Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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πŸ’₯ Tech items - Some great product updates! Some great new tech tools and sites and more in this weeks tech update and tools!

Wednesday, June 17, 2020



The fall school year is a long ways away... but remember, the sun shines on those using tech tools and especially during these crazy times.
Hopefully things will be back to normal in the fall, but who knows.  One thing for sure... tech tools are great for both on-site and remote learning.  
  • Now is the time to toss those worksheets and go digital.
  • Now is the time to embrace Google Classroom for distributing and collecting materials.
  • Now is the time to embrace SeeSaw in those younger grades.
  • Now is the time to get rid of printed materials and go digital. (No reason for student notebooks with hundreds of pages.)Norris Staff - This summer there are a lot of tech opportunities available, check them out. Summer is a great time to learn those new tools to add them to your teaching toolbelt. 
  • Reach out to our tech department, we are here to help!

Erskine's summer tech classes have gone virtual.  If you are interested, you will want to sign up with Doane ASAP.  They are going to start dropping classes without very many people in them sooner than usual! 

Some GoGuardian Product Updates to Help with Remote Learning
  • A new Off-Task Alerts feature that automatically detects when a student goes off-task, relative to the classroom subject.  
  • Major Chat updates, like audio notifications, offline messaging, chat archive, and so much more to help teachers stay connected to their students.
  • Coming soon: A Present to Class feature that allows teachers to share their screens with students and enable their audio and/or video to teach remote sessions.
Google meet adds some more features.  -New grid view and more!
With Video conferencing getting used by everyone, I guess they keep adding requested features and battling for market share.
See up to 16 Google Meet participants at once with tiled layout - They built this in so no need for that extension! (I would remove the extension if you have installed it.)

FYI - Zoom made a change to Settings on 4.23.2020 after 4pm. -Breakout Rooms turned off by default. 
This change affects Breakout Rooms. The change defaults the In Meeting (Advanced) setting to Remote Support. When this happens it stops Breakout Rooms. You cannot have both Remote Support and Breakout Rooms running at the same time.

To turn on Breakout Rooms users must go to Settings>In Meeting (Advanced)>Breakout Rooms = On and Remote Support = Off
Let us know if you have any questions. 

A few great tips from Tony Vincent  @tonyvincent
⭕ Generate arched text at http://Picfont.com. Save as a PNG and import into Google Slides, Google Drawings, Keynote, etc.  (Works great on a Chromebook too!)



Here's a collection of 50+ virtual manipulatives that might be helpful when doing live or recorded instructional videos and would also be great for when we are back in class in the fall too!  Check them out! 



This is cool!  Virtual Vacation to the past! A film taken from a streetcar traveling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1906, a few days before the earthquake destroyed the area. Now in color, 4K and 60fps. Check it out. 

New Google updates:



Looks like the multiple signatures new feature just rolled out to us today. (4-27-20) I used the Gmail templates to accomplish the same thing... but those templates have a lot of uses to save you time.  Make sure you are using them!  They will save you a lot of time! 


Miscellaneous tech tools and resources: 

Posted by Noel Erskine at 11:51 AM 0 comments

πŸ’₯ Tech items - Some great tools in this week's email. Summer tech, A free iPad app, and a couple fun videos to get us through the Covid teaching blues.



We have updated our FlipGrid resource doc with some great resources. (We found an amazing resources site.)  This is a top 10 tech tool for K-12! Checkout our FlipGrid resource guide.

 Discover Khan + Create  - Some great lessons using free Adobe tools to make K-12 lessons engaging. 
Be sure to check out 40 new lessons that bring together Khan Academy materials and free Adobe Spark apps to keep students engaged and inspired. Lessons span language, literature, math, science, social studies, and careers.  Adobe educators extend Khan Academy lessons with engaging, creative activities for students of all ages  Explore now!

