💥 T𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 - SeeSaw & Canva tips. More templates! Free extensions. Video & Photo tools. New features and more in this weeks tech tips.

 

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For those of us that are not Photoshop experts.... This is a simple to use and free tool to easily blur things in a pic.  Checkout cleanup.pictures

(We have added this resource to our collection of resources in our Photo Editing and drawing tools doc located here. that have many more simple free editing tools and sites.) 

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VideoCandy.com has free tools for doing quick and simple edits to your video files. this one is worth adding to your bookmarks and tech tool list!

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CLOSEit is a free add-on for Google Docs. Underlined or highlighted words are replaced with blanks and a word bank is added to the end of the document. https://clozeit.syedkhairi.com/ 

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New Google Drive add-on (Marketplace app) added to all staff Google Drives - Folgo for Google Drive™ is great for bulk actions in Google Drive. Copy, transfer, inspect folders (with subfolders & files).  Our how-to doc can be found here.  Powerful tool!  Read the doc for more info! 

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Miscellaneous tech resources. 

TEMPLATES! - A nice resource from Lynne Herr at ESU6  -  Ready to Use 2021-22 Slides by Quarter. Daily slides include Fact of the Day, Joke or Puzzle of the Day, Think About It (SEL) and Share Out.  These slide templates are ready for you to make a copy and start using. 

More Templates! - STUDENT PROJECT TEMPLATES - 

• Art Gallery Template - Showcase student work in a Gallery format
• Portfolio Brainstorm - Slides version of Jamboard templates
• Canva Templates - from Infographics and Invitations to Flyers and Newsletters
• Creative Tech Teacher Slides Templates for Students (scroll Comic Book template)
• Social Studies Project Palooza
• History Project/Lesson Templates
• Graphic Organizer Template Collection
• iFakeTextMessage 
• Esther Park’s Free template collection
• Templates for Teachers - HUGE Collection
  

Need to rephrase a sentence?  Give WordTune a try. 

10 things you didn’t know you could do with Google Arts and Culture 

Yellowstone Distance Learning Opportunities and videos for your classroom. -Check them out here. 

GOOGLE WORKSPACE UPDATES - Manage Overdue Tasks in Google Calendar - 
If you have uncompleted tasks that were due in the past 30 days, you will have an all day entry that will tell you how many tasks are pending from that timeframe. More info here on this new upcoming feature. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (New Table Features in Google Docs) - Have you noticed the new features when you insert a table in Google Docs! You can now pin header rows, add unsplittable rows, quickly add and arrange columns and rows, and even sort tables to organize data! Thanks to Shake Up Learning for this great tip.  Watch this quick video to learn how!

15 Google Classroom Tips for Teachers - Kacy Bell, always has good stuff.  Check them out here. (Some great organizational tips for Classroom, including the resources topic to keep at the top of each class.)  

6 Tips and Tricks to Make Better Use of Google Contacts

What is Sub-image Search? And Why You Would Use It? (Many students and teachers do not know you can easily search using images to find out what something is.  Great short walkthrough in this video.) 

Did I Plagiarize? - The Types and Severity of Plagiarism Violations.  A nice visual graphic for use with your kids. 

Free Webinar: Stop Motion Animation with Google Slides! View the recorded video & access resources here.

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Google Drive Search Chips) - It's even easier now to search your Google Drive files. Try using the new enhance search chips to refine your search!  Watch this quick video to learn how!

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A couple great free extensions. Made by Alice Keeler and sponsored by Schoolytics. 

Speaker Notes by Schoolytics - This free Chrome extension will send your Speaker Notes in Google Slides™ to a Google Doc™. 

Quiz Helper by Schoolytics - For teachers, make a quiz with Google Forms™ with confidence. Automatically sets defaults for a quiz. Collects edit link, so students can finish later. Creates Google Docs™  Short tutorial video here.   How-to article here. 

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Emoji Tips and tricks: 

Emoji bullets  - Format Bullets & Numbering List Options More Options Emojis

 Simply enter a list into http://EmojiBulletList.com and it will do its best to pair a relevant emoji with each item.

 Click an emoji to see more suggestions. Sometimes the results are disappointing, but you can paste the list anywhere and add your own emojis.

