Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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💥 Tech items - Lesson plans, free templates, great Google updates, Jamboards and more in this weeks tech tips!

Thursday, July 8, 2021

 2,000+ LESSON PLAN TEMPLATES AND IDEAS FOR K12 - The Pennsbury School District in Pennsylvania has created A HUGE STOREHOUSE of lesson plans and templates for busy educators.   More info here.   Check it out!  Templates, lesson plans and more!  



Google Expeditions is going away - Here are some alternatives. (I still can't believe Google dropped this great EDU tool!) 
sitesinvr.com has been mentioned as a great Expeditions replacement in a few places. 

Also, Richard Byrne (the "Free Technology for Teachers" guy) who shares great stuff put together this nice list of resources to dig into. 

And just for fun: https://blog.google/products/google-ar-vr/webxr-experiments/

A few Google product updates:

40 Google for Education Updates for Summer 2021!  Checkout this list!
  • Did you know that scheduling assignments to MULTIPLE classes is coming in Google Classroom? 
  • Coming soon...Topic-voting table templates let you easily gather feedback directly in docs. 
  • Coming to forms - 20 new fonts in Forms and AutoSave
And many more.... check out the list here! 


Add Interactive Checklist to Google Docs!  (More info and a short how-to video here.) 


Google Docs adds an option to place images in front of and behind text - More info here. - Great new feature for added creativity. 




“Master” View in Google Slides Renamed to “Theme Builder” 
Google is renaming the “Master” view in Google Slides to “Theme Builder”. This change better communicates the benefits: to help users quickly customize the font, color, and layout customization for their current theme, ensuring a consistent experience throughout the presentation.


Google Workspace Update: Save photos from Gmail messages directly to Google Photos with a new “Save to Photos” button - More info here.

Misc. tech tips:
How to Add & Edit Image Carousels in Google Sites - Short 3 minute video. 

SLIDES VS DRAWINGS VS JAMS - This post includes questions, a diagram and a video to guide you through the selection. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Color-Code Drive Folders) - Tired of staring at grey folders in Google Drive? Add some color to visually organize, color-code, and just add some brightness to the screen for you and your students.  ðŸ“º Watch this quick video to learn how!
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Add Emoji to Google Drive) - Did you know you can add emoji to files and folders in Google Drive? It's super fun and adds visual organization. ðŸ“º Watch this quick video to learn how!
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Schedule Google Classroom Assignments)- Did you know you can schedule assignments in Google Classroom? Yes! You can push out your assignments at a specific time and date so you can plan ahead!   ðŸ“º Watch this quick video to learn how!

Connecto is a new flippity.net game. Input your own questions and answers to create a quiz game that plays like Connect Four and Tic-tac-toe.  If you have not checked out flippity.net, now is a great time.  Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a Set of Online Flashcards and Other Cool Stuff!  More about this new template here. 

How to Add Voice Recordings to Google Forms - Short video here.

24 Google Docs Templates That Will Make Your Life Easier - Check them out here. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (How to Use Closed Captions in Chrome) - Did you know that Google Chrome allows you to turn on closed captioning for videos found across the web? All you need to do is enable it in your settings!  This is a great way to support ALL learners! ðŸ“º Watch this quick video to learn how!

Misc. Tech tips and tools:
If you have not used the Avery online label tool.. now is a good time to give it a try!  Need a bunch of labels printed all the same... or a mail merge for a mailing??? This is the tool!  Our how-to doc will get you started.


I was shocked to find out that many teachers still do not know how to do a simple screen capture. This is a must-have skill to maximize your tech use/time.  This doc will get you started.




Extra, extra! Newspapers frontpages. Free for Google Slides or PowerPoint | SlidesMania
News or Fake News? I was trying something different and worked on these newspapers' front pages. Maybe they can be used to discuss news and fake news. Or to differentiate information from opinion.  Check them out here.



This one is another one that is almost too good to be free.  (It's an OER - Open Educational Resource that is funded by donations/foundations similar to Kahn and others.)  CommonLit - A reading program that reaches all students. This one is also listed in our Open Educational Resources (OERs) document. 

DOGO News has fun articles for kids on current events, science, sports, and more!  - ELA - Science and Social Studies. There are also lots of stories, pictures, videos, games, and more.  They do have a paid version, but many teachers just use the free features and love it.  (The paid version adds more assignments to the articles and will read them to the students.)

Definitely worth check-in gout and recommended by other Nebraska teachers. 


Storyboard That: The World's Best Free Online Storyboard ...
Create storyboards with our free storyboard software! Filmmakers, teachers, students, & businesses all love using Storyboard That for storyboarding & comics. Super easy and powerful!

-You can create two storyboards per week for free, or upgrade any time for more advanced features.  (Many teachers just use the free features and find it very useful.) 




Time to think of Cava (best drawing/graphics program) for presentations too.  Checkout this presentation that  shows some of Canva's presentation features including: 

  • Polling an audience
  • Creating MP4 files
  • Publishing slides as a website
  • Collaborating on designs 
  • Recording narrated presentations

(Don't get me wrong, I still love Google slides too!) 

A cool video/experience: Journey To The Edge Of Space. Experience what it's like to leave Earth, traveling to over 90,000 feet into the stratosphere (360 Video)

Five Jamboard Features You Need to Know. (6 min.) In this video you can learn:

1. How to use version history in Jamboard and how to name versions. 

2. How to quickly duplicate objects and why that's helpful.

3. How to export Jamboards as PDFs. 

4. How to set custom backgrounds in Jamboard. 

5. How to create and distribute Jamboard templates. 





And just for the fun of it:

A Day at the Beach - c.1899 - What was it like over 100 years ago?  (It's amazing what they can do with old footage.)