Remember our summer tech opportunities!
  • Get paid to become Google certified! 
  • 2 remote tech classes offered for college credit. Register ASAP. (2 have been cancelled.)
  • New staff tech training days.
  • Secretary tech training day.
  • Tech bootcamp
  • Check out all of the details here. 
When you join a video conference (Especially large conferences)  join with your audio muted to avoid looking like a novise!   
  • When you join a video conference you should join with your audio muted.
  • You should unmute when you are talking, but after you are done and others are talking you should mute yourself again.
  • Always be aware of your video - is it on or off.  We have all heard of the embarrassing situations that have occurred by people not knowing this.  (There is a reason they call it a video conference!)
  • Please teach your students to do this as well.  These are not just tech skills, but business and social etiquette. 
How to Use Flipgrid to Create Whiteboard Videos  - There are a ton of great features in Flipgrid that you can use in a variety of ways.  More info on the Whiteboard Videos and a few more features here. 

Miscellaneous tech tools and tips:
Some more great tips from DitchThatTextBook.  Check them out here: https://ditchthattextbook.com/ 
20 easy ways to collaborate globally with your class now -- Video calls don't have to be boring. We can make them an unforgettable experience! Add some new ideas at the end of the year, like bringing in a guest or playing a game together!

8 YouTube-inspired classroom video ideas -- Are your students recording video? Don't just have them record "head and shoulders" "face the camera" videos. Try a type of video that's popular on YouTube -- like an unboxing video or a product

30+ digital escape rooms (plus a step-by-step guide for creating your own) -- The escape room craze has hit, and a digital version could be exactly what your students are craving at the end of the year! Find pre-created escape rooms you can use OR make your own with our guide.

A few great tips from @tonyvincent (Thanks for allowing me to use your tips and graphics!) 
Long videos can be an information overload. Shorter clips with time to think, discuss, and apply can help learners better understand the content. One way to chop up a video is with Google Slides. 


 Immersive Reader is a full screen reading experience designed to make reading easier. You can open highlighted text from a web page in Immersive Reader using this unofficial Chrome extension.

Personal computer Looking for a good QR code scanner for laptops and Chromebooks?  Try this one. 


 Immersive Reader is a full screen reading experience designed to make reading easier. You can open highlighted text from a web page in Immersive Reader using this unofficial Chrome extension.



 Looking for a good QR code scanner for laptops and Chromebooks?  Try this one. 

Black square button My favorite QR code generator is http://GoQR.me. It's simple to use and no login required

























Time Timer for iPad is free right now (was $2.99). Customize, save, and reuse timers:


Vocaroo.com has been updated, and two big barriers to its use have been removed! It no longer requires Flash, and there’s a better deletion policy. 




A few fun videos for a smile:

I Will Survive, Coronavirus version for teachers going online.  You may have already seen this, but if not... it's worth a listen! 

A Conference Call in Real Life  - Maybe similar to a few things we run across with our video conferences. πŸ˜€ This one is an oldie but a goodie. 
Posted by Noel Erskine at 11:46 AM 0 comments

πŸ’₯ Tech Items - Some great tech tools and tips in this weeks posting!



Norris teachers, are you ready for the Fall?   Can you make the grade?  Check out our "Remote Learning Teacher Tools and Skills  for the 2020-21 School year" document to find out. 


Google Docs assistive writing features coming soon to our EDU G Suite Product.
Google is rolling out two Google Docs assistive writing features—Smart Compose and Autocorrect. These  features will be showing up sometime this month.  More info here.

New document save status and offline indicator for Docs, Sheets, and Slides  - More info here. 

Improvements to layouts in Google Meet -  More info here. 

Edit Calendar events directly from Gmail and Docs -  More info here. 

Super quick and easy way for students to make a comic strip: Witty comics. 








Type in your child's name or any word.  The site automatically opens a new window and then fills the page.  Take me back to my childhood days. 



Our KnowBe4 Phishing training and testing product now allows us to log in directly with Google.  At the bottom of the Waffle-Iron menu you will find  our KnowBe4 login. 





Towards the bottom: 






10 easy ways to clean up your Google Classroom

A few misc. tech tools and tips:
Distance Learning For Educators
Google just added this new Distance Learning For Educators course to it's skillshop/training.

More Google Slides Resources! 
We have updated our Google Slide templates and ideas doc.  We have added Slidesmaina  to our list of template resources along with some more great tips.

Tab Groups Are Available in Google Chrome 
I am not sure if this is that great of a feature, but some may find it useful. This 2 minute video will walk you through it. 

