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:

​

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