Moving Existing Files to Google Drive – A Review
Posted: May 20, 2013 Filed under: EdTech, GAFE, Google, GoogleDocs, GoogleDrive | Tags: GAFE, google, googledocs, googledrive 1 Comment »I’ve taught about Google Drive/Docs many times in person and virtually. Many teachers have decided to completely move all of their files to the cloud to store them and edit them via Google Drive. The idea of having access to your stuff from any device connected to the web is really appealing; coupled with the collaboration features that Docs offers.
As the school year comes to a close, you might be thinking that you’re ready to move files (upload) to Google Drive. We had several of our teachers asking for a reminder about how to do this, so I thought I’d make a quick tutorial that will walk you through the process. Something to keep in mind when doing this is if you want to be able to view the file via Google Drive or edit the file via Google Drive. Some of the verbiage I used in the video is specific to our teachers, but I decided to share it here on my blog too as I thought it might be helpful to others.
Enjoy!
The New Google+ Hangouts App & Extension for Chrome
Posted: May 18, 2013 Filed under: Chrome, Chromebook, GAFE, Google | Tags: chrome, chromebook, chromebookedu, GAFE, google 1 Comment »This week Google rolled out the new version of Google+ along with a redo of Hangouts. If you want to read the full details be sure to check out this post over on the Google+ blog. The post also has the links that will take you to downloading the new Hangouts app/extension for Android, iOS, and Chrome.
I wanted to share a quick post that explains the app and extension that are specific to Chrome.
Video Call Launcher for Hangouts
This app from the Chrome Web Store is exactly what the title says; once you install the app and click it, you are taken straight into a new video Hangout session and can invite whomever you need to. I like this app because you don’t necessarily have to start from your Google+ home page to start a video hangout. Start a new tab, click the app icon, and you’re off and running.
Again, without having to head to your Google+ home page or your Gmail inbox first, you can jump right into your Hangout chats with this handy extension. It opens your Hangouts chat window in the lower right corner of your screen and you’re chatting away without leaving what you’re currently working on. You can tuck it away even lower in the bottom-right corner by minimizing it.
I’m really enjoying the new look and feel to Google+; especially the redesign of Hangouts. I have an iPhone and am also enjoying the iOS version of Hangouts too. Hangouts are a great way for us to connect our classrooms to learn and collaborate globally.
Google Docs for Administrators – 5 MORE Ideas
Posted: May 13, 2013 Filed under: GAFE, Google | Tags: administrators, GAFE, googleapps, googledocs 5 Comments »
Just barely over a year ago I wrote a post titled Google Docs for Administrators – 5 Ideas to Get Started. To date that post has been my most popular ever since I began blogging. So thank you to so many who have read it and shared it via various networks.
As the current school year has progressed, myself and the rest of our team have worked multiple times with administrators in our district on how they can use Google Apps. More specifically, Google Docs. Many of our administrators have made this a learning commitment for themselves so they can model effective use for their teachers. Major kudos to them for doing so!
I made a quick list of the ways we have seen administrators using Google Docs this year at their buildings so I thought I’d write this sequel to last year’s post to give you some more ideas to try. If you’re not an administrator, be sure to share this with him/her!
1. Master Scheduling
Spring is the time of year when all schools begin working on the building’s master schedule for the upcoming school year. From everything to planning periods to lunch to early release days. It all has to be scheduled well before next school year even begins. Google Docs is a great way to collaboratively build this schedule with your administrative team or your scheduling committee. I recently worked with an administrator doing this and it was all put together on a Google Spreadsheet. Each specific schedule had its own tab across the bottom. The planning team will be meeting to collaboratively edit the schedule(s) and then once it is finalized, it will be shared with the entire staff via a Google Docs link.
2. Grade Level/Department Collaboration
Our district has a late start day once per week to allow teachers and staff to collaborate in their PLCs (professional learning communities). During this time we have grade levels collaborating at the elementary level, and more specialized departments meeting in various places around the district. Many of the PLC teams this year have chosen to keep all of their collaboration topics, agendas, and minutes in Google Docs. This way the entire team has access to the information during PLC time and can easily access it after PLC time is over. Where administrators have loved this is how the notes, minutes, etc. that their teachers keep can quickly and easily be shared with them. For example, I helped one of our elementary principals set up a shared folder for each grade level and then shared those folders with the appropriate teachers. Teachers then were able to drop the necessary docs into the folder shared by the principal. The principal then was able to access everything and leave feedback and other comments directly on the document.
