💥 Tech tools - New Google digital citizenship resource, cool web tools, nice add-ons and extensions and more in this weeks tech email!

This one hurts:

Google is shutting down goo.gl URL shortener next year, existing links will keep working.  -Article with more info here. Most of the time, it's awesome news from Google - but this one hurts a little!  I love their goo.gl shorter and Chrome extension. 

Check out this awesome new online safety website from Google 

It’s called Interland and is free!  Check it out! 

Short 1 1/2 minute video walk-through. 

Teacher guide with lessons. (PDF)

Did you know this about your Chromebook?

• -If you just shut the lid, your Chromebook is still draining your battery!  Putting your Chromebook to sleep by shutting the lid is fine, but if you are not going to use it for a while, I would shut it down. 
• -Shortcuts are awesome - 10 Keyboard Shortcuts Every Chromebook Owner Should Know. (The last one on the list will show you all shortcuts!) 
• -press Ctrl+ Shift + N on a desktop or Chromebook and you will be using Chrome in incognito mode.  It will not load extensions and does not know who you are logged into Google as. This is very handy for checking out problems with extensions or logging into a personal Gmail inbox. 

Misc. Websites and tech tools:

This one has been a teacher favorite (and one of mine) for many years...  Padlet allows you to save and curate all kinds of links, texts, video, pretty much whatever you want onto one online bulletin board. Now the bad news... They have free and paid plans rolling out.  The free plan limits you to 3 padlets - but still usable for most of us.  5 Alternatives to Padlet. 

Diigo is a social bookmarking tool. I have used this one for many years!  (It's how I save and curate my content.) Not only can you save your bookmarks in the cloud, but you can tag, create groups, and annotate on web pages. It’s also a great tool for older students to curate and research.

Create Magic in your Classroom - Teachers, you and your students can create Augmented Reality Experiences without needing to write any code. Metaverse is a FREE Augmented Reality Platform that is being used by thousands of teachers to build all kinds of interactive learning experiences for their classrooms. (I have not tried this yet, but looks pretty cool.) Here is a playlist of videos to get started with this platform. 

The most powerful GSuite App you are not using! - Data Studio creates easy to read reports and charts from a number of different data sources (Including Google Sheets.).  These video tutorials will get you started. 

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Create MadLibs With a Google Sheets Template 

Wheel Decide - Paste your name list, etc... spin the wheel.  Great randomizer site. 

SeeSaw:

Nice Playlist! - Seesaw Tutorials - 2 to 5 Minute Long Tutorials

SeeSaw is a great communications tool for the K-6 grade levels.  The free version seems to satisfy all teachers needs.(Based on other school and teacher comments)  Give it a try! 

Google Slides:

11 tips for creating stop motion in Google Slides

Google Keep:

It's a GREAT tool! If you are not using it.. give it a try.  (Here is our Google Keep tip's sheet.) 

4 Ways to Use Google Keep for Feedback and Assessment.

How to drag and drop notes from Google Keep into Google Docs

Google has made it incredibly simple to copy your notes from Keep into Google Docs. Jack Wallen shows you how to make use of this, without having to constantly use Ctl+C and Ctl+V.

Annotate Videos with VideoANT 

It's simple and free.... Add annotations to any publicly accessible YouTube video. Copy the URL of the YouTube and paste it into the VideoANT annotation tool. As the video plays click the "add annotation" button when you want to add an annotation.You are the only person that has to have a VideoANT account...your collaborators do not need to have an account to participate in the annotation process with you. 

Google Sheets:

14 Impressive Things You Can Do with Google Sheets  -Slide 3 is a pretty cool appliction. 

PDF Tools:

Smallpdf has several tools.  It's eSign PDF works for signing documents.  They have a large number of other web/browser-based tools that. They limit you to two free tasks per hour.  (It's based on a cookie they put on your browser, so clearing cache may get you more tasks.) 

PDF Buddy - This browser-based tool lets you sign or edit up to three PDF files every month for free. It’s a good solution if you work with PDFs only occasionally. 

HelloSign - Get 3 documents free per month.  Visit their Google login here.  They also have a Google Doc add-in, but for signing Google docs I would just create a jpg signature pic and insert it into your Google Doc. 

Chrome Extensions:

There are several tools for taking screenshots, and Chromebooks even have some basic ones built right in... but this FireShot extension is worth the look. (We have added it to our list of approved student extensions.) 

New add-ons available in February 2018

February was a dynamic month on Google add-on stores. 35 add-ons were launched (most of them on the Google Sheets add-on store) and 184 were updated.

