2017

Thursday, December 21, 2017

BeCareful with Phishing emails! - Yes... this tech guy clicked on a phishing email!

I love the KnowBe4 product. It keeps all of us on our toes with phishing emails. Well, I get them just like you do... and BAM - this tech guy was not careful enough. I am a Costco Business Member and get several emails a week... so when I got an email that looked like it came from Costco and a free turkey... hey I clicked on it. (Like WOW - a free turkey!) A good reminder to us all - they get us at our busy time, our weak moments when we are expecting a package, or just another typical email you may receive, or even a free turkey! (Guess I am the turkey on this one, LOL.)

Have a great holiday, but do not expect a free turkey this season... and always be careful with emails, software downloads, and your personal information!

Misc. Tech resources:
3 Easy Steps to Create Scan and Read QR Code Listening Stations

All About Me Projects for Google Classroom (made with Spark Video!)

GREAT EXTENTION for Chromebooks and webcam! - Alice Keeler Webcam Snapshot. <---

11 Technology Tools for the Reading Classroom.

8 Adobe Spark Poetry Activities for Chromebook & iPad Classrooms.

How to annotate your photos with iOS 10's Markup feature Works on iPads and iPhones. Must be IOS 10 or above. (Note- the old iPad2 units will not run IOS 10.)

One for the K-6 teachers - (We have Book Creator licenses for the iPad carts.) - 7 Favorite Apps to Use with Book Creator

Some great resources from one of my Favourites - Richard Byrne - @rmbyrne Always good stuff from this guy!

Three Free iPad Apps for Creating Talking Animations.

How Your Digestive System Works - A TED-Ed Lesson

Four Things Students Need to Create Book Trailer Videos

Seven Ways to Create Screencasts on Chromebooks - Try out the Screencast-O-Matic public Beta too. (I love Loom as well as serval others in this post.)

ADA Project - An Open Multimedia Mathematics Textbook

Great site! - 51 World Geography Games for Kids

Five Tools for Creating Animations on Chromebooks

Three Good Ways to Create Instructional Animations

One for the music teachers! - Music Crab - A Cute App for Learning to Read Music

Keeps kids learning over Christmas break with these tools:

7 Free Education Apps to Keep Students Learning

You have to check out these templates! WOW

These teacher and student templates (FREE) will show you what you can do with Google Slides. Gone are the days of "I wish I had Publisher" and in are the days... WOW, I did not know you could do that with Google Slides. Some great templates for class projects and awesome examples of what can be done with Google Slides.

Create G Suite Templates with This Mind-Blowing Hack (Cool tip)

Elementary staff - Have you tried out SeeSaw? If not, give Jason a call to get you rolling!

Tip - Add Audio to Images In SeeSaw Digital Portfolios

New - New Features in SeeSaw

Google has added more templates. (They still need more!)

Visit the home page of each to see them; Docs Home ** Sheets Home ** Slides Home

HS & MS staff - Get ready for a great new product for Chromebooks!

Hope to see all of the MS & HS staff at our January 5th training on GoGuardian. Jason has a great program lined up for you!

Free Kindle eBooks:

Jules Verne: The Collection Kindle Edition 47 Novels Free

Free Kindle ebook: The Complete Novels of H. G. Wells

Twas The Night Before Christmas [Kindle Edition] Free ~ Amazon

Quick and Easy Recipes: 30 MINUTE MEALS: Quick Recipes You Will Love (Quick and Easy Cooking) Kindle Edition

More from the Slickdeals.net site:

Amazon.com is offering Select Customers: $5 Kindle eBook Credit for Free. Note, click "Continue with Offer" then sign into your account and if you are eligible, you will see a message that that the $5 Credit applied to your account.

Subscribe to Kindle Daily Deals Newsletter Get $1 Kindle eBook Credit

Thanks for a great year!

From the tech department, I would like to wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy NewYear! As one of our tech staff just mentioned yesterday .... It’s a pleasure to work for such a progressive district with passionate teachers and leaders. Yes, this tech guy feels really blessed this year. (Even though there was no free turkey.)

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

360 degree videos and VR resources:

3,000+ Google Street Views for Your Classroom

You do not need a VR headset to use Streetview....... But remember - We have a VR kit in the MS and Intermediate buildings that have the VR headsets that are great for viewing Google Street View!

Some pretty cool virtual visits to places, campuses and more on the YouVisit web site.

360 Video Education Spotlight: BBC on YouTube

360 Video Spotlight: National Geographic Videos for Your Next Lesson

Virtual Reality Education Spotlight: Parks Explorer Classroom Field Trip

Virtual Reality Discovery Channel App – Virtual Field Trips for iOS & Google

New York Times Virtual Reality App: Free VR Experience

Have a form to send out - it will go to spam at Norris unless you do this!

If you want to send out a form, just send a link to the form in an email to staff. If you use the send feature within forms it will go to spam.

Techy info on this in case you care: We have taken some efforts to prevent our email addresses from being spoofed. This prevents us from being spammers and also prevents users from sending email to our staff thinking that it came from one of our staff members. So when Google forms send an email on behalf of "us" it gets caught because we did not truly send the email. (Google sent the email form on behalf of you.) Clear as mud... right? LOL

Make a Fancy Email Draft in Google Docs, then Send it as a Gmail Message:

Google Docs has a large number of formatting tools, including charts, images, tables, graphs, fonts, etc. A limited set of those are available in Gmail’s editor, however. That means it can be a challenge to create a nice-looking email using only the Gmail platform.

That’s where the Chrome extension Convert Google Docs to Gmail Drafts comes in.

