Docs Rocks! 8 Engaging Activities for Google Docs

Google Docs is a wonderful word processor, but is much more than just that!

Although we can certainly use it to type up a report, take notes, or write an article, we can also get creative with the features and functions built into the program to make some fun learning activities.

Recently I did a video training webinar where I took a look at eight creative ways to use regular Google Docs features in new fun ways to practice and develop literacy skills. These include:

🟨 Highlighting for summarization

⬛ Creating blackout poetry

😀 Emojis for writing and summarizing

📘 Cloze reading activities

🐉 Making "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories

💡 Prewriting with embedded graphic organizers

✍️ Writing less to write better

⌨️ Generating punctuation practice

See below for the recorded training video, as well as resources, ideas, and templates for each of the activities.

What's New in Google - August 2022

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from August 2022, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our August 2022 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda with all the awesome resources and Google updates from the last few months. This includes lots of new Google updates and 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 Workspace news and features
• Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
• Share best practices of how Google Workspace 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 August 2022 meeting:

YouTube Can Do That?! 18 Tips and Tricks

YouTube is one of Google's best known and most used services, with hundreds of millions of videos covering any subject you can imagine.

You probably use it every week, if not every day, for both education and entertainment. But are you getting the most out of YouTube?

Even though this is a tool we are very familiar with, there are loads of tips and tricks and lesser-known features of YouTube, including picture in picture, keyboard shortcuts, managing and downloading captions, timestamps, synchronized note-taking tools, accessing public domain audio and sound clips, helpful extensions, converting videos, embedding videos, and more!

These features can be especially helpful in schools, to help provide the best educational content and experience for our students.

See below for a 45-minute video where I did a deep dive into all 18 of these YouTube tips and tricks. I have also included links to the associated session resource document and slideshow, as well as detailed directions in the post below.

And be sure to let me know your YouTube tips that I have missed!

Podcast Spotlight: The Good Life EDU

I recently had the pleasure to be a guest on "The Good Life EDU Podcast". 

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love podcasts and am always mentioning something new I learned from one of them, so I was super excited to come across another great show to add to my subscriptions.

The podcast is hosted by Andrew Easton from Omaha, Nebraska, and is described as follows:

The Good Life EDU Podcast is dedicated to discussing all things education in the state of Nebraska and across the US. This program is presented by the Nebraska Educational Service Unit's Coordinating Council.

During this episode we chatted about loads of topics including:

• The changes in Educational Technology over time
• The new Google Screencast tool
• How to stay up date on what's new in EdTech
• A few of my favorites new tools
• What GEG-Ohio is all about
• A reminder for EdTech folks to be nice

Take a look below to listen to the episode, access the resources, and explore more of the podcast.

Creating a Soundboard with Google Slides

How can you bring some extra life into your class activities, discussions, and games? Ding, Ding, Ding! Yes, that's right, with your own custom soundboard.

A soundboard can be used in your class for many purposes:

• It could provide fun sound effects for class games, quizzes, and competitions.
• You could use the soundboard for audio cues for classroom transitions, such as indicating when time's up, or students need to clear their desks, or switch groups, or such.
• The soundboard could be used while you are reading a story out loud to your students, to bring the story to life with sounds from the story content.
• You could use the sounds to support and reinforce content being taught in class.
• If you or your students are recording podcasts and videos, a soundboard can be used to for effects and transitions while recording.
• And more!

There are certainly lots of options for classroom soundboards, but one free and easy tool for this is Google Slides. With Google Slides you can create your own custom soundboard with audio that you have recorded or downloaded from free audio sites.

See below for details on how to do this. You will find a 30-minute video I did for MoteCon22 where I go through all the steps, as well as links to my associated resource document, session slideshow, sample soundboard, and more.

Join Me at MoteCon22

I am excited and honored to be presenting at the free, virtual MoteCon22 event on August 19th!

MoteCon is a totally free, online conference with loads of great sessions on using Mote, the awesome Chrome extension that lets you and your students record your voice and add that recording to websites and web tools including Google Docs, Slides, Forms, Classroom, Gmail, and more.

MoteCon will be streamed live on YouTube on August 19th and 20th from 2pm to 6pm EST each day.

You can learn more about the conference and register for free at: https://bit.ly/motecon

Below are details on the session I am presenting - "Creating a Soundboard with Mote and Google Slides" - along with any associated resources. Please feel free to join me for my session. I look forward to sharing and learning with you!

My Technovation22 Sessions

I am excited and honored to be presenting at Technovation22 hosted by Caldwell County Schools in Lenoir, North Carolina on August 10th!

I always look forward to an opportunity to see old friends, make new friends, share some ideas, and learn so many new things from others.

You can learn more about the conference and register at: https://sites.google.com/caldwellschools.com/ccs-classroom-innovation-tech/

And you can view the full conference schedule at: https://ccstechnovation22.sched.com/

Below is a list of sessions I will be presenting at Technovation22, along with any associated resources. Please feel free to join me for any of these sessions. I look forward to sharing, learning, and chatting with you!