3. End of Year Fun
With the end of another school year approaching, many schools (around here at least) have either a school carnival or a school “field day”. Again, while it is beginning to sound redundant, the collaborative component and anytime/anywhere access makes everything flow much more smoothly. Google Docs is a great way to organize events like this to multiple committees that include both teachers, parents, and other stakeholders from the community. Using Google Forms can also be a great way to get community involvement and support for events such as these.
4. Sharing Among Administrators
Given the busy schedule that many administrators have, their time to get together with other district administrators face-to-face is pretty limited. Collaboration and sharing in Google Docs can be a great supplement to the “facetime”. Administrators can brainstorm ideas in a Google Doc or using a Google Drive app like Lucidchart they can create flowcharts and diagrams to collaboratively plan and share. Administrators like to be social and talk shop just like teachers do so Google Docs offers them another way to do this and learn from each other at the same time. Making updates to commonly used forms, ideas for assemblies, instructional technology implementations, PTA events, etc. all can be shared via Google Docs between administrators.
5. Inventories and other Record Keeping
So we all know that the amount of paperwork and record keeping required of principals is enormous. This can be things like keeping an inventory of technology equipment, building expenditures, professional development, and behavior referrals just to name a few. Moving this kind of information to Google Docs (make sure this is acceptable with your district before replacing any existing forms) can make editing and sharing with other district leaders or office staff a breeze.
Administrators and teachers alike can sometimes be hesitant to move things to “the cloud”. It’s still a new way of working for many educators and educational leaders. Please don’t feel like you have to try multiple things at the same time. I’d definitely recommend not doing that! Pick one thing to transition to this new way of doing things and get really comfortable with it. Then add on something else. I’ve seen comfort levels gradually increase; (usually with some speed bumps along the way) which leads to increased usage, leading to sharing with others, leading to finding better ways of doing things.
10 Apps in 10 Minutes #chromebookedu
Posted: April 29, 2013 Filed under: Chrome, Chromebook, EdTech, GAFE, Google | Tags: chrome, chromebook, chromebookedu, edtech, google, googlechrome 4 Comments »Recently my colleague Jill and I worked with some teachers during a PD day on finding great Chrome apps & extensions for learning. We thought we’d kick off the time together by picking 10 of our most favorite (picking only 10 is hard!) and sharing them with teachers in 10 minutes. We wanted to quickly get teachers excited about educational apps and extensions available to their students. We might have went just a tad over 10 minutes but nonetheless we kept it brief.
Here are the 10 we covered with a quick description as well as the link to the Chrome Web Store. I am also purposely keeping this post short so it takes 10 minutes or less to read. 
1. Google Dictionary – a very handy extension to use in Chrome. Students can quickly look up the definition of a word by using the extension or directly; or double-clicking any word on a web page will bring up it’s definition and a sound icon to click and hear the pronunciation.
2. Pixlr Express – this app allows you to quickly and easily do some fun editing to any photos you have saved on your computer, in Google Drive, or even captured live via webcam. This is one of many apps that integrates easily with Google Drive.
3. Scratchpad – another app that works seamlessly with Drive. This one opens a new (smaller) window to give the user a basic note-taking application. The really nice feature is that a “Scratchpad” folder is automatically created in Google Drive with each note stored inside it.
4. Lucidchart for Education – students and teachers can quickly build diagrams, flowcharts, and concept maps with this web-based diagramming tool. Again, saves and syncs straight to Google Drive for easy access from any computer or to collaborate with a classmate.
5. Readability – this is an extension that strips all the extra “stuff” off of a news article or blog post. Many times advertisements and other links can be very distracting as students try to read content on the web (for teachers too!). The Readability extension gets rid of all those extra bits so you can focus on just the content.