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Chrome extensions:

• Speechify - Ready anything on the web aloud

• Use Immersive Reader on Web Sites - great tool for emergent/struggling readers

• IT"S BACK! - Add to Google Classroom - share a site to Classroom

• Draft Back - review the creation of a Google Doc 
  

• Bitmoji

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Can Canva get any better?  Answer:  YES! 

Tables & Charts are in Canva for Education! Seamless integration with Google
 Sheets! So many possibilities & so easy to create! Yes, you can do charts inside of Sheets, but this adds even more possibilities as well.  Checkout the short 1-minute video here!  (Remember, Canva gives teachers and students free pro accounts!) 

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ELL Teachers! - check this out!

A Self-Checking Translation Quiz in Google Sheets  Practice another language with your own words & sentences, with color-coded feedback & hints. Great for ELL & all language learners!

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Google Classroom headers, newsletter templates, worksheets, and virtual backgrounds and more are found in this teacher's free Canva templates.  Check them out here!  AND remember, Canva is FREE for educators and students!!

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SeeSaw tips: You can now access select standards-aligned collections and lessons right in Seesaw.

Start exploring these multimodal collections today!

• Fun Phonemes (PreK-K > Foundational Literacy > 42 Lessons)

• Numbers in Space (K-2 > Number Sense > 21 Lessons)

• SEL Stories (K-2 > SEL, Writing > 30 Lessons) 

• STEAM (K-2 > Blended Learning > 13 Lessons)

What's new in SeeSaw? This slide deck walks through each month's updates along the way. (Good bookmark to check once in a while.)

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CANVA TIP! 

You can download your Canva designs into your Google Drive, which allows you to manipulate the items within your design?!! This changes the game for accessibility with cute designs! (Remember, It's easy to convert the PowerPoint file (PPTX) into Google Slides!) More tips and free EDU account info is located in our Canva doc.

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Experiments with Google - Experiments with Google is a place for people to share ideas and coders for Google experiment with the ideas. This one is a fun experiment that would be great for any musical class.  Blob Opera allows you to take a look at how interacting with the different cartoon character blobs changes the singing voice assigned to each blob.  It's just cool! (You can search other experiments here.) 

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Let's protect and inform our kids! 

I know many of you have gotten similar emails saying they charged you X number of dollars for a subscription and then call this 800 number if you have issues.  These guys are after your money and your computer/info.  This one even runs a call center and matches up the name with the Transaction number.  They then send you to a website that installs a program on your computer. 

This was sent to one of our 6th grade students: 

The only way to protect yourself and our kids is... being informed and always being cautious.  Please remind students about these kinds of things and never call or give out information. 

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💥 T𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀 - Templates, Chromebook resources, watermarks, game buzzer and more in this weeks tech tips.

 WOW - This one is a winner!  A ton of resources on the Chromebooks in the Classroom resource page. 

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Miscellaneous tech tools:

GAME CHANGER TIP FOR ME! - WOW - Yes, I just learned this one and should have known it all along!  In short, when in chrome you can highlight text on a website, right-click and select copy link to highlight.  That link you send will take them to the website with the text highlighted that you selected. Pretty useful!  (30-second Video here if you want to see it in action.) 

ReadWriteThink Interactives Now Work Without Flash! - ReadWriteThink offers a great collection of free interactive templates for students to use to create all kinds of things including poems, story plots, timelines, compare & contrast maps, and much more. More info here! 

Mergo add-on installed for doing email merges and campaigns. -  We have added the Mergo add-on into Google Sheets to easily do email campaigns and merges.  (I sent out an announcement several weeks ago about this.)  We have put together a tutorial doc about how to use this new tool. 

An A-Z of Creativity" digital book is collection of over 100 free tools and sites. It  includes ideas for possible classroom uses for each. Check it out here.  (Great example of a book created with BookCreator, which is another great tool for the classroom.) 

4,000+ Maps of Military Battles and Campaigns - The vast majority of the maps are from the 18th and 19th centuries, although there are about 600 maps covering World War I and II.  Check them out here. 

ClassTools.net - an oldie, but still a goodie! - If you have not checked out classtools.net it's worth a look.  Badge Maker, Random Name Picker, Image Annotator and more! 

