💥 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 and tips- SeeSaw - FlipGrid -Clever & Loom have some great new features, free templates, TCEA ($49) is FREE this week, new math add-on, and why did Jobs turn down a meeting with President Obama? This, and more, in this week's tips!

 Monitor student learning right in Clever - 

Clever Analytics is a dashboard of real-time student engagement for teachers right in the Clever Portal that keeps teachers informed and students accountable because of trusted data on student Clever usage. View your student activity here! 

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K-2 staff- Check out these new Seesaw for Schools features:

• Track Student Engagement and Mastery with the new Progress feature
• How do I use Progress?
• Watch this Progress mini training video 

Remember, SeeSaw has some great on demand tutorials and videos on a variety of subjects. 

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Miscellaneous tech tips:

Jam Board tip: Using the Jam as a collaborative activity for students? Reached the 25 active person limit of working on a Jam?  Most teachers find they do not like more than 15-20 working in one Jam anyway, so many teachers just make a copy of the same Jam and assign that to smaller groups of students. 

Work on Mouse skills for the K-2 kids - Visit mousepractice.altervista.org/ to try any of the trackpad/mouse skill builder activities. 

This is a fantastic, dynamic periodic table of the elements: ptable.com

Quick tip - Search Google Images INSIDE Google Docs, Slides, Sheets or Drawings.   Did you know you can search for Google Images without ever leaving your Doc or Slide? Yep! This can save valuable time in the classroom! AND these images are filtered for use--meaning copyright friendly for students!   Watch this quick video to learn how!

How to Edit, Restart, or Continue a Numbered List in Google Docs 

Learn to Code on Chromebooks - Learning to code has never been easier with these nine coding apps that're great for younger and older learners, as well as teachers, schools, and families. (Checkout our Computer Coding for Students resource doc for more great coding tools.)

7 Gmail Search Tips & Tricks for Power Users 

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A few Google updates:

• Google Chat ‘Rooms’ are now ‘Spaces’ 
• Forms settings are now easier to navigate 
• Restore a page via version history in new Google Sites
• You can now add image watermarks directly into Google Docs. (This was long overdue!) (It's just released, so it should be here soon.) 
  

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You know how I love templates!  And SlidesMania comes through with some great slide decks that are geared toward manipulatives. These collections of manipulative

slide decks are ones you can customize to suite your needs! Each deck has directions and a variety of activities you can customize for your needs.   Check them out here. 

Note:  Many more templates can be found in our Google templates and ideas doc. 

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Classroomscreen.com - Connect your computer or Chromebook to your projector and use this handy FREE site to do a variety of things including: 

• random name picker
• group maker
• share a timer
• Roll the dice
• share a QR Code
• project work time
• stop light

Launch it here. 

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National Geographic Kids Games -  

National Geographic Kids has a lot of great videos and resources, but did you know they have games too?  Try the Animal Trickster Personality Test and get your results!  Great for a rainy day activity or short time killer as students finish early. 

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Once again, Flipgrid released BIG updates to its camera, user experience, help center and more. Here are 20+ ways to use those updates in the classroom. For many students, video is just part of the way they speak, let's meet them where they are. 

He also has another great Flipgrid resource here: Flipgrid for ALL! 50+ ways to use Flipgrid in your class

Another great resource from Matt Miller. It's one of the few emails I subscribe to and read for great tech teaching ideas.  Subscribe here and get some nice free tech ebooks as well. 

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Flipgrid's camera updates are amazing.  Learn more here... An introduction to the NEW Flipgrid camera 

• Custom backdrops and background blur available now on web and mobile
• Six new Flipgrid lenses
• 30+ fun and expressive stickers

Read more about all the new additions to the Flipgrid camera this month and check out the app today!

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 One great feature about Google's "Weekly Journal" Slide doc is the block letter alphabet on Slide 10. You can copy and paste each letter individually to spell anything you want.  Checkout the template here. 

This template and others can be found in our templates doc located here. 