Among the new add-ons, 5 of them caught our attention. - Check them out!  -Note- Not sure I like their 5 listed, but there are some other great ones at the bottom of the article/list. ~Noel

Keep current with the new updates and add-ons being released. 

Cool student activity for the younger grades.  (Distribute with Google Classroom!) 

Springtime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

Spring is here, and April is National Poetry Month! 

Qhat better time to have your students work on their creative writing skills with a Springtime-themed writing activity.

Help students through the four-step writing process with these free tools:

​ Writing Navigator goes beyond identifying what's right and what's wrong. It prompts students to make creative decisions and find the right words in the best order by providing assistance at each of the four steps of the writing process.  Students get feedback about their writing and begin to think like experienced writers over time.

Plan Writing Planner helps students generate ideas and organize them into a writing plan. Draft Writing Drafter transforms the plan into a first draft. It helps students develop sentences, supporting details and transitions.  Revise Writing Reviser provides feedback that helps students make their sentences more economical, varied, powerful and clear. This popular resource is also available as a Google Docs add-on.  Publish In this final stage, students use Writing Publisher to proofread and correct any errors before publishing a polished essay. It can even help with citations.

💥 Tech tools - New Google activity dashboard! SAY YES to this!!! , Tech tools, Download YouTube Videos, Chrome extensions for EDU and more in this weeks tech post.

NEW - Activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides!

Great new feature:

See who has viewed a file:

1. On your computer, open a file in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides that you can edit.
2. At the top, click Tools  Activity Dashboard.

Note: You can only view activity on files owned by a Google Account that can use Activity Dashboard.

You may be presented with the following agreement/warning: 

Some great websites and tech tools:

Google Hacks for the Educator - Great tips!   - A slide deck presented at a recent Google Summit.  

Going Further with Google Photos 2.0 - A slide deck presented at a recent Google Summit. 

Around the World with Google Geo  - A slide deck presented at a recent Google Summit. 

Video Playlist of strategies for students around using images in Google Docs - Nice short tutorials - worth the watch! 

25 Tech Tools, Tricks, and Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Chromebook. 

More info from Google on this new feature:

Improve collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides with Activity dashboard

G Suite makes it easier for users to collaborate efficiently and effectively. An important part of collaboration is deciding how and when to follow up with others. To help inform these decisions, we're introducing Activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It’s a feature that lets users with edit access see who has viewed the file and when they viewed it.

Google Forms:

10 Google Forms Tricks! 

If you are new to using Google forms - check this out!  Google Forms for Educators - Introduction/tutorial. 

Several free Chrome apps for the classroom:

Create stop-motion animation with Clap Motion: EDU Review on this product: This is a new Chrome App I recently discovered. Free to use, works offline, super simple.

LabCamera - Real-time video analysis in your classroom- Track and graph horizontal and vertical movement of objects with Intellisense LabCamera Kinematics module. The webcam based natural science exploration and data logging laboratory for STEM education. LabCamera allows students and teachers to carry out substantial scientific observations and measurements by using our software and a simple everyday webcam. Conducting physics, biology and chemistry experiments with LabCamera - both in the classroom and at home - brings natural science education to a new level.

The CleanPrint extension is pretty nice!  Here is a short 2 min. video on how to use it.  

Use Yout.com to Download Videos from YouTube

• Find a YouTube video you want to download
• In the URL, take the ‘ube’ out of youtube.com and then hit ENTER
• Pick to download the file as an MP3 (sound) or MP4 (video) file
• Great if you need to get a video to play offline for an educational reason or to store in your Google Drive. 

Google Docs - Image Annotation with Drawings  Great Tip!

• Take an image into a GDoc
• Click on the image and COPY it
• Find an open space in the doc and click so the cursor is there
• Go to INSERT > DRAWING
• Drawing window opens. PASTE your image
• Use the shapes, arrows, lines, text tools to do whatever editing is needed over the image and then 
• Click SAVE AND CLOSE when done and the ‘drawing’ is in the doc. Can double click on the drawing to go back in and edit if needed. 
• Great way to MARK-UP images right in the doc!

💥 Tech tools - Cool classroom tools, Some amazing Chrome extensionsand more!

Misc. Tech tools and sites:

My Top 20 Tech Tips for Teachers! via Kasey Bell

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Pretty cool site and simple site for name picking: Name Picker Ninja! 

WOW - Google has needed this feature - but this add-on comes to the rescue! Add audio to Google Slides with this cool add-on to slides. 

