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Top Three Google Workspace for EDU Questions

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

What are recent questions educators have had when using Google Workspace for Education (a.k.a. G Suite EDU)? In this blog entry, we explore three of their top questions.

Question #1: What Gmail add-ons and extensions or apps do you use?

“My school just switched our email to Gmail (finally!). What are the Gmail add-ons/extensions/tools you can’t live without?” asks Amanda Golby.  Several respondents offered some suggestions. I share my thoughts after each.

  • Boomerang: This add-on makes it easy to write an email, then schedule it to send later. I suppose this is handy if you’re French. Its best feature is the ability to track when people read your emails.
  • Grammarly: As a writer, I find myself relying on the Hemingway Editor (web | Win/Mac app). If you need more support than that, this add-on may be worth the price. It will check your grammar, spelling as you type. The paid version expands the errors it can detect, suggestions it can offer.

As you can see, most of these are Chrome browser add-ons, rather than Gmail apps. My two favorite Gmail apps in the G Suite Marketplace include:

  • Dropbox for Gmail: This makes viewing attachments and saving to Dropbox a breeze.
  • Track and Sort: This app converts your email into a Google Doc “Email report” for sharing with others. Teachers might find this helpful when dealing with a long conversation thread. To print each email or copy-and-paste it would be time consuming. Instead, use Track and Sort to put into a nice format for sharing as a printable, single Google Doc. See example.

Explore the G Suite Marketplace to see what might catch your eye.

Question #2: How Do I mark up a Google Doc?

“Does anyone know of a Chrome extension that you can use to write all  over Google Docs for feedback?” asks Cheryl Morrow. She’d rather do that than “printing off essays…the old fashioned way.”

Some relevant responses appear:

  • Google Classroom: Open each document in Google Classroom and then adjust as needed. The document, along with your color-coded text, will be saved as a PDF. See instructions.
  • Kaizena: Use this to leave voice feedback on Google Docs. Visit their website to see great examples that include audio and explainer videos.
  • CheckMark: Add comments from a bank of remarks with this Chrome add-on.
  • JoeZoo: Offers many features as a G Suite Marketplace app, including color-coded commenting.
  • Record a video: Use a screencasting tool (e.g. Screencastify is my favorite) to record video comment.

For those that have access to Google Classroom on a tablet, you can write on Google Docs students create. Isn’t that amazing?

Question #3: How can I create a works cited page?

“What FREE app or add-on do you recommend for eighth graders to create citations and works cited pages?” asks Cynthia Smith.  Several responses include:

  • Mendeley: This cross-browser and platform citation tool makes capturing web-based citations a cinch.
  • Zotero: It is a free, easy-to-use, open-source tool. Zotero is also cross-platform and works on the web. Its goal is to assist you in collecting, organizing, citing, and sharing research.

All tools offer citations in a variety of formats, such as APA and MLA. Some are free, while others cost money or do not come well-recommended. The latter include Apogee, BibMe, Cite This For Me, and EasyBib in case you want to try them out.

Top Three Google Workspace for EDU Questions

Do you have practical, “tire meets the road” questions about G Suite in Education? Share them in the comments. Figured out some of your own solutions? Include them in the comments or send us a tweet @tceamg with the hashtag #tcea.

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ChromebooksCTO/CIOLeadership

Five Steps to 1:1 Deployment

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“We’d like to meet and discuss our upcoming Chromebook deployment,” said the director. “We want to make sure we’re checking all the boxes.” As I prepared for the upcoming meeting, I took a variety of steps and spoke to other technology directors.

For each person, I asked them, “What are your top five tips for a Chromebook deployment?” Their responses enabled me to put together  a helpful checklist. In this blog entry, I’ll explore offer five steps for your review. At the end of the blog entry, you will find a link to a Chromebook Deployment Checklist.

Step #1 – Develop a Sense of Urgency

In one of my favorite books, John Kotter’s Our Iceberg is Melting, creating a sense of urgency is paramount. The book’s story is of penguins facing a life-altering problem. The main points in the book move a colony of penguins from ignorance to action.

How do you build that sense of urgency? Create or get a benchmark assessment that provides insight into an unknown area. That area is how well teachers are impacting student achievement. Technology should be a part of that assessment. Several assessments that you can use include Clarity Brightbytes (watch video). Another is the Levels of Teaching Innovation (LOTI).

Step #2 – Aspire to Be Great

Often, few believe that current teaching, learning, and leading needs to change. The status quo works, so why change? Once you have completed the assessment, you know where the gaps are. How do you get forward movement? One way involves adopting a new standard. Then, align all work to the standard. Make the new standard the measure of success. For educators who need a wide range of standards, the ISTE Standards for Educators is one tool. From the Learner to Leader to Citizen, there is an expectation for growth. You’ve never had a 1:1 set of technology in place. Expecting that old standards (without tech) will work is less than accurate.

Here’s an example: the responsible use of equipment. Students and staff may receive the new equipment and then begin to use it in ways not intended. Your campus leadership teams may end up trying to apply old discipline approaches. This will fail. Instead, you need to focus on experiences for learners that build relationship. This community building will translate into the use of restorative discipline approaches.

Students and staff will promote positive management of personal data and digital identity. It all begins with a new standard for educators.

Embracing a New Standard

“Oh, we can’t embrace another set of standards.” It can be challenging to try one more thing. I’m reminded of the old adage, “Don’t put new wine in old wine skins. They’ll burst.” The same may be true for assessing new technologies. Consider this standard:

ISTE Standards for Educators – Citizen:

Educators inspire students to make positive contributions. Students will act in a responsible way in the digital world.

