This weeks tech tools chocked full of goodies - Jan 21 2016 edition.

Misc. Web sites and tools:

Need a quick Whiteboard for drawing, or even sharing with multiple users?  it's all web based and works well and is simple. AWW - A Web Whiteboard to the rescue.  Check it out! 

You Can Write Music in Google Docs - Really... this is a cool Add-on for the musically inclined. (Unfortunately, that's not me.... I got that from both my mom & dad!) 

Teach Chemistry or the Elements?  This Dynamic Periodic Table may be a useful addition. 

Beyond the Bubble unlocks the Library of Congress digital archive to create amazing history assessments via @TCEA

PearDeck tip - You can use draggable and drawing options on the free version of PearDeck if you ask a quick question. 

Ten Good Video Sources for Social Studies Teachers and Students.

Ten Good Video Sources for Science Teachers and Students. 

Excellent free tool for secondary students to analyze their own writing

SeeSaw Now Offers a Simple & Safe Blogging Platform for Kids

ThingLink – Let Students Figure it Out ... in some instances, this is a great recommendation.  But remember... I would not do this with everything.  Just because kids can do the remote ont he TV, does not mean they know how to do all tech.  :) 

Free Music:

Maybe not tech related or education related.... but it's free and sometimes we all need some music. :) Here's one for the Country Western fans:

Google Play.com has Ashley Monroe: The Blade (Digital MP3 Album) for Free. It was nominated for Best Country Album at the 58th Grammy Awards 

Quizzing, Reviewing, and Assessment tools: 

4 Free Tools for Creating & Playing Interactive Quiz Games

Have You Tried Kahoot's Ghost Mode?

FlipQuiz.me is a Jeopardy style game... great for reviews

eBooks:

How to Gain Access to Thousands of Free eBooks for Kids.

How to Get Free eBooks on Your Mobile Device

Google Classroom:

Mickie's Awesome Guide to Google Classroom - A google Slide Presentation. 

Other resources:

Alice Keeler Google Classroom

Google Classroom Help Center

Mickie's Google Classroom Videos

Mickie's Everything Google LiveBinder

New Features in Classroom

Synergyse Free Interactive Classroom Training

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Send EDpuzzle Lessons to Google Classroom - The easiest way to engage your students with videos. pick a video, add your magical touch and track your students' understanding.

Google Docs:

WOW - I like this extension for seeing student revision work!  Draft Back  If you want to play back how a document was created to get to it's final revision, then this one is for you! It's like a movie.... Maybe watch how a student composed a doc they shared with you.  (You need edit rights - Which you get in Google Classroom all the time!) 

You Can Now Compose Google Docs With Your Voice (The feature has been out for several months, but worth noting again if you have not noticed it yet.) 

Have Students Create Meme’s in Google Drawing. 

Have a long Google Doc? Save Time By Adding a Table of Contents to a Google Doc -  via Synergyse.  By creating a table of contents in a Google Doc, you can easily locate different sections without having to search for content through excessive sc...

YouTube:

10 Educational YouTube Channels Made for Marathoning - There are some great Channels listed.

 - MinutePhysics is pretty cool - Physics can be a tough subject. MinutePhysics has tons of short videos (under five minutes, often under three minutes) that allow you to get all of the interesting with none of the confusing. The drawings illustrate concepts that might otherwise be too abstract to comprehend.  Check out the rest here.... 

Google Chrome:

Chrome and Chromebook Resources - What skill level of Chrome Ninja are you? Join our Dojo. They have some great training and tutorial resources and tips in their ChromeZone site. 

5 super useful Chrome extensions & add-ons for educators. Short list.. nice collection.  

Chart featuring 50+ Chrome apps for teachers & students

Tech tools & tips, free apps-music-audio eBook.. and more! In this week's post.

Free Music as of 1-14-16:

21 Classic Rock Favorites  - Not bad for free! Some nice tunes in this mix. 

Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits - Hey who doesn't like Me and Bobby McGee... I used to hate this type of music, but now I kind of like it.... similar to broccoli. LOL   

The Very Best Of Grateful Dead - I have never listened to a lot of their music... but I remember a few... Touch Of Grey, Casey Jones, etc...  Hey the price is right.

