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Google Chromebook App Hub Now Live

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

A few months ago, Google announced the future launch of their new Chromebook App Hub for education. And now it’s gone live.

What is the Hub?

Chromebook App HubThe Chromebook App Hub, according to Google, is ” a place where educators can get the most out of their devices.” It was created in response to teachers who said they were spending a lot of time searching for just the right apps to use with their students. This makes it easier to search for just the right app.

In addition, the site offers “idea sparks,” ways to use apps in the classroom for learning. These include tips for success, differentiated instruction strategies, and links to additional resources such as how-to videos, activities and websites. Besides those already included, educators can submit their own ideas. In time, there will even be a community aspect to the site to connect teachers with others who are using the same app.

Besides apps, the site will offer additional great content. Epic! will contribute to the App Hub its library of children’s books, Chromebook App Hubvideos and games; Adobe will include its visual storytelling app Adobe Spark; and Khan Academy will bring its free library of lessons across subjects like math, grammar, science, history, standardized tests and more.

How can I find apps?

The Hub can be searched in a variety of ways, including subject, age range, learning goal, and idea category. For the learning goal, you can look for apps that encourage students to:

  • Analyze and interpret data
  • Ask questions and define problems
  • Construct explanations and design solutions
  • Develop and use models
  • Explore civics and culture
  • Develop language proficiency
  • Use persuasive and argumentative skills
  • Plan and carry out investigations
  • Read and comprehend text
  • Research and develop information literacy skills
  • Respond to text
  • Speak and listen

Age ranges include 5-7, 8-10, 11-13, and 14 and up. Every possible subject area is included.

Is the Chromebook App Hub safe?

Google worked with policy partners, including the non-profit Student Data Privacy Consortium (SPDC), to assist developers considering the student privacy implications of their products. “The SDPC is proud to work with [the Chromebook App Hub] to provide transparency and openness around the critical aspects of schools, states and vendors securing learner information,” says Dr. Larry L. Fruth II, CEO of A4L/SDPC. This means administrators can rest assured that apps on the hub are built by developers committed to transparency and security.

This looks like a game changer for busy educators. The only drawback I can see is that Google will only update the content quarterly, which may mean there are not a lot of lesson ideas available now. But it should grow over time. Take a look for yourself and see what you think.

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Reciprocal Teaching with Popular Reading Apps

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Few would disagree that reading plays a crucial role in life. Scaffolding student cognition during reading can enhance student achievement. One of the techniques I employed as a young teacher included Reciprocal Teaching. In this blog entry, you will see a few amazing reading apps you can try reciprocal teaching on.

Google Rivet Transitions to Google’s Kids Space 

This blog entry previously featured Google Rivet, which Google shelved on October 16, 2020. The Rivet content (3500 books) found its way into Google’s new Kids Space. Per the Google Kids Space website, you can get to it via select Android tablets. Children are able to access apps, books, and videos. These are age-appropriate and targeted by age. One neat feature is that multiple children can use the same tablet. This is because children’s accounts are kept separate. Children’s education and media specialists have all reviewed apps and books included.

Effect Size of Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984) has strong support among researchers. Consider that John Hattie’s meta-analyses results include reciprocal teaching as a high-impact strategy. Its effect size of .79 means that it can advance student achievement almost two years growth for one year of school. (You can learn more about Hattie’s research in these blogs or join TCEA’s empowerED program and receive inexpensive professional development on his strategies.)

rivet

 

What Is Reciprocal Teaching?

This tried-and-true technique works especially well with second language learners. Under the tutelage of Mark Gabehart (Round Rock ISD CTO), I discovered this first-hand working with bilingual/ESL students in urban school settings. Reciprocal teaching includes a cycle of predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. The video below illustrates the reciprocal teaching cycle:

Through the use of statement stems, students are able to learn critical processes. For example, for Predictor, students think about what they have read. Then they predict what will happen next. Assisting students in understanding how to predict is key. For questioning, students can use sentence stems such as “I wonder…” or the five Ws to unearth ideas and information.  You can see some sentence stems via this reciprocal teaching Pinterest board. Explore the Wakelet embedded below:

rivet

View Wakelet on Reciprocal Teaching

Why Is Reciprocal Teaching Needed?

If your students face any or all of the following obstacles (adapted from ASCD Publication: Lori D. Oczkus’ Reciprocal Teaching At Work),  reciprocal teaching may be what’s needed.