Now that you have new standards, what’s next? Make sure to align all professional learning to the new standards. This doesn’t mean re-branding so much as contextualizing your efforts. Before focusing on project-based learning design to make a connection. For example, PBL aligns to the Collaborator standard. That standard describes the use of collaborative tools like Skype in the Classroom that expand authentic, real-world learning experiences. These experiences are critical for students. You achieve authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.

Step #3 – Paint a Picture

Painting a picture means that you illustrate what the new way of doing things will look like. One way to achieve that is to create profiles specific to different audiences. Each profile has these components:

  • Problem: This is a short vignette or narrative explaining the problem. It is a story of what isn’t working. With the benchmark assessment data in hand, you will have little problem crafting this.
  • Solution: Share a story of how the main character in the problem solved it. Describe how a specific technology facilitated the resolution of the problem.
  • Professional Learning: Ready to try this on your own? Here is some professional learning you can take advantage of. For example, this could include self-paced videos, pre-recorded webinars, or upcoming face-to-face sessions. Think of these as mini-professional learning opportunities. They may involve micro-credentialing (e.g. digital badging).
  • Instructional Approaches: If this session aligns to district approaches, mention those. You could share differentiation, Marzano’s Nine, or others.

Painting a picture can depend on infographics. You can create infographics or “portrait of a K-2 educator.” This portrait can focus on educators at differing grade levels.

Step #4 – Plan Your Processes

“Whatever process you decide on,” said Dr. Roland Rios, “decide on it ahead of time.” As a veteran of 1:1 deployments, Dr. Rios’ points are well-taken. For example, in my own experience, a school district implemented 1:1 with laptops. Their negative experience taught them a few valuable lessons.

When it was my turn to work with the district on their deployment, they wanted assurances. One of those was that campus administrators would not get bogged down in discipline. The discipline quagmire had them over-monitoring students in classrooms. The initiative soured on them due to their negative, heavy-handed approach to discipline.

Whether it’s discipline, technical support, parent contacts, or inappropriate usage, plan it out. It may be your teachers need to adopt new instructional approaches. It could be your administrators need a new classroom observation framework. Two examples of frameworks, by the way, are H.E.A.T. and Triple E.

Plan your processes means first anticipating, then decimating your problems in advance. Do this and save yourself some last-minute effort.

Step #5 – Define and Measure Success

“Define or be defined” goes the old saying. In my project management fundamentals class, I share a chart. That chart describes key action steps for any project you have to take. The first, most important one is defining success. The next is aligning your key performance indicators (KPIs) to organizational goals. These KPIs, known as metrics, become indicators of success. You want these to be as public as possible.

Set key metrics and assessment measures for the 1:1 deployment. These KPIs are an actionable scorecard that keeps your deployment on track. They enable you to manage and reach your desired results.

Five Steps to 1:1 Deployment

Now that we’ve explored the five steps to a successful deployment, here are some more topics. The Chromebook Deployment Checklist deals with infrastructure and bandwidth, device choice, and management. It emphasizes the importance of doing your research and connecting with stakeholders. I hope you find it useful!

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sticky notes
ChromebooksGoogle Tips and Tricks

Digital Sticky Notes

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin
Spend a lot of time in your web browser? If so, you may find yourself wishing for digital sticky notes that you can slap on a web page. Since I work on a variety of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, I find myself trying to remember my next to-do item. While tools like Google Keep and OneNote work great, they don’t connect my notes to a specific web page.

Using actual paper sticky notes seldom works well for the multitude of web pages. The reason why is we travel from browser to browser on different devices. In this blog entry, we will explore several solutions to this common problem.

Problem

“How can I put sticky-notes on a webpage I happen to be visiting so I can remember what I need to do with it?”

Sticky notes can be a boon for students capturing notes on a web page, too. Note-taking has several benefits that go beyond interactive checklists. Now that we’ve clarified the problem, let’s see what Chrome browser extensions or apps work.

Solution #1: Sticky Notes – Just Popped Up!

This Chrome browser extension makes adding digital sticky notes easy and quick. You have a variety of color combinations to choose from for your sticky note. Sticky Notes are “always on top,” but you can hide them for a short time. Click on the stylized “n” on a yellow background. Even if you empty the Chrome browser’s cache or cookies, data is not lost. What’s more, all data is auto-saved. That’s a big deal. One feature I wish Sticky Notes had is the ability to move the note around the web page. As of its current release, the note appears in the top right hand corner of the screen. Another feature that it lacks is having more than one note per web page.

A nice alternative to this extension is Note Anywhere. It allows you to move notes around the screen and saves the notes to a web page. It lacks many features other solutions have, but it does offer adding more than one note to a web page. However, you cannot resize the note. Too bad this first solution lacks these features as well.

Solution #2: Sticky Notes

Similar in name the previous solution, this Sticky Notes has a few different features. This Chrome app (as opposed to a browser extension) makes it easy to save notes. It is designed to be used as a desktop computer app. But, since it saves your notes to Google Drive, you could also use it on a Chromebook to keep track of any needed notes. It features a menu that offers speech-to-text, link embedding, and much more, as you can see from the list below. For example, the text showing in the note below was dictated.

Its feature list includes speech recognition for dictation, Google Drive synchronization, and online note sharing. You can move notes around on the screen, pin a note “always on top,” and choose colors and fonts. A feature many Google Keep users wish for is the ability to format text with bold, underline, and italics. This app enjoys all those. It also handles task or to-do lists as well.