Guide: 25 Ways to use Forms in the Classroom - A great free guide by John Sowash. 

5 things you might not know about Kahoot! 

Great Google Form Add-on! - Certify'em - Emails a PDF certificate to a person if they score high enough on a Forms quiz

http://davidrumsey.com - A database of historical maps that can be used with Google Earth. (Some pretty cool historical maps.) 

HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic website that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge. Teachers project HippoCampus content during classroom learning and assign it for computer labs and homework. Students use the site in the evenings for study and exam prep. Users do not need to register or log in to use the site.

Three Great Video Creation iPad Apps for Elementary School

Some great Chrome extensions that are exciting and new finds!

ExtensionScreenShade by EdTechTeam  - ScreenShade lets you quickly and easily cover your screen or a portion of it. You can use ScreenShade to hide the answers to questions, block out something you don't want an audience to see, or let students uncover if they know the answer. 

CheckMark - Great tool for providing feedback in docs!  After installing CheckMark, simply enable the extension and select some text in a Google Doc! You'll see an overlay of frequently-used comments that you can easily select.

Talk&Comment - Voice Notes Anywhere -  Make voice notes and comments on any site or app! - Video here

docAppender is a Chrome extension that takes information gathered in a Google Form and adds it to an existing Google Doc. Here are some great idea's on how to use it in the classroom to save time.  

This one is really not applicable to us here at Norris, since it's easier to do this within GoGuardian. But I wanted to include this, since I also post this on my tech blog.  -  Whisper - Great tool for use with Google Classroom! Communicate with students without interrupting the work. More info here: http://www.whisperclass.com/

A few great extensions for special needs:

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader - Read out loud the current web-page article with one click. Supports 40+ languages. (Similar to Announcify)

OpenDyslexic -  Open-Dyslexic is an open sourced font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. This extension overrides all fonts on web pages with the OpenDyslexic font, and formats pages to be more easily readable. 

Awesome list of tools for creating study aids and games from Tony Vincent. -Check them out here. 

I have mentioned this one in the past... but wanted to highlight it again.  It's a great tool with many uses in the classroom: 

Tour Builder - Put your story on the map. Tell your stories with photos, videos and rich text on Google Earth.

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💥 Tech tools - NETA Congrats!, TIPS , New Google tools, Video tools, More Google Fonts and more!

Congrats to these Norris staff members for being presenters at this years NETA conference!

Katie Mueller, Jamie Kernes, Shelly Coe, Julia Odgers, and Jason Gault will be presenting at this year's conference - Congrats!  Here is a list of their sessions.   Natasha Gault was also awarded a Classroom grant for $$$ for her classroom!

If you have not registered to be a member - DO SO NOW!  It's free, and gets you a great email newsletter as well as an opportunity to apply for classroom grants, contests, and more!  

Misc. Web tools and sites:

My Top 5 Choices for Making Multimedia Quizzes by Richard Bryne. - Chart here. 

Free tools to make your students better writers! - Quill provides free writing and grammar activities for elementary, middle, and high school students. (Overview Video here.) 

ABC Mouse provides content for pre-K and Kindergartners.   Though it charges families, teachers can sign-up for their own virtual classrooms. (Full Online Curriculum for children AGES 2– 8) 

How about a #gafe4littles activity!

Leprechaun edition of the create and graph activities...works on computer devices. In Google Sheets Littles create a scene with the drawing, graph their items, and complete word/number sentences.  Make a copy of the Google Doc here to get started. 

Book Creator - An awesome tool for creativity 

Students Can Work Together with Book Creator’s Collaboration Feature - Great on Chromebooks!   Side note for Norris staff - We also have this available for the iPads. 

To help kickstart your bookmaking, we've curated 50 top tips, ideas and lesson plans from teachers that have already successfully integrated Book Creator into their classroom (and yes, we made this book using Book Creator).  Check it out! 

Add more fonts to your Google Docs!

 

Check out this article that walks you through the process! -How to add more fonts to Google Docs

Video tools for Chromebooks:

18 Tools for Making Videos on Chromebooks - by Richard Bryne -  PDF doc here <--. 

Several favorites from this list include Screencastify, Loom, Spark tools and more... 

Some nice tools from our very own Tristan Mitchell Mrs__TMitchell:

Here are some review/practice tools that I use in Technology that the students seem to enjoy! 

• Think On Your Feet (which I know some of you already use) is a GoNoodle game show that incorporates movement. You can upload your own questions and have teams compete against each other for points. Warning: this can get prettyyyyy intense! 