  • Students don’t remember what they read, even when they can decode text
  • Little to no engagement with reading material
  • Students read at two or more years below grade level
  • Informational text (non-fiction) is difficult to understand
  • Challenging words are difficult to decipher
  • Students may be unable to describe the difference between main idea and supporting details

As a result of reciprocal teaching technique’s effectiveness for over thirty years, it is worth adopting. The National Behaviour Support Service offers this visual which may assist you:

Reciprocal Teaching Outside the Classroom

We imagine that RT may be for classroom use only, but that’s not true. We can encourage its use outside of the classroom by helping students to become teachers. “The act of teaching activates more regions of the brain,” says Dr. Lou Whitaker. Another approach could involve students modeling the RT cycle. They use this high impact reading strategy with Flipgrid, as you can see below.

Another may involve recording a video and then using EdPuzzle.com to empower students. These students create a video with questions interspersed throughout.

How could students use this with new reading apps, such as Google’s Kid Space and other amazing reading apps?

:video

Exploring Five, Incredible Reading Apps

One of the challenges students face is access to common text. Now, with these reading apps, students can access common content and can apply reciprocal teaching strategies to that text. Having apps you can share with students that feature common content is a win for both teachers and students.

While most educators may rely on Epic! books as their common text, don’t forget about other great sources of reading material online. You can find a comprehensive list in this TCEA TechNotes blog entry, Digital Stories for Remote Learners.

This blog entry was updated on 6/29/2021 with new content.

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ChromebooksGoogle Tips and Tricks

Avoid Hormone Addiction with a Tab Manager

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

About two minutes after I start working on a project, I end up with a million browser tabs open. It’s gotten so bad that I have to open up extra browser windows and drag them to a second screen to have more tabs open. Have you experienced this challenge? If so, here are a few ways to solve the too-many-tabs problem. What’s more important, it will ease your hormone addiction. No, really.

Are Tabs a Sign of Hormone Addiction?

Did you know your brain releases dopamine as you jump from tab to tab? The more tabs, the more the “feel-good” hormone shows up. Who knew you could get a kick from open browser tabs? Opening tabs, jumping from one to another, gives you a pleasurable feeling. You aren’t being productive, but you might feel as good as if you were. You’re a dopamine demon, a feel-good fanatic, a tab troll.

Want to take the first step and avoid dopamine addiction? Use a tab manager. Before I share the list of tab managers that will save you from the risk of dopamine addiction, you should know this:

Chrome splits every tab, plugin, and extension into its own process. If one thing crashes, it doesn’t bring down the whole web page, or all your tabs at once. This can lead to higher memory (aka RAM) usage, since it has to duplicate some tasks for every tab. (Source: Lifehacker)

Open too many tabs and you will experience what happened to me. Your browser will crash. Yes, you may get some tabs back when you re-open your browser, but maybe not all. Are you a Firefox user like me? You’ll experience similar issues with this browser as well.
tab manager

Image Source: OneTab

The Benefits of Tab Managers

Here’s a quick list of the features of tab managers, with the first one a big one for educators: making a backup of your tabs so you can get back to work. How many times have you come to the end of a work session and realized you didn’t want to close your browser? When you want to avoid closing your laptop lid and fear losing browser tabs, how do you save those?

Benefits of tab managers include the following:

  • Save your tabs to Google Drive or some other online space. This makes it easy to put a project on hold until later.
  • End tab tyranny. This happens when you have so many tabs open that you can’t find which one you are looking for. After all, you shouldn’t be using a second large screen to meet your dopamine addiction. Collapse all those tabs into one.
  • Avoid apocalyptic browser crashes. Too many tabs can result in a browser crash. Save your device’s system resources by merging all those tabs into one and putting tabs into hibernation.
  • Skip accidental tab closures. When you have too many tabs open, you may click the wrong “x” in the corner of a tab. Wham, there goes your unsaved tab. Safeguard those tabs.
  • Recover closed tabs. Did you close a tab and it’s gone? Some tab managers let you re-open those closed tabs.