Solution #3: Post It All: Sticky Notes

This powerful solution combines many of the features of solutions one and two. You add sticky notes to your favorite web pages and then notes appear across browsers and devices. The multi-colored notes are easy to add to pages you visit or created in a dashboard. A serious drawback to this extension, however, is that it reloads your open browser tabs. It appears to lack a graphical interface to text formatting options. If you know keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-B for bold), you can take advantage of those features.

Windows 10 Sticky Notes app

Did You Know?

If you are a Windows 10 user, there is a built-in “Sticky Notes” app. Launch the Win10 Sticky Notes app via Cortana in the bottom left corner of your screen. Look for a space to type or magnifying glass. You can also find it listed under “S” in the Start Menu list of programs. Type Ctrl-N to create a new note or Ctrl-D to delete it. Learn more.

Solution #4: Notematic or Note Board

Need more complex solutions? While these are outside the scope of this blog entry, here are two. The first is Notematic.

A bit more complex at first, Notematic comes with a tutorial. To create notes, you long-press with your left mouse button to create a note. The note allows you to specify a title and then fill in your notes. You can create pin boards to house your non-website attached notes. I do not recommend it for use with younger learners. Older students may find its feature set rich and worthy of exploration. One caveat: To synchronize your notes, you will have to create a Notematic Cloud account. This may be undesirable in a K-12 environment.

A similar, more robust solution is available for Android and iOS apps. Try the cross-platform, cross-browser Note Board. Again, you will need to make an account. Consider Google Keep and/or OneNote as free alternatives to these two options.

Solution #5: Notes for Google Drive

A nifty note-taking solution, this Chrome extension saves your notes to Google Drive. You can open the notes as Google Docs. Some features that set it ahead of the others include bold, italics, and text highlighting, and the ability to add bulleted or numbered lists. This particular extension works independent of a web page, so no assigning notes to a set page. The fixed position of the notes make it less than desirable. The inability to adjust the note window size can cover up valuable screen space. This can block critical content.

What Do You Recommend?

Finding the right digital sticky note solution can be tough. After looking over so many note-taking apps, I have two recommendations. Need to keep it simple? Use Solution #1. It makes adding a single note to a page easy.

Need something a bit more full-featured? Use Web Page Sticky Notes. This is a Chrome extension that allows many, movable digital sticky notes. Web Page Sticky Notes gives power users encryption options for security. You can export/import notes and use Markdown and many more options.

Not sure you like these choices? Spend a few hours exploring the Chrome Web Store “notes” options.

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ChromebooksMicrosoft Tips and TricksSpecial Needs

Reading Made Easy in the Chrome Browser

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“Darn, I hate it when I have to wade through advertisements, sidebars, and banners just to read a blog entry,” I muttered to myself. The truth is that as you visit most websites these days, you suffer annoying, extra content. While I understand the desire of website publishers to make money from clicks or to seek deeper engagement, you can spend up to a minute or two just figuring out what’s relevant and what’s fluff. Both Apple’s and Microsoft’s browsers have something uncommon in common with each other. That feature is a “reader view” that strips out distracting advertisements. Want that same feature on the Chrome or Firefox browser? Read this blog entry to learn about tools that make reading easy in those browsers.

The Reader View

Assisting children in distinguishing between the relevant and irrelevant can seem an impossible task. Many browsers, like Microsoft Edge, have made great strides in converting the content barrage into an easy-to-navigate stream of useful information. Some of the ways that Microsoft has made that happen in its Edge browser include:

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)
  • Support for PDF and ePub views

Microsoft Edge edges out other reader views, since it now features a read-aloud function. This means you can right-click on any word on a web page and select read aloud. From that word forward, the browser will read the text to you. You can customize voice settings, read aloud speed, and more. Let’s take a look at Chrome and Firefox browser extensions as they reach for the Edge browser’s level of excellence.

Image Source: Browser & Platform Market Share, July 2018, W3 Counter

Setting the Standard

To set the standard high, let’s use Microsoft Edge to see what a busy page looks like, as well as one that has been optimized for reading. To see the difference, let’s use one of my favorite websites that has awesome articles on a daily basis.

Here’s what the page looks like without reader view:

Original view of web page

Here’s what the view looks like in Microsoft Edge’s Reader View:

Chrome Extensions

Given that the Chrome browser has the most market share, let’s take a look at some Chrome extensions that you can use right away to get rid of extraneous content. We’ll test them by seeing how they work with the same page that Microsoft Edge did so well with.

Extension #1 – Reader View

This particular extension had a hit-or-miss approach. Most attempts were misses.

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Not viewed since extension failed
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Not viewed since extension failed
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? Not viewed since extension failed

As a result of these tests, you can skip this particular Chrome extension until it’s improved.

Extension #2 – BeeLine Reader (Free Version)

Bee LineReader worked flawlessly, removing extraneous content, stripping the page down to bare elements. The resulting screen looked like this:

Compared to the Reader View extension, BeeLine Reader is feature-rich, albeit at a price. You can see some of the features hinted at in the screenshot below:

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes, limited usage based on free version vs paid
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Yes
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Yes
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? Yes as a separate extension for PDF at $4.99 a month

Worth the cost? I don’t think I would pay for it.

Extension #3 – Just Read

Just Read works well, as you can see from the screenshot below. While it removed the featured image from the blog post, the content is easy to work through.

It offers a free, open source Chrome extension, along with a paid version that can to do a bit more. The extra feature includes the ability to save and share Just Read versions of pages. Below, find a breakdown of free vs paid features.

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? No
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? No
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? No

Of all the Chrome extensions I’ve looked at so far, this is the easiest and least obtrusive.

