet, drawing, etc) that you move into that folder will automatically assume those permissions. To create a folder: Click on the Blue New button and select folder. Next ,  do a right click (control + click on a mac) and select Share. Choose how you want to share it (view, edit, comment) and type the email addresses or a contact group in the people box. Once this folder is created and shared, anything you drag into that folder will automatically assume those shared permissions. So, if you create a folder with view only rights to your whole first period class, then anything that you drag into that folder will have view only rights for your whole first period

by Kristie Hughes When you start to create folders in Drive, you will notice that they all have a gray color to them. You can change the colors of your folders to help organize your information and make it easier to find the folder you are looking for.  Step One: Create your Folder - Click on the Blue New button and select Folder.  Then, name your folder. Step Two: Right Click on your folder (control + click on a Mac) and select Color. Pick the color that you want.  This will change the color of your folder allowing it to be found easier and will help with organization. 

By Kristie Hughes Goodbye Research Tool, Hello Explore Tool! You may have been familiar with the Research tool in Google, where you could search for an image or article, bring it over to your document, and the citation for the image or article would automatically plant itself at the bottom of your page. Starting on October 13th you will notice that the Research tool is no longer available! It has been replaced with the Explore tool. The Explore tool works similarly to the research tool in that you can research on the web, but it does not add the citations at the bottom of the page. When you go to the Tools menu in Docs, Slides, and Drawings,  click Explore... to make the tool appear on the side of your page. You can also just click on the little explore button at the bottom of your Document, Slide, or Drawing. **You can also use the Explore tool in Sheets, but it is designed to explore the data in your sheet.** Once the Explore tool is opened you will notice thr

by John Mansel-Pleydell Google Classroom will integrate with many third party websites allowing you to post assignments directly to your classroom stream from another website. Create quizzes in one website and post them as assignments in Classroom. Casey Bell (Shake Up Learning) has posted a list of 35 sites that integrate with Google Classroom. The original post is here. http://www.shakeuplearning.com/blog/20-awesome-apps-that-integrate-with-google-classroom/ The list is repeated below for your convenience.   1.  American Museum of Natural History (programs and educational resources) 2.  cK-12 (library of free online textbooks, videos, exercises, flashcards, and real world applications) 3.  Alma (learning management system) 4.  Buncee (presentation tool) 5.  Google Cultural Institute (collections of art, exhibits, and archives from across the globe) 6.  Curiosity.com (educational content, videos, and more) 7.  Discovery Education (education