Weekly Tech Tips and News for November 17, 2017

Photo from Church Iglesia via Flickr

There will be no post next week, due to the short Thanksgiving week. I'll take a moment now to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully you will be able to spend some quality time with your family, and find many reasons to be thankful. Maybe you'll find some tips to be thankful for in this post - or answers to questions. Have you ever wondered why you have to wait for your computer to go through the whole shut down process? Perhaps you've been looking for ways to make it easier for your younger students, or students who struggle with keyboarding, to more easily type in their assignments? Are you looking for a way to make it easier for you or your students to manage larger projects and keep track of people and resources? With Thanksgiving coming up, are you interested in a way to incorporate that theme into your lessons? Are you just looking for ideas to make your lessons more fun? Read on!

• What Happens if You Don't Shut Down Your Computer Properly?
• EDU in 90:  Google Keep in the Classroom
• Using Google Voice Typing in Docs with Elementary Students
• 5 Ways to Use Comic Creation in Elementary School Classrooms
• Multiple Correct Answers in Google Forms Quizzes
• Interactive Learning Menus (Choice Boards) with G Suite
• Kanbanchi Project Management Tool
• Search and Find Educational Games on Classtools.net
• New Challenges and Thanksgiving Collection from Kahoot!

What Happens if You Don't Shut Down Your Computer Properly?

Spend 4 minutes finding out why it's important to shut down properly - disregard the commercial at the end.

EDU in 90:  Google Keep in the Classroom 

Using Google Voice Typing in Docs with Elementary Students

Using Google Voice Typing in Docs with Elementary Students, from Teaching Little Techies by Robin Limpert
Do your students get frustrated when typing in their thoughts or stories? Perhaps you have students with special needs? Introduce Google's Voice Typing tool to help them until their keyboarding skills improve.

5 Ways to Use Comic Creation in Elementary School Classrooms

5 Ways to Use Comic Creation in Elementary School Classrooms, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne with guest post by Stephanie Krisulevicz
Kids love comics - both reading them and creating them. Why not infuse some fun into your lessons to keep them engaged. There are suggestions for using them in just about every subject.

Multiple Correct Answers in Google Forms Quizzes

Multiple Correct Answers in Google Forms Quizzes, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
This is a wonderful enhancement to Google Forms Quizzes. The ability to automatically grade short answer quesitons, and allow for more than one correct answer is so helpful.

Interactive Learning Menus (Choice Boards) with G Suite

Interactive Learning Menus (Choice Boards) with G Suite, from Shake Up Learning with Kasey Bell
Make your choice boards interactive with G Suite. There are free templates available in this post, so you won't even need to start from scratch.

Kanbanchi Project Management Tool

Kanbanchi Project Management Tool from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
Kanbanchi integrates with Google Drive, and is perfect to use with either your students or co-workers. It will help tame big projects by assigning tasks to others, pushing due dates out to a Google Calendar, attaching Google Drive files, etc.

Search and Find Educational Games on Classtools.net

New Challenges and Thanksgiving Collection from Kahoot!

Kahoot! is offering 20 Thanksgiving themed games, just in time for the big day next week. Some are about Thanksgiving for kids, trivia, customs, and history, but there are also Thanksgiving themed Kahoot!s for math and science. Check out the Thanksgiving collection. Another new offering are the Kahoot! Challenges. Students can complete a Kahoot! quiz on their own or at home, and it will grade itself. It's both fun and a time saver! The challenges will work on the new Kahoot! app, so if students don't have internet access at home, but someone in their family has a smart phone, they can still participate.

Weekly Tech Tips and News for November 10, 2017

And just like that, Winter has arrived in West Michigan. The weather can be so unexpected and random here in the Great Lakes region - in the 60s one day, and in the 30s the next. Not so unexpected anymore are the latest scams - Netflix subscribers should be on the lookout! Unlike with the weather, sometimes random is good. There are several easy ways for random selections in this issue - picking a number, rolling the dice, random student selector, and more. Other topics of interest include Chromebook tutorials, some minor G Suite updates, using hyperdocs to create an assignment or project, taking the mess out of posters, and a lesson planning tool. Snuggle up where it's warm and cozy and learn some new tech!

• Please Beware This New Netflix Email Scam
• G Suite Updates:  Insert Images More Easily, Classroom Improvements
• Google Launches New Chromebook YouTube Channel
• You're So Random (with Google Tools)
• Hyperdocs:  Create Interactive Google Docs
• Making Posters with Google Drawings
• Teaching Kids to Share Images in Google
• Planboard for Lesson Planning

Please Beware This New Netflix Email Scam

Please Beware This New Netflix Email Scam, from Make Use Of by Dave Parrack
If you are a Netflix user, beware of this email scam. As always, never use links in an email - always go directly to the company's website instead.

G Suite Updates:  

Insert Images More Easily

Google will be streamlining this process a little. When you insert an image in Google Docs, Slides and Drawings, instead of being taken to a new screen to select where the image is, it will be part of the drop down menu. Here's a link to the G Suite Updates blog for more details and screenshots.