Extension #4 – Easy Reader

If you liked Just Read like I did, you may enjoy Easy Reader even more. Take a look at the Easy Reader view of the blog entry:

The colors on the fonts appear to be a shade of olive. Unlike some of the other reader view extensions, you can customize the look of the reader view. See that Options available for Easy Reader online. On the left side, you can adjust the cascading style sheet (CSS) style elements while seeing the preview on the right side of the page. This allows you to set a consistent look for all web pages you decide to use Easy Reader on.

Another neat feature is that it converts the headers on the page into a left-hand table of contents you can click to aid navigation. In the screenshot below, I clicked on Tip #3: Color Palettes Made Simple to jump to that section on the page. Cool, huh?

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Yes with style sheet changes
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Yes with style sheet changes
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? No

Firefox Built-In Reader Support

The Firefox Quantum browser is one of my favorites for two reasons. It offers security, speed, and neutral ground between the two giants (Microsoft and Google). To share browser extensions that provide a Reader View without mentioning solutions for Firefox would be a crime.

Note the toolbar in the top left quadrant of the screenshot.

Why would it be a crime? Firefox has built-in reader view support, just like Microsoft Edge. Not only that, it has a toolbar that makes switching to light or dark mode quick and even easy. It offers built-in narration with speed control, too.

You have control over the font, text size, spacing, and mode

You can adjust the voice, as well as the speed of a read aloud

Want to read ePubs or PDFs in Firefox like you do in Microsoft Edge? Add the ePub Reader add-on to Firefox. For PDFs, use Firefox’ built-in PDF viewer.

Reading Made Easy in the Chrome Browser

While reading can be made easier in the Chrome browser, give some thought to trying out Microsoft Edge and Firefox, which offer native reader view support. If not, Easy Reader is the most affordable extension for Chrome. Easy Reader‘s support for table of contents and style sheet customization are cool enhancements. Too bad it lacks read aloud. For the rich, Beeline Reader should be your go-to.

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ChromebooksGoogle Tips and TricksiOS Tips and TricksMicrosoft Tips and Tricks

Note-Taking on Chromebooks

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Have a class set of iPads, but your district has chosen to move to Chromebooks? You’re not the only one. What do you do when you are using an indispensable iOS app that isn’t available for the Chrome browser? Finding another option can be tough. Consider this challenge that one educator had:

My district is planning to move from iPads to Chromebooks. One of the biggest concerns raised is that many of the teachers and students rely on Notability. Has anyone else faced this? If so, how did you handle it?

Notability is an iPad app, unavailable on the Chrome browser. Why? Consider what Notability can do:

Combine handwriting, photos and typing in a single note to bring your projects to life. Use a wide range of note-taking and sketching tools to capture every detail. You can even add and annotate PDFs in Notability. It’s the perfect place to create and organize work, school, and life’s information! Experiment with different tools to create beautiful, hand-crafted notes and sketches. Continue to scale, rotate, and recolor your ideas and sketches until your notes are just how you want them. Once you’re done, organize your notes.

This app makes it a cinch to share your creations via various cloud storage options (e.g. Google Drive or Dropbox). It makes sharing via email and AirDrop do-able as well. Making the transition from this note-taking app to another can be difficult.

Let’s take a look at note-taking apps on Chromebooks before we discuss alternatives to Notability.

Chromebook Touch Screen

Chromebooks now come in many sizes and shapes and even offer touch screen support. You might consider any one of these models for purchase.

A key feature in each of these models is the touch screen, allowing students to draw on the screen itself. You may consider the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, a tablet, as another option with a stylus. The question is, “What Chromebook add-on or app could be used as an alternative to the iOS Notability app?”

Chrome Alternatives to Notability

There are various alternatives to Notability available. Here are a few that Google Certified Trainers recommend.

Web version of Xodo app

Alternative #1: Xodo

“Our district is switching to Chromebooks and we are training staff and students to use Xodo!” says Stephanie Draayer, Technology Integration Specialist and Google Certified Trainer (Twitter; website). You may recall, Xodo was featured in a TCEA blog entry, Top Five PDF Annotation Tools for Windows. In that blog entry, I share the following:

With the Xodo web app, you can now merge multiple PDFs into one, which is perfect for when you need to compile resources into one package to send to your colleagues. And now you can merge PDFs from your computer and Google Drive.

The new Xodo web app provides more flexibility than ever before. You can now insert, delete, reorder, and even rotate pages to manipulate your PDF to fit your needs…Xodo can also open other file formats such as docx, pptx, jpeg, png, cbz, and other image files.

This makes Xodo on Chromebooks an excellent choice for a variety of reasons. You can open files from Google Drive and Dropbox, as well as edit existing PDFs that may exist on the web. Annotating a PDF of a concept map is quite easy. With your finger or a stylus, you can draw anywhere on the screen. One limit is that you are stuck with black as the color of choice for your pen.

Since Xodo is available at no cost, works great on mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) and on your desktop computer (e.g. Mac, Windows), it is a great choice as a simple Notability replacement. It offers many other options for PDF and image annotation, so give it a shot. I use it on all my devices.

Alternative #2: Kami

Offering free, teacher ($99 annual), and custom district/school pricing, some suggest Kami as an alternative to Notability. Unlike Xodo, you will need to create a Kami account. And, to work with images, you will have to upgrade from the free account. That said, if you will be working with a lot of PDF files, you will be able to do quite a bit. Note all the features available with Kami as represented with the side toolbar.

Worth checking out are the comment options. You can leave text, audio, and video comments and have access to a color palette, options lacking in Xodo. The main drawback is the cost.

