Alice Keeler's Add-on Group Maker allows users to take a number students and place them into groups of 2,3, 4, 5, etc.
Flippity.net's random name picker is a great one as well and my blog post from August 7th about it can be found by clicking here. Flippity's also allows you to make "teams"/ groups between 2 and 12.
The Add-on is very simple to use. Directions are followed underneath of the embedded 2 minute and 2 second YouTube video.
Alice Keeler's add-on - send comments gives you the ability to send multiple users personalized e-mails from one document.
To see a brief video of how to use this add-on - please click on the embedded 1 minute YouTube video below or follow the directions underneath.
Once you have made a copy of the document (send comments) select Add-ons from the menu and select start.
Allow the permissions by selecting continue and then allow on the screen that follows.
As you can see with the screenshot below you will paste your roster in column A and e-mail addresses in column B (place an x if you do not want to send an e-mail in column C).
Column E - leave your comment.
Cell B2 - title the comments
For more add-ons, templates, and extensions - please click here (takes you to the section of her site).
If you have ever wanted to easily share links to websites with others (example - students and families in a class you teach) - try using Symbaloo to store the links and a Wiki to make the site easy to access.
The district in which I work has used a student wiki for years - thanks to Brooke Mulartrick for creating it back in 2010!
If you would like to create a Symbaloo page - please click here for my link to my blog post (November 11th). The video tutorial is embedded below (2 minutes and 18 seconds).
A direct link to Symbaloo can be shared; however, it is not "clean" and has advertisements on it. That is one of the reasons to store it on Wikispaces.com. It is an extra step - but is worth it.
The next step is to create an account on Wikispaces. Once your account has been created you will need to follow a few steps. For step-by-step directions please watch the embedded 3 minute and 34 second YouTube video below.
If you have any questions - please let me know.
Brad
The extension Speak Text is a nice extension that will allow the user to highlight material from a website, right-click, and the selected text will be read out loud.
If you want the extension to stop reading - make sure you click out of the highlighted material and give it about 5-10 seconds.
Take a look at the 1 minute and 3 second embedded video below
I posted about the extension Announcify (very similar to Speak Text) back on November 22nd - click here for the post.
If you have any questions, please let me know!
Brad
If you are in need of a reminder extension (to keep reminding you to finish those report cards or call the cable company back) - the extension Dayboard just may be the thing you are looking for.
The extension will ask you for the 5 most important items to you (you don't have to put in 5). Then, everytime you open up a new tab - the dayboard extension will remind you of your important items. This is nice - especially when we go on another site like Facebook or Twitter and stay on there for too long.
When the item has been completed you simply click on the check and it is marked as completed.
There are quite a few nice features that go along with the extension (for example being able to make sure the tab doesn't open when you use certain sites as well as delaying the side reminder as well - see picture below).
Below you will see an embedded 1 minute and 31 second video tutorial.
A big thank you to Richard Byrne (as talked about in the video) for finding this site!
While many (including me) try hard to stay as organized as we can with our digital files - life gets in the way and all of a sudden there are countless files that are "unorganized". Thankfully, the search ability inside of Drive is very powerful and makes it easy to find any file you need.
Below you will see an embedded 49 second YouTube video showing the ways to search for your files followed by screenshots of the ways to search for your files.
1. At the top of your Drive you will see the Search Drive box. There you can quickly select PDFs, Text documents (docs), Spreadsheets (sheets), Presentations (slides), Photos & Images, and Videos. You then have the More search tools for a more specific search.
2. When you select More search tools you will see the screenshot below.
3. When you select Type you will see the options to search as you see below.
4. Owner - you will be able to search with the options below.
5. Date modified where you can search as you see below as well as the option to customize your search time.
6. Item name search where you can enter just part of the file name.
7. Has the words. Pretty cool feature where you can enter words found in the file.
8. Shared with. Who did you share the file with? Type in a name or an e-mail address.
9. Follow up. Here , is where you will be to look up any action items assigned to you, or suggestions in files you own.
Makebeliefscomix.com's mission is to "encourage people to express their creativity through writing, drawing, and storytelling."
The site offers over 500 printables for you to use (organized by categories). You have access to what's in the news, all about you, feelings, holidays and celebrations, and many more.
An example deals with empathy and the imagining of loosing an ability such as sight or hearing and how that must feel.
If you use Google Docs and continue to see a word that you know is spelled correctly; however, you Google puts the red squiggle underneath of it - you can "fix" that with the personal dictionary.
Here are the simple steps:
1. Open a Google Doc
2. Select Tools > Personal Dictionary
3. Add your word
You can always go back and edit the word or words as you like. Below you will see a GIF followed by a 41 second embedded YouTube tutorial.
If you have taken photos at a sporting event and the shot was blurry, or you took a picture of a group and that one person closed their eyes - try taking a photo burst.
Simply open the camera app and then instead of just touching the picture button (circle) - firmly press on it and it will take a burst of photos (it will show you the number of pictures taken).
To then see all the photos -
1. Open the Photos app.
2. Scroll to the first photo in your burst
3. To see all the photos click on select (bottom of screen).
4. Look through the photos and select the ones you like (you will see a blue checkmark on the bottom right of the screen).