Another oldie but a goodie - Have you checked out Flippity lately? If not, it's worth a look.  Create games, timelines, flashcards and more from a spreadsheet list. 

20 Canva templates to use in class tomorrow - Check them out here. 

Google Slides - It's one of the best. - Slides lets you and your students create interactive, visual, engaging learning activities that are anything but ordinary and boring. You need to check out the ULTIMATE Google Slides teacher resource, it is stuffed full of great resources.

Easy Ways to Create Voice Recordings - No Account Required -  Check it out here. 

Create or import text watermarks in Google Docs - You can now add watermarks to docs. Text watermarks will repeat on every page on your document, making it useful for indicating file status, such as “Confidential” or “Draft” before sharing more broadly, no matter the application you use. In addition to text watermarks, you can insert an image watermark or images above or behind text. Go to: Insert > Watermark >

Your Gmail will look a bit different in a few weeks: Gmail’s ‘new integrated view’ web redesign starts rolling out in the coming weeks.  (Google's article can be found here: integrated view.)  

What is good digital citizenship?  -This poster will tell you and your students! 

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CrowdBuzzer - It's a great tool for classroom review games.  Check it out! 

Playing a classroom game? - Use the student's Chromebooks as their own buzzers for your review game!  (Works great for remote learning as well.) 

(This tip and other great tips can be found here: https://www.notanotheremailpd.com ) 

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Jazz Up Your Docs!  - Do you like to print your docs on colored paper?  You can make your Google Doc colored too! In Docs--> Go to File --> Page Setup and choose the color of your choice!

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Tiny Sketchbook is a free extension that lets you create digital sketches with just a click of a button.  This one may not be for everyone, but some may find it useful.  There are a lot of canvas type drawing tools out there, and each fit a niche depending on what you use it for.  (Google Drawings, Canva, many whiteboarding tools, etc...)  This one would be good if you just want to do a quick doodle/drawing and send it in an email or paste it into a doc.  (You can send a link to someone, so they can edit that simple drawing/scribble too.)  If it's something you may use, check it out here.  (The developer/company is solid. They have some good products.) 

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Checkout Emoji Copy -   All you need to do is click, hit copy, and BAM... it's ready to paste into your text! It's even searchable!!  Check it out here.  We have added this to our clip art and sound resources doc. 

Did you know, you can access the built-in emoji keyboards by doing this:

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Virtual Field Trips~ 

EBOOK: 25 instant virtual field trips -- This ebook contains 25 of our favorite on-demand virtual field trips. 

TEMPLATE: Postcards from around the world -- This template lets students write about their experience in the virtual field trip. It's a great way for them to summarize and reflect what they've just seen! 

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PDF Candy - A free online PDF Editor with a lot of bells and whistles you would expect from something that cost big bucks.  PDF Candy allows you to change, edit,

or transform any PDF into another form. Imagine taking the PDFs and editing them, download them to Microsoft Word (Convert to Googel Doc), merge two PDFs so
that they print together, or SPLIT a PDF into two different pages. PDF Candy allows you to do this and so much more. It even features an "Extract Text" option that eliminates ads and pictures prior to printing a larger file.  CHECK IT OUT. 

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The only thing better than a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet with Wordle in it.  
You can grab the sheet here, but better yet, learn how this was recreated in Google Sheets 

Looking for ways of using Wordle in your class for engagement? Check out these ideas. 

Speaking of Google Sheets - You can even make an Etch A Sketch with sheets! 

The power of sheets never fails to surprise me.  Here is how this was made.  (You can make a copy of this sheet here.) 

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30 sites for students with free time on their hands - Check them out here. 

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Rainbow "Scratch-Off" Drawing Templates for Jamboard - COOL  Check them out.  (We have added this to our JamBoard doc, where more links to templates can be found.)

Jamboard: Add a Background from Canva - How-to here.  

The templates below have been added to our Jamboard doc that contains many more great ones!

More Jamboard Templates: 

• Global Educator Jamboard Collection

• K-2 Jamboards

• Word Work Jamboard (for littles)

• SEL Jamboards

• Image collection to use with Jamboards

• Wheel of Fortune Jamboard

• Kinder Collection

• Brain Dump Template

• Reflection/Portfolio Templates

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CANVA TEMPLATES FOR SEESAW 

SeeSaw templates for:

• Announcements
• Newsletters
• Activities
• And more!