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Always keep your phones and devices updated.  It's the best way to stay secure!  

Update your Apple Phone and devices ASAP!  - Apple Patches an NSO Zero-Day Flaw Affecting All Devices  (I only send this email out and post every couple weeks, so this is a few days old, but a good reminder to update your devices all the time!) 

Apple has released security updates for a zero-day vulnerability that affects every iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. Citizen Lab, which discovered the vulnerability and was credited with the find, urges users to immediately update their devices.

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Nebraska Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) invites you to discover resources that approach learning through the lens of food and farming. These free lessons and activities feature current instructional strategies and align to grade-specific education content standards in math, science, social studies, and language arts.  

• Lesson plan activities are designed to encourage active learning for deeper understanding and increased critical thinking. 
• First-Grade classrooms can request a free kit full of worksheets, discussion guides, letters from youth farmers, posters, and a Nebraska map with stickers.
• Use the Nebraska Interactive Map in connection with The Nebraska Adventure 4th grade social studies book. Find worksheets, educator guides, and standard connections for your social studies unit. 
• Select a beautiful, imaginative, lively text or picture book accompanied by a standard-aligned educator guide to support language arts learning. Enhance lessons with the included interactive activities. 
  
• And so much more - Visit the  Nebraska Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) for more!

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Loom just keeps getting better -   Now when you trim your video or audio  it shows exactly where you’re speaking and where you’re not, making quick edits easier than ever.  Watch the demo.  We have added this tip to our Screen recording tools doc.

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Math teachers (Or anyone wanting to insert math equations.) Check this out!  Here is new Google add-on for adding math formula's into Google Docs and slides.  Check it out! It's called Hypatia Create.  They give you about every feature you would want for free.  (But there are a few pro features in the paid version too.)  Here is a short how-to video. 

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Foreign Language or ELL teachers - Check this out! This Add-on allows users to easily insert accents for different languages directly from a sidebar in their Google Docs or Slides. Check them out here: Easy Accents  for Slides AND Easy Accents for Docs  (They do have some premium features in their pro plan, but most everything is free.) 

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How to Use Canva Education with Google Classroom 

I know I keep beating the Canva drum, but it's worth beating to get everyone to check it out!  It just keeps getting better!  Their paid/pro product is free for teachers and students.  And now Canva Education’s seamless integration with Google Classroom makes it easy to assign individual copies of Canva templates to students.

- More info here: How to Use Canva Education with Google Classroom 

While you are there -Checkout the free pre-made Google Classroom Headers templates in Canva. 

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This is a new handy feature coming to Google Calendar! - Easily chat with meeting participants from a Google Calendar event.

Google is adding an option that makes it easy to chat with meeting attendees directly from Google Calendar.  Soon you will see a chat button to chat with the meeting participants.  (Note - There has always been an email button to easily email all participants.) 

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Create Jamboard Math Activities with Equatio  (Remember,  Equatio is free for teachers.  More info here.

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Interesting 2 minute read - Steve Jobs' 3-Point Formula for Leading Effective Meetings Was Brilliant  (I didn't know he turned down a meeting with President Obama because the guest list was too long, gotta love it.) 

Photo: Getty Images. Illustration: Reagan Allen.

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TCEA membership is free this week! (Normally $49)

TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) (similar to Nebraska's NETA organization) is worth joining for access to several great resources throughout the year.  (They record all of their webinars, so a person can easily watch one on a topic of your choice.) 

Would it be worth $49? Many think so.... but when they offer it free during their fall membership week, you have nothing to lose! 

Here are just a few of the benefits of joining our community of educators and lifelong learners:

Complete this form to get registered! 

If you are not a NETA Member, now is time!  (It is always free.) 

Unlock your access to the largest archive of community-and-expert-developed educational resources

• Connect with more than 50,000 active users in our vibrant, online TCEA Community
• Attend weekly live and on-demand webinars created by and for educators
• Access three years of professional learning recordings, available immediately
• Earn 80+ hours of annual, free CPE credits
• And more!