Five Helpful Tab Managers

Ready for my top five list? Each of these works in either Chrome or Firefox, and they have helped me manage my feel-good hormone addiction — and prevented my browser from crashing.
  • TooMany Tabs: This colorful tab manager makes it easy to hibernate open tabs. Be careful, though: Tabs with data will be lost. Use TooMany Tabs with static pages where you aren’t working on an open document that is not auto-saved. You can see a list of recently closed tabs and re-open them. TooManyTabs makes backing up your tabs to Google Drive easy and cost-free.
  • OneTab: This Chrome and Firefox-friendly solution puts all of your tabs into a list on a single page. It takes the immediate step of saving your browser system resources. It’s a bit of a feel-good downer, though. Why? It collapses all tabs into one. On the positive side, it makes it easy to export and re-organize your tabs via drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Tree Style Tabs: These tab managers push your tabs to the left side of the screen, as well as offer tab stasis. My favorite for Firefox is Tree-Tab manager. In Chrome-based browsers, Sidewise Tree-Style Tabs is a good option.
  • Tabs Outliner: Like other tab managers, you can drag and drop to organize and save your tabs. You can also annotate tabs, assign new names, and more. The entire list with notes can be exported to Google Docs, MS Word, or HTML It offers tree-style tabs, too. This versatile tab manager makes opening and closing tabs a single-click solution. Paid users can auto-save their tabs to Google Drive.

Get started now with one of these solutions and save yourself from dopamine addiction.

Did You Know?

Microsoft Edge is making the transition to being a Chromium-based rendering engine. What this means is that long-time Chrome users can now get this new Chromium-based engine version of Microsoft Edge. Sync your browser bookmarks using your Microsoft account and run Chrome Web Store extensions in MS Edge browser. Get the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge online now. It works great!

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TCEA Responds: Move That G Suite Data

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Dear TCEA Responds:

Does someone have a document they share with students and staff that are leaving the district in regards to their Google accounts? I’m looking for something that explains how to transfer ownership (whether through sharing or Google Takeout). Thanks in advance!

-Ron

Dear Ron:

Getting ready to move on, but not sure how to take all that Google Drive goodness with you? Maybe you want to move those emails out. Stay tuned since this blog entry will cover tips and techniques for getting your work data, email, and stored files into a personal Google account. Let’s start with the hardest item first, Gmail.

Ridding Yourself of Detritus

The first thing you need to do is ensure you aren’t grabbing confidential, student data, or sensitive information. These are bits and bytes you do not want subject to open records requests. Make sure to delete those items with personally identifiable information (PII) about staff or students. Did you subscribe to JC Penny’s or Macy’s sales with your work email account? Get rid of those messages. Maybe your Google Drive is full of content shared with you? Time to clean that up.

Clearing Your Inbox and Archived Mail

Next, you will need to run some searches and remove emails with attachments (use the has:attachments search to find those). Get rid of unwanted calendar invites (search: “Invitation:” or “Updated Invitation” or “Canceled”). Eliminate any shared document invitations, too. Search on “drive-shares-noreply@google.com” to find and then delete them. Are you a member of any Google Groups? Do you really need all those emails? Throw those out. Remove your labels and message filters. You can do that one by one on the left-hand side of the screen or go into Settings to remove them in bulk.

One last tip for essential emails: Create a folder/label with all the messages you want to keep. Taking these steps ensures you have eliminated all the detritus.

Tips for Emptying Your Google Drive

This next tip requires you to be ruthless. Over time, your Google Drive has gathered a lot of junk. What you need to do is decide what is worth keeping and what needs to be done away with (think “Does it bring me joy?”. Create three folders you can drag-and-drop content into. Here are the three folders:

  • Keep folder. This folder is where you house all your worthwhile content that you want to save.
  • My Shared Items folder.  This is for items that you have created, but others depend on. This includes Google Forms and the Sheets where responses are saved. If there is something you need to keep (a select form or response sheet), make a copy of it and then drag it over to the Keep folder.
  • Other folder. Put anything you don’t want to keep in this folder.

Now that you are done, you have several options to get backups of your G Suite data, including your email and  Google Drive. One easy way to clean it out before sorting is to use the Google Drive Cleaner. It will go through your Drive and remove any duplicate files you may have. Read more about this process.

Preparation’s Over, Work Begins

Now that you have your essential emails and files in Drive, and little else, you are ready to back them up. The old Google Takeout makes it easy to save all your Google content as files you can save on your computer or a USB external flash drive.  The main benefit is that it lets you get copies of much more than Drive and Gmail. You can get Google Photos, Google Sites, Blogger posts, etc.

