Weekly Tech Tips and News for August 11, 2017

Photo courtesy of laura271GSD via Flickr.com

We are in the dog days of summer...or are we? If you've ever wondered where that phrase came from, here's the explanation from National Geographic. While we still have a few more weeks of summer, it seems that once the calendar hits August, everyone employed by a school starting at the end of August hits panic mode, or at least kick-it-in-gear mode. Suddenly that endless summer becomes very finite! Today's post has lots of ideas to help you keep your head above water this school year, as well as an advisory video about internet scams, and advice for safely taking photos of the upcoming solar eclipse.

• Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate
• 5 Classroom Management Apps to Start Your Year With
• Google Classroom Tutorials
• Alternatives to YouTube's Video Editor -  It's Going Away
• Student Use of Adobe Spark - Your Questions Answered
• The Most Common Internet Scams! Watch Out!
• Give Your Traditional Syllabus a Needed Makeover!
• How to Take Photos of a Solar Eclipse Safely

Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate

Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
If you've not yet considered using Google Classroom when your students use the Chromebooks, do yourself a favor and look into it. It makes getting students on the same site, distributing and collecting their work so much easier. Just point them to your classroom and everyone's on the same page. The updates included in this video include viewing student work either by assignment or student, displaying the class code in full screen for students to join, and now you can rearrange the order in which your classrooms appear. Other updates not highlighted in this post include being able to transfer your classes to another teacher, as well as the ability to use decimal points when grading.

5 Classroom Management Apps to Start Your Year With

Bouncyballs.org is a fun way to manage classroom noise levels.

5 Classroom Management Apps to Start Your Year With, from Stephen Mosley
Looking for a fresh way to manage your class this year? Here are 5 tech tools that can help you out.

Google Classroom Tutorials

If you've been wondering what the fuss over Google Classroom is about - here are two quick videos to get you started. Classroom does all the heavy lifting for you. It creates folders for you classes, makes copies of files for your students, takes care of all the pesky permissions, and makes assigning work and the feedback much easier.

Setting Up Google Classroom

How to Assign and Grade Work in Google Classroom

Alternatives to YouTube's Video Editor -  It's Going Away

Alternatives to YouTube's Video Editor -  It's Going Away, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
I'm thankful for this clarification. Many of the features we use to edit our videos in YouTube are not going away, such as trim, blur and filter. But other important features like the Photo Slideshow, combining multiple video clips, and adding music are. In this post, Richard makes suggestions for replacing those features.

Student Use of Adobe Spark - Your Questions Answered

Student Use of Adobe Spark - Your Questions Answered, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
Adobe Spark is a great tool to use for video editing with Chromebooks. Not only does this post show you how to use Adobe Spark, and combine clips, it also answers the questions about how students under the age of 13 can legally use it. They are able to sign in with their Google account.

The Most Common Internet Scams! Watch Out!

Give Your Traditional Syllabus a Needed Makeover!

Give Your Traditional Syllabus a Needed Makeover! from Tech & Learning by Shelly Terrell
There are several ideas in this post for making your syllabus more eye-catching, or even interactive for students. Create an infographic, game, hyperdoc, scavenger hunt, and more.

How to Take Photos of a Solar Eclipse Safely

How to Take Photos of a Solar Eclipse Safely, from How-To Geek by Harry Guinness
In a follow up of last week's post, How To Safely Observe the Upcoming Solar Eclipse, the next logical question is how to take pictures of the eclipse. Don't just point your phone or camera at the sun and shoot.