💥 Tech items - Some great tech tips, new Meet features, Draftback is back!, smishing on the rise... and more in this Tuesday tech tips email

How are you coming with your Norris Required Tech & Remote Learning Teacher Tools and Skills For the 2020-21 School year???

Checkout our document here and be prepared! 

Hope to see you at the Tech Book camp tomorrow and Thursday... and the new staff have their tech day on Friday!  Wow summer is gone.  Hope everyone is ready for an exciting year.  (Yes, there will be challenges and new procedures... but what a great opportunity for us to lead as educators.)  Don't forget your mask!  -A fun little Goggle Mask video. 

Draftback - ITS BACK! 

This is one of our favorite extensions and it stopped working a few months ago and the developer has updated it and ITS BACK! 

Adds a button into your Google Docs to playback the history like a movie.  Great for seeing how students made that doc/report.  

Connect Google Classroom with Applied Digital Skills
Connect it here. Applied Digital Skills is now better integrated with Google Classroom. Connect your Google Classroom account with your Applied Digital Skills dashboard to import your student roster, co-teachers, and assign lessons seamlessly. If you have not checked out Applied Digital Skills now may be the time especially if you incorporate digital skills within your curriculum. More info here. 

 How to Use Khan Academy for Distance Learning

Learn how to:

•	Set clear expectations for how students will use Khan Academy and receive feedback
•	Use our new Skills report to identify the most challenging topics and work through them live
•	Tap into Khan’s collection of five-minute Refresh activities to keep your students energized

A couple great add-ons and extensions for the Math teachers!

Hypatia is an add-on that allows you to easily insert equations into Google Docs, Slides, and Forms. 

Here is another one to try:

EquatIO for google - easily create mathematical equations, formulas, quizzes and more in g suite apps 

EquatIO is totally free for teachers. Other individual users can buy direct from our online store above. A single annual subscription costs $100, with discounted pricing for group and unlimited licenses. 

Casting your Chromebook to your projector

The Cast EDU extension may be gone - but after looking at their new way of doing it... Jason and myself actually think this may be better.  (And more reliable!)  Jason has updated our  casting doc.  Feel free to reach out to us if you need help or have questions. 

A few new Google Meet features:

Google will be rolling these out soon: 

• Only meeting creators and calendar owners can mute or remove other participants. This ensures that instructors can't be removed or muted by student participants.

• Only meeting creators and calendar owners can approve requests to join made by external participants. This means that students can’t allow external participants to join via video and that external participants can’t join before the instructor.

Meeting participants can’t rejoin nicknamed meetings once the final participant has left, unless they have meeting creation privileges to start a new meeting. This means if the instructor is the last person to leave a nicknamed meeting, students can’t join again until an instructor restarts the nicknamed meeting.  

We have added a few new tools, tips, and extensions to our Video Conferencing document (Zoom and Meet).  A Google Meet extension to record attendance and more... Check them out! 

Miscellaneous tech tips & items:

6 Google Sheets functions that do more than math 

Khan Academy and the Features You Might Have Missed - There are a lot of subjects. It's not just videos. 

9 Awesome Reasons to Use Google Forms 

Kasey Bell's FREE Remote Learning Resources for Teachers

Here’s a fun idea for back to school - A get to know you activity. 

 Make a copy of the template here.  I have added this template into our Google Slides template gallery. 

Text Message Phishing — or “Smishing” is on the rise.  Be Careful!

I am sure some of you have seen these and if not... they will be coming to your phone.  Be smart - just like phishing emails they want you to click on a link or maybe call a number.  (Notice the example below that was sent to me a while back.  It's a shortened URL link to click on.  It does not match any of my card numbers and the senders looks kind of strange as well.) 

 

Would you click on this one?  NOT! 

A great resource and local contact from the National Archives:

Dave is a retired Nebraska teacher who also spent several years with the National Archives teaching and working with K-12 students across the Nation.   You can reach out to him for more information at: 55dlrose@gmail.com 

Side note - I was in the same school district as Dave (Tri County) for 10 years.  Dave was a legendary teacher at TC for many years.  Students all knew him as an amazing teacher but when you were in classes you had to work hard and keep your nose to the grindstone. He was often the teacher that kids stopped back to see after graduation.  I guess it's all what we strive for as educators.  He has a passion for teaching, government and history.  (Yes he was a government and history teacher. lol)    

Hi Educators,

It should not take a Pandemic to introduce you or for some re-introduce a wonderful tool from the National Archives called DocsTeach. I am very proud to have been on the education staff at NARRA when it was launched in 2009 and helped create pieces of this amazing site. It has continued to grow and flourish providing over 11,000 primary sources along with over 1300 activities using these documents created by educators and Archives staff. Or you or your students can select documents and create your own fun and historic activities!

