Free Apps, some great tools, tech tips and more! All in this Thanksgiving list.

WOW these are amazing! - Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a Set of Online Flashcards, spelling word lists - with audio!, certificates, and other cool stuff: Check it out at flippity.net

14 Virtual Tools: Favorite Math Apps

Gmail and Google Calendar Get a Whole Lot Better on iOS - In its biggest update in four years, Gmail for iOS now offers "Undo Send."

Self-Check Quiz Templates -- Want to give your students a quiz and then have the computer grade it for you? Then check out these templates! Students can take the quizzes on any online device – a computer, an iPad, a tablet, a smart phone, etc!

Color Code Your Email Labels In Gmail - This short 3 minute video will show you how. You can easily locate any email by topic with this little trick we use for organizing all our incoming emails. It all comes down to custom coloration. (Note - I like color coding my Google Drive folders as well!) 

New & Improved Voice Typing Commands in Google Docs -  You can now specify text color, highlight text, add links, insert comments, and switch to a column layout in Google Docs–just by using your voice.

Edit, send & sign PDFs online for free - Checkout DocHub.  They offer a premium plan too, but for many of us the free plan will suffice.  

Online plagiarism checker - Free to copy and paste up to 500 words... or other plans available. 

New file upload question added to Google forms!  Make's it simple to have students or parents upload a file directly to your Google Drive. 

Remember in August Google Added the ability to add images to questions and answers in Google Forms.   Awesome feature for teachers! 

4 Useful Chrome Extensions for Working with Images & Videos

The National Parks just celebrated their 100th birthday. Recently Google announced that now anyone can take a virtual tour of some of our most breathtaking National Parks, no matter where you are, with Google's The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks. 

Doing a research project with students? - Turn Google Sheets into an Automatic Citation Tool. When you’re doing research online, you don’t have to manually collect and save information. Try Citable, a helpful Chrome extension that simplifies how you gather research.

20 practical ways to use Google Forms in class, school. 

How to Create a Pivot Table in Google Sheets  Via BetterCloud Monitor --  Pivot tables help you summarize and analyze large data sets by displaying the information in more digestible formats. They make it much easier to take out small pieces of information and conclusions from a large set of information.

Elementary or middle school teachers - Check out Wonderopolis. (Created by the National Center for Families Learning.)  Find out more about this resource here.  

Remember a few of the fall updates to classroom...

Google Classroom rolled out a new feature this fall that will allow teachers to automatically share summaries of student work with parents, as well as the ability for students and teachers to annotate documents in the Google Classroom mobile app.

Did you know Google Classroom allows you to personalize your feedback with your own handwriting? Here's how.

Free Apps:

Reg. $5.99 ... Now free:

TIMEMAPS U.S. History - Historical Atlas by EMSE EDAPP, S.L. Price: $FREE TIMEMAPS have been highlighted as:  * Educational app for Middle School in the USA and Canada * 'New and noteworthy' and 'What’s hot' in the Education category in 14 countries

Get their other apps that are still Free here.  (There are a ton of apps, including a lot of other History quiz apps. Some may have in app purchases.) 

Web tools, math & writing tools, Google tools and tips... and MORE, in this weeks posts.

Websites and web tools:

Free Technology for Teachers: 6000+ Children's Books Available for Free

Pretty cool tool for creating some VR/3D scapes - https://studio.cospaces.io (Would work well with student projects.) 

Using QR Codes to Build a Classroom Audio Library 

Jellymetrics Readability Grader - Quickly Determine Readability of an article or text. 

Save your screenshots instantly to Google Drive with the QuickShare Screenshot Chrome extension

Nice Tool for creating Audio Files right to your Google Drive.  -BeautifulAudioEditor

Introducing... my.SketchUp  -- An open beta of SketchUp in a web browser. 

What is my.SketchUp? -- my.SketchUp is the core SketchUp modeler, tuned to work in modern web browsers. Draw, orbit, push-pull: make anything you can imagine in SketchUp, anytime you imagine it.

Five new ways to reach your goals faster with G Suite - Including a new Google form question that allows your respondents to upload a file. (As of 10-28-16 - Feature coming soon!)  

20 Chrome Extensions, Web Apps, and Add-ons for Math - Some great tools in this list for the Elementary - Sr. High teachers! 