Not free... but a couple 99 cent albums: 

"Complete Greatest Hits" by The Cars
"Greatest Hits" by Fleetwood Mac

Free eBooks:

Amazon has Moby Dick: or, the White Whale Kindle eBook + Audible Narration for Free.

Websites and Tools: 

10 Great Educational websites-- and now they are now integrated with Google Classroom too! 

IOS Apps:

Monster Math - Easy Common Core Games for iOS is free 1/14/16; normally $5.99 (Agers 9-11) 

15 ways to use the free iOS app Chatterpix for science lessons App demo - See a rock talk with this app. Use your imagination with this app for the classroom - the K-8 kids will love it! . Downlaod the app here. (Free)  <<-- Check out a cart and give it a try in the classroom today! 

Great new, free iOS app Adobe Post lets you combine photos and text to create stories. 

Photomath - Camera Calculator - (Free IOS app) Photomath is the world's smartest camera calculator! Simply point the phone’s camera toward a math problem and Photomath will magically show the result with detailed step-by-step solution.

Google Docs & Drive:

Organize your folders and files in Google Drive more easily - Two new options added to Google Drive to make it easier to organize! 

4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Create a Perfectly Organized Google Drive 

An Extension That Notifies You Every Time A Google Drive Folder Is Changed - Rather than setting up notifications on every document you share, you may just want to know if any document in a particular folder is being edited. 

12 Free Add-Ons That Take Docs and Sheets to the Next Level - There are some great add-ons in this list to make your life easier in Google Docs. 

More fun add-on's for Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms

Five Google Docs features hidden in plain sight

Chrome extensions (add-on's to the Chome browser that add features). 

Clean Up Open Tabs Without Losing Them -  OneTab

Having over 8-10 tabs open at a given time can slow down your computer. OneTab adds a button to your chrome window that will close all your tabs at once and save their URLs to a list for you to access later. This means you can open the few tabs you need right now without losing track of the others you may need later. I use this one myself and love it.

Improve your grammar and spelling with this checker -  Grammarly

Grammarly is spell check on steroids. No matter where you are composing text in Chrome, Grammarly will check it for grammar and spelling errors... including Gmail, etc... 

Open Non-Google Attachments In Drive

Usually, if someone sends you an Excel file or a Powerpoint you have to download it, re-upload it to Google Drive, then choose the app you would like to use to edit it. Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides, built by Google, takes out all the extra work. Simply click on the attachment and it will open in the appropriate Google format.

Google Sheets:

How to Filter and Sort Data in Google Sheets

This tool is equally useful to both businesses and educational institutions. By filtering and sorting you can create spreadsheets that can be analyzed and understood at a glance, whether it is your department’s annual budget or your third-grade class attendance sheet.

Add a 3rd Dimension to Your Charts - With the 3D charts add-on you can create beautiful three-dimensional charts and add a little depth to your data displays. (3D Charts)

How to create a progress chart in Google Sheets with Flippity This is pretty cool.  Flippity is also has a tool to make online flashcards from a Googel sheet.  (See one of my previous emails/blog posts on this tool.) 

How to email an individualized note to each student with Google Sheets (Some powerful tools to add with Google classroom.)  You could also use this to email parents in a group, etc... 

Google Classroom:

Have students install this extension to view Google Classroom directions side by side with their work.

10 Great Educational websites-- and now they are now integrated with Google Classroom too! (Repost from above section of Web Tools.) 

Twitter tip:

Tech tips, Free music - 30 #1 hits by Elvis, YouTube Channels, great math app... and more... in this weeks tech tips.

Free music: 

Google Play is offering  the Album Elvis Presley: 30 #1 Hits  for Free.  (Side note... I add these to my nsdtitans.org and my gmail accounts.)  If you have not setup a Google Play account, you will be asked to do that first.  Similar to setting up an iTunes account... Yes, it does require a payment method... but you are not charged for things unless you buy books, music, etc...) 

Web and tech tools: 

Using photos for classroom projects?  Google Photos now has shared and collaborative albums. Check out this Synergyse post for more information. 

EDpuzzle - https://edpuzzle.com/ (Awesome tool!) 

