Tech Tuesday Tidbit
...it's neat tech tips...
Gmail
Here are a few tips you can use to help make Gmail more effective for you!
- Use Labels - Labels are Gmail’s equivalent of Outlook folders. The advantage of labels is that you can apply multiple labels to one email. Applying multiple labels makes an email accessible from several different places inside your inbox. When you create a label - it automatically makes it a folder for you. You can find labels and folders at the top of an email. They are represented by a folder icon and a tag looking icon. You can also apply labels by selecting the "move to" button.
- Turn off Conversation View – By default, Gmail groups messages together based on the subject off the email. If you want each message to be separate from the conversation, you’ll need to turn off conversation view. Go to the gear in the top right corner of your email and click on settings. Once in settings you can check conversation view off or on.
- Turn on Preview Pane Lab – Labs are experimental features that you can tryout. You find them by going to the gear in the top right of your email and then going to settings. Labs is one of the blue words listed across the top of settings. Click on Labs and then scroll down to the Preview Pane lab and click on Enable. Preview Pane is designed to make your Gmail inbox appear more like the traditional Outlook view, grouping your messages into one column with a preview window to quickly see the contents of a message.
- Use search to sort messages – Sorting messages in Gmail is based completely on search. Use search operators, or the dropdown at the top of your screen, to quickly find the right messages.
Differentiating Instruction
It's called the Differentiator. With just a click of button you can change your learning target to differentiate for learners based of blooms taxonomy. It supplies all the options and forms the target for you.
Searching Google Drive
Searching for files in google drive can be a pain, even when you have a great folder system. So here are some quick tips to help you find your docs!
Search commands: (You do these by going to the search box and typing in the bolded type below and then filling in with your information after the colon.)
title: – search by the file’s title (group phrases in quotation marks)
owner: – search according to who owns the item (works best with owner:email address)
type: – search by the file type (this covers: document, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, image, video, image_or_video, pdf, and textdoc)
is:starred – search items that you’ve marked with a star
What is an Add-on?
Apps, Add-ons, Sites, and Extensions
High School
The BioDigital Human is a free 3D platform that simplifies the understanding of anatomy, disease, and treatments. The most comprehensive set of true 3D anatomy and health condition models ever assembled, all accessible through your browser! Choose from 1000’s of interactive visualizations to build your own custom library of models. Interactive tools combined with detailed medical descriptions provide an unprecedented new visual format to learn about your body.
Free Editing Tools Include:
-True 3D scrolling, zooming, and panning
-Select and dissect objects
-Add or remove layers
-Share models in true interactive 3D
-Study through custom quizzing, score against your peers
-Sync models and custom 3D views from the web to your mobile device
-Read detailed descriptions while viewing and interacting with stunning visuals
-Take screenshots and annotate
Elem. School
Learn more about our solar system with this app.
The amazing 3D graphics will make you feel as if you were traveling through the universe.
Learn how far other planets are from earth.
Learn about the stars, planets, galaxies, and more.
So much better than just looking at a book!
Middle School
Explore: The clearinghouse for the ground and canopy panoramas that form the heart of our educational resources.
Learn: Introductions to the cloud forest and the canopy with the addition of a glossary of terms.
Teach: Sample lesson plans and other educational resources available for download and use, free of charge.
Media: A large storehouse of additional panoramas, photos, and videos with accompanying text available for educational use.
Canopy in the Clouds is a site that has multimedia content approached from the perspective of a middle school earth and life sciences classroom.
The website is designed to demonstrate changes in a tropical montane cloud forest across a gradient in cloud cover and water availability in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Each numbered link leads to a fully navigable spherical panorama with embedded links to videos, pictures, and text that explains aspects of biology and ecology.
The multimedia content provided by Canopy in the Clouds can be used to augment and enhance existing curricula, or for the design of new curriculum. Therein, they have provided sample lesson plans for free download, modification, and use. The plans use their content to teach different aspects of science, particularly earth and life sciences normed to current U.S. national science education standards. Each lesson plan includes background information, instructions, and worksheets that you can use directly in your classroom.
SAVE PRINTING $$$$
A science fair project done by a 14 year-old was in the news this past week (click here to view the whole story). His project led to the discovery that certain fonts use less ink, and his calculations indicate this could save people millions in printing costs. His discovery: using Garamond conserved 24% more ink compared to Times New Roman.
Taking the time to have your staff change their font could save your school lots of $$$.
Here's how to make Garamond the default font.
- Go to your Google Drive and select Create Doc.
- When the Doc opens, go to the top of the Doc where the font says Arial and click the down arrow beside Arial. Scroll to the bottom of the list and click on More Fonts. When that box opens in the search menu, type Garamond. When it appears, click on it and select the blue ok box.
- Now, go up to Normal text (at the top of the doc beside the font). Click the down arrow next to Normal text, then click the side arrow beside Normal text and select "Update Normal Text to match".
- Last step, Click on the down arrow next to Normal text again. Scroll down and click on the gear icon labeled options. Then select "Save as my default styles".
Now everytime you use a doc your default should be Garamond! Money back in your school's pocket!
Coming-up next week...
Need Help?
If you have suggestions for what you would like to see in Tech Tues. send it my way!
Email: cristi.johnson@gscs.org
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/gscs.org/edtechdiva/
Location: Griffin High School, Griffin, GA, United States
Phone: 770-229-3752
Twitter: @cristicsjohnson