Classroom Improvements

There have been three minor improvements to Google Classroom recently. You can now grade using decimals, the class code can be displayed in very large letters, and the class cards on the home page can now be rearranged in whatever order you choose. Read all about the details in Richard Byrne's post, Improvements in Google Classroom.

Google Launches New Chromebook YouTube Channel

Google Launches New Chromebook YouTube Channel, from Chrome Unboxed by Gabriel Brangers
If you are curious about what Chromebooks are, or you are interested in purchasing one, or even if you already own one, there is a lot to learn on the new YouTube Chromebook channel.

You're So Random (with Google Tools)

You're So Random (with Google Tools), from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
These are handy tools for when you need to pick a random topic, number student, or flip a coin, roll the dice, etc. All of them are found in Google search or with a free Add-on.

Hyperdocs:  Create Interactive Google Docs

Hyperdocs:  Create Interactive Google Docs, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne

"HyperDocs are much more than Google Docs that contain hyperlinks. They are carefully crafted activities that includes all of the components of the lesson in one central location."

Making Posters with Google Drawings

Making Posters with Google Drawings, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
Yes, you can use Google Drawings as a desktop publishing app and have your students create posters without messy glue, paint or markers.

Teaching Kids to Share Images in Google

Teaching Kids to Share Images in Google, from Teaching Little Techies by Robin Limpert
This is the last post in the Working with Images series. This post illustrates how to share images without email.

Planboard for Lesson Planning

Planboard for Lesson Planning from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
Looking for a free app to assist you with lesson planning? Planboard may be what you are looking for. You'll be able to access your lesson plans from anywhere, reuse lessons, and attached resources, such as photos, videos, web links, etc. 

Weekly Tech Tips and News for November 3, 2017

The school year is moving right along, with conferences, Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day in the rear view mirror. What a busy few weeks it's been! The next few weeks should hold fewer interruptions from instructional time. While you are settling back into a normal routine, here are several tech tips to help you out. Take a few minutes to learn about what NOT to do with email and how to keep up with your email, or save lots of time by learning a few keyboard shortcuts. There are also teacher-specific add-ons for Google apps, providing the bells and whistles that are missing from the core apps. Take a look at the topics below to see what else might be useful to you.

• Gmail Survival Guide for Busy Teachers
• 6 Ways to Write Bad Emails
• 22 Killer Keyboard Shortcuts
• 25 G Suite Add-ons for Teachers
• Self-Editing Tools for Student Writing in Google Docs
• Teaching Kids to Edit Images in Google Docs & Slides
• How to Prevent Plagiarism in Online Learning:  Unicheck and Google Classroom
• Games to Sharpen Geography Skills

Gmail Survival Guide for Busy Teachers

Gmail Survival Guide for Busy Teachers, from Ditch that Textbook by Matt Miller
Don't be a slave to your email - make it work for you and save yourself some time in the process.

6 Ways to Write Bad Emails

6 Ways to Write Bad Emails, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts

Keep in mind this tongue in cheek post is a great list of what NOT to do when dealing with email.

22 Killer Keyboard Shortcuts

22 Killer Keyboard Shortcuts, from Ditch that Textbook by Matt Miller

Keyboard shortcuts will save you lots of time. Try these one at a time, and pretty soon you'll be shortcut savvy! There's even a cheat sheet to tape on the bottom of you monitor.

25 G Suite Add-ons for Teachers

25 G Suite Add-ons for Teachers, from Practical Ed Tech by Richard Byrne
Add-ons for G Suite apps provide the bells and whistles that may be missing from the core app. Features such as searching a huge image library, a bibliography creator, inserting graphs and mathematical equations, automatic grading, and more, are available through Add-ons. Here is the complete list in a Google Doc.

Teaching Kids to Edit Images in Google Docs & Slides

Teaching Kids to Edit Images in Google Docs & Slides, from Teaching Little Techies by Robin Limpert
This post will help you show your littlest Google users how to resize their images and flip them.

Self-Editing Tools for Student Writing in Google Docs

Self-Editing Tools for Student Writing in Google Docs, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
There are four tools here that students can use to take ownership of the editing process in their writing work.

How to Prevent Plagiarism in Online Learning:  Unicheck and Google Classroom

How to Prevent Plagiarism in Online Learning:  Unicheck and Google Classroom, from Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne
Plagiarism has always existed, and now it's much easier for students to access those resources. Google Classroom now integrates with Unicheck to allow teachers to easily check for plagiarism in student work.

Games to Sharpen Geography Skills

Games to Sharpen Geography Skills, from Free Tech for Teachers by Richard Byrne
I've highlighted Smarty Pins and Geoguessr before, but did you know you can create your own Geoguessr, custmizing it to 5 of the locations of your choice with Geosettr? There are also other games for kids, including kids of all ages included in this post.