While it works well, you are going to need a program like MS Office 365 to open the files. You may want to rely on a free, open source solution (FOSS) solution like LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or NeoOffice. All of these work on Windows, Mac, or GNU/Linux operating systems, but not Chromebook.

Recommendation: Use Google Takeout Transfer on any device with a web browser to back up your email and Google Drive from G Suite EDU to your personal Google email and Drive.

If you need a solution for Chromebooks, give Google Takeout Transfer a try. If it’s not been locked up as an option, you can use this easy option. It copies all the email and files you own. When you set this up, you will be able to copy content from your school account to a personal Gmail account. Before you see the screen below, you will be asked to verify your personal Gmail account. Make sure that you have sufficient space to house all your school content.

takeout

Once you have started the copy, you will get an email letting you know the process will take a week or so.

takeout

Google creates in your email folders/labels a special folder with the date and time. The folder name is “Moved.” Don’t worry, the original copy remains in your school inbox. After the content arrives in your inbox, you will see a new folder or label like the one shown below:

You will see a copy of your email in the box. Once you have the emails in your inbox, you can move them to whatever other folder or label you want them to be in (e.g. “School”). Since you can run this process daily, you can clean out your inbox with the same frequency.

For Google Drive, you will see something similar. Depending on the quantity and type of files, the process can take longer. An approach you can use instead of Google Takeout to copy files from school/work G Suite Drive to personal Google Drive is Copy Folder for Google Drive. This is a web-based script that makes it easy to copy Drive content from G Suite EDU to your personal Google Drive. Use Joseph Wood’s tutorial for Copy Folder to get started.

Move That G Suite Data

Using Google Takeout’s Transfer option, you can copy email and Drive content from work to your personal account. You can use additional web-based scripts to clean out your Drive or Copy Folders from one drive to another. Need more on the subject? Try this Google Help page.

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Google Slides and Gmail Get Updates

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin
Amazing updates recently announced will transform how you work with two popular G Suites apps, Slides and Gmail. Let’s take a look at my favorite tool Slides to see some popular ways to record audio. One of the challenges is how to record audio and save it to Google Drive. In this blog entry, we’ll explore those approaches, as well as take a quick peek at Gmail’s upgraded features.

Inserting Audio into Slides

One of my most desired features for Google Slides has been the ability to embed audio. Google’s blog announced it:
We have listened to your requests and are adding audio files as additional media types in Slides. We know that adding audio clips can bring your presentations to the next level.
If you look now (early April 2019), you may not see the option to Insert->Audio into a Slide. That’s because the rollout will not become visible until later this month (before April 18).
According to what was written, you will soon be able to insert WAV or MP3 audio files into a slide. Follow these instructions taken from the Google Help page:
  • On your computer, open a presentation in Google Slides.
  • Select the slide that you want to add the audio file to.
  • Click Insert  Audio.
  • Choose an audio file and click select.

Recording Audio on Your Phone to Drive

Since you can insert audio files (MP3 or WAV) into Slides from Google Drive, how could you record and save to Drive? Here are two approaches using free apps for iOS and Android devices. In fact, I’ve used the Android app on Android-capable Chromebooks like the one I’m writing on to record.

iOS App Audio Recorder

On iOS, get the Voice Record Plus app. It’s a free app that allows you to save audio recordings in WAV or MP3 straight to Drive. As their website reports:
Voice Record Pro is a professional voice recorder. It allows you to record voice memos and on-site sounds. Recordings are at unlimited length with configurable quality. Voice Record Pro can record in…MP3 (MPEG) and WAV formats (source).
Here’s a video tutorial from YouTube on how to record audio on Voice Record app and then save to Google Drive.

Android App Audio Recorder

On Android, there are many apps titled Audio Recorder, so you will want to get this free Audio Recorder app from Axet. This app makes it easy to record to various audio formats, such as OGG, WAV, M4A, and MP3.
Of the many formats available, MP3 and WAV are the two compatible with Google Slides. After recording, you can save the audio file in MP3 or WAV format to your favorite Google Drive folder. An added benefit of the Android app linked above is that it will work on Chromebooks that can run Android apps as shown below.
You are able to save audio recordings to your Files on your Chromebook and then place them on Google Drive.