• Flippity.net has templates for a jeopardy type game, flashcards, BINGO cards, crossword puzzle, memory game, and lots more! You can save each template as a link and share!

Find the perfect IOS App:

Finding an App Based on Student Need - The Insignio database can assist.

Finding an App Based on Content or Topic -  Try fnd. This website allows you to search for apps by content or topic.

Finding an App Based on Recommendations - Some resources from TCEA:

Free Must-Have iPad Apps

Free Must-Have Apps for Content Creation
Free Must-Have Apps for Elementary Math
Free Must-Have Apps for Grammar and Vocabulary
Free Must-Have Apps for Health and PE
Free Must-Have Apps for Leveled Reading
Free Must-Have Apps for Phonics
Free Must-Have Apps for Primary
Free Must-Have Apps for Reference
Free Must-Have Apps for Science
Free Must-Have Apps for Secondary Math
Free Must-Have Apps for Social Studies
Free Must-Have Apps for Spanish
Free Must-Have Apps for Special Education
Free Must-Have Apps for Spelling
Free Must-Have Apps for Teachers

The New Google Hangouts Chat  

Google has added a new tool as a part of Gsuite and it's called Hangouts Chat.  I know we have had hangouts and chatting for a while, but this is a little different. (Side note - It's Google's answer to Slack, which is really big in the business world now.)

Nothing changes with hangouts, so we can continue doing video and chat the way we have been. The difference here is you can now use https://chat.google.com and create rooms and discussions threads within those rooms.  You then have a nice location (Room) for all of your threads as well as notifications when things are added, etc... "A team approach". 

For now, we have enabled this feature for all staff here at Norris.  (WIth classroom, not sure it's a needed feature for students.)  I have updated our Google Hangouts doc  (Chat Section here) to include the new chat feature. 

If you have questions or need help... let us know!

How to manage file versions in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Rather than creating a new file, you may just need to create a named version of that file that you can refer to--or print--later. Here's how to manage the file version from your desktop browser.

Airbus CIO: We dumped Microsoft Office, not over cost but because Google G suite looks sweet.

Here is the article. I thought I would share... Google owns the education market now... but many companies use Google as well. 

Some nice tools from our very own Jennifer Hutzler:  

I had the opportunity to learn from Tony Vincent at a conference recently.  If you want to follow him on social media he always has quick tech tips or ideas to use in the classroom.  Here are a few links and ideas he shared.  I think we only got to about half of the formative assessment session, but are several things and great graphics on his page. 

photofunia.com - play with photos and text 

chatterpix - add voice to screenshots or drawings.  (App) 

mysimpleshow.com - make explainer videos

coggle.it  & popplet.com- easy way to make mindmaps

Authentic Questions

learninginhand.com/investigating - more ideas on his website, like how to teach students to effectively search using google

Formative Assessment

learninginhand.com/blog/know

mentimeter.com & polleverywhere.com - create interactive polls and lists

💥 Tech tools - TIPS - tricks, math apps, free ebooks and more!

Misc. websites and web tools:

How To Create Digital Portfolios with Spark Page. (We love the Adobe Spark tools!) 

16 Google Sheets Templates for Almost Every Classroom

Plug-ins and Add-ons for Adding Images to Documents & Slides

Google Keep - Norris staff- You should be using this great tool! 

With our new staff Acer Spin Chromebook units...  this tool is awesome!

Nine tips & tricks to master Google Keep  

Here is our Norris tips and trick doc: Google keep--- Now integrated with Google Docs!

Some great Math Apps, sites, and tools:

The Math Learning Center has these free IOS, Chrome and Web apps. Check them out!  (All of these have been added to the student approved list of Chrome apps/extensions. 

Equatio: Yes You Can Type Math and Science in Google Docs and Forms! 

Care of Chromebooks & iPads 

Remember to never leave your electronic devices in a cold or hot car.  It's very hard on the device as well as the battery in these devices.  (A great thing to remind your students about!) 

Turn your Google Doc into an online flip book!

Great project for kids too!  Export your Google Doc as a PDF and import into Issuu. 

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A few Free Kindle eBooks:

Great list of free eBooks located here and a second list located here and a third list here.   Grab them while they are free.   (Make sure you check the price since some do jump back to regular prices.) 

Here is another list - but a few of these are no longer free, so check the price before you "buy". 

If you really like reading --- 2-Month Kindle Unlimited Membership for $1 until March 11, 2018. 

Note: Existing Kindle Unlimited subscribers are NOT eligible.