DISD Ed Tech News
November 1, 2016
Google Apps for Education is now Google Suite for Education
As with all things Google though, there are always new updates to make their products work even better for you. A few of the new changes are below.
Explore in Docs, Sheets, & Slides
You will find the Explore button in the bottom right of Doc, Sheets & Slides. This little button is designed to save you time in producing well-designed documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations, as well as putting the Research tool at your finger tips so that you can conduct research within any of the products with the click of a button.
In Google Docs the Explore button will open up the research tool where you can find suggestions based on the content typed in your document, including images, web pages, and even files in your own Google Drive. It's like having a mini-assistant who is always standing by to hand you exactly what you need next when you didn't even know you needed it yet.
Clicking the Explore button while in a Google Sheet will give you a number of attractive options to format your sheets but type a question into the Explore window and it will give you the formula to enter into a cell to generate the answer to your question! And to top it off it offers you a number of informative graphs of your data to choose from with the click of a button.
The Explore button in Slides will make you look like a real professional! Again, your little Google assistant is looking at the content you are typing in your slides and will make design suggestions based on that content, making it even easier to product a polished, professional looking presentation.
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New Changes to Google Classroom
Another change to the Google Classroom mobile app is the ability to annotate documents, making it easier for teachers and students to collaborate outside the classroom, Students can sketch out math problems or create visuals for their assignments and teachers can use the annotations to grade assignments, mark up a homework assignment or highlight passages in a document they are sharing with their class.
Teachers also now have the ability to add images to questions in Google forms and to insert images instead of text for the options in a multiple choice question.
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Google Drive Plug In for Microsoft Office
There are a couple of different ways to accomplish this and the first is to download and install the Google Drive Plug In for Microsoft Office. You can find the download at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/driveforoffice. Once you download the Plug In and give it the permissions it needs to run you will be prompted to log into your DISD Google account the first time you use it. When you click "Save As", for example, in a Word Document you will now see the option to save to your Google Drive. You can click on the Google Drive icon to further drill down to a particular folder in your Drive where you would like to store the document. The document will be stored in Google Drive as a Word document. You can tell whether it is still a Word document or a Google Doc by looking at the icon for the file. Word documents will still have the blue icon with the white "W" on it. These Word documents can then be opened on any computer with Microsoft Word installed or in your Office 365 account online to edit them. If you want to edit the document in your Google Drive you will be prompted to convert it to a Google Doc to enable editing in Drive. You can keep both an original copy of the Word document and a new Google Doc in your Drive if you like.
The second way to easily add things to your Google Drive is to "install" Google Drive on your PC. What you are really doing is installing a local copy of your Drive (or just some of the folders in your Drive) on your PC. When you save a file there it will sync with your Drive in the Cloud so that your file appears in your Drive in the same place. You can also work on files while you are offline, save them to Google Drive on your computer and they will sync with your Google Drive in the cloud when you have a wifi connection again. Download Google Drive for your PC, Smart phone or tablet at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/drive. Full instructions for downloading both the Drive Plug In for Office and Google Drive can be found on the DISD Instructional "Google Resources" web page under the section for Google Drive.
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Using Twitter as a Research Tool
Originally written by Lori Gracey on the TCEA TechNotes Blog - Sept. 12, 2016
At the recent Tots and Technology Conference in Frisco, I was surprised to see how many educators are still not familiar with the wonderful world of Twitter. Begun in March 2006, Twitter was created as a social media site. Just ten years later, there are more than 320 million people using it worldwide.
“Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day,and around 200 billion tweets per year.” (Source: Twitter Usage Statistics)
While it may have originally been just a way to share what you’re having for lunch with others, it’s grown into something much more meaningful. I myself use it several times a day, every day, to find resources and get answers to questions. But even if you don’t want to have a Twitter account and tweet out yourself, you should still use it. And here’s why: You can find amazing resources, tips, tricks, apps, extensions, answers to questions, and learning ideas on Twitter. It’s all about how you search.
Finding What You Need
To start using Twitter as a resource without creating an account, follow these easy steps. We’ll take as our example that we’re looking for ideas on using Kahoot! in the classroom.