Alternative #3: OneNote

A short two years ago, Microsoft’s OneNote would not have been on my list of apps to recommend for Chromebook. In that short time since, however, Microsoft has revamped and enhanced OneNote, adding an incredible amount of features. While Xodo is one of my favorites, I often rely on the Microsoft OneNote app on Windows 10, Chromebook for capturing content from the web. The OneNote Web Clipper add-on for Chrome makes that a simple process.

You can insert images, Microsoft Office documents, and, of course, PDFs. This is all through the OneNote Online interface, which is 100% web-based. You also have access to simple draw features, as represented below:

That’s not all. In addition to being able to draw, highlight text, and insert text boxes, you can record audio and take advantage of the built-in accessibility options (e.g. Immersive Reader).

What’s more, availability of the OneNote app on Windows 10, Mac, Android, and iOS make this a cross-platform tool. Amazing as these options are in a Chrome browser, students need to have only a free Microsoft account to access them. In schools or districts that have provisioned staff and students with Office 365 accounts, you get to also use the Class Notebook add-on for OneNote. Teachers can manage OneNote Class Notebook via the web browser; view the video guide. This can be powerful, OneNote and Google Classroom integration options now available. Check out Marija’s OneNote Notebook 6-week course, as well as Nico Paphitis’ resources on OneNote.

OneNote has potential for student-paced adaptive learning. See this video from OneNote expert Nicos Paphitis (@PaphitisN).

Note-Taking on Chromebooks

As you can see, there is a rich variety of tools that could meet your needs as you seek to exchange iPads for flexible Chromebook devices. While the alternatives shared above are not a perfect replacement for Notability, good options do exist. These are only a few of the more robust tools. After all, I didn’t mention two other favorites of mine, Web Paint Chrome add-on for drawing/painting on web pages and Screencastify for screencasting and annotation. Google Keep offers drawing tools that can be inserted into Google Docs and it integrates into Google Drawing.

Give note-taking on Chromebooks a try. You won’t go back.

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AndroidChromebooksCybersecurityGoogle Tips and TricksiOS Tips and Tricks

Secure On the Go Connections

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Attending multiple conferences this summer? I have been. A certain fact has come to my notice. Devices people are slipping into their backpacks and sling bags aren’t bulked up computing monsters. You know, the laptop with the seventeen inch screen. Or, the ultra-light Macbook with a weighty power supply. Instead, tablets and Chromebooks predominate. The problem most of us face, unless we use paper (synthetic or natural) and pen, we face a security challenge. We must secure on the go connections. In this blog entry, we will explore several virtual private network (VPN) solutions you will want to invest in.

 If the hotspot you’re using…[is] simply unsecured, hackers nearby can eavesdrop on your connection to gather useful information from your activities. Data transmitted in an unencrypted form (i.e., as plain text) may be intercepted and read by hackers with the correct knowledge and equipment. This includes data from any services which require a login protocol (Source).

Wait, What About Securing Paper and Pen Notes?

Keep a pocket notebook? Then you may feel you don’t need to secure your paper notes. That’s because someone would have to mug you, tear the notebook out of your hands. Yet, it’s not hard to imagine that a notebook could be lost or left behind. In that case, a synthetic paper notebook may offer a better solution. In some cases, a small paper notebook like the Rocketbook (read the TCEA blog entry, Write to Remember) may fit your needs.  The Everlast Mini, shown in the video below, has me reaching for my wallet.

How does it work? You can write on synthetic paper with a special pen, snap a picture of it using an app. Once the content in a synthetic paper notebook has been captured via the app on your smartphone, you can erase it. Erasure secures your data. Keep your smartphone encrypted behind  a passcode, no one will be able to get into it. But you still face the challenge of securing WiFi connections in your hotel room, at a conference, or on a network lacking encryption. Resist the temptation to simply hop onto an open network.

Image Source: How a VPN Protects Your Data

Get and Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Whether in your hotel, restaurant, or conference space, protect your device with a virtual private network. Here are some quick recommendations that you can put in place. Be aware that free VPN solutions offer little protection. Online publishers like PC Mag and CNET suggest NordVPN, StrongVPN, TorGuard, and  Private Internet Access (PIA) as the top-rated tools available.  This video provides a simple overview of the problem we all face. I urge you to use one of these solutions when on an open, unsecured network.

Not ready to invest in a VPN? Get Cloudflare, which features the Warp VPN built-in. It’s free, works on your iOS and Android smartphone. It will give you some protection while sitting at the coffee shop.

Update: This blog entry had new content added to it on 10/1/2019.

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Classkick
ChromebooksWeb 2.0 Tool

How to Use Classkick in the Classroom

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Classkick is a tool that allows for real-time monitoring, feedback, and assessment on student work and can be a bridge to more personalized learning in 1:1 classrooms. In this blog, two educators share their experiences with Classkick, including both its limitations and why they love the app. The initial perspective is from fourth-grade teacher Amanda Hawthorne. 

Have you ever stood in line at one of the only two copy machines in the teachers’ lounge only to watch the machine jam over and over again for the person in front of you? Or have you run out of paper while making copies and had to borrow from another teacher? How about that back pain from having to lug all those papers around to be graded? In a world with so much technology at our fingertips, why haven’t we found the solution to any of those problems? That solution may have arrived. I recently went to a professional development workshop and was introduced to a free application that came out of my dreams and into my classroom. It’s called Classkick.

Classkicking into High Gear

Classkick is a free app that allows students to work on assignments and get help instantly from their teacher and peers. At first, I was hesitant. Now I would have to add another element to my classroom that would take time to learn, and I’d have to teach my students how to use it, too. I put it on hold until the fateful day when I was standing in line to make copies for my students when BOTH of the copiers broke. I didn’t know how I was going make my lesson effective without something for my students to write on.