The easiest way to engage your students with videos. pick a video, add your magical touch and track your students' understanding. This short 1 Minute video will explain how. It's free... great features! EDpuzzle now has Integration with Google Classroom! Here is a quick video that explains all the cool features: https://youtu.be/OVQgt1HIClU  Great for a flipped classroom or assigning videos outside your classroom. 

Socrative - Engage, assess and personalize your class with the Socrative Chrome app, you can quiz and poll your students. (I have mentioned this tool for several years now... it's a good!) 

Flubaroo update! - Share grades via Google Drive and print hard-copies with a new Flubaroo feature. 

Visit the polar bear capital of the world!

Take a Google Street View trek with your students to Churchill, Canada. This quiet town, set on the shores of western Hudson Bay, is a place where polar bears and humans coexist.

Design the Perfect Internal Newsletter in Google Slides (Great for online newsletters too!) One more great idea for Google Slides.  (I still like Lucid Press better for this... but one more idea and tool for adding to your tech tool belt.) 

Some great YouTube Channels and Resources:

Veritasium - Check out this channel of science and engineering videos featuring experiments, expert interviews, demos and discussions about everything science.

Crash Course Biology - Tune into this playlist to learn about Biology topics like natural selection, photosynthesis and more. This is a series of quick, 10 minute clips by Hank Green.

Google Classroom:

Google Classroom Grading Made Easier  -

Google Classroom grading has just been made easier with a recent update. Several new features will help teachers save time when working with and grading assignments.

As noted above... EDpuzzle now has Integration with Google Classroom! Here is a quick video that explains all the cool features: https://youtu.be/OVQgt1HIClU 

Google Chome apps:

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One for the Math teachers! 

The Best Virtual Protractor and Ruler for Chrome - A new blog post and video about a great virtual protractor (Chrome extension MB-Ruler) and a great virtual ruler (Chrome web app Edge The Web Ruler) that students and teachers can use inside of Chromehttp://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/01/best-protractor-ruler-chrome.html

Have a great week!

Noel

Some free Christmas Music... a free subway sandwich.... and a few tech tips for the week! Happy Holidays!

Free Christmas Music:

Google Play has Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas (Google Play Exclusive Version MP3 Digital Album Download) for Free. 

Google Play also has Blake Shelton: Cheers, it's Christmas. (MP3 Digital Album Download) for Free. 

Joy to the World - A Fanfare for Christmas Day

Respighi: Pines of Rome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pines_of_Rome) 

Free 6" sub with purchase of a 30 oz. drink:

Get a free 6inch sub with purchase of 30 oz drink. subway sms program

TXT OFFERS to 782 929 

The 12 days of Twitter!

It's fun Nebraska Twitter challenge...and you can pickup some really great tools, ideas, and more...   Here's the info to get started!   You can view the tweets here.  Here's a nice resource for those of you that are new to Twitter.--10 Things to Know about Twitter Hashtags

Google Apps tips and tricks: 

20 Google Apps activities for classroom innovation 

5 super useful Chrome extensions & add-ons for educators

Google Apps Script Spotlight: Share Flubaroo Grades with Students in Drive (If you have not tried Flubaroo for automatically quizzing and grading those quizzes - via a Google Form ... Now 

is the time!) 

5 Creative Ways Schools Can Use Google Forms (That Aren’t Surveys) 

Google Sheets: Managing Students Names for Group Work Great little tip, from a great website to follow! 

Great site with a lot of Google Apps tutorials for you and the students. - SPARCC

A few Google Search tricks: 

12 Google Search Tricks You Probably Didn’t Know

14 More Google Search Tricks You Didn’t Know

Google Classroom:

Export your entire grade book out of Google Classroom. 

IOS Apps:

Looking for free apps... these sites are worth watching:

App Chronicles is an iOS app review website, but they have a great “gone free” page.

Appshopper is a great site to visit to look for previously paid apps that have gone free. 

Swoosh - Basketball Stats By DelMar IT is Free for a limited time! Reg. $20.

Web tools and more:

29 Free Online Design Tools for Creating Stunning Visual Content for the Web 

Great website for classes to use when designing is Color Scheme Designer 

Looking for some good Kindergarten ideas? The Kindergarten smiles site might be for you! 