6. Lego Builder- What kid (or adult) doesn’t love building with Legos? With the Lego Builder app you can build all kinds of fun structures. Students that love Minecraft will also find creating content enjoyable with this app too.
7. Isle of Tune – this is a great app for the musician in all of us. Create a town on your island and each element of your town has different musical properties. Then as you send your cars driving around your newly built community your new tune will play.
8. MeeGenius – this is one of many great apps for younger grades to read and listen to online storybooks. Access a bookshelf full of the popular stories loved by many generations. Students can not only hear the book read to them but also see the words highlighted on the page as the story is read.
9. Typing Club – keyboarding skills and the necessity for students to have them are becoming more and more embedded in everything we do. Apps like Typing Club
10. Math Invaders – practicing math just got a lot more fun. Students can practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in a game-like format.
The great thing about installing apps in Chrome (whether on a Chromebook or not) is quick and easy. With everything in Chrome staying in sync to students’ Google accounts, access to these apps is easy no matter which Chromebook or computer a student is using that’s connected to the web.
These are just a sample of the great educational apps available in the Chrome Web Store. Be sure to take some time to check them out! If you have any other favorites please feel free to list them in the comments!
6 Chrome Extensions for Students
Posted: January 29, 2013 Filed under: Chrome, GAFE, Google, Students | Tags: chrome, edtech, GAFE, google, googlechrome 25 Comments »Google Chrome has quickly become my browser of choice over the last year or so. It’s huge list of features and overall reliability speak for themselves. If you and your students are using Google Apps for Education and its accompanying Google products, you quickly find that everything just works better in Chrome.
One of the best features of Chrome is the ability for students to install apps and extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
As our team helps teachers this school year with Chromebook implementation, we have come across many apps and extension to share with staff. It seems to be one of the most popular features with teachers about the Chrome browser.
When I share with teachers about Chrome extensions, I tell teachers to think of them as enhancements to their web browsing. They put information at your finger tips quickly, help keep students more productive, and assist with information curation.
Here are some of my favorite Chrome extensions that are great for students:
To Do List is a simple, yet effective way to have a running to do list right in your browser. This is great for students that need to keep track of upcoming assignments and other school events. There is a number badge displayed directly on the extension telling you how many items you have on your list. It’s easily to reorder the items on the to do list by dragging and dropping, highlight more important items by adding the pound sign (#) at the front, and switch between a few different color schemes to choose the look of your list.
There are a lot of extensions created by Googlers in the Chrome Web Store, but Google Dictionary has become a fast favorite for many teachers. Students often will need to be reminded of the definition of a word as soon as they read it while looking up information on the web. This extension is a great help. Students can click the extension, type in the word they need to look up, press enter and they’ve instantly got it without leaving the page they’re on. The feature I like the most about this extension though is the ability to double-click on any word in a piece of text and immediately see a pop up bubble with that word’s definition. Not only that, but students are also given an audio icon to click on to hear the word pronounced for them.
We all have seen articles and other online resources that are very cluttered with ads and other pieces of information that are irrelevant to the content we’re trying to focus on. The Readability extension greatly helps with this. I always use a CNN article as an example when I’m sharing this one with teachers. As soon as the article loads, click the Readability extension and you are presented with three options: Read Now, Read Later, and Send to Kindle. Students can click Read Now and Readability will convert the article by stripping off all of the extra information that is not needed and presents only the article and specific images associated with the article. This makes for a much more focused, eye appealing reading experience. If students want to take the extra step of creating a Readability account they can click Read Later to have the article saved to their account for easy access at a later time. If a student reads a lot of Kindle content, they can link up Readability to their Kindle for access later from another device.
This is a great accessibility extension for students that need a little extra help with their writing. Once this extension has been installed, the only place it can be used is when a Google Doc is open for editing. The extension adds a purple tab at the top of the document that says Read & Write. The extension allows for students to instantly have read to them anything that they have typed on their document. Sometimes all students need is to hear what their piece of writing sounds like when read aloud to help with edits. There are also other features like a built-in dictionary, picture dictionary, and other study tools.