It was at that moment that I remembered Classkick. Fortunately, I have 1:1 Chromebooks in my classroom, so I knew I was going to have to give this a try. Once I walked my students through the Classkick tutorials, they were instantly hooked. The idea of getting to use their Chromebooks instead of a pencil and paper was so exciting to them! The next day, I uploaded the assignment I had been trying to copy and let them complete it on Classkick. I was able to watch them in real time as they worked through each question. If a student had a question, they would simply “raise their hand” with a click of a button and not feel any embarrassment or self-consciousness.

Once they completed their assignment, they submitted their work and I was able to grade all their papers from the comfort of my own home without having to carry them home in a heavy bag. The next morning, my students begged me to send them more assignments on Classkick so they could show me what they could do on the app.

Why I Love Classkick

Classkick can be easily linked to your Google Classroom for sending assignments and saving work. It’s only available on iPads, computers, and Chromebooks. I had finally found a solution to using the dreaded copy machine. By the end of the year, I was sending assignments, tests, and even books to my students!

Not only does Classkick save me time, it also saves TONS of paper in my classroom.  Since I have Classkick connected with my Google Classroom, parents can easily log in and see their children’s work. I use this app several times a day to introduce new topics or concepts, to demonstrate text-based evidence from a story using colored highlighters, and even as our morning bell ringer. It also allows me to add my own content, my voice, my images, and my directions.  Students can add their own pictures, labels, voices, and text to make the assignment their own.

Classkick is also very user-friendly. Their website has so many teacher resources, and if that doesn’t help, you can email their wonderful tech support. I was having trouble and they asked me to call them on my conference hour and personally walked me through what I was having trouble with. Classkick made my experience personal, and they made sure I was able to complete the task without any hesitation.

Classkick completely changed my classroom, and I am so grateful. I recommend it to anyone who has an opportunity to use technology in their classrooms. You don’t have to be 1:1 to make it work. If you have computers or iPads in your classroom, Classkick can be used for centers.  Classkick wants to “help teachers teach and learners learn.” Give it a try; you will love it!

Another Educator’s Perspective on Classkick

Ronald Cintrón has also tried Classkick with his students and shares his experiences:

I’m always looking for that magic app the will instill STAAR skills like a silver bullet and maybe even serve me coffee while I wait. I’m subscribed to any source that has recommended new apps and I go to categories/education and look at the top fifty in both the Play Store and App store. I was excited when I saw the Classkick app because of its easy-to-use features to benefit both teachers and students. Those features include:

  • Student sign-in is a snap using a code you provide them.
  • Tests are easy to import and can be automatically separated into different pages.
  • I am able to see in real time how the students are solving the problems.
  • Once each student finished, they can submit and wait for my reply (from my iPad) or “raise their hand.” I am able to write on their screen wirelessly.
  • I can remotely reward them and/or help them individually.
  • Other students can help remotely as well!

Initially, the school infrastructure wasn’t ready to support Classkick, and we had a significant lag of up to five minutes. We were able to improve that in subsequent years, but the honeymoon ended when my average student count increased. We don’t have enough laptops for 1:1 and found we were investing too much time. That said, I still have a lot of positive things to say about Classkick. The kiddos love it, and I love it. They love the badges awarded to them and get excited when I virtually write on their paper (laptop). I love it because it lets me give them more personal attention and assessment.

Is Classkick the right choice for your district? Have you used it and had a different perspective from these educators? We would love to hear your experiences in the comments.

This is a guest blog by Amanda Hawthorne and Ronald Cintrón. Amanda currently teaches fourth grade at Fort Sam Houston ISD in San Antonio, Texas. You can follow her on Twitter @MrsAHawthorne or email her at ahawthorne@fshisd.net. Ronald is a bilingual teacher at Oak Meadows Elementary in Austin, Texas.

 

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Chromebooks

Chromebook Apps for Young Learners

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Are you a Chromebook user under the age of ten? While you may not be, quite a few students among the almost thirty million students in U.S. schools. Luckily, there are many Chrome add-ons which are age-appropriate for young learners. In this blog entry, we will explore a few common Chromebook apps.

Mathematics

  • ADDieMATH – Basic Fact Practice is made easy with this Chrome add-on featuring activities that provide students in grades 1-5 the opportunity to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
  • Math Quizzes – Per the website, this add-on “helps parents and kids to love math (and not only), by turning it through playing in a rescue mission for Earth, from an alien invasion. The kids win points, levels and prizes by solving quizzes, creating new quizzes and working inside a team.”
  • Monster Math – This app provides opportunities for students to learn addition, subtraction, and multiplication with animated cute monsters.

Language Arts

  •  Alphabet Tutor – Letter identification using the keyboard for the young. The goal of the designers is to assist students in learning the names of letters pressed, as well as to assess students’ ability to locate a specific letter on the keyboard.
  • Brainy Kids Puzzles– This add-on has fifty colorful jigsaw puzzles. These seek to promote spatial and word recognition skills.
  • Coloring Pages – Offers coloring pages for young learners. You can see a selection of what’s available online.
  • Into Words – Enables you to highlight texts on web pages or PDF documents. Into Words will read the text up for you in Danish, English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Norwegian. An additional forty languages with 98 voices can be used.
  • Read&Write for Google Chrome – This add-on offers a wide range of tools, including text-to-speech, text/picture dictionaries, speech-to-text, dictation, word prediction, and more. You can collect highlights from text in documents or the web, create and then listen to voice notes inside of Google Docs, and simplify/summarize text to remove ads.
  • Sight Words– Provides students with 315 Dolch sight word flashcards. Each word comes with audio. The goal is to use sight words with young learners to achieve balanced reading instruction.
  • Storybird – This add-on provides a creative digital story-building tool for readers, writers, and educators.