5. Select done (upper right).
6. It will then ask you if you would like to keep everything or just the select photos you took.
If you would like to see a video - I have embedded a 1 minute and 9 second YouTube video below with Sydney (7) and Jack (4).
If you are an Amazon Prime member - you know how great the 2 day shipping in. What many do not know is that Amazon Music is included in the membership. There are over 2 million songs available to you.
As you can see below play music on all your favorite devices and even download them to play offline.
If interested you can download the Amazon Music to your computer and upload your own music to the cloud.
Apple Store - click here to download.
Google Play - click here to download.
If interested - there is also Amazon Music unlimited that is $7.99 a month (over 10 million available songs).
If you are using the calculator on your iOS device and you type in a wrong digit - simply swipe left or right on the display and it will remove the last digit for you.
Below you will see a 15 second embedded GIF and YouTube video below.
If you would like to very easily create a GIF using YouTube you will just need to add the word GIF after the www. and before the youtube.
Example - Harry Kalas' call of the Phillies winning World Series URL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny8__taCZqk To create a GIF - https://www.gifyoutube.com/watch?v=Ny8__taCZqk
Below I have embedded a 1 minute and 8 second YouTube video on how to create what you see above.
If you would like to assign something to a particular student (or students) you can now do that very easily in Google Classroom. For Google's Help webpage for Google Classroom - please click here.
Once you have clicked on the + to create an announcement, assignment, or question - to the right of what class you are in - you will see where it says all students. Select the all students and you will see where the default is all students. You can then click where it says all students and then select the specific student (students) you would like to send it to.
The 2nd new feature is an e-mail notification when a student submits work past the due date. To make sure this is active in your Google Classroom...
1. Select the "hamburger" - the three lines at the top left of your home classroom page.
2. Select settings at the bottom.
3. Make sure the box is checked for email notifications.
Google Classroom is an amazing tool for organization. One simple feature to utilize is the "Add topic" to your posts and makes finding posts much easier.
When a post is created - simply select Topic and then create topic.
The topic will then be available for all users to see on the left-hand side of the screen.
You can always go back and rename or delete the topic you created as well.
Below you will see an embedded 54 second YouTube video.
If you use Google Classroom (or know a teacher who uses it) - the Classroom Extension is a must! Find a website or something you would like to share - simply select the extension and then select your class. You can then post directly to your class without even having to go in to your Google Classroom site.
Below you will see a 59 second embedded YouTube video. If you have any questions - please let me know!
If you are trying to show students or your children about fractions - a great site to check out is Mathplayground - specifically their fraction bars.
You can adjust the numerators and denominators (up to 16) and as you can see below each fraction shows a shaded section.
Great site to show like and unlike fractions. You can also remove the fractions so it will just show the amount and no fraction (just select on/off - upper left of screen).
In the past week I have had teachers and administrators asking for an alternative to Wordle. The district where I work utilizes Chromebooks and Wordle will not work on a Chromebook.
I would recommend trying Tagul to create your Word cloud art. Users do not need to create a username; however, if you would like to store creations for later on - I would suggest it.
While users can be very creating - the site is very simple to use.
Simply...
click create
add or import words (you can import from a website as well)
change the shapes, fonts, layout, colors and animations, and then download and share
to see what your cloud looks like - click visualize (right-hand side)
To see a 2 minute and 39 second YouTube tutorial please look and the embedded video below that I created.
Also, if you are creating your word cloud on a Chromebook - please click here for the very simple directions.
Google Trips helps make traveling easier by providing you with options on what to do, where to eat, planning out your trips, and many other options. You can even download the site to your mobile phone so it is available offline.
Below you will see an embedded 1 minute and 18 second YouTube video trip to Philadelphia.
Reach Out Reporter is a free website that provides science stories for elementary students.
Below you will see a screenshot of what the site loos like followed by an embedded 1 minute and 33 second YouTube video to show you what the site looks like.
The Explore option in Google Sheets really is an amazing tool.
If you have a set of data, simply high-lite the column or row and then click on the Explore button (bottom right corner). You will see information come up instantly as well as the ability to ask a question such as, "what is the average of this column"? You do not need to know the exact formula (although the option is there to see what the formula is).
Embedded below you will see a 1 minute and 7 second YouTube video briefly showing what the feature looks like.
Google as recently started using Natural Language Processing (NLP) into the search process in Drive. Basically it is a way of searching like you talk. You can say things like, "show me documents since May", "show me spreadsheets from Sydney".
In the 46 second embedded YouTube video below I show you an example.
If you have wanted to print out multiple files when students submit an assignment it is possible. You will need to add PDF Mergy and follow the embedded YouTube video below or click here for a forced copy of step-by-step instructions created by Layla Lyons (great follow on Twitter).
If you would like to make searching for YouTube videos (or other sites) easily accessible in your Chrome Omnibox - watch my embedded YouTube video below or follow these simple steps below.
1. Right click on the website url
2. Select edit search engines
3. Come up with a keyword - example yt for YouTube (see picture below)
4. Click Done
5. Go back to your Omnibox and type in yt - then TAB
6. You can then search for YouTube videos directly in your Omnibox
