Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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

Thursday, July 8, 2021

 

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. πŸ“Ί 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! πŸš€ 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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πŸš€ 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! πŸŽ₯ Watch video: bit.ly/Progress-Training

πŸ’‘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.  

πŸ’₯ Tech items - WOW -Join TCEA for free this week only! GoGuardian tips, tutorials, free templates and more in this week's tech tips.

Thursday, May 6, 2021

 

It's free membership week for TCEA! May 3-7. After 5:30 on Friday it goes back to $49
TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) is similar to NETA but they have a much larger section of online resources including  free tools and resources available to members. At this cost... who can go wrong! 

Join here for free.  (After joining you will get an email with detailed member benefits as well.) 
They have some great lunch and learn sessions that are always recorded for review later.  They have ebooks, app lists for ChromeIOS Android and a bunch more. They have a great active EDU community as well. 
   

Some nice 15 second tutorials (No - really 15 seconds.)


Some new GoGuardian Features! Coming April 20, 2021

Annotations

This new feature will enable teachers to make an annotation that appears on students’ screens, showing them where to click or helping them move through assignments. This feature will help teachers better guide students remotely; take a look at the video for details.  Short video here. 

Detecting Student Inactivity

This new feature will help teachers detect when a student may be inactive, or may not be using their device. It will show a “Student may be idle” indicator on the student’s tile when the student has not interacted with the webpage or browser for more than 10 minutes during an active GoGuardian Teacher Session. This will help teachers understand which students are engaged and which may be inactive during the lesson.


Just released in March:

GoGuardian Teacher Instructional Integration with Google Classroom 

If you are using scenes in GoGuardian : Updates for GoGuardian Teacher Scenes




Misc. tech:

How to Create Comic Strips in Google Slides  - 4 minute tutorial

Wheel of Names - A Random Name Picker Check Out this short tutorial here.

Five useful websites with large collections of freely accessible historical maps. From
@rmbyrne 



Want to Improve your students keyboarding skills?  Try this game... it's fun too! Z-Type turns you into a starfighter pilot. You zap letters and words as they fall towards you. Looking for some free typing lessons? TypingAcademy has those as well. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Add Bullets and Formatting in Google Classroom) - Yay! Rich text formatting has arrived in Google Classroom. This means we can finally add bullets, bold text, and more!  πŸ“Ί Watch this quick video to learn how!

Spark Interest in Local History With These Digital Newspaper Archives - More info here

Google Now Lets You Tour UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Virtually - (Here is a use for our expedition kits)  -More info here

Remember screen recording is now built into Chromebooks. (Must be running Chrome 89 or above, so update your Chromebook!)  This was in one of my prior tech emails a while back as well.  Hit Ctrl + Shift + F5 key on your Chromebook to start! 

You don't have to be high tech to create and use animation in the classroom - Some great resources from TCEA.  (Not that most of us would come up with this type of a massive animation in Google Slide, but a pretty cool demo of one.) 

Explore ready-to-use, remixable Adobe Spark lessons. -   Want to get students started with Adobe Spark in your classrooms? Find more than 400 Adobe Spark lessons and activities on the Adobe Education Exchange.





Did you know you have free access to one of the best online graphic's programs for you and your students? Canva gives away accounts to you acn your students.  (Normally it's $120/year!) It's simply one of the best! 
Checkout these Comic Strip Templates they recently sent out:  Template 1 ,  Template 2,  Template 3,  Template 4,  Template 5,  Template 6,   Template 7,  Template 8,  Template 9






New Marketplace addon that can help visualise storage, and also has other nice features, like Copy Folder, Transfer Folder, and more.  Folgo, Drive toolbox 


Google Slides comic strips: Another great tip from DitchThatTextbook! Use your webcam to take pictures and add them to Google Slides (or Drawings). Add speech bubbles to make them into comic strips. A fun and easy activity! Watch the video to see how!




