Edmonds Digital Learning

Save time with this new tip from Google tools! You can now open any of the Google Tools by typing the name of the tool and .new into a browser tab. So open Chrome and type: - docs.new for a new document - slides.new for a new slide show - forms.new for a new form or quiz - and sheets.new for a new Google sheet Or watch the video to see the shortcuts in action. Credit to the Google Docs Twitter account for inspiration. 

When adults or students are working collaboratively on a Google Doc, there’s a quick way to notify people about any comments or tasks you want to assign in the shared document. In the doc, highlight the task you want the person to do something about. Find the point in the document for the comment by hovering on the right edge of the doc and looking for the comment icon or choose Insert > Comment from the tabs. In the comment box, type an @ or + sign, then start typing the last name of the person you want to notify and the directory will come up (you can do this for multiple people). Google Docs will automatically find the name(s) from your Gmail contact list. In the comment box , you can also add what you want the collaborator to do. An email will be sent to the recipient(s) automatically.  If the person you’re tagging doesn’t have access to the doc, you will need to set the permission level for the user using the Share button. As always, if you have any questions ab...

Using Hapara to View Student Work Are you tired of getting shared document emails from students? Do you want to know an easier way to access student work without having your students share it with you? Well, I have some good news for you! There are a couple ways for teachers to see the work a student has done on their Chromebooks using G Suite tools (Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Slides). In the next two posts I’ll explain how you can view student work to edit or comment on it without getting 30+ daily sharing emails from students. As a classroom teacher you have access to student files through Hapara in grades 2-8, or Google Classroom which is recommended for use in grades K-6, without any extra sharing. Accessing Hapara All student documents are available for teachers to view through Hapara. This means students never have to share a document, slide, form, or spreadsheet with a classroom teacher to give access. To view student work in Hapara follow these steps: Navigate to www...

Using Google Classroom View Student Work In part 1  of this post I explained how to access all student work through Hapara. If you would like a more direct way to see work that you assign to students, using Google Classroom to view student assignments might work well for you. You can see any assignment that your students create to turn in to you. The disadvantage compared to access through Hapara in part 1  is that you can’t necessarily see all of the other documents your students are creating, only the ones shared via Google Classroom. Access to Student Documents Through Google Classroom  Google Classroom allows you to access student work that you have assigned in that class.  To get to Google Classroom, you can use the Edmonds Bookmarks on your bookmarks bar, or go to classroom.google.com . Then select the class you want to view. After you navigate to the class you can choose a previously assigned assignment to view. If you have selected the option ...

If you want to see a playback of your Google Doc writing and revisions in an easy to view format, give the extension Draftback a test drive. Draftback allows you to play back everything you’ve written in a Google Doc and view it as a movie. With a Google Doc, the revision history tracks every keystroke and the history is available to anyone you give “Edit” permissions to. As a teacher, you can easily play back and analyze the process a student used on a piece of writing. Draftback can be found in the Chrome Web Store in Extensions. Unlike other extensions, this one appears in the document on the upper right-hand corner. After selecting the Draftback button you can see a playback of your writing that looks similar to this: Document data and a stats summary are also available and can be found in the document graphs and statistics link. Once Draftback is installed, it will work in any Google Doc no matter when it was created. Draftback is great way to peer over the sh...

Guest post from AMS teacher, Dean Nakanishi : Unfortunately, I had to discover a new way to detect shared plagiarism within Hapara / Google Docs. If you suspect two students have shared significant portions of their essay with each other (but you can’t remember who paper #1 belonged to and you don’t want to go back and re-read 40 to find it)… Go to Hapara -> “Sharing” -> “All Docs” Copy a few sentences of suspected Paper #2  Click on the Search “magnifying glass” icon  Choose the drop down arrow to “Full Text Search” (instead of “Title Search”)  Paste in sample sentences and search class by class  It will eliminate students until you arrive at the class that had “sharer” of Paper #1  You can confirm that they shared by checking Sharing History  You can confirm the copy and paste by student #2 by checking Revision History (more details) to see how their essay “suddenly appeared”

Learning a foreign language is fun, but also challenging.  How do you practice a language that no one else around you speaks?  How do you know if the words are pronounced correctly?   Google Docs to the rescue!  There is an add-on for Google Docs called Speech Recognition with multiple languages to choose from.  Simply select the language that you are speaking, start to activate the microphone, and speak.  If the words are not spoken with the correct accents or are unclear, it will not display the correct words.  The person speaking must really concentrate on pronunciation in order to get the correct terms to appear.  An added bonus is that the words that the program recognizes are then inserted on the Google Doc. I was actually impressed with this feature.  For instance, I know a few words in Spanish from watching a lot of Dora the Explorer with my niece, but I never worked on pronouncing the words correctly so it was interesting to...