Recent Gmail Upgrades

Need “quick access to a range of help and support content?” Then Gmail, along with other apps, will soon enjoy a new support button next to the search bar at the top of Gmail. You may have missed Smart Compose and one more update.
Smart Compose uses “machine learning to interactively offer sentence completion suggestions as you type, allowing you to draft emails faster. Building upon technology developed for Smart Reply, Smart Compose offers a new way to help you compose messages — whether you are responding to an incoming email or drafting a new one from scratch (source).”
An additional update you may find useful (I do!) is the “Write now, Send Later” option. This makes it easy for you to compose an email at 1:00 am in the morning, and, rather than send out the email at that early hour, schedule your email for an 8:00 am delivery.
Google often updates its apps. Keeping up with those updates may seem a Sisyphean task, but these updates can enhance your productivity and provide additional ways for your students to showcase their learning. Take advantage of them!
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Get Idea Sparks with the New Chromebook App Hub

by Diana Benner
written by Diana Benner

At SXSWedu 2019, Google announced the new Chromebook App Hub, an online resource to help educators learn about Chrome apps and find activities for the classroom.  There are many Chrome apps that are available, but knowing how to use them in the classroom is vital. The new App Hub will help with this.

The App Hub will contain idea sparks, which are ideas from fellow educators on how to use specific apps in the classroom. Also included in the App Hub will be tips for successfully using the app in the classroom, differentiated instructional strategies, as well as links to additional resources, like videos and links to websites.

Our board President, Dr. Roland Rios (@drrios) helped give early feedback on the App Hub. According to Dr. Rios, the new App Hub is just what educators need. He feels it will be a place to find new tools to engage students and connect teachers who are using the tools and provide lesson ideas. In addition, it will help districts align information in the App Hub to their local resources and bring more transparency in their usage for districts.

The Chromebook App Hub will be available later this year. Until then, educators can express interest in submitting idea sparks. In addition, you can sign up to get notified when it becomes available.

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Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“I’m working with a few schools. They only wish to send password protected files. The files will go outside their organization,” says John M., a Google Certified Trainer*. “From a Windows machine, that’s fine. But we’ve moved to a Chromebooks-only environment. How do you add a password to exported files, like DOCx or PDF, that get sent via email?” In this blog entry, we’ll explore several no-cost (free) options for protecting file attachments. Ready to take a closer look at the problem and possible solutions?

The Problem

In organizations with Chromebooks only, how do you encrypt files? On a Chromebook, you can’t run traditional programs available on Windows or Mac. This means you have to find web-based solutions to share files and encrypt. For schools and organizations in Europe, John points out GDPR is a concern. Before we go into possible solutions, let’s review what GDPR is.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new legislation. It  applies to all companies who collect, store, and process any data. While focused on data belonging to European Union citizens, it has wider effects since GDPR applies to all companies across the world. This means that it affects Americans, as well as EU citizens. GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018 (source: video). American companies must comply, even if enforcement in the United States remains unclear.

Exploring Solutions

How do you safeguard sensitive information in a G Suite EDU environment? How do you add password protection to a file and send it via email in Chrome OS? To organize solutions, you first have to ask yourself a few questions:

  • Do I need to protect the content of the email itself?
  • Do I need to protect the file attachment?

Let’s look at a few tools you can use.

Protecting Email Message Text

If you need a solution to protect email content, the actual body of the message, use one of the following. Each offers AES-256 level encryption.

g suite encrypt

One solution to explore is Paranoia Works Text Encryption Tool PTE). It is a browser-based tool that makes it easy to encrypt an email’s message text. The interface works in an simple way and safeguards the content with encrypted text. It offers these steps:

Encryption:
1. Set a password.
2. Write or paste a text into the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).
3. Press the Encrypt button.
4. An encrypted text will appear in the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
5. Copy the encrypted text and use it however/wherever you want.

Decryption:
1. Set a password
2. Write or paste an encrypted text into the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
3. Press the Decrypt button.
4. A decrypted text will appear in the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).

For Chromebooks that can run Android apps, you might want to get the app. The app is Secret Space Encryptor for Android (shown below) via the Google Play Store. See the online tutorial.