With hands-on access to primary sources and analysis techniques, students will form a connection to historical evidence and deepen their understanding of the past. Involve your whole class in an activity, or assign students to complete activities individually or in small groups – and turn their work in to you – on DocsTeach.org or the DocsTeach App for iPad. Activities align with Bloom’s Taxonomy and National History Standards.  

With a DocsTeach account, you can save and share the primary sources you discover. You can also create, save and share activities. And you gain access to hundreds of additional activities created by fellow educators. You can even copy and modify these activities to fit your needs.  

Like anything worthwhile, it takes time to explore and play to get comfortable with all that DocsTeach has to offer. You will see alignment with Bloom's and our National History Standards. Maybe start out using DocsTeach for a favorite unit---- mine is World War II and access primary sources like — letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos, and other document types.

If you find this site and the tools of value- share with colleagues. If you have questions about the National Archives or DocsTeach please contact me. If I cannot answer them I will tap my colleague Stephanie Greenhut who is the administrator of this site.  Good luck this year & please send some feedback on your experience with DocsTeach.

Your Colleague & Friend,

Dave Rosenbaum

*As you will discover, there are resources that would fit the comprehension level of K-12...

Favorites-   You can type in the id # in the search to pull these documents up

United States check to Russia for Alaska ID 301667

FDR First Inaugural Speech- "Nothing to Fear"  197333

Map of Louisiana Purchase 594889

Patent Light Bulb 595450

Cartoon- Passing the Buck 6012161

Poster- Army Recruiting 513533

Photo Pres Lincoln 527825

Photo Covered Wagon -Nebraska 518267

Apollo 11 Flight Plan 6734365

HAVE FUN!

Google+ one more amazing free tool for schools!

Click here for a nice visual of Understanding Google+ 

Google+ was just released to the K-12 Google Apps customers on 11-16-12. This service can be controlled by your Google Apps administrator through the control panel. You can select what users or groups are allowed to have this service.

What does Google+ bring to the plate for the K-12 market?

• Picasa Gets Unlimited Storage for Photos & Videos read more about this feature.
• Google+ apps on your phone can automatically back up your pictures to Picasa
• Google Hangouts may be the best video conferencing solution out there... and it's free!
• Top Ten Google+ Features from dummies.com
• Tight integration within the Google Apps for EDU product and control panel.
• Picnik is BACK!!! Yes, you can edit your photos once you upload them to Picasa. Picnik was an online photo editor used by many teachers, but now it's back if you enable Google+

For the Google Apps managers: You can enable Google+ for all / some of your org units by following the instructions in our Google Help Center article  and  Considerations before enabling Google+

VIDEO: What is Google+ (Google Plus) and do I need it?  Targeted for the individual consumer, but good 3 minute overview of Google+

VIDEO: Here's the Gooru's guide and how to start a Google+ hangout along with some cool features you can use in Hangouts. http://bit.ly/UTdr4D

Google has created resources for teens, parents, and teachers to learn more about how to use G+ in a fun, smart, and safe way. Welcome to the Google+ Safety Center

Google+: The Complete Guide (On Mashable)

Excellent Teacher Tips on The Use of Google Plus in Education

10 ways to use Google Plus in the classroom

20 Awesome Google+ Tips for Teachers

Communities, will they replace groups?
Google+ Communities Makes It Easy to Create a Discussion Group goo.gl/fb/kWfrG
Google Plus Communities Show Promise for Education Article
Google+ Communities for Educators Video  <--- Great 5 minute video to watch.
Note:

• Postings to communities show up on the community page (Publicly) but not on your stream to your circles, etc...
• Private communities can be controlled by who joins and who posts.  (Can anyone say... "Create a community for a class!")

Hangouts - amazing online meeting tool for education! 
I think the single best feature of Google+ is the amazing video conferencing capabilities in hangouts. including sharing desktops, presenting YouTube videos, collaborating on documents, and more! You can even bring anyone into the conference by calling their phone (Free of charge I might add).

Ready to start broadcasting? (Make sure you have Google+) To get started simply:

Go to hangouts.google.com.
Give your hangout a name and invite the people you want to join you in the hangout.
Select the option to Enable Hangouts On Air.
Once everyone's in the hangout and you're ready to go live, click Start broadcast at the top of the screen.
Once you click Start broadcast, you're officially "On Air" and the public will be able to watch your live hangout.

If you start a hangout and check the box to have it on air, this allows you to record and edit the hangout and post it on a website for later use.  Hangouts On Air common questions 

Specs and limits of Hangouts

Google+for Education Edition: G+ can now be enabled as a service for all Education Edition Domains. 

The size of Hangouts for G+ Premium feature domains has been increased from 10 to 15 participants (including host).

 If you activate Google+ premium features, you can have 15 participants for both Hangouts and Hangouts On Air. Make sure you have the video and voice plug-in installed. (It will install it for you, when you first enter a hangout if you do not have it.) If you enable it to be on air, then an unlimited number can view the hangout. Enabling the on air option also allows you to record, edit and post the entire recorded hangout to YouTube.