- Go to the Twitter website.
- In the top right of the screen, you’ll see a Search button. Type in “kahoot! ideas”.
- What is returned to you is any time the words “Kahoot!” and “ideas” were used in a Tweet. You could limit the results more by searching for “kahoot! kindergarten”, for example, to find ways that kindergarten students and teachers are using Kahoot!
This type of search will work for any topic that you are interested in.
Searching with Hashtags
Another way to find resources and ideas on Twitter is to search for common hashtags. A hashtag is just a way to categorize Tweets by keyword. This article has 60 of the most common educational hashtags. Find one you’re interested in, click it, and all of the Tweets with that hashtag in them will be pulled for you. If you don’t see a hashtag that you want, just create your own and search to see if others are also using it. I personally often use #leadership, #STEM, #teacherPD, and #EdTech to find relevant information.
More Ways Twitter Can Help You
Take a look at the Twitter screen shot to the right for a minute. I’ve done a hashtag search for #FutureReady, but this will work any time you’re on the Twitter home page and with any Twitter search. Across the top are some other ways to find great information on Twitter.
- Top shows what Tweets are currently the most popular. It’s the default view.
- Live will show you the most recent Tweets on the topic. This is great if your students are looking at a current event and want to see the latest news and opinions about it.
- Accounts will show you other Twitter folks to follow who are Tweeting about your topic. In order to follow someone, you must have a free Twitter account. But you can see a person’s Tweets without following him/her, if you want. In the Search bar, type in “Richard Byrne” (the name of a well-known ed tech guru) or “rmbyrne” (his Twitter handle). Now you can see everything that Richard Tweets without having a Twitter account. Ask other educators who they follow on Twitter to add to your list.
- Photos and Videos will each show you Tweets for that hashtag that include photos or videos.
You don’t have to be a contributor in order to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and resources that are available on Twitter. Of course, I would recommend that you eventually join the social revolution and begin sharing your expertise with your peers by creating a free account and posting what you and your students are learning. But for now, you can just relax and take in what others are sharing.
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Google Tips and Tricks - Chrome Add-Ons: Accent Marks and More
(Hey DISD, did you know you can sign up for the TCEA TechNotes Blog yourself to read great postings from experts like Lori Gracey & Miguel Guhlin? Sign up here.)
Written by Miguel Guhlin on the TCEA TechNotes Blog - Oct. 27, 2016
Did you know that the Texas TEKS (§128.14. Spanish Language Arts and Reading, Grade 3) require students to learn all about adding accent marks to words in Spanish? Here are some of the expectations for students:
Write with increased accuracy using accent marks, including:
(i) Words that have a prosodic or orthographic accent on the last syllable (palabras agudas) (e.g., feliz, canción); and
(ii) Words that have a prosodic or orthographic accent on the second-to-last syllable (palabras graves) (e.g., casa, árbol);
Yet once you figure out the rules for adding accent marks, how do you do it on a device like a Chromebook? In the old days, on a Windows computer, you could type a special Alt-code combination to get the accent mark. On Macs, you can use the key combination Option-e then press the letter that needs the accent mark. On aChromebook, you can use the Google Input Tools Chrome add-on to get the job done!
Once the add-on is installed in your Chrome browser, follow these instructions (read more at Typing Spanish Characters and Accent Marks):
Using the Spanish keyboard () The Spanish keyboard is almost the same as an English keyboard except with a few additional shortcuts:
- To type an accented character, type an apostrophe (‘), followed by the letter. For example, to get á, type ‘ and then a.
- To type ñ, tap the semicolon (;) key.
- To type ¡, tap the equal sign (=) key
- To type ¿, hold down shift and tap the equal sign (=) key
You can also click the corresponding key on the virtual keyboard that appears.
Watch this video that walks you through the process.
Dumas ISD Instructional Technology
Email: rhonda.artho@dumasisd.org
Website: http://www.dumasisd.org/about-education-instructional-technology
Location: Teacher Training Center, 421 West 4th Street, Dumas, TX 79029
Phone: 806-935-6461 1029