Utilities

Looking for some tools for your own use? Here are two lesser known ones you may find helpful.

  • 1-Click Timer – Interactive timer that has music playing while it counts down.
  •  Anyone Can View  – Use Alice Keeler’s extension to grant anyone with the link view access.

Chromebook Apps for the Young

These are only a few of the available Chrome add-ons available for young learners. Share in the comments what your favorite add-ons for young learners are.

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ChromebooksGood TeachingGoogle Tips and Tricks

TCEA Responds: Download YouTube Videos

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Dear TCEA Responds:

Do you know of a simple and free way to download YouTube videos for Google Workspace for Education and/or show them without advertisements? Students are blocked from YouTube. The solution I was using is no longer available.

Thanks, Vicki

Dear Vicki:

Want to save videos from YouTube and bypass district policies that block YouTube for staff and students? This blog entry will provide you with three, no, six approaches to view YouTube videos ad free. You will also see proven tips for saving videos from YouTube.

Why Block YouTube?

Some school districts continue to block YouTube. They rely on technology to control and manage students. However, it’s important to engage students, parents, and staff in reciprocal dialogue about issues like poor content. This dialogue needs to go along the lines of, “Hey, we know there’s bad stuff on YouTube. There’s good stuff, too. Let’s build a culture of trust and openness that leads all involved to make better decisions.” If we don’t teach our students, who will?

Manage Your YouTube Settings

Why not show the following information to your Google Workspace for Education administrator with a kind request to unblock YouTube videos?

As a Google Workspace administrator, you can help restrict which YouTube videos are viewable by signed-in users in your organization and on your network using YouTube’s Restricted Mode settings. The settings help restrict which videos are available to your users. Learn more

What’s that? You don’t think that’s going to work? Before we go straight to how you can get the videos you want, let’s explore some other options.

NOTE: These quick ways to view YouTube videos will NOT work in an environment where YouTube is blocked. All these “view YouTube” solutions do is shield the viewer from extraneous content (e.g. advertising). They do not make a copy of a YouTube video and then stream it from their own servers.

Quick Ways to View YouTube Videos, No Advertising

One of the objections people raise about YouTube involves the advertising. Often, inappropriate advertising is put next to wholesome, educational videos. The solutions below assist you in blocking that advertising. The idea is you can watch YouTube videos through a protected window that blocks out unwanted content. In this case, unwanted content is the advertising.

Here are a few solutions that work, including my favorite, Wakelet.com. Did you know that if you put a YouTube video link inside of a Wakelet, all the advertising is removed? Wow, that’s amazing! The best part? Once you put videos in a Wakelet collection, you can share that with your students and they don’t have to visit YouTube at all.

The Wakelet Collection below, Videos in the Classroom, features some of the best solutions along with my recommendation.

YouTube Adblockers

View this Wakelet Collection to see YouTube Adblocking Solutions with Example

Getting (a.k.a. “Downloading”) YouTube Videos

Your only recourse with blocked YouTube videos involves violating YouTube’s policy. TechAdvisor has a whole article dedicated to the topic. They count the ways you are violating YouTube’s policy. Need a summary? You’re not supposed to download or save videos from YouTube. Period.

Ok, now that the point is clear, here are some ways to temporarily save videos off of YouTube so that you can share the useful content with your students. With the incredible amount of storage space available to Drive for Google Workspace for Education users, you can copy saved videos in MP4 or WEBM format. Here’s a short tutorial. Or, in lieu of cloud storage, save it to a USB flash drive and then move the video file to your school computer.

Save Videos Tip #1 – ATube.me

For Windows users, you can use aTube Catcher. The program is free and makes it easy to save YouTube video playlists (like fifty videos or more in a playlist). For example, if you wanted to grab all the top Lamb Chop’s Play Along songs, you would paste the link to the playlist into ATube Catcher. Below is what that process looks like.

Never heard of Lamb Chop’s Play Along television show? Be sure to listen to this unforgettable song.

Save Videos Tip #2 – Torch Browser

This approach is elaborated at length in the Simple Video Tricks blog entry. You can get the Chromium browser (works just like Chrome) Torch. This free browser has built-in Media Grabber (it’s a button on the tool bar). You just click that button. In a moment, the YouTube video you are looking at saves the video in MP4 format to your computer. MP4 video format is a standard type of video file, so you should be able to play the video with built-in video players on Windows, Mac, Chrome, or GNU/Linux computers.

Save Videos Tip #3 – Firefox Video DownloadHelper

Another go-to is Firefox’s add-on Video DownloadHelper. This add-on requires using the Firefox browser. You can save YouTube videos in various formats. You can also save videos from “DailyMotion, Facebook, Periscope, Vimeo, Twitch, Liveleak, Vine, UStream, Fox, Bloomberg, RAI, France 2-3, Break, Metacafe,” among many others. Since it works as a Firefox add-on, you can use this on Windows and Mac computers alike.

TCEA Responds: Get YouTube Videos

Vicki, as Uncle Ben Parker allegedly (Voltaire said it first) said to Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Now that you know how to get videos from YouTube and save them as MP4 video or MP3 video format, what will you do?