WriteWell: 

Got Writer’s Block? Use WriteWell to Jumpstart & Organize Your Writing. You can also just visit their website.  (Exports right to Google Drive too!)   <--- AWESOME TOOL FOR WRITING! 

(The Free plan is limited to 10 documents - But not a biggie.  Export the final product to Google Drive, delete the doc in WriteWell, and then start another doc.) (Great tool for getting started with Doc structure, etc...)  Check it out!  - Short 1 1/2 Min overview video. 

​

Gmail - Tips and tricks:

How to Access Gmail Offline - Short 2 min. Video.  (Great for kids & staff that have Chromebooks!) 

The “Forward All” vs. “Forward” Function in Gmail  If you’ve ever forwarded a long email thread in Gmail, you know it can look a bit confusing and cluttered. The little-known “Forward all” function in Gmail makes forwarded emails much clearer and easier to read.

Google Classroom:

Creating Assignments in Google Classroom is a great Infographic to get you started with assignments.  

Google Docs:

Create Fillable Text Boxes in Google Docs - Via BetterCloud Monitor

Create & Customize Columns in Google Docs (No More Workarounds Needed) <--- GREAT NEW FEATURE

Google Slides:

Graph paper templates for Google Slides - Great for the math teachers! 

G Suite Update Alerts --   Coming soon! 

Integrated search now available in Gmail, Google Calendar, Groups, and Drive on the web

Google Sheets:

Get Wikipedia Data Right In Google Sheets

BetterCloud Monitor | Here’s a cool way to combine the power of Wikipedia with Google Sheets. The Wikipedia Tools add-on for Sheets adds in Wikipedia custom functions, so you can bring data from Wikipedia right into Sheets.

Google Draw:

5 Neat Things Students Can Do With Google Drawings

Tech tools working checking out! Simple, free and awesome- a wide variety!

Web tools and sites:

lingro: One of the coolest dictionary tools I have seen for websites. 

Soundtrap - Make music online

My best tools for Creating Video and Video Slide Shows - Check out my doc here! <--- Check in out!

Google tools for ELA.

I have shared this one before... but it's worth sharing again!  If you need a simple whiteboard tool for your computer or Chromebooks - This site is for you! 

Use http://www.mathlanding.org/  to search for interactive math resources for elementary students. 

Three Tools That Help Students Take Notes While Watching Videos. (I love MoveNote in the list.) - Remember Edpuzzle is awesome for assigning videos and asking/quizzing the students while they watch! (This one is not on the list since it falls into a different category.) 

The Adobe Spark apps are amazing! Free... and easy to use.  (I know... I have shared this one before.... but it's a simple and awesome app and website! Applicable K-12!) 

Example Spark Video:

Students from Amberley Primary School, who created a high-energy Spark Video to wish Great Britain's athletes luck.

The Rio Report -- The U.S. Olympic sailing team shared updates about Rio using beautiful Spark Page web stories.  (Great way to create online flyers, announcements, add flair to your website, etc...)

Google Classroom:

The Definitive Guide to Google Classroom "Parent View" aka Guardian Summaries (This new feature was added to Google Classroom a few weeks ago.  Find out how it works on the parent side too!) 

23 Awesome Apps that Integrate with Google Classroom | Via Shake Up Learning

Intro to Google Classroom - A Google Slideshow with links to many Classroom resources. 

Google Docs:

A New Lesson Plan Tool for Google Docs via Free Technology for Teachers

Yes, there is revision history. But if you want to see a mini-movie of your revisions, then the DraftBack extension is for you! 

Yes, Google Drive search is better and updated... but you will love that they are  adding columns to Google Docs! 

https://drive.googleblog.com/2016/09/what-you-love-about-google-search-now.html?m=1

Google Slides:

Use Your Mouse as a Laser Pointer in Google Slides (Plus 2 More Useful Tips)

Google Sheets:

Bend It Like Beckham, er… Google Sheets!

These slick Google Sheets add-ons make working with data so much easier!  (I love the PowerTools one.) 

Become a Data Super Hero with the NEW Awesome Tables - Google Slides - A more advanced tool, but amazing for data dissemination and more! 