If you're reading this, chances are you attended our presentation at NCCE 2015.  Thanks for visiting! The resources from our presentation can be found here: Google Slide deck Annotated Common Core ELA Standards Student Tech Skills Document To share your learning from the day, or ask us a question that we didn't have time to answer, you can use this Padlet: View this wall directly on Padlet. And, in case you are interested, here are the results of our AnswerGarden: We'd love to connect with you, your school, and/or your district.  If you have questions for us, or want to give feedback, please respond in the comments.

https://cdn.andertoons.com/img/toons/cartoon6717.png Math and Technology As schools begin to receive more computers, many math teachers wonder how they are going to regularly use technology in their instruction.  Here are some ideas and links to blogs that might help you figure out how to use technology with math.   Overview: Edweb presented an online webinar titled “Mathematics Meets Technology” taught by a high school math teacher, Emily Fitzpatrick.  The webinar provided access to many different resources from tools to use with students to activity and lesson ideas. In order to view the 1 hour webinar that is now archived, you will need to join the community by creating a free account.   http://home.edweb.net/mathematics-meets-technology/ The information included on this document highlights the tools and math related blogs presented in the webinar. Blogs: Blog Title Description Link to Blog Mathy Cathy Includes ideas and tools...

Google Docs released a new update allowing for different headers and footers on the first page of documents, helping students to conform to MLA standards for their cover pages. There’s also a new Insert > Page Number menu that lets you customize how and where you start your page numbers― Top of page Bottom of page Top of page (except title page) Bottom of page (except title page)

As access to technology increases in the classroom, teachers are looking for ways to use these tools with their students. One of the benefits of using GAfE is the ability to collaborate in addition to working independently.   Visit  GAfE in the Classroom:  Instructional Ideas  in order to access some ideas on how Google Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Forms, and Sites can be used in the classroom. If you are looking for detailed lesson plans, check out some lessons that are provided on the Google Apps for Education site. These are only a few suggestions, keep in mind the possibilities are endless.  Have fun exploring!

In a previous post I wrote about Synergyse , the fabulous training tool embedded in Google Drive/GAfE. I use the short audio/visual lessons as my first go to when I have a question about any of the Google apps.  The Synergyse peeps have released an updated version of and some of the new features you will see are: Improved search The search feature has been enhanced to provide more accurate results for training content, additional Google Apps training & tips from the Synergyse Blog are also returned when relevant. Japanese support Synergyse is now available in Japanese for all clients, you can access the interactive training content by switching your Google Apps interface languages to Japanese. Video portal link for unsupported languages When using an unsupported language, a link to the video portal will be provided in the training menu as an alternative option. Related links lists open automatically When watching a custom video with relat...

I’m not a big fan of Arial 11 pt font, the default font for Google Docs and perhaps you aren’t either. If so, here are two ways to change the font style and size. If you want to change the font for the document you’re working on and that's it, go to the font drop down menu in the toolbar. Easy enough. If you find yourself using a favorite font for all your documents, then follow these steps to set a default font style and size for all new documents. No Comic Sans, please! First open a new document and type a word. Highlight the word, select the font and size you want, and click "Normal text" on the toolbar.   Click the arrow on the right-hand side and click on: “Update ’Normal text’ to match”. Now back to the Normal text box again, go all the way down to Options and click on “Save as my default styles”.                          ...

    Whether you are new to GAFE or an expert, you may find these lessons useful.  Some can be used as is or may need tweaked in order to fit your specific curriculum.  Either way, these lesson ideas can help inspire ideas for using GAFE.   Many students are likely to go see the movie, Interstellar .  Some Google Educators spent time creating lesson plans that were inspired by the content covered in the film, but these some of these lessons can easily be used without actually seeing the film.   As a former Social Studies teacher, my favorites were the “Message in a Bottle”, “Video Time Capsule”, and “Dust Bowl Planet.”  Check them out! VISIT THE SITE HERE https://interstellar.withgoogle.com/for-educators

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