Google Lens can now copy and paste handwritten notes to your computer Check it out.  (I tested it and it's pretty cool!  (Thanks to Katy Dornbos for finding this one!) Get the Google lens app. (You may already have it and not even know it!) 

Kahn Academy just made a step by step guide for teachers.  Check it out!.  (We have this built into Clever so accounts will automatically be created for you going through Clever.  Ask us about this when you start using it!)  This is a top shelf online resource that is almost too good to be free. It's on our top list of OER resources for Norris Staff. 

Interactive slides for remote learning - Answer Pear Deck!

What if you could set up some slides for students to see -- but add clickable interactive elements, like multiple choice, drag and drop, or drawing?

Now, what if you could assign it for students to do on their own time at their own pace?

The answer is PearDeck student-paced mode. Pear Deck lets you create interactive elements on your slides for your students. Lots of teachers are using it for remote learning right now. Pear Deck has enough features in it's free package that it's definitely worth using. 

Matt Miller just did a webinar for Pear Deck showing how student-paced mode works and how it can be used for remote learning.  Check out there 20 ways to use Pear Deck to engage students article to get some ideas on using Pear Deck. 

Learn how to run a student-paced session of Pear Deck Flashcard Factory (2 mint. video.)  (free for all) 

Did you know Google Sheets can translate?
In Google Sheets you can use the function:

=GOOGLETRANSLATE(A1, "en","fr")

To translate the English text in cell A1 to French. These functions work using two letter country codes (es, es, ru, de, he, etc).

Khan Kids — Now for Teachers!

If you’re a preschool or early elementary educator, you probably know that Khan Academy Kids is a great app to recommend to parents of 2-7 year-olds.
It’s engaging (including amazing content from National Geographic), comprehensive (everything from early literacy to socio-emotional learning), and free (no ads, no subscriptions).
But did you know that you can now use it directly with your students?
That’s because Khan Kids now has teacher tools!

Posted by Noel Erskine at 11:24 AM 0 comments

πŸ’₯ Tech items - Free templates, new features, tutorials, originality reports beta, and more....

Tuesday, March 3, 2020


Norris students have now added over 20,049 posts to their Seesaw digital portfolios! K-6 teachers... now may be the time!
Are you a part of the success?  I know many of you are already using Seesaw, but if you have not had a chance to check it out yet, now may be the time!  Give Jason a call and he will be happy to visit with you about what Seesaw can do for you and your students.  Parents love it. Kids love it.  And yes... our teachers love it too. 


Autocorrect and Smart Compose now available for Google Docs on web -  Last year, Google announced improved as-you-type spelling and grammar corrections in Gmail. Now, they are bringing that functionality to Google Docs on the web. This will start rolling out in the next few weeks.  More info here on Autocorrect.  More info here on smart Compose. 


Some great Google Slide Templates and ideas in this one!  Grab them now: 






Are you getting some web pages blocked? If so, let us know!


If you see a warning similar to above, please let Bryan know.  If you can take a screenshot that is helpful. (Use the Print Screen button on your keyboard to use the Greenshot tool.)   We recently replaced our old firewall with a couple of new ones.  In the process, some updated firewall rules and signatures may block a few things.  Let Bryan know and we can slowly get those corrected.

Side note on the firewall - Our old firewall served us for almost 8 years.  That's unheard of in terms of "firewall years".  One more way the district tries to make the pennies stretch.  Also - Kudos to Williams.  I am not sure if there is another school network admin that can swap out a firewall with two new redundant firewalls and see almost no interruptions within the network.  This guy truly rocks!  

How to Add Audio to Google Slides – And an Updated Tool for Easy Recording checkout the tutorial here.  And if you need some audio or music for your presentations checkout Nine Good Sources of Public Domain & Creative Commons Audio. 

12 Alternatives to Google Images Check them out here. 

20 digital bell ringer activities to kickstart class - Check them out!

[HEADS-UP] Famous 'Shark' Got Hooked and Lost 400K in an Embarrassing Email Phishing Scam - phishing emails and scams are something we all need to constantly be aware of.  In this story, they even asked the right questions but that was not enough!  Read the short story here. 