An alternative text encryption tool you can use is FourmiLab’s browser tool. This latter tool provides a streamlined view (shown below) without documentation.

g suite encrypt

Your organization should standardize on either PTE or FourmiLab’s solution. Save either tool to the Chromebook for local use, even when not online. What’s more, you can use these within Google Docs, too. That is, you can choose to encrypt the text in a Google Doc, but you will have to copy and paste the content in and out of a Google Doc.

The main benefit of these tools is that they are free, no cost options.

Protecting Email File Attachments

John’s original question focused on files exported from G Suite. This could include DOCx, PNGs, JPGs, PDFs, PPTx, and many other formats. G Suite for Education provides for several via the SAVE AS option.  If you want to protect these files in transit via email to external parties, how can you do that? How do you encrypt them so that only the recipient, to whom you’ve provided the password, will be able to see them?

g suite encrypt

One web-based tool you can use includes FileLock.org. This works in a similar way to PTE and FourmiLab. You access a website, select a file on your Chromebook (e.g. DOCx you’ve saved from a Google Doc), and then encrypt it. Then you attach the encrypted file to your Gmail message (as shown below).

g suite encrypt

Note: Be sure to use secure passwords for encrypting text or files. You can use any variety of online tools to create unbreakable passwords. Password Generator, LastPass Password Generator, GRC Generator, or Packetizer will work fine.

Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

As you may imagine, there are a host of commercial solutions you can use to safeguard G Suite files. Both Boxcryptor and Cryptomator offer enterprise level solutions at different prices. You can also take the added step of preventing the sharing of confidential information. The main benefit of the solutions offered here is that they are free, open source, and available at no cost. Combine them with an organizational procedure to support effective use.

*Question adapted with minor readability edits from one posed to Google Certified Trainers (GCT) Google group.

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Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“A high percentage of learners with Dyslexia are complaining about the white background in the new look Google Classroom – is there any way this can be changed?” asks United Kingdom educator, Scott H. There are several ways to “dim” the brightness of a screen and to protect your eyes. How do you accomplish this? You use a Chrome extension.

An example of “Care Your Eyes” extension effects applied to your Chrome browser

Why Adjust the White Background?

“Dyslexia is a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or accuracy in being able to read, write, and spell,” says Anthony (Source).  Anthony points out that putting black text on a white background, or white text on a black background can result in a “blur” effect.  He puts it this way:

Another kind of visual distortion effect that can occur among dyslexic users is the blur effect [1]. This is when dyslexic readers see their text blurring or swirling or together [5]. This can significantly affect a dyslexic user’s reading ability, and make reading tiring for them [7]. You can lessen this effect by avoiding a couple of bad practices.

Contrast sensitivity comes into play, as you can see in the image below:

Read more about contrast sensitivity

To avoid the blur effect that comes from a white background on a website like Google Classroom, you have several options to minimize the impact on dyslexic students. Let’s review them.

Option #1 – Use Care Your Eyes

The Care Your Eyes Chrome browser extension, available for free,  allows for several options.  You can see them in the screenshot below:

You have the choice to “Disable at this site,” which turns it off for certain websites. That means, that you could enable Care Your Eyes for Google Classroom but leave Care Your Eyes extension off for others.

Option #2 – Visor

Visor describes itself as a “screen dimmer and reading aid.” It suggests that the extension may help with fluency and eye-strain. What’s more, during reading, Visor improves concentration and comprehension. Per its website:

Visor’s overlays and point of focus feature may be assistive to users with visual perceptual difficulties such as Dyslexia, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and Visual Stress. Whilst research shows results vary from person to person, some users may find that the use of overlays can help with fluency, eye-strain, concentration and comprehension whilst reading.

The options it has appear as a simple slider color scale:

The focus feature reminds me of OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which has a similar feature. You can see Visor’s in action below, focusing the reader on a line of content:

As you can see, a line of content appears in normal colors while the rest of the visible screen is dimmed. You can see OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which works just fine in the Chrome browser with content in a OneNote notebook, below:

The only reason I share OneNote’s Immersive Reader is that it is the gold standard for accessibility right now. Watch this video to learn more.Read this blog entry for updates announced January, 2019.

Option #3 – Eye Protection

Boasting similar features as Care Your Eyes and Visor, Eye Protection makes it a simple affair to replace the white background that leads to blur effect. You can see the options available via its Chrome extension drop-down:

And this is what a web page looks like. The light green color fills the white space of the background.