The developer of the extension has a nice video tutorial that demonstrates all the features. It’s about 6 minutes so definitely check it out:
If your students are already using Google Apps for Education, this new extension from Google will allow them to quickly and easily capture content from the web and save it directly to their Google Drive. Students are able to save a screen capture of the existing page being viewed, or specific items on that page (links, images, sound bytes) can be saved to Google Drive by right clicking on them and choosing the Save to Google Drive option. Another handy extension for students to help them curate content on the web.
We all know that links on the web can get really long and not very neat looking. The Shorten Me extension helps with that if you need to email a link, post a link in a discussion or in a piece of writing or a presentation. When clicked, the Shorten Me extension automatically creates a shortened link of the web page currently being viewed using the http://goo.gl link shortener. Once it link is created it is automatically copied to your computer’s clipboard so it can be quickly pasted into an email or document. There is also an option with this extension to also have a QR code automatically generated for the link that can also be used to quickly get others to the link via their smart phone or tablet.
While I know there is no shortage of other great Chrome extensions for students these just happen to be a handful of my favorites. I always enjoy sharing these with teachers so they can share them with their students. They help us all to be a bit more productive and enhance our learning on the web.
Ways to Support Teachers with Google Apps for Education
Posted: October 9, 2012 Filed under: EdTech, GAFE, Google | Tags: GAFE, google, googleapps, googledocs 4 Comments »As my district makes the push forward with Google Apps for Education this school year, the instructional technology support that our team offers to teachers is critical to its success. We start with professional development and continual support for district level leadership, then building level leadership, then to teachers, which we hope all trickles down to increased use with and by students. Gmail and Google Docs are our students two primary tools for communication, collaboration, and productivity; so increasing comfort level among all staff is crucial. Since our elementary students are 100% Google Docs for productivity, we knew it was imperative to reach all 19 of our elementary schools first. This began with professional development for our elementary principals and assistant principals back in the summer before teachers reported back to work. We started with the basics of Google Docs. After principals had a strong understanding and new comfort level with Google Docs, they then began to contact our department for Google Docs PD for their teachers. I have always liked how our team does such a great job of offering varying learning opportunities for our staff. As principals invited us out this happened a few different ways:
-A faculty meeting either before or after school to address the entire faculty at one
-A day long rotation schedule to meet with teams of teachers during their plan time
-On a district professional development day
During these sessions, not only did we cover the ins and outs of how Google Docs works and its benefits, but we also provided several concrete examples of how Google Docs can be used for student projects and best practices for maximizing their workflow as well as student workflow. So, to this point in the school year, the 4 of us that make up our team, we’ve already reached all 19 of our elementary schools. This is awesome! However, what’s important now is that we continue to offer support to all of our teachers so they can effectively support their students. We have had many teachers contact us for additional learning on some of the other Google Apps for Education products such as Calendar, Sites, and Blogger since meeting with the staff initially about Google Docs. This can look like one-on-one appointments and some have also been collaborative meetings during PLC time. This continued support that we offer is vital to maintain teacher comfort level which leads to effective use at the student level. Our department has also produced online resources for our teachers and administrators to access as well. This is another level of support that’s important to have in place when a phone call, email, or face to face option isn’t immediately available. Here are some examples of our online resources:
Resources for using Google apps in the classroom
We have also begun providing video tutorials such as this one:
While that example is a simple one, it can be the “just in time” help a student or teacher needs. Implementing something big in your district like Google Apps for Education requires not only the proper infrastructure to handle the usage, but it also requires continual support that’s offered in multiple formats. For myself, I know I like having options of how to learn something; we should offer nothing less to our administrators, teachers, and students.
All of these ways I have shared about how we support teachers don’t have to happen right away. They probably shouldn’t. Choose how you’re going to support your teachers and get really good at one way before adding on another. What matters most is that the support is there, it’s happening often, and it’s always building on what was learned previously.
“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”
John C. Dana
YouTube Settings Teachers and Students Need to Know About
Posted: May 21, 2012 Filed under: EdTech, Education, GAFE, Google, YouTube 5 Comments »We all have gone to YouTube at one time or another to watch a video of some kind; educational or not so educational. We’ve watched the latest viral videos sweeping the world by storm for their hilarity, shock value, or powerful message. There’s no shortage of content to be consumed on YouTube. If you’ve never checked out YouTube’s statistics on their traffic you can go to their press page and give them a glance. An hour of video every second! That is astounding!