Tech tips, tools, free apps, Google add-on's and more.. in this Thanksgiving special! :)

Did you know? -- Sending parents tips on how their children could improve academically led to a higher-quality home discussions and cut the course dropout rates by almost half. (Kraft & Rogers 2015 study.) 

Use Rubrics for scoring a class project?  Automate it with this great Google sheet and add-on!

With Rubric tab, you copy a Google Spreadsheet.  Paste in your class names and email addresses.  You then edit the Rubric template that's included.  Run the script and it creates a rubric for each kids.  Score the assignment using the created rubrics, and then run the script to email the results to each student.  Pretty slick!

Google Classroom:

Google Classroom: Workflow for Creating Documents

Google Classroom: Create Group Documents

Google Classroom: Return Student Work

Google Classroom: Submitting Late Work

60 Ways Math Teachers Can Use Google Classroom - How many apply to your classroom as well?

OpenEd offers thousands of quizzes and review materials to share in Google Classroom

All of these Google Classroom tips and more... have been added to my growing Google Classroom resource document. <-- Great resource for Google Classroom.

Google Apps:

4 Math Add-ons for Google Docs

How To Restore Deleted Google Calendar Events

Last week Google announced the trash folder is finally making it’s way to your Calendar. Restore both individual and recurring events after you have deleted them. The trash folder may be easy to use but it is also a little tricky to find at first. Watch closely.

5 super useful Chrome extensions & add-ons for educators

This Google Drive trick is like something out of Harry Potter!
bit.ly/1NQM4CF via (@TheGoogleGooru)

5 Ways to Make Professional Looking Google Documents 

10 Ways to Use Google Docs in Physical Education

The 16 Best Google Apps Updates of 2015 (So Far) | Via the Gooru 

9 Google Apps Productivity Tools & Tips for Teachers 

Google Sheets:

Have you tried sheets.google.com you can find templates there to get you going quickly!

Google Sheets: Fill Down tips. (If you have not seen this, it's a great tip!) (Side note: This is a feature in Excel too.) 

Google Forms:

5 Things You Did Not Know About Google Forms

Need to check things in and out of your classroom? The CheckItOut add-on for Google Forms is just what you are looking for!  Check out this quick video that shows the process. 

Some great Add-on's for Google Docs & Sheets:

Mapping Sheets – Create a spreadsheet with a list of places and the sheets add-on will plot them on a Google Map

EasyBib – Cite books, journal articles and websites and add them to your Google Documents in MLA, APA and Chicago style.  At Norris, we have added EasyBib to the "Window Pane" app launcher, so it's easy to get to. 

Avery – Create address labels inside Google Docs for printing. My how-to doc should help! 

Mail Merge for Gmail – Send personalized emails to multiple email recipients with Mail Merge for Gmail and Google Apps.

HelloFax – You can now send a fax to any number worldwide directly from inside Google documents. The free version lets you fax up to 5 pages.
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MindMeister – Create a hierarchical bulleted list in the the Google document and MindMeister will converted that list into a visual mind map.

UberConference – You can have an audio conference with up to 10 people while working on a Google Document. There’s an option to record the call too.

4 Chrome Extensions for Teachers – March 2015 Article

IOS Apps

Explain Everything is a great app... and we offer it to our Norris Staff for free! 

Primary teachers, did you know Explainevrythng has an easier interface for little ones! Just choose simple interface. Thanks to @mrswideen for this tip! 

Top Five iOS Apps for ELA  Here are a few iOS apps that  you may not think of using with your ELA classes. But they will all help to showcase your students’ reading and writing abilities.

12 OF THE BEST MATH APPS FOR KIDS 

Great iPad resource - iPads in the Classroom - Kathy Schrock's iPads4teaching

Sight Word Flip It by Readingresource.net, LLC Price: $FREE

Sight Word Flip It was carefully designed by two reading specialists who have taught 100s of kids to read. Not many literacy apps can make this claim! Sight Word Flip It offers an effective and engaging.

Kids Math Fun — First Grade By One Step Ahead Apps, LLC Free - Reg. $.99

**Kids Math Fun~First Grade is an Apple Recommended and Marketed App**

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Web tools:

A Great Resource for Downloading Ready-made Charts and Diagrams to Use in Class ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. As noted in the article- Chart Chooser from Juice Labs offers a wide variety of pre-made charts that you can download and use for free. They download as an Excel file... but you can upload them and convert them to Google sheets and they work just fine! 