April 17th through 25th is National Parks Week in the United States. This is a good time to share that the U.S. National Park Service hosts thousands of videos and pictures about the various parks and forests under its care.  More info here from one of my favorites -  Richard Byrne  @rmbyrne





Checkout these Google Slide Templates for Earth Day! 
Virtual Sticker Pack
Earth Day reminds us to honor our planet by preserving and protecting the environment. We’re celebrating Earth day by sharing 30 virtual stickers for you to use in your Pear Deck lessons!

Earth Day Deck
These quick Slides were designed to drop into your other lessons for a bit of fun to celebrate Earth Day! You can use them as a bell-ringer, to check attendance, as a brain break, or as part of your class activities.




Five Fantastic Browser-Based Digital Tools
Here are a few browser-based digital tools you didn’t know you needed, but that can save you time and effort. And they work on any device! 



On a personal note - Facebook Now Lets Users Export Posts and Notes to Google Docs, Blogger and WordPress.com
Facebook today announced a new feature that will allow users to export their Facebook posts and notes to a number of third-party services. Although the company has long since offered tools that let you download the information you’ve posted to Facebook, the tool launching today offers a more practical way of saving that data — by allowing you to export your notes and posts to popular services like Google Docs, Blogger, or WordPress.com.  More info here






Watch the world change: Google Earth has added a time lapse feature. Watch the world change, in motion from 1985 to 2020. It's a great visual aid to talk about urban expansion, climate change, and more. Check it out - PRETTY COOL! 


20 ideas for exit tickets in the classroom - Including a Google Slides template PACKED with lots of exit ticket ideas.  Check it out!  (From DitchThatTextBook)   It's a great template



10+ FREE EduProtocol templates + ideas for using them - Check them out here. 




You can learn new tools and resources from browsing issues of
@dlfedder's  edtech newsletter. Open the PDFs so that links are clickable. You won't be disappointed!   https://notanotheremailpd.com



πŸ’₯ Tech items - New staff Chromebooks, Jamboard app- WOW!, Tips, Tricks, Templates and more in this weeks tech tips!

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

 



Remember -  New teacher Chromebooks will be distributed on April 23rd! (PD/Workday.) 
Have your Chromebook, charger and stylus ready to check in on that day!  
  • If you are going to be gone that day, we can check you out a new Chromebook anytime!
  • If you want a stylus for your new Chromebook, remember to sign up in the next couple days! (These are a new/different stylus, so read that prior email for more info.) 
  • More information on time/location will be sent out prior to the 23rd. 
(See my March 29th email for more information. As well as the form to reserve your stylus.) 



Repurposing VR Kits In a post-Google Expedition World - We have several Google Expedition kits we have put together.  Here are some great ideas on still using those kits within your classrooms!  (I still can not believe Google dropped Expeditions!) 


Some new features coming next year to Google Classroom:
  • Improved photo creation, attachment and submission for mobile first (IOS/Android app) users. 
  • Student engagement and tracking page.  See all students in a handy dashboard! 
  • Use Classroom offline for students with limited internet connectivity 




Miscellaneous tech

Are you using rubrics in Google Classroom?  They are easy to use!  Checkout this short video discussing and showing their use. 

How to Access the Clipboard Manager on a Chromebook - Yes there is one!  Find out how.(Hint search + V on a Chromebook.) 

Get Your Copy of the 2020-21 Practical Ed Tech Handbook  By Richard Byrne - Richard always has good stuff and this one is no exception.  Grad it here. (This is such a great resource.)  

Eight More Electrifying Elementary Web 2.0 Tools - If elementary students are your joy in life, check out these eight great web tools to use with them for learning and fun. Read More >>>

Tools to Boost Students' Vocabulary and Knowledge - Discover four tech tools to help students of all ages master critical vocabulary words and become better readers and writers.
Read More >>>

This Is Sand. Remember making sand art as a kid? Now you can do it digitally. Check it out and click the play now. 

MapCrunch. Here’s your chance to go on an adventure without ever leaving your couch. The website will put you in a random location in the world and then it’s up to you to do the exploring.


Teaching tips with tech: 


Google Maps walking tours with Street View and Screencastify (We use Loom instead of Screencastify - both work well.) 

Show learning in motion with stop motion animation - If students can envision it in motion, they can show it in motion on the screen with Google Slides. 