More-so than ever, content is available in abundance via YouTube. We, including our students, can consume content constantly from any device with an internet connection. Have you ever stopped to think about what it means when you upload your own original content to YouTube? Things like: How do I upload something? What settings are crucial to know about? How is this applicable to my classroom and students?
Whether you’re uploading content you’ve filmed yourself or uploading a screencast for your students, I thought I’d share some of the YouTube settings that I’ve found to be most important to make teachers and students aware of.
How do I get started?
Once you’re logged in to YouTube with the preferred Google account, click the Upload link in the top right corner of the YouTube home page. Once on the upload page you have a few different options for uploading (I am using Google Chrome as my browser):
1. Upload a file from your computer (most common)
2. Upload multiple files
3. Record a video directly from your webcam
Basic Settings
As your video starts uploading, you can go ahead and begin to enter basic information for your video such as the title, description (which appears below the video when someone watches it), and keywords you’d like to tag your video with. Once your video is done uploading, you can also choose the thumbnail image that your video will have (the still image that will show before clicking Play). Remember: these are items of information that you can always go back and edit later, so don’t feel like these are set in stone but it’s always something good to do while your video is in the process of being uploaded. YouTube also does a great job of automatically saving these changes while your video is uploading as well (YouTube is a great multi-tasker!).
On the right side of the Basic Info tab (still on the upload page) you will see the Privacy and publish settings. These are very important settings to keep in mind, particularly for publishing student produced content. The screenshot below shows these settings. Public means that your video is out there on YouTube for the world to not only watch, but for anyone to find by searching for it. Unlisted means that your video will not be able to be located by searching for it on YouTube. The only way others can view the video is by you sending out its specific link. Private is another level of security beyond that. This is where you at the owner of the content can give explicit permission to only individuals you specify to be able to view the video. Again, these are settings specific to each individual video and can be changed at any time. Definitely important settings to know about. Videos uploaded to YouTube are set to public by default.
Also at this point be sure to properly categorize your video. Everything I upload I make sure and categorize with “Education”. When I’ve forgotten to do this, I was quickly reminded because the “similar videos” section on the right side of my YouTube video were not usually the greatest. By that I mean they had absolutely nothing to do with the topic of my video and were sometimes inappropriate.
You can also set the License and Rights Ownership of your video at this point. You can leave it at the standard YouTube license or mark your video with a Creative Commons attribution. If this option is chosen, that means you are giving others the right to use your work. This could look like someone using the YouTube video editor to incorporate your video into another video they have uploaded (with proper credit always pointed back to the source (link) of your original video). Be sure to check out the YouTube Creative Commons page for more information.
Basic Settings
Advanced Settings
Here’s some more important settings you’ll want to remember to check. Again, I like how this can all be done while the video is still uploading (especially if it’s a large video). The most important advanced settings you’ll want to notice when you click on the Advanced Settings tab, are the check boxes related to comments and ratings. There might be sometimes you don’t want to allow viewers to comment on a video that is uploaded. To do this simply uncheck the box next to “Allow Comments”. Or maybe you do want to allow comments but you want them all filtered through you first (this is a great option for student work that is uploaded). You can click the drop down menu and change that to “Approved”.
You’ll also notice you can turn off the ability for viewers to vote on comments, give a rating to the video, or create a video response. You will also see syndication, embedding, and information such as adding location and date to your video. I have seen the comments feature work great for teachers and students, and also work not so great.
Advanced Settings
Lastly, notice in the top right section of the upload page you will see two buttons: Share and Add to. If you’d like to immediately get the shortened link, embed code, or ability to share to another social network you will find all of these options by clicking on the Share button.
If you click the “Add to” button, the newly uploaded video can be immediately added to an existing playlist or a new playlist can be created for the video. Another very handy feature. Above those two buttons you will find buttons for the Video Manager or clicking Add more videos will take you straight to uploading another video in the same manner. Inside the Video Manager is where you will find all of your uploaded YouTube videos where you can go straight to any single one to check all of these settings by clicking the Edit button.
