Education Technology

It's time to Power Up your Google Forms. You probably have used Google forms to create quizzes for your students - if you have not thought about using Google Forms for that, then you might want to still watch this 3 min tutorial ;) Using Google Forms for quiz creation is an excellent tool, especially if you are a Google Apps for EDU district.  With Google Forms, you can create quizzes that will collect all answers in one spreadsheet, making it easier for you to grade and to sort the data collected. Google Forms has recently been improved.  For example, you can now shuffle the questions order for every student, allow only one submission per student and what's more- and my favorite- you can now use "Add-Ons" which enhance the already awesome features of Google Forms and make them even better! If you create a new Form now, you will see an "Add-Ons" menu item along side file, edit and tools. Click on it and then click on "get "Add-Ons"  You will s...

It's very easy to drag to files and folders around in Google Drive, too easy in fact, and dragging items in a shared folder moves them from everyone who is part of the folder...so ... Let's look at the steps that will prevent this from happening.  But before, let's understand the difference between "Add to" and "Move" One of the best things that Google Drive offers is the ability to have a folder structure in which subfolders are housed in top level folders. Let's say you have a folder structure with 4 sub folders and you move one of those sub folders to your "My Drive" for easy access.  Great! but be careful you do not move the folder for everyone else.  A simple way to make sure you keep the folder structure in place is always press CTRL and then drag. Alternatively, use the "move to" menu item.  Both of these actions will actually "Add" a folder rather than "Move" the folder- this is how Windows handles it t...

If you have gone digital and your students are sharing their work with you, you are likely to be overwhelmed with "Shared with you" items in your inbox. Here's a way that may help you create a better workflow for you and your students.  This presentation shows two solutions for workflows one includes Google Classroom.

Most of you have joined Google Classroom and have experienced it for a couple of weeks.  During its use, you may have noticed a couple of hiccups that Google has not provided a fix for.  I have found some workarounds to some of the common problems you may have encountered. Google Classroom Hacks Problem 1 : There is no way to add a Co-Teacher to my class.   Solution :  Share the "Classroom" folder housed in your Google Drive with your Co-Teacher and give her/him editing rights.  This will allow the other teacher to see all assignments and comment on them too. While this is not the perfect solution because the co-teacher cannot grade assignments, this workaround is better than adding the co-teacher as a student to your class.  Doing the latter will not allow her to see all student's assignments. Problem 2:  I can't share an entire folder of resources with my students through Classroom Solution :  Select the folder that you want to share with stude...

Google has recently launched the new Google Drive- yes, right when I was pretty much comfortable with it ;) And as you know, your current google Drive will eventually transition into the new Google Drive. We might as well learn how to use it now. To enable the new Google Drive: Go to your Drive, click on the gear-shaped icon to access your settings and then click on "Experience the New Drive" While it looks very different from the old Google Drive, it has the same functionalities and some more. Click on this Guide to learn more about it.

I have decided to re use Molly Schroeder's post and add some tweaks for our schools. Thank you Molly for publishing this! "Many of you are heading back to school this year with more devices in the classroom that you’ve ever had access to!  Chromebooks have spread like wildfire into schools all over the world and now students have the world’s information at their fingertips!  Let’s make sure that we use those devices for engaging, real world learning in the digital age. Here are a few things to think about as you head back to your Chromebook Classroom. 1.  Make sure to review Chromebook vocabulary together in the first week so that you are all on the same page when you talk about the OmniBox, Tabs and Extensions.   Remember you can Hide or show your bookmarks bar with command +B or Control +B. Even pointing where the "Apps List" and the "Hot Dog" are is important. The refresh button above the number 4 key on your Chromebook - we call it the Google Magic Butt...

After a full first week of school under your belt, you must feel like you still have to get a lot of things organized.  Here are some hacks that could help you be a little more efficient and organized. 4 Gmail Hacks Wish you had an "undo" send button for those Oops moments when you sent an email you weren't ready to send yet.  Now you can!   To enable this, simply go to your "settings" under the gear shaped icon on the top right-hand side of your screen, click on it and click on "settings" again. You will see this screen: Click on "labs, scroll down to see "undo send" and enable it.  You will have up to 30 seconds to undo your send.  But hey, that's better than 0 seconds! 2. View your Calendar right on your email- It is very annoying to have to go to your calendar for a quick glance at what your day is going to look like.  With the calendar lab, you can see your calendar right on your email window.  It is very convenient.  To enable ...