Create Dynamic Dropdown Menus in Google Sheets - This 3 minute video will show you how. 

Give Each Student Their Own Tab - Via Teacher Tech.  A nice template for spreasheets if you need to accomplish this task. 

Google Draw:

Create, Submit, Find a Google Draw Badge - Kind of a cool idea, and several badges for you to grab too! 

A couple amazing extensions and more in this weeks tech list! Check it out.

These first two are amazing extensions.... 

Awesome Chrome Extension for screen recording and making training videos! 

This chrome extension is awesome.  Easily record your screen and include audio and a "talking head" video as you record your screen.  All of the videos are stored on their site. You can also download the video and save it to your computer or Google Drive as well. 

Use your webcam/doc-cam to include the audio and video while you record your screen.  (At Norris... If you do not have one, let us know... we provide the doc cams to all staff.) 

Visit the Openvid website. They have a link to the Chrome extension as well as a short video. (It's simple enough to figure out on your own.) 

Amazing Chrome Extension for whiteboarding in your class! 

Annotate web content using XPress, an intuitive whiteboard extension for the Chrome browser: 

Google classroom: 

Mickie's guide to Google Classroom is worth checking out! 

Misc. Google Tools, news and more...

What's New in Google Apps newsletter - August 2016 

Playlist - 3 nice YouTube videos on the new Google Form quizzes. 

This tech guy just learned something new!  Did you know you may have orphaned files in Google drive that you own but do not see anymore?  WOW!  This article shows you how to search for them. 

Creating with Chromebooks: Multimedia Apps & Tools <--- This site rocks!  Great online tools and apps divided by use/need. 

5 Ways Students Can Use Google Docs in Math - Teacher Tech 

Pivot This: Summarize Google Forms Data - Teacher Tech

Dropbox Hack is Real
Troy Hunt | If you haven't changed your Dropbox password since mid-2012, now would be a good time. Head over to haveibeenpwnd.com to see if your email address is one of 68 million in the breach.

A great group of tech tools, apps and more to end this week! Free apps, tools and more.

The Molecular Workbench free software (available for Mac, Windows, and Linux) is an incredible modeling tool for secondary science teachers and students to use in conducting computational experiments. (This is installable software, so does not work on a Chromebook.) 

5 Awesome Adobe Apps That Are Completely Free  You will more from me on the Adobe Spark Suite (Web, iOS): Create Beautiful Posts, Articles, or Videos!  These tools are Amazing!  This article also highlights other programs, IOS apps, etc.. thart are free!  

Great Tools for Creating Screencast Videos

How to Build a Custom Google Map Using Addresses in Google Sheets

Here’s a nifty trick that combines both Google Sheets and Maps. When you enter addresses into Sheets, you can then display all of the locations right in Maps, creating your own custom map. 

Use Google Drive to Fill Out PDF Forms - If you don’t have the right software, filling out PDF forms on your computer can be a frustrating experience. Luckily, this (free) trick using Google Drive makes filling out PDF forms a breeze.

6 Must-Have Creation Tools for the BYOD Classroom. - This is a good list! (Seesaw is a great tool for the K-8 environment! A ton of great feedback from the K-8 teachers on this one!) Providing opportunities for students to make and create is essential in 21st-century classrooms. Children of all ages should experience the joy of seeing their work shared and celebrated. Check out this list for some great tools to accomplish that! 

8 Tips for Teachers Using Google Cardboard in School and 5 apps for Google Cardboard.  

Another Collection of Some Good Google Drive Add-ons for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning May 10, 2016

Remove line breaks, Change letter case, Google Sheets Rubric add-on... and more! 

Google Forms:

You can now add images to questions and answers in Google forms!  (They recently added the ability to do quizzes in Google forms.  I still liked using the Flubaroo add-on for doing quizzes with forms since it had a much richer feature set... and it's easy to use too.  But with this new feature, doing a quiz right from Google forms is the way to go if you want to add pictures to the question and/or for feedback.)  This short video (4 min.) will walk you through the process of adding pictures to your questions. 

This video (8 Min.)  will walk you through the process of creating a quiz in Google Forms. 