You can create an email message or newsletter—including all its beautiful formatting—in a Google Doc, and then click a button to convert the Doc into a Gmail draft. Here is a link to the doc you get after installing the extension with more info.

Google Drive tips & apps:

Become a Google Drive power user with these 20 tips and tricks

Create Audio projects right from Google Drive with this add-on: Beautiful Audio Editor

Tip: Tag Anyone in a Doc to have them respond.

Need a friend or other person to answer a question about something in a doc?

Just type “+yourfriend@theircompany.com” in a comment.

Google drive will notify them of the comment in the Google Doc and send them a link giving them access to the document.

This Google Keep Trick Will Make You a Better Reader - Check it out.

Finally! Embed HTML and JavaScript in the New Google Sites!

Google recently made it possible to embed web pages as iframes in the new Google Sites. With this launch, they're giving you one more tool to customize your sites—you can now embed HTML and JavaScript code directly into your sites. This makes the new Google sites much more powerful! Read more about it here.

Use your phone as a remote for Google Slide presentations and as a mouse for your computer!

Turn your phone into a Google Slides remote control with this Chrome extension. At Norris - I recommend turning your entire phone into a remote mouse for your computer! This doc will get you started.

Changing How You View Photos and Videos in Google Drive

Today in Google Drive you can view your Google Photos directly via a tab in the left navigation and from folders within My Drive. In early January 2018, Google will simplify Drive navigation by removing the Google Photos tab. You can continue to access your photos and videos in Drive by creating a Google Photos folder in My Drive. More info here.

Some new features in Gsuite:

You can now import Forms quiz grades directly into Classroom.

Explore new diagrams and stock images for Slides, and copy and paste poll results right into Slides.

Science Journal on Android and iOS

Let your class explore the world like scientists with the Science Journal app. Students can measure real-time data and record their observations in a digital notebook. The redesigned app is now available on iOS and Android with over 20 new activities from educational partners. Note- This Android app has been aproved for the HS student's Chromebooks... so they can install it if needed.

Weather Station up and rolling at Norris:

Bryan Williams has the Norris FFA WeatherLink station all set up and ready to roll! We do not have Ken Siemek rolling yet... but Cullison does have the MS news broadcast that often includes a weather report.

You can get current and historical data including temperature, wind, rain and many other measurements.

Data from the station is available on the WeatherLink.com website as well as iOS and Android apps.

WeatherLink 2.0 for iOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/weatherlink-2-0/id1304504954

WeatherLink 2.0 for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.davisinstruments.weatherlink&hl=en

Thanks to the Norris FFA for obtaining the grant.

A few good Gmail tips from Better Cloud - with how to videos!

Complete list here via Better Cloud.

Undo a Sent Email

If you made an error in your message, sent it to the wrong person or forgot some information, Gmail has you covered. You can undo a sent email up to 30 seconds after clicking the send button.

Create a Contact Group

If you have a group of co-workers or a team you need to frequently send emails to, this is a definite time saver. Instead of adding every individual—and potentially forgetting someone—you can create a group and just type that name in instead of each email address.

Use Gmail Advanced Search Operators

Everyone knows that Google is renowned for their search engine. With Gmail, you have the power of that search engine in your inbox. If you’ve got a ton of emails to sift through and you’re looking for a particular one, this makes it a lot easier to find. Check it out now!

Log Out of Other Sessions

This one is more of a reminder. A lot of bad can come from forgetting to log out of your Gmail account on shared machines, like having your personal info get compromised. Here's how you can log out of those sessions.

Enable Desktop Notifications

If you’re keeping an eye out for an important email, but don’t want to have to keep going back to check Gmail, this is perfect. While you’re doing other tasks on your computer, a pop-up window will announce when you’ve gotten that email you’re waiting for. How to video here.

New & Improved Google for Education Website

Introducing the new and improved Google for Education website! Now live in the U.S. and Canada, check out our redesigned site and explore new additions like the Computer Science hub, K12 and Higher Ed solution pages, and The Latest, a collection of news and insights about the education world.

Google's Applied Digital Skills Curriculum - now aligned with state standards.

Identify Applied Digital Skills content that overlaps with your state standards
Filter for your “state,” “grade,” “state standard,” or “skills” to see the unit(s) that best fit your needs

Google Arts & Culture

On the homepage, you’ll find a wide range of media to bring into your classroom. This website has a daily digest that includes a handful of curated resources to jump into each day. It includes free access to videos on topics related to different cultures as well as featured themes with large collections of images, artifacts, videos and more.

5 things to do before giving an old iPhone or iPad to your kid

Don't hand over an aging iOS device to your eager youngster before doing a little kid-proofing first. These steps will get you started.

Great IOS app for younger kids and projects: ChatterPix Kids Makes Pictures Come to Life.

A plug for Kahn Acadamy -

I thought it would be appropriate to forward some materials I received in an email from Kahn. The timing is right!

(Remember it's free (and always will be!) because millions have been donated by foundations and individuals.)

Finals are almost here, and we want to do everything we can to make sure your students are confident and ready.

Take a few minutes to check out our world-class videos, overview articles, diagnostic quizzes, and practice questions. Then, share links to Khan Academy lessons with your students.

If you have students who are shaky on a concept, you can also create an assignment that points them towards a video or practice problems to make sure they’ve got it:

You can also assign a quiz or unit test to check their skills. If they have any gaps in their understanding, we'll help your students find and fill them.

Check out the content we have for your students and then recommend the resources that will work best for them:

Advanced Placement & college prep

AP Calculus AB	AP Biology
AP Calculus BC	AP US History
AP Statistics	AP World History
AP Physics 1	AP Art History
AP Physics 2	AP Microeconomics
AP Chemistry	AP Macroeconomics