To reference back to creating screencasts, which I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I particularly like to use Screenr to create these. It’s web-based software and after recording them you can instantly upload them to your YouTube channel if you choose. It’s simple and works well consistently. If you do upload these to YouTube be sure to head to your YouTube channel and go through your basic and advanced settings for each screencast you create to make sure they are named, categorized, and privacy settings are all set how you need them to be.
Whether teachers or students are publishing digitally, YouTube or not, it’s important to make the time to learn how to make the content work best and publish properly.
While I’ve only scratched the surface, the “Googlers” have put together a great YouTube help site with loads more to learn about. We haven’t even got to the awesome video editor built right in. Maybe that calls for another post!
Happy YouTubing!
“Become an empowered participant rather than a passive consumer.” ~Howard Rheingold
Google Docs for Administrators – 5 Ideas to Get Started
Posted: May 7, 2012 Filed under: EdTech, GAFE, Google, GoogleDocs | Tags: edtech gafe googleapps googledocs, googlect gct 8 Comments »
As another school year begins to come to a close, I have recently had some of our administrators (mostly elementary) contact me with ideas for making administrative tasks more paperless and create a more efficient workflow not only for themselves but for their teachers. Some of these have been regular “end of year” tasks and others are being put into motion in preparation for next year. Given my known affinity for Google Apps for Education, and being we are a Google Apps for Education district, my first inclination is always to figure out how these tasks could be completed using GAFE in one way or another. As I begin to help several of our administrators with these projects, I thought I’d start a post that I could come back and add to over time. They might be beneficial to you as a teacher or you might want to share them with administrators in your district. So here they are in no particular order:
1. End of year checkout form – we all remember this one right? The checkout form for the end of the year that has to be completed before teachers can leave for the summer. Why not use Google Forms to make the form electronic and send out the link to staff? The principal sends out the link to the form, teachers can fill it out as they complete their required tasks, and the information goes straight into a spreadsheet for administrators.
2. Student information collection – When I was in the classroom this was another end of the year task to be completed. We would need to fill out a student information card on each of our students to help provide any pertinent information (academic or otherwise) to next year’s classroom teacher(s). Again, this has always been something traditionally done on paper, so why not give it a digital go? Our administrator created a Google Forms version, then copied it the appropriate number of times for each grade level so that the data would come back to separate spreadsheets already separated by grade level. This information also helps the administrative team build next year’s class lists.
3. Staff communication – We all know one of the best, if not the best feature of Google Docs is collaboration. The ability to have multiple people working on the same document at the same time is a huge efficiency booster for many. Documents don’t have to be emailed back and forth or saved on a network drive where only one person can have the document open at a time. Administrative teams can now easily create their staff newsletters in Google Docs so they can be built collaboratively and then easily shared out with the staff directly from Google Docs. This not only helps increase administrator productivity, but teachers can have a digital copy of building communication delivered right to their inbox.
4. Committees – Again, Google Forms can come in very handy for this. I recently assisted one of our principals who wanted to create a form for teachers to fill out monthly with any specific concerns/needs for individual students that will go directly to the building student assistance committee. This provides the team with valuable information ahead of time prior to the referring teacher meeting with the team. Documents and Forms can also help any building or district level committees communicate and collaborate which builds a more efficient workflow for everyone.
5. Fun stuff – Since this week is Teacher Appreciation Week and schools, parents, and communities are showing their appreciation, it reminds us that some times we also need better ways to work to plan fun stuff too. This could be to collaborate on a document to plan for this week’s teacher goodies, or a spreadsheet to plan Field Day, or make a form to send out to gather ideas for an end of year staff celebration. This possibilities could be anything with this one.
What I think is also great about this is that there’s positive modeling going on for use of Google Apps for Education. Administrators modeling for teachers, which will hopefully lead to teachers modeling for students. Helping the production equal or outweigh the consumption. A snowball effect that will always be in motion.
Please feel free to add your ideas in the comments section! Thanks!