The flying car completes first ever inter-city flight 


Posted by Noel Erskine at 9:18 AM 0 comments

💥 Tech items - New SeeSaw features, Google docs features, Loom video edits, audio in forms, and more tech tips for the week!

 

Miscellaneous tech tips:

How to edit master slides in Google Slides. Do this to edit default font choices, color schemes, and branding.  This short video will walk you through this easy process. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Organize "Shared with Me") -  Please resist the urge to delete and clean up the shared with me section of Google Drive. <---Never do this!  Instead, add shortcuts to these files inside your own folders to keep these files organized. ðŸ“º Watch this quick video to learn how! 

More icons for your slides! The creator of the popular site SlidesMania (has a wide range of Google Slides/PPT templates that are free to use) has brought us IconsMania. Just go to IconsMania and search for what you need or browse the collections. While browsing you can limit the options to colorful, outline, or monochromatic. (Just click, I am a Google user and you will have the template. 



Add Padlet Walls to Google Sites -  Short how-to video here. 

Create Jamboard Math Activities with Equatio    Remember to check out our "Jamming with Google’s Jamboard!" doc for more great resources and ideas for Jamboard. 

I know the school year is over, but I still wanted to share this resource for another year.  A collection of HyperDocs that are great for the end of the school year! -Check them out here and Six Ideas for End-of-Year Review Activities. 

FlipGrid is a must-have and must-use tool for everyone!  This video will show you how to Screen Record with Flipgrid. Remember, there are Loom and other great tools we recommend for screen recording as well. 

Here's one for the home tech help: 
Windows 10 has a built-in ransomware block, you just need to enable it This is one for your home PC.  (We run Sophos here, so you would not be able to do this setting on the school computers.  - How to article here. 


This is not your Grandma's Word! Some new Google Magic coming soon to the Gsuite!  Wow, pretty cool stuff. 
Insert smart chips for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides files, other Google Drive files, and Calendar events. Unlimited canvas size, checklists on steroids, and more coming soon! 
 
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This is all a part of their smart canvas that was recently announced. — a new product experience that will make it easier for people to stay connected, focus their time and attention and transform their ideas into impact.

Audio into Google Forms! ðŸš€ Mote delivered!  Teachers use Google Forms in so many amazing ways. With Mote, things have just got even more amazing - you can now add voice notes to your forms!  Mote offers a lot of features for free.   This one-minute video will walk you through how it adds voice to forms. 

Great new feature in Google Docs! - Nice and easy way to see who edited what in your Doc. “Show Editors” provides more context on changes made in Google Docs
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🚀 New in Loom: Notification Center, Instant Editing, and more. Looms is one of favorite screen recording tools.   And all of it is free to educators!  Great for recording how-to videos and sending them out via classroom, SeeSaw, email and more!  Checkout our Screen Recording doc to get signed up as well as explore a few more great tools! 

Edit your videos 300x faster with Instant Editing

Tripped on a word? You don't need to re-record! Just edit your video at the end – it's faster than ever before. The best part? We have more advanced editing features like filler word removal coming soon! Read more. 

Tip of the month: Picture-in-Picture mode  
Next time you're watching a design, code, or copy review, click Toggle PiP or the shortcut p to pop out the video instead of switching between Loom and where you're working. 

🚨Norris K-2 teachers - SeeSaw has a new feature called Progress!
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Progress enables teachers to efficiently identify student engagement trends, target instruction accordingly, and generate individual Progress Reports to share with families
See what Progress can do! ðŸŽ¥ Watch video: bit.ly/Progress-Training

💡Progress is currently available on web only (not mobile), which means it does not require any updates and is immediately visible to you and your teachers.

Keep up the great SeeSaw work.  As a part of the pro version, our administrators can post/send building announcements to family and more.  They also get a weekly report on all of the activities!  We have had 514 parent visits this past week! Here is a sample one from this past week:

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SeeSaw tips and tricks - several great resources. 

You must check out his Twitter feed to get a ton of SeeSaw tips and tricks. 


Google Docs has won the office suite war among one generation - I ran across this tech article and it looks like the future is GSuite for all. 

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How to Use the Google Slides Presenter Toolbar
HOW-TO GEEK - When you’re presenting a slideshow, the last thing you should worry about is how to control it. With the Google Slides presenter toolbar, you can concentrate on your presentation, not the navigation. Check out it's new features here. 



Create captivating certificates and so much more! 
Are you a teacher looking to reward your students or a coach wanting to celebrate your team? You’ll love the range of fully customizable certificates for any occasion.
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If you have not looked at Canva - Do it this summer!  This makes our top 10 list of teacher tech tools every time. - Canva for Education, It’s 100% free for K12 teachers and their students. (They give us the full paid product for free!)  -Sign up here. 

A couple nice tools for Google Classroom to explore this summer! 

Glasswork Zoom (No, not the Zoom video conferencing product.) 
Classwork Zoom may be a great addition to your Google Classroom.  It was developed by a teacher.  (The free plan gives you a nice feature set. (And the paid plan is only $20 in case you really like it.)  It allows you some further insights and timelines into students' work in Google Classroom.  This short 2-minute video will get you started. 

Schoolytics 
Schoolytics complements your Google Classroom workflow by offering on-demand, real-time student activity reports that save you time, foster student engagement, and support your communication with students, families, and colleagues. Teacher accounts are free.  
Posted by Noel Erskine at 9:11 AM 0 comments
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