5 Free Research Tools for the Classroom

• Instagrok: A Student-Friendly Research Tool - More info here
• Google Research Tool: Help Students Document Research - More Info here
• Popplet: Organize Ideas the Easy Way - More info here
• Google Custom Search: A Better Way to Search Online with Students - More info here
• Wolfram Alpha: Researching for the STEM Classroom - More info here

Google classroom:

10 things every teacher should be able to do in Google Classroom - Infographic. 

Google Draw:

10 Graphic Organizers With Google Drawing

Here are 10 Fantastic Ways for Teachers and Students to Use Google Drawings in the Classroom!

Google Sheets:

Google Sheets Now Automatically Analyzes Your Data For You 

How to Split Text into Columns in Google Sheets

Have you ever had a list of names in a spreadsheet and wanted to separate them by first and last names into two columns? Then this tip is for you!

Google Docs:

An Easy Way to Color Code and Organize Ideas in a Google Doc.  Maybe a great tool for kids and collaborative projects with docs, etc...

10 Google Docs Hacks Every Teacher Should Know. 

eBooks:

How to Access Free eBooks (by the Millions!)  Open Library is the spot. 

Google Chrome Extensions for Education:

We asked educators what their favorite Chrome Extensions were for using in the classroom. Here are the results.

5 More Awesome Chrome Extensions for Teachers. 

5 Useful Chrome Extensions for Students

Add Text to Your Image Just By Right-Clicking! Via BetterCloud Monitor | Adding text to images can be cumbersome: You have to find photo editing software, open up a separate program, import your photos…you get the idea. Luckily, there’s an easy solution that lets you add text to any image on the web just by right-clicking, making the process seamless and quick. (I am now using this tool.  It's free, but does have a few premium features as well.) 

IOS Apps:

Microsoft Pix wants to use AI to improve your iPhone photos. Read more about it here.   Link to free app on the itunes store. I have started using this app, and it really does improve your pictures. 

Scan and Learn with the Socratic Homework App - This looks like a cool free app for students. (I have not tried it yet.) Read more about it here. 

A repeat of my recent email to staff on some exciting updates to Google that have a lot of impact for EDU!

Google Classroom:

Google Updates Classroom with New Tools for Students, Parents, and Teachers! 

Parents can now automatically receive summaries of their kids’ work so they can know exactly how they are doing in any given class.

Mobile annotations: Teachers and students can draw on, highlight, and write notes on documents and PDFs in the Classroom mobile app.

Check out the What's new in Classroom Google page to keep current with all of the new bells and whistles. 

Free IOS App - Stage Pro: Interactive Whiteboard and Document Camera Reg. $4.99

Stage Pro: Interactive Whiteboard and Document Camera is free today. (Reg $4.99)

Not sure if it's as good as the Explain Everything App... but it's free to try out. (Contact me for free codes for this app if you have a use for it.

Some great tools and tips for the start of the school year.

Web sites and tools:

My Three Favorite Classroom Timer Tools - via Richard Byrne @rmbyrne

A Literacy Resource You Must See to Believe -  The aim [of The Literacy Shed] is to provide high-quality resources that can be used in stand-alone literacy lessons, can form the basis for a whole literacy unit, or can support literacy units that you already have in place.

Spiral Education promotes strong classroom collaboration for free!  IOS - Android and Chrome app

Help 1-8 students learn more than 1,000 crucial math skills for free - Nice game based learning motivates students to work outside the classroom too! (Over 4 million users and growing.) 

The Write Stuff - Some great tech tools for creativity and writing in the classroom. 

5 Apps to Use with Google Cardboard

5 Nearpod Tips and Tricks for this School Year 

7 Tech Tools to Capture Stories: Creation Apps & Websites

6 Exciting AR Apps for Student Learning with #ScannableTech

4 Free Digital Storytelling Tools for the Classroom via SimpleK12 

-Comics Head

--Blabberize (Talking Avatar)

--Befunky photo apps 

--Animoto 

My Animoto notes: 

Animoto  Is a great site for creating videos from pictures! Sign up for free edu account. First sign up for a free account, then visit this site to apply for the teacher account:

http://animoto.com/education/classroom  (You can easily embed the Animoto, or link to it on your website too!)  First, create a free account, then request the education version to get the pro features for free.)