Option #4 – High Contrast

Like the other solutions, the High Contrast Chrome extension makes it a simple matter to “invert the color scheme to make web pages easier to read.” All that is black becomes white, and white becomes black. Only photos are not inverted. You can see the options available:

Here’s what a web page looks like with High Contrast enabled:

 

Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

You don’t have to be dyslexic to seek to minimize brightness and improve readability on websites. These Chrome extensions should provide you with some options.

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Five Hacks for Google Slides

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“What’s my favorite G Suite for Education tool?” asked a Google Educator Level 1 session participant. “Google Slides. You can do so much with it!” said another. Slides offers many exciting features that make it a versatile assistant for educators. In this blog entry,  let’s take a look at five Google Slides hacks you may find useful. These may deepen your appreciation for Google Slides and increase your productivity.

Note: Curious about what else TCEA bloggers have shared about Google Slides? Explore this rich collection of suggestions, handy tips, and more.

Jumpin’ Jack Slides

“I’m so tired, today felt like being stuck in a crossfire hurricane,” said a friend. At the time, I missed the reference. Classrooms can be tumultuous. The right slide deck can dazzle, amaze, and engage learners of any age. Many agree that a potent message is key. The TED Talks blog lists ten tips worth reviewing. The fifth tip from that list provides our first hack.

Hack #1 – Enhance with Pictures

“Use photos that enhance meaning,” says Aaron Weyenberg (Director,  TED). That seems obvious, right? Aaron encourages us to focus on message first, then to select images that enhance. When I create my Google Slides, I find myself crafting my message and looking for images at the same time. Aaron’s more measured approach involves finding images AFTER the message.

Let’s say that you have gathered your images into a folder. Now you have ahead of you the repetitive task of inserting those images and adding words. What if there was an easier way?

Matt Miller and Alice Keeler suggest there is. Use the Drive Slides Chrome extension. This extension makes it easy to create a Google Slides presentation. Here’s how:

  1. Store images for an upcoming presentation in your Google Drive folder in JPG, PNG, or GIF format.
  2. Open your images folder in Google Drive.
  3. Click the DriveSlides icon. You will see several prompts to click through (most about permissions).
  4. DriveSlides will create a Google Slides slidedeck, inserting your images for you.
  5. Customize your Slides slide deck theme, shuffling slides with pre-loaded images around.

One observation I made while DriveSlides worked: I had named each image (e.g. Slide 1, Slide 2) with a vague hope. The hope was that DriveSlides would place the images in the order I wanted. That’s not the way it worked. The image placement on slides appeared random. One of the creators (Alice Keeler and Matt Miller) of Drive Slides has made a video walkthrough. Check it out.

Hack #2 – Use Speaker Notes

“Why don’t you attend Dale Carnegie’s public speaking workshop?” suggested my dad. He had seen my last presentation, one where I felt compelled to read from my notes. A short time later, at seventeen, I put Dale Carnegie’s presentation strategies to work. With those strategies in mind, I thought I had to present without notes. Of course, I was wrong. In time, I learned to rely on slide notes. You can, too.

When presenting now, I use a combination of engaging images that trigger my memory. Slide notes assist me when trying to remember key facts, research, and details. Use slide notes in Google Slides to assist your memory.

Take advantage of a few Chrome extensions to enrich the Slide Notes experience. For example:

  • SlideSpeech: It converts your slide notes into audio narration for each of the slides. This narrated slide show is available for viewing via the SlideSpeech mobile apps.
  • Auto Resize Speaker Notes: Allows you to resize the slide previews. To do this, resize the Speaker Notes or selec a size via the sidebar. See the effect of auto resize in the image below.

slides hacks

Explore how you can use speaker notes to provide instructions to students.

Hack #3 – Type with Your Voice

Did you know you can dictate text into Slides’ speaker notes section? This could be a time saver for you rather than typing up everything you know.

slides hacks

To do this, follow these simple instructions for English dictation:

  • Turn on your microphone.
  • Use voice typing (Go to Tools then select Voice type speaker notes).
  • Use voice commands to edit and format your text.

Adding speaker notes has never been easier. Give it a try!

Hack #4 – Create a Hyperlinked Slide Deck

Did you know you could create a hyperlinked slideshow? This is a slideshow for which you have created some form of navigation. Navigation might appear as a table of contents that you click on to jump around the slide deck.