Create a top 10 video with Flipgrid - Checkout the how-to. 


Write choice stories in Slides  - Remember "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories? They gave readers choices and helped them reach endings based on their selections. S


All about that audio. - In this youtube recorded webinar you will learn about adding sounds in slides, captioning in Meet, talk and comment extension (Even works in forms), and many more tips along the way. 


Video Editing Tools for K-12 and adult learners - This resource has several great tools.   This resource is part of the TCEA lunch and learn webinars. site.  




Mote

Exploding on to the #edtech scene in the last 12 months, this versatile extension for Chrome works directly inside Google Slides, Docs, Sheets and Classroom and allows you to leave audio comments and feedback on these different tools. A complete timesaver that promotes inclusion, accessibility and reducing workload, Mote is a must-have tool for the savvy educator looking to make the most of their Chromebook.

Learn more about it and get the extension via https://www.justmote.me/   It's free plan includes most of the essentials. 

Use Immersive Reader (unofficial)

Immersive reader is a fantastic tool, designed for accessibility, but promotes good reading habits and language learning support for all. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on Chrome, unless of course you use this fantastic unofficial version of the tool. It works just like the Immersive Reader you probably already know and love but just in your Chrome browser.  

You can learn more about it and access the extension here.    

25 virtual field trips for your classroom

Virtual field trips allow us to take our students where the bus can’t. Here are 25 field trips and 10 activities to do while you're on one! Check them out here.  and NEW: Our virtual field trips home page, with 50+ trips


   


Add and manage four new types of citations in Google Docs 
Now you can add these four new citation source types in Google Docs:
  • Film
  • TV Series
  • TV Episode
  • Miscellaneous
This will make writing academic papers easier, since you won’t have to copy citations from other tools. The four new citation source types come in addition to the types you already have available, including books, websites, journal articles, and newspaper articles. More info here
   

How would you do on Adam's tech Tuesday Kahoot?
Adam Kranz shared this with our MS staff and I thought it would be fun to share with our entire NSD staff.  (Thanks for creating a great Kahoot Adam!) 
If you have not used Kahoot, Quizlet, Quizizz or several others... checkout our Assessment Tools document to help you get started. 
   

FREE GOOGLE SLIDES TEMPLATES FOR YOUR CLASSROOM - Don't reinvent the wheel when templates are available!  Get them here! 
Checkout our Google Slide templates doc for tons more! (We keep adding resources like this one to this growing doc.) 



   

A few nice Chrome Extensions! 

Link to Text Fragment -  Link to Text is a Chrome extension provided by Google. You can highlight a text on a web page and then create a link that you can share. When someone clicks on your link, they go to the website AND the text that you had highlighted will be highlighted for them.

Full Page Screen Capture. -Captures the entire screen. It scrolls for you all the way to the bottom to get the entire page. Check it out. 

Remember... review your extensions yearly and disable the ones you find yourself no longer using.  (They take up resources and slow your device.)  I use extensity to turn them on and off easily. 


Ran across this quote... let's hope we are all energy builders. πŸ˜€





QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Create a Google Classroom Custom Banner) via Kadey Bell

Did you know you can create your own custom banner for Google Classroom?  It's super easy in Google Drawings, and I even have a FREE blank template to get you started. 
πŸ“Ί Watch this quick video to learn how!



WOW - You thought you knew Jamboard, I bet you were wrong! (I was)
Did you know there are some added features in the App vs. the web version?  (We are allowing the Android version of Jam to be installed on all of our Chromebooks!)  (We have added this to our approved apps list.) 

This video webinar will walk you through those features. At this point in the video they show you the app differences. 
Spoiler alert: Stickers, Auto draw, insert from drive, handwriting recognition and more in the App version! 

MORE JAMBOARD:

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Jamboard Version History) - You can now access the version history in Jamboard and see exactly what your students contributed and WHEN! 
πŸ“Ί Watch this quick video to learn how!

How to Make Whiteboard Videos With Loom & Jamboard (3 min. Tutorial video.)  (Both free tools! Remember to sign up for the educator account with Loom! More info here.)

Our Jamboard resource doc with tons of resources and templates can be found here.