If you do not have a Canva account:

Canva for Education - A great free online graphics program. Available to K-12 teachers and their students. 100% free - now and forever. More info here. You will need to create an account in Canva.  Educators may request a free premium account, and they are usually approved in about a week.

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💥 Tech items - New Gsuite features, video & photo tools, free templates, hyperdocs AND free Chick-Fil-A nuggets until Jan 31st!

Richard Byrne's Favorite New & Updated Tools in 2019 - This short list of tools from 2019 are always great from one of the best out there!  Slido, Glide Apps , ClassTools , BoClips  and more in this list!  

Please turn off your projectors when you are not using them! -Please do not leave them on over lunch, during your prep period, etc...  It really takes the life off of the projector and bulb. Thanks from your tech department. 

Are you using your Chromebook to its fullest potential?  If it's just sitting at home, your wasting a valuable resource. Use it for staff meetings or maybe casting from it to your projector, 

A few new resources from Google: 

G Suite for Power Users: This page contains resources specifically curated for advanced users so they can get even more out of G Suite.
G Suite Hack for power users: This training has five challenge tasks employees can complete at their own pace, giving them a fun way to learn about G Suite.

New Feature in Gmail Send multiple emails as attachments in Gmail. (This makes it easy to forward a string of emails.) 

 select the emails and then from the overflow (three-dot) menu select “Forward as attachment

View the version history of a new Google Site


Version History coming to new Google Sites in 2020: 
What’s changing: We’re starting to add version history for sites created in new Google Sites, a highly requested feature from our site owners and editors.

Version history will roll out over the course of 2020 for both users creating new sites as well as for previously existing sites. Version history will be gradually enabled on a user-by-user basis for newly created sites, while a separate roll out will enable version history for previously existing sites. We anticipate:

• By March 2020, all users will have version history enabled for newly created sites
• By the end of 2020, most existing sites will have version history enabled

Review the latest changes to a new Google Site before publishing

Announced on December 4, 2019  What’s changing
Before publishing changes to your new Google Sites, you can now compare the currently published site with the soon-to-be-published draft site in an annotated, side-by-side view.

How To Share Spark Videos on YouTube - This short article will walk you through the steps. 

Remove Image Backgrounds With PhotoScissors - I shared this one last year, but thought I would share again. And a couple others in this article: Three Ways to Remove Image Backgrounds With Just a Click or Two. 

We have updated and added a few resources to our Computer Science & Coding Resources document. You can checkout our doc here.  (If you have additional resources to add, let us know and we will add them to our resource list.) 

More Options for Copying Presentations in Google Slides
More info via G Suite Updates | When creating a copy of an existing Google Slides presentation, you'll now be able to select specific slides to copy instead of the whole deck and remove the speaker notes from the copy. This feature makes it easier to parse out and share the most relevant content with your team, audience, or other.

If you are using FireFox - UPDATE IT!  (Use Chrome here at school... but I know some of you may use FireFox at home.  If so update it!) 

More info can be found here about this major exploit if you do not update! 

Well, this one is not a phishing email, it's a legit offer. Get a free Chick-Fil-A  8-Ct Chicken Nuggets or Kale Crunch Salad - Now through Jan. 31st.

If you already have the rewards app, open it up... and it will show you the offer.  If not, download the app and join their rewards and you will get the offer via the app. (iOS or Android). 

A Comparison of 6 Blogging Services for Teachers and Students - Updated -  I think for Norris I would use Blogger for the older students and SeeSaw for the younger students.  Checkout the article for more info and options. 

12 Alternatives to Google Images 

Check it out here.   

Tip: Make sure you get the Pixabay GoogleDoc add-on for docs and the Unsplash addon for Google Slides. 

Create Your Own Story Cubes with Google Drawings  - With templates to download! More here. 

Hyperdocs and more Hyperdocs!   What is a Hyperdoc?  Checkout the templates and Samples. 

GOOGLE TEMPLATES FOR STUDENTS - Not a new one, but still great templates in this list.

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