Simplify Your Search for Copyright-Free Images

Poll Everywhere now works with Google Slides! Embed live polls & word clouds right into your presentation.  Great for classroom interactions, quick assessments and more! 

5 Good Keyboarding Instruction and Practice Sites for Kids

5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools | Via Edutopia  - Several of my favorites (Socrative, Kahoot & Plickers )   in this list and more! 

Happy Thanksgiving!  

A few free IOS apps, a Google Tip and Hour of Code is coming!

Hour of Code is coming during December 7-13 - Here is my resource sheet on coding resources for the classroom.  Ask @AlishaBollinger how simple it is to setup! 

Google tip:

Control what people see about you with your Google info.  This page will help.  (For example... I allow people at our ndstitans.org Google Domain to see my phone numbers, but the public can not see them.) 

Great Google Drive add‐ons and Chrome extensions for teachers.

IOS apps:

PDF Expert 5 - Fill forms, annotate PDFs, sign docs for iOS is free for a week- normally $9.99 https://goo.gl/rB3BWA 

Musemage - Professional Video Camera and Editor is free reg $3.99. Does greenscreen too! https://goo.gl/xi2sEb 

Starfall ABCs by Starfall Education - The Starfall ABCs app is made possible by the member supporters of Starfall.com, a publicly supported charity. The activities at Starfall.com motivate through exploration, positive reinforcement, .

Google tools, free apps and more in this weeks resource list!

Web sites and tools:

Ten Great Tools for Telling Stories With Pictures - A PDF Handout

A Tool That Reads Google Docs and News Articles To You Out Loud | Via The Gooru

Hemingway App: A Proofreading Tool for Writers. The online version is free. Copy and paste text from your Google Doc, Word file, etc...

Five Popular Ed Tech Tools That Work on Nearly All Devices 

GroupTing Makes It Easy to Organize Volunteers for Group Events - Organization events, class parties, PTO events, and more. Read more about it here. 

Kahoot:

How to Duplicate and Edit Public Kahoot Quizzes.

If you are not familiar with Kahoot - Kahoot provides a fun way to gather feedback from a group through their phones, iPads, Chromebooks, or any other device that has a web browser and an Internet connection.

Quizalize is a newer quiz game platform similar to Kahoot. Read more about it here... it's worth looking at to have in your quizzing toolbox. 

Create your own Green Screen videos on a budget using an iPad!

This doc gives you some FYI on the items needed. 

They use this app to record the video: http://www.doink.com/ 

eBooks:

How to Access Thousands of Free eBooks for Kids - (Using Zing) Via  Free Technology for Teachers

Teaching digital citizenship?  This site (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.) has some great resources K-12 for digital citizenship including cell phones, Internet safety, protecting yourself online, and more! Their video resources are divided into topic and age groups. 

Google Apps Tips and Tricks:

12 Free Add-Ons That Take Docs and Sheets to the Next Level | The Gooru 

10 Teacher Hacks for Google Apps - Some pretty cool ideas in this article! 

Great Google Drive Tool for Creating Rubrics 

70 Google Apps Video Tutorials Via Free Technology for Teachers. - Here is the direct link to the playlist.

3 Google Apps Tools You Didn’t Know You Could Use Offline | Via - The Gooru 

3 Strange Things You Can Do With Google Docs That Are Actually Super Useful 

Saving Audio Files in Google Drive - Website and app avail.

GREAT GUIDE on Google forms and sheets. 

Want to add voice comments to Google Docs? This chrome app can do it for you for free. 

3 Strange Things You Can Do With Google Docs That Are Actually Super Useful 

Canned responses in Gmail is one of my favorite labs! This short 1 minute video will show you how to enable it,

4 Things You Can Do Right Now to Create a Perfectly Organized Google Drive

Table Formatter is a free Google Docs Add-on that lets you add a little color to your tables in Google Docs.

A tip from the Google Guru:

Finally A Way To Get Notified Every Time A Google Drive Folder Is Changed

Rather than setting up notifications on every document you share, you may just want to know if any document in a particular folder is being edited. Although this functionality is not yet built into Google Apps, there is a Chrome Extension I found that will do it. Simply select the folder you want to keep track of and you will receive an email every time a file contained in that folder is edited or even if a new file is added to the folder.