Turn a video clip into a looping animation by uploading it to http://EZgif.com. You can choose start and end times, crop, add effects, change speed, write text, overlay images, and optimize the file size before saving as a .gif file.  Great tip from @tonyvincent 

Resources from Shake Up Learning! 
You will find hundreds of free resources for using Google and G Suite for Education, Google Classroom, how to get Google Certified, free lesson plans, templates, downloads, tips, tricks, cheat sheets, online professional learning courses for teachers, and much more!

Great tip from @alicekeeler 
I have one Google Sites I use to make lesson tutorials. I just make all the pages hidden from navigation so I can just link to that specific page.    



20 ways to use Pear Deck to engage students

Here's another great tip from Matt at DitchThatTextbook!  Actively engage your students through PearDeck.  It uses your Google Slides presentation.  The free version is enough for most of us!   

13 Tools to Record Audio on Chromebooks and Other Devices 



6 clever Gmail tricks to minimize regret, frustration and spam
Gmail can help keep your inbox -- and your reputation -- clean by giving you control over what comes in and what goes out of your Google account. This is a nice list of 6 tips that I am sure many of you will find useful.  

Google's Teacher Center offers free professional development resources to help educators grow their skills
The Teacher Center houses a variety of free PD resources to help teachers feel confident using Google tools in the classroom. Google’s Teacher Center is a free, interactive online platform with a curriculum developed by educators for educators. Whether your staff is savvy with classroom technology or just getting started, they’ll find courses that expand learning at any level, including video tutorials and multiple certifications to demonstrate mastery of Google tools. The Teacher Center is the go-to spot for educator resources and professional development.  Check out these great resources here. 


πŸ“’ If you use Google Classroom - Check this out! --New Originality reports feature in Classroom  
I know I sent something out in August about this... but I figured I would remind everyone about this feature and now is the time to try it out.  (Unlimited reports are free.)  This could be a great tool if you have students to reports, research papers, term papers, etc..

Our District recently joined the Google Classroom originality reports beta. This is a unique opportunity for you to pilot a new unreleased feature in Classroom and help shape the development. For more information, see this blog post. <--- you will want to read this for more details.

What is Originality Reports in Google Classroom?
Originality reports is a new feature that brings the capabilities of Google search right to your student assignments and grading interface through Google Classroom. The learning tool helps both teachers and students thoroughly review and analyze coursework to make sure it is properly cited and avoid unintentional plagiarism. This feature was designed to help students improve their writing and spot potential issues while saving you time while grading.

Getting Started and FAQs:
  • Share this post via Classroom announcements with your students to help them learn more about how to use the tool for their assignments 
  • Check out instructions for Originality for instructors on the help center
  • For additional support reach out to the Classroom Community Forum

Submitting Feedback
Did you know you can send feedback directly to the Google for Education team via the “Send feedback” button within Classroom? Feedback on products in their early stages have big impact on product design. When submitting bugs, feature requests, or user confusions, be sure to start with “Originality Report.” Always include screenshots with feedback.

This feature was designed to help students improve their writing and spot potential issues while saving you time while grading. NOTE - When an instructor enables originality reports for an assignment, all students will be able to create reports up to 3 times for Google Docs files before they turn them in to spot check and correct potential missed citations.

Once the feature is generally available, instructors will be able to access originality reports at no charge for up to 3 assignments in each course they teach. Schools that would like unlimited access can upgrade their instructors to G Suite Enterprise for Education. During the beta, all users can use originality reports as much as they need. NOTE - During the Beta, you will have unlimited use of this. After that time, you will be limited to using it on 3 assignments, so using it on major papers or reports would be the way to go.)

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

And another reminder... Tech training opportunities this summer!  
As noted in my email to staff earlier this week, I am starting to get a few questions about the Google Summit, Doane Classes and more... so I figured I would share what we have. 
  • Doane Classes - For credit (Norris teachers can sit in for free without credit.) 
  • Google Certification classes and stipend.
  • Google Summit - Registrations are due March 30th at 8 am.
  • Tech boot camp.
  • And more...






Posted by Noel Erskine at 10:00 AM 0 comments
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