Sunday, April 29, 2018

What's New in Google - April 2018

Catch up on everything new in G Suite for Education from April 2018, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our April 2018 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda and all the awesome resources and G Suite updates from the last month. This includes 26 new Google updates and 41 Google resources for your class.

The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:
  • Connect Google-using educators
  • Share the latest Google Apps news and features
  • Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
  • Share best practices of how Google Apps is being used within schools
  • Ask questions and get answers
The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below to view the recorded video, agenda, and all the resources from the April 2018 meeting:

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Making Learning Transparent - Finding, Making, and Using Transparent Images for Learning

As educators and students we use images all of the time in the projects we create. Most of the time any picture will do, but sometimes we're looking for an image with a special quality… transparency.

A transparent image is a picture where some part of the image is see-through, like the image has been cut out. This is useful because transparent images look much better when combined with other images, allowing you see the background or other items behind the picture.

Pictures with transparency can be used in lots of fun educational activities. In this post we will take a look at ways to find as well as create your own transparent images. We will also look at practical uses for these images in student projects.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Free Image Sites and Tools for Schools

A picture is worth a thousand words, but it might also be worth a thousand dollars if your school gets hit with a copyright violation claim. This happens to schools every year as students or teachers inappropriately use an image that they do not have the rights to.

Thankfully this does not have to be the case as there are loads of high quality pictures that can be used in school projects without any licensing concerns. These can include images that are released under creative commons, or are in the public domain, or simply are copyright-free. Of course depending on the license, it may still be necessary to cite where the image came from to provide proper attribution (and it can be a good practice to do even if not required).

There are many sites and tools that can help educators and students find free photos, clipart, icons, and more. See below for a list of many of these, and be sure to share your suggestions for other resources to add to this collection.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Googley Poem Projects for National Poetry Month (or any time of year)

April is the time of year
For kids to write a poem.
There's loads of fun activities
Here for you to show 'em.

Google tools can be used
To make the perfect rhyme,
With templates, tools, and writing prompts
To save your students time.

Draggable Drawings, random Sheets,
And Google Docs highlighting
Will give your students inspiration
For their creative writing.

So look below to find out more,
Then get your students on it,
Writing their ode, haiku, free verse,
Their ballad or their sonnet.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Free Tech Curriculum for all Subjects with Google's Applied Digital Skills

Digital skills are more important than ever for our students and for us as educators. 
  • Our students need digital skills to be prepared for the jobs of their future, and to function in daily life now. 
  • As educators we need digital skills to communicate more effectively with our students, provide them with more engaging learning experiences, and to stay organized ourselves.
There are loads of wonderful resources to help all of us improve our digital skills from blogs to YouTube channels to podcasts and more. One fantastic, and totally free, resource is Google's Applied Digital Skills.

Applied Digital Skills is a totally free, video-based, online curriculum to teach digital skills for your students in any subject area and for your own professional development. There are over 150 ready-to-use lessons covering a wide range of age levels, tech tools, and topics.

See below for a short video demonstrating this awesome resource, as well as written directions with all the details. And a big thanks to Google for sponsoring this blog post!

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Springtime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

Spring is here, and April is National Poetry Month, so what better time to have your students work on their creative writing skills with a Springtime-themed writing activity.

In the past I have shared Google Drawing templates for students to create drag-and-drop "magnetic" poetry with a winter-theme as well as for Valentine's Day.

This time I have updated the template for Springtime. Just like before, doing this activity with technology such as Google Drawings provides many benefits:
  • No limit on the quantity of words provided. Just copy and paste more of them as needed.
  • Great tech skills practice with dragging and dropping and copying and pasting.
  • Ability to edit the words provided if needed.
  • Ability to add your own words.
  • Easy collaboration with others.
  • Easy to share or download your final creation.
  • No pieces to get lost.
  • It’s free!
See below to get your free copy of the Springtime Magnetic Poetry template to use with your students (or yourself) however you want, as well as directions on how to use it.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Copy Comments to Google Classroom Docs and Slides

Several months ago I shared a blog post about "How to Force a Docs Copy WITH Pre-Loaded Comments to Help your Students". The post explained a URL trick you can use to not only make a copy of a document, but to also copy any comments you have made in the Doc.

This can also be a creative way to provide additional resources, links, and assistance to your students in their projects. Instead of just getting a copy of a worksheet, HyperDoc, study guide, or other document, students can also have comments pre-loaded into their copy of the document. These comments can provide them with:
  • Additional directions
  • Hyperlinks to resources
  • Voice recordings from the teacher
  • A checklist of items for the student to resolve
  • And more

The only drawback was this trick does not work in Google Classroom. So if you use Classroom to push out copies of Docs or Slides to students, there was no way to also copy the comments during that process.

Until now…

See below for details on a great new Chrome extension that lets you copy comments for Docs and Slides when making copies through a Classroom assignment.

What's New in Google - March 2018

Catch up on everything new in G Suite for Education from March 2018, and see great ideas and resources!

Because the end of the month fell during Spring Break for most all of our schools, we did not hold our normal monthly Google User Meeting. However, I still wanted to share out all of the new updates from the month, so I have included them below.

We will be back on track with live Google Hangout meetings at the end of April. The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:
  • Connect Google-using educators
  • Share the latest Google Apps news and features
  • Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
  • Share best practices of how Google Apps is being used within schools
  • Ask questions and get answers
The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below for all of the updates from March 2018 for G Suite for Education.