Google Sheets - rowCall  is a great add-in for Google Sheets. rowCall sorts rows from your main sheet by the column you select and creates individual sheets for every unique cell in that column. (Think about using a form to grade kids via a Rubric for assignments, etc... ) Add-on Video tutorial

New Feature added: Restore deleted events in Google Calendar web

Ever deleted a calendar event by mistake and wanted to get it back - just like you can in Gmail and Drive? Now you can: today we’re adding Trash functionality to Google Calendar on the web, providing an easy way for users to view, permanently delete, or restore individual and recurring deleted calendar events

Stormboard - Online Brainstorming & Collaboration

Brainstorm, organize, prioritize and act on the best ideas, in the same room or around the world, on a real-time sticky note whiteboard. They offer  free educational accounts1

Google Classroom: If you are not using it... you are missing out.  It's only getting better!

Classroom Automation with Google Forms and Add-ons - Check out these great suggested uses and add-on's to make it even more powerful. 

OpenEd Offers Thousands of Quizzes and Review Materials to Share in Google Classroom

Everything You Need To Know In Google Classroom (Part 1) and (Part 2) and (Part 3) <-- Great Guide!

19 Flashcards That Will Make You A Google Classroom Master (Request your set.)

Classroom Cards is a collection of 19 flashcards for learning to use Google Classroom. Print them out and give them to new teachers or use them for your own personal studying. Created by Educational Technology experts, this is the quickest way to master the platform.

If you are a Norris Teacher - WE have them in Google Drive, under our tech docs.  Here is a direct link to the file. 

GOOGLE CLASSROOM IS NOT AN LMS. IT’S BETTER. - Interesting short article that caused me to shake my head in agreement especially with this quote: "Teachers are better off working in Google Drive than investing time building courses in an LMS the district might ditch a few years down the road. Even if Google Classroom goes out of vogue, all teacher files will still live in Drive. I know a teacher who has invested countless hours putting multiple choice questions into Moodle. If only he used Google Forms for assessment instead! " 

Already using Google Classroom and the Chromebooks... Then this Extention is for you! Every student on the same page- Save class time navigating to websites with the new Share to Classroom extension. “Push” a web link to your class and voila, the Chrome extension opens the page immediately on every student’s device.

IOS Apps:

Top 100 Completely FREE Apps for Preschoolers! No In-App Purchases! (This is a great list!) 

Free iOS app; snap a photo of sheet music and it plays it for you: http://ly.tcea.org/ufgfe 

Anatomy 4D - An AMAZING free app for Anatomy. 

If you teach Chemistry - You have to check out this app! Elements 4D by DAQRI (It's free) You need to print out these blocks to use with the app. It's a great augmented reality app that brings chemistry alive. 

YouTube Resources:

SciShow- SciShow is a YouTube channel that discusses science news, history and concepts. With equal parts skepticism and enthusiasm, they go a little deeper on popular science topics.

CrashCourse- CrashCourse provides educational videos aimed at secondary students. Playlists for past courses include Astronomy. World History, Biology, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, Psychology and US History.

Awesome use of Technology with just a couple of Chromebooks in a K-2 classroom!

There are a lot of success stories in our district... but I have to share this one today. Ben Lueders (@ItsBen_aWhile) wrote a grant for a couple Chromebooks in the K-2 art classroom.  Here was his latest update on the Chromebooks:

They have been proven extremely successful with various classes ranging from kindergarten to second grade. It has been a great tool for my classroom management, and has already been used as a resource during class time, without any interruption of the class! Here is a picture of a first grader who was absent during an important part of one of our lessons. All he had to do was bring his paper over to the Chromebook, and watch my pre-recorded video of the lesson plan, and follow along. I am excited to see how positive the classes have responded to the computers, and can't wait to use them even more in the classroom as the year progresses.

  

Thanks for the update Ben, and keep up the great work with technology!

And one more...

Holly Gifford has been using the Osmo with our iPads in the K-2 Media Center. What a great learning tool... and the kids love it!  Thanks Holly! 

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