Charity Evans suggests these two approaches:

  • Screencast the video wanted. Add teacher commentary (fair use for educational purpose evades copyright issue). Host on Google Drive.
  • Screencast yourself instead of downloading someone else’s content. “Make your own personalized videos for your kiddos and share them with colleagues via Drive.”
  • Use EdPuzzle to annotate the video, add questions, and more.

Charity’s suggestions have merit. I like Screencastify as a screencasting tool. You can find a few more screencasting tools in this blog entry, Flipped Learning Tools. You may find these two blog entries of interest as well:

Of course, if you do not want to work with videos, simply create a playlist to share with students, give Wakelet collections a spin.

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infographics
ChromebooksGoogle Tips and TricksProfessional Learning

Infographics Made Simple

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

In my Infographics Made Simple workshop session at the 2018 TCEA Chromebook Academy, I shared some of the infographic templates I had made. Since I first wrote the blog entries, Infographic-Creation Strategies for the Art-Challenged and Infographic Templates with Google Slides, I’ve learned a few more tricks. These  tips come in the form of Chrome extensions or add-ons. Microsoft user looking for Powerpoint templates for infographics? Here are over 15 templates to get you started. May I share some of my tips with you?

Tip #1 – Citing Images on the Web

“Any librarians in the room?” I always ask that question when facilitating a workshop. It is a tell-tale sign that the tip I’m about to share involves potential copyright violations. Potential since classroom fair use use is okay, sharing online…not so much. When you do a Google search for images to include in your infographics, seek out creative commons copyright images. Many often don’t know that in a Google Image Search, you can find the ones labelled “Reuse with modification.”

For example, here are standard Google Image search results for the word, “excellence:”

infographics

Those results look pretty good. Here’s what the search results are when you modify your search. To do that, select Tools, then Usage Rights, then “Labelled for Reuse.” The changes to your search look like this:

When the usage rights are modified, your image results are different, as shown below.

Try Google Advanced Image Search: It gives you enormous flexibility in tailoring your search results. In addition to specifying the image’s color, size, and file type, you can choose Filter Explicit Results to block inappropriate pictures. Specify the usage rights to include various levels of reprint permissions.

You may have to go through several pages of images (try these image sites first) before finding the right one. You can rely on tools like Cite This For Me, Apogee, MyBib, and EasyBib to get the citation for the image in MLA/APA format. Here’s what Cite This For Me looks like in action with an image that captures “Excellence.” Note the citation Cite This For Me provides appears below the image.

Free Image on Pixabay – Directory, Excellent, Mediocre Free Image on Pixabay – Directory, Excellent, Mediocre. (2018). Pixabay.com. Retrieved 27 July 2018, from https://pixabay.com/en/directory-excellent-mediocre-1274229/

While you won’t always need to include citations for images in your infographic, it never hurts to keep track of where you picked up your graphics in case others ask.

Want to learn more about this?

Read Helping Students Find and Cite Photos blog entry. Teaching students to correctly cite resources they use in their reports can be a difficult task. But this website can make it much, much easier, both for the students and for their teachers.

Meet Kathy Miller (@millerk813), a leading learner at the 2018 TCEA Chromebook Academy | Get a copy of her infographic

Tip #2: Finding Icons for Use

“Have you seen the Insert Icons into Slides add-on?” asked Kathy Miller (@millerk813) in my Infographics Made Simple session. Of course, we had not. “There is another add on for Docs and Slides called Unsplashed Photos. It has free-to-use HD pics; makes every copyright librarian happy!” Kathy shared. She followed up with sharing the Icons by Noun project.

In the workshop, we all grabbed the Insert Icons into Slides add-on, setting it up in Google Slides. With this add-on in place, you can browse 1,800+ free icons from Font Awesome & Google Material Design. What’s even neater, you can do it without leaving Google Slides. Pick any color you want, and the icons get inserted into your slide. Even more exciting, the icons get imported with a transparent background. Ms. White, one of the other session participants, shows off her incomplete infographic creation. You can see the open Insert icons add-on as a sidebar:

Icons by Noun, another source of icons, works in Google Docs. While Google Docs isn’t my preferred infographic tool (Google Drawings and Google Slides are my favorites), you can grab icons in Docs and then copy and paste them.

What’s amazing about events like the 2018 TCEA Chromebook Academy? I learn as much as I share.

Tip #3: Color Palettes Made Simple

Palette add-on

Not sure how to match colors? David McGeary suggests the following:

“I recommend doing an image search by color and usage rights. I also used https://coolors.co/ to get a working color palette for this project. It is one of my favorite tools for design work.”

Another participant in my Infographics Made Simple session suggested the Chrome add-on Palette. If you are not sure how colors should look together, it may do the job. It allows you to “create your own color palette by manipulating the variation and hue colors.”

Start Making

A hushed silence falls over a room when creative professionals start making.  In my session, participants got to work quickly. Some, though, found themselves enjoying all the Chrome extensions and add-ons that make infographic creation fun. One of them loved my share of Fireshot, an image capture tool that works in Chrome (also try Full Page Screen Capture). Another liked the mention of Windows tools like  PicPick and the venerable Snipping Tool.

Curious about what session participants came up with? See their incomplete creations linked below.

Alison

Kim

Marcie

You can see more pictures of infographic makers. Check out creations from others in the session, including Korie’s “The Qualities of a Great Student” as well other infographic templates at Infographics Made Simple website.

Note to K-12 Students:

If you are a student using G Suite for Education, you may be unable to access the Google version of these infographics. That’s because your school district has NOT allowed you to access resources outside of your school district domain. Get a teacher to access the resources here, then share them with you using your school district domain. OR, use a personal Gmail account.

 

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