Tech Tuesday Tips

Spreadsheets are an everyday tool for some of us. Google sheets has often been criticized for having less features that MS Excel, but this really is no longer the case. Google has quietly been making changes to sheets to make it more versatile for gSuite users. You can now rotate the text in a cell in Sheets (Format > Text rotation). This is especially useful when you need to fit long header names into thin columns, or when you simply want to fit more text on a single screen. Another feature added this week is the ability to format text with accounting number formats. The currency symbols as well as numbers, decimal points and repeated characters can be formatted to line up correctly. Late last year they added alternate row colors as a feature. Select a range of cells and choose  (Format > Alternating Colors).  Options for color combinations are loaded in a side pane. These are just a few of the new great features that have been added to Google s...

For years, teachers have requested to ability to use videos in Google Slides, without the need to host them on YouTube. Yesterday, Google finally made this possible! Just add your video to Google Drive. Then Insert Video within your Slides presentation. You'll see a new option for Google Drive. Once you’ve added a Drive video to your presentation, you can choose when to start and end it, whether it should autoplay when presenting, and whether it should be muted or play with audio. Simply right-click on the video and select Video options. If a person viewing your presentation doesn’t have permission to view a video embedded within it, they’ll be prompted to request access. Note that while you can play Drive videos in Slides on the web and mobile, you can only insert them from the web application. For more details, visit the Help Center . This feature should be rolling out to users within the next two weeks.

Google Calendar is helping many people organize their digital lives. The web calendar version allows you to see and display multiple calendars in one easy to use interface.  Don't want to see a calendar, simply click the checkbox in the sidebar and it is hidden. Want to add a coworkers calendar to your calendar page? Just type their email in the box at the top of Other Calendars. So far so good. But when viewing your Google calendars using any of the calendar apps on mobile apps (iOS and Android)  its not quite so simple. The only calendars that show up in your apps are the ones you have write access to (my calendars) the other calendars are not visible... or are they? To the rescue is a little known setting buried deep in the bowels of the Google help system. Visit a URL on your mobile device or PC or Mac and you can choose which calendars are visible and which ones are hidden. https://calendar.google.com/calendar/syncselect Simply click the one...

A favorite online teacher rubric is OrangeSlice.  OrangeSlice: Teacher Rubric increases the teacher’s grading productivity by eliminating repetitive clicks, presenting the rubric selections in an easy to use format and presenting the final grades in a consistent, professional format.  OrangeSlice also works with Google Classroom.  Click here to view step-by-step instructions on how to install and use OrangeSlice.