Eric Curts (@ericcurts), Control-Alt-Achieve Blog, shares a rich variety of examples. You can find my curated list online. Want some different examples? Check out Rex Threatt’s interactive worksheets video tutorial.

Hoping for a classroom application? Aside from choose your own adventure or interactive worksheets, consider the use of hyperlinked slides as an easy way to create self-guided presentations a la hyperdocs. Find more ideas.

Hack #5 – Add Audio to Your Slides

One of my favorite PowerPoint features enables me to insert audio recordings. In Google Slides, the only way to put audio in was to insert a YouTube video.

With the Audio Player for Slides, you can insert audio per slide. As you can see from the screen shots below, you can add audio to each slide. Put your audio files in MP3 format in Google Drive.

A quick classroom application? Ask students to add audio reflections that explain a slide; this can boost classroom learning.

Five Hacks for Google Slides

These Google Slides hacks depend on a few Chrome extensions. Give these a try to make how you use Google Slides more engaging. And, since you’ve stuck this long with this blog entry, why don’t you give the Insert icons for Slides add-on a try? You get 1800+ free icons you can use in Google Slides.

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Google Canvas
ChromebooksGood TeachingGoogle Tips and Tricks

Drawing for Learning with Google Canvas

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Artistic editors and apps abound online, but have you taken a look at Google Canvas? In a stylus-powered classroom, this simple tool provides students lots of options. Use them to get started with online drawing. Before we explore its features, let’s revisit why drawing can be so important.

google canvas

Read the explanation for this model. Image Source: Quillin, K., & Thomas, S. (2015). Drawing-to-learn: a framework for using drawings to promote model-based reasoning in biology. CBE life sciences education, 14(1), es2.

Research on Drawing in the Classroom

Growing up, the entirety of my education focused on the written word. I filled many black composition notebooks with words upon words. It wasn’t until high school that I started to doodle and draw. According to Dr. Ari Chand, “drawing plays a big role in our cognitive development.” Dr. Chand goes on to say:

  • Drawing helps us learn to write and think in creative ways.
  • It helps us develop hand-eye coordination and hone analytic skills.
  • Drawing facilitates the conceptualization of ideas.

Images are more accessible than academic discourse. They enable learners to capture concepts difficult to convey in words. Drawing makes communicating in a more holistic way possible as sketches can tease out stories or questions. They yield a fresh perspective (source: Drawing Information in the Classroom).

From STEM disciplines to surgeons to service areas, drawing makes a difference (source). Why don’t we focus less on abstract representation models and rely more on drawing? As we transition from paper to digital formats, will drawing become a lost art?

Drawing in the Browser

Creating flowcharts is easy in the G Suite for Education. You can rely on built-in tools (Insert Drawing) that are available in the Chrome browser. You can use Lucidchart, Draw.io (my favorite), and find even more in the G Suite Marketplace.

“Wait, wait,” you say. “We are talking about drawing and sketching, not flowcharting.” Of course, you are right.

Web Paint

Web Paint

Here’s a roundup of existing Chrome add-ons for drawing and painting:

  • Web Paint: An easy to use drawing tool (see toolbar above). You can draw shapes and lines and add text to live web pages. When finished, snapshot it and save the image. Learn more about it.
  • Sketchpad: A feature-rich, multi-lingual drawing and sketching environment. You visit a website and are able to do quite a bit. The toolbar includes many tools including the tile brush, pencil, sketchy, arrow, crayon, and stamp. You will find spraypaint, fur, web, spirograph and more, too. There is age-appropriate clip art available or you can load your own image.
  • Sumopaint: Well known, Sumopaint offers filters, painting tools, and image manipulation. It features over 300 brushes, many shape tools, and an offline Pro version.

In December, 2018 Google added a new tool to the mix.

Re-creation of a Famous Story in Google Canvas

Drawing the Classroom with Google Canvas

Have you given Google Canvas a try yet? Some of Canvas’ main features include:

  • Saving drawings to Google Drive
  • Use of tools such as pencil, inkpen, marker, and chalk
  • The ability to vary width and opacity of strokes
  • Select from any hex color (use Palette to figure out the right color)
  • Import and draw on any image
  • Undo/Redo (important for the drawing challenged like me)
  • The ability to export images you create

Ready to give it a try? Go to canvas.apps.chrome to get started.

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