Soundtrap - allows students to capture audio, edit, collaborate and publish their final podcast, radio show, etc...  Designed for creating and sharing music too!  (Works great on Chromebooks... since it's all through the web.) 

Infographic of 12 Chrome extensions for student research. 

WOW! - I like this tool! Google's new Tour Builder is great for telling a story with maps! https://goo.gl/AzDnMj   Example Tour here. 

Need to manage events and registrations ... This Google Sheet add-on will manage it for you! 

This is my favorite new Chome Extention for Gmail!  --> The New and Improved Gmelius Extension. It adds some great features that I really like! 

Google Docs & Apps:

How to Make Columns in Google Docs -- Great tip via BetterCloud Monitor | If you’ve ever tried to create columns in Google Docs (for example, if you’re making a newsletter), you might have noticed that there’s no built-in feature for it. Don’t worry, though—the workaround is easy. Here’s a simple method for making columns.

Google Templates for Students - Great list from TCEA 

Advanced Tricks for Making Your Google Slides Better with Multimedia

How to Link to a Specific Paragraph in Google Docs via BetterCloud Monitor 

If you ever have a Google Doc that’s tens or hundreds of pages long, it can be difficult to find a specific section of text that someone has asked you to reference. To save time, it can be valuable to provide a direct link to a specific paragraph in your document. (Hint... it's using the bookmark function.)

5 Google Sheets add-ons that supercharge your data! 

Google Forms Guide: Everything You Need to Make Great Forms for Free

Google Apps Education Newsletter for June 2016. 

Chrome Extensions:

WOW- This is a great list.  I personally use every one of these!  The 8 Best Chrome Extensions As Chosen By Teachers

Google Calendar:

Take Google Calendar to the Next Level with These 3 Extensions

Google Drawing:

Easy Poster Projects using Google Drawing

Google Slides:

Are you looking for tips to make your presentations more engaging and captivating? Check out this episode and learn more about some cool Google Slides advanced features, that will help you improve your presentation design and flow!

Google Sites - It's new and improved! 

Google sites have been updated, and they are great!  (There are some new features.... and a few things I hope they add... ) We are a rapid release domain, so this new feature is available for our users.  You access the new sites here. 

This cheat sheet should help get you started.  (I have also added it to our tech docs in drive.) 

Google Classroom:

7 Hacks for Google Classroom

Google Classroom – Grade the Folder

Google Classroom - A nice Pinterest board with resource links. 

CoolCat Teacher's 100+ Google classroom resources. 

Classroom now lets you plan ahead by scheduling announcements, assignments, and questions to post at a later date or a specific time

Just announced from Google -Coming this fall: keep parents and guardians in the loop

Later this year, we’ll launch email notifications from Classroom for guardians so they can stay involved and help to motivate their students. Guardians will be able to sign-up to receive daily or weekly email digests of their student’s progress, upcoming work and class announcements. Administrators will be able to invite guardians directly and set domain-wide policies for guardian linking and notifications.

IOS Apps:

Thanks to free mobile apps, creating flashcards with students has never been easier. IOS & Android - FREE Flashcards by Dictionary.com looks like a winner. 

Play review games or learning games in your classroom?  Turn your iPad into a game style buzzer with this free app - Game Buzzer Free -Which I had this one when I was still in the classroom. 

Want to create some excitement with projects?  These apps are great for the K-12 classroom! Animate with avatars, pics and more.  This presentation from the ISTE conference will get you started.  It has Chatterpix Kids (Which is awesome for the young kids... and you hear a lot from teachers that love it!) but it also includes a ton of other ones that look great.  Check it out. 

Google’s new Arts & Culture app brings the world’s art, virtual tours and more to your smartphone Experiencing the world’s art just got a little easier, thanks to Google’s newly launched Arts & Culture application which puts works of art from over a thousand museums across 70 countries into the palm of your hand.  

7 Favorite Apps to Use with Book Creator  - Did you know we have licenses for Book creator for use on our iPads?  It's an amazing tool!

This si a great list!  The Explain Everything app is one that we provide free to teachers!  Need a code... drop me an email. 

Eight great apps for chemistry teachers. (IOS and Android)

Android Apps:

Five free Android apps for recording voice notes - Via TechRepublic

Google makes working on mobile easier with new Android Add-ons for Docs & Sheets!