Weekly Tech Tips and News for March 10, 2017

There is a lot of information for every grade level this week. Now that Google Keep has been included in the G Suite apps, there are a few suggestions on how to use it. I can tell you I personally use it to bookmark web sites and give them labels so I can easily find them again by topic. I also use a shared Keep checklist with my husband for our grocery list. He is not very technology comfortable, but even he uses it on his phone! Keep makes my shopping list easier because I can reuse previously checked off items and quickly rearrange this list in the order items appear in the store. I've even taken photos of presentation boards and converted them to notes in Keep, and now can pull them into Docs as well. There are so many ways you and your students can use Keep, both at school and in your personal lives. In addition to Keep tips, there are several other tips for your consideration that can save you time, help communications, and activities to use with your students.

• Using Google Keep for Grading Comments in Docs
• The G Suite Show:  Update Your To-Dos with Keep
• 5 Neat Things Students Can Do With Google Drawings
• Customized Email Newsletters for Every Kid with Google Forms
• How to Use Speaker Notes in Google Slides
• How to Automatically Alternate Row (or Column) Colors in Google Sheets
• "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" Sorting with Google Slides
• Find Fun Math Challenges on Would You Rather
• 5 Great Online News Sources for Kids

Using Google Keep for Grading Comments in Docs

Using Google Keep for Grading Comments in Docs, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
Create a list of often used comments to use when grading student work in Google Docs, or maybe you already have a list? Now that Keep has been integrated with Docs, put your comments in Keep, and pull it up in a panel in Docs, and copy and paste the ones you need. There's a short tutorial in the linked article.

The G Suite Show:  Update Your To-Dos with Keep

With Google Keep's recent inclusion in the core G Suite products there seems to be no end to the tutorials. This short and sweet video sums up most of the Keep features. Use it to organize bookmarks, keep list, take spoken notes on the fly, etc.

5 Neat Things Students Can Do With Google Drawings

5 Neat Things Students Can Do With Google Drawings, from Practical Ed Tech by Richard Byrne
Google Drawings is one of those overlooked G Suite apps that many don't know how to use. Here are five common tasks that can be easily accomplished in Drawings:  image cropping, image filtering, image labeling and commenting, word art and charts/graphs. The blog post also includes an instructional video.

Customized Email Newsletters for Every Kid with Google Forms

Customized Email Newsletters for Every Kid with Google Forms, from Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller
Aside from the initial set up, which doesn't take that long, sending personalized newsletters, with information specific to each student, won't take much longer than a generic newsletter. I have used Autocrat and can easily help you with setting it up. You can either use Forms or Sheets to enter the personalized info. Think of the impact this would make on your students' parents with very little effort on your part. Please let me know if you'd like help setting this up.

How to Use Speaker Notes in Google Slides

How to Use Speaker Notes in Google Slides, from BetterCloud Monitor
Speaker notes hold all the details for each slide, which the presenter can see, but the audience cannot. You can view speaker notes when giving your presentation, while the audience sees only the slides. This is a great way to make sure you don't miss any details.

How to Automatically Alternate Row (or Column) Colors in Google Sheets

How to Automatically Alternate Row (or Column) Colors in Google Sheets, by BetterCloud Monitor
This is a tip I wish I'd found much sooner. We all know it's much easier to read a spreadsheet when every other row or column is shaded or colored. Here is an easy way to accomplish that in Sheets using conditional formatting.

"One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" Sorting with Google Slides

"One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" Sorting with Google Slides, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
Not only is this a good activity for our younger students, it also fits in with March is Reading Month, Dr. Seuss's birthday last week, and the fish I've seen displayed in the K-1 hallway at the elementary. Get the free template in the linked blog post to recreate this sorting activity, using a graphic organizer in Google Slides.

Find Fun Math Challenges on Would You Rather

Find Fun Math Challenges on Would You Rather, from Practical Ed Tech by Richard Byrne
Would You Rather is a site that shares quick and fun math challenges for students.

5 Great Online News Sources for Kids

Common Sense Media presents this list of news resources for kids.