Live Pointers in Google Slides. How to activate your pointer and see collaborator pointers as well.

 If you are working collaboratively with others on a Google Slide and you would like to see everyone's pointer (as well as show your pointer to others) - there are a few ways to do it.

• Select View > Live Pointers > Choose to show collaborator pointers as well as your own.

• Choose the pointer (upper right under share icon).

While you may not use this a lot, it is surprising how many times this has come in handy.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 23 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to check your Chromebook's battery health.

 If you are noticing your Chromebook's battery is not lasting as long as it has in the past, or you are simply just interested in how healthy the battery is - here is one way to test it.

Select ctrl alt T

This will launch crosh: the ChromeOS developer shell.

next to crosh> type in battery_test

Embedded below is a 34 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Picker Wheel.com - Spin the Wheel to Decide a Random Choice. Fast and easy random picker for your classroom.

While there are quite a few picker wheels - Pickerwheel  is a very useful and fun one. You will see Share at the top where you can choose a number of different wheels that are available. The Yes / No ? Maybe picker is a great one as well as the Country and Date Picker.

Please note that you can adjust the colors by scrolling underneath the wheel and selecting Tool Settings and then you will see many options that include Tool and Background Colors.

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 11 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Solve Me / Who Am I? Explore, deduce, and create with this site.

 The website Who Am I is one that allows users to try to solve numerous mathematical puzzles. Upon entering the site you will see the image you see below where you will see multiple choices. The most commonly used button is the Play icon.

When students select the Play button they will see over 200 puzzles like you see below. The puzzles allow you to try multiple times until you get the puzzle correct.

As you can see above you also have the options to build your own puzzles as well as play bingo.

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 6 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Instant Information at Your Fingertips! Try Google's Side Panel for a Reading list, Bookmarks, History, Reading Mode, and Search!

 Google's Side Panel has a number of benefits right at your fingertips. It allows you to see your bookmarks, create a reading list for later on, see your history, change the website article you are reading into an easy to read page with reading mode, and a search ability searching texts and images.

It is located to the right of your extensions.

When selected you will see the options below:

To see what each of these icons does, take a look at the 1 minute and 59 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to add special characters (like é, ¡,↯, ✅, etc. ) inside of a Google Doc as well as everywhere else.

 If you are working on a Google Doc and would like to add a special character like (é, ¡,↯, ✅) you can select Insert and then Special characters.

However, if you are not on a Google file you can add the extension Special Characters. You can then select the extension and either search through the categories or search for the icon you would like directly.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 28 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Get Notified when there are File Changes on a collaborative file in Google.

 If you have ever used a file in Google (Slides, Docs, Sheets, Forms) and wondered if a collaborator has edited it in some way? Well, now you can.

• On your file select Tools and then Notification Settings.
• Docs have these settings

• You will then see options as far as comments as well as edits.

• Slides and Drawings have these options.

• Sheets (and sheets from Forms) have these options.

• Here is an example of what an email you would receive.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to manage / clean-up bookmarks in Google Chrome for you as well as for your students.

 If at times you feel as though your bookmarks in Google Chrome are a little out of control, you are not alone. However, it is not as bad as you may think and it will not take you too long to make it more manageable.

A few quick pointers;

• Press ctrl+shift+b to show your bookmarks bar
• To quickly bookmark a site select ctrl+d
• A "better / more effective" way it to select the link and drag down into the bar.
• You can then right click on that bookmark and select edit to rename (or remove the name) to just leave the favicon (image).

Now, to quickly see all your bookmarks you can select the three dots at the top right and then choose Bookmark Manager (or select ctrl+shift+O). You will now see all your bookmarks. If you have a site (such as ESPN in my example) just type in ESPN and all the bookmarks will come up. If you have a lot of them, choose the first one and then scroll down select shift and choose the last one and delete. Boom - all those extra bookmarks are gone.

Embedded below is a1 minute and 44 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad 

Classroom Zen - Find Zen in your classroom using breathing exercises, noise management, brain breaks, and typing exercises.

 Classroom Zen has created a nice, effective, and simple site on how to incorporate zen into your classroom. 

As you can see in the image above it is segmented into 4 sections, noise management, breathing, brain breaks, and typing.

I recommend checking them all out. I especially enjoyed the typing and the positivity that it promotes.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 55 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Creating assignments in a site like EdPuzzle and noticing that your newer students are not receiving the assignment? Try either re-syncing or simply re-importing.

The other day in the district where I work we had a FID Day (Flexible Instructional Day) and numerous teachers reached out to me about their newer students not being able assignments in a site such as EdPuzzle.

Many times it is a simple solution. In EdPuzzle you simply need to 

• enter into your class
• choose class members
• import students

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Flexible Instructional Day? How to make sure your Google Meet link is available to students. Also, how to create a recurring meeting in Zoom which you can use over and over again.

 

Hello everyone,

Here is a brief reminder on how to host your office hours. You can also click here or on the image below for a 1 minute and 27 second YouTube tutorial.

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Google Meet: You have a Google Meet in your Google Classrooms. It is on the left side underneath your header. To make it visible for your students, click on the three dots and select Manage and then toggle on Visible to Students.

 

 

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Zoom: You can still use Zoom (zoom.us) with a 40 minute time limit. Be sure to login with Google. Make sure to scroll down below the login input fields and then Schedule a Meeting. My suggestion is to Schedule a Recurring Meeting with No Fixed Time then you can reuse the link for Future FID Days.

You could also use a personal meeting. Just a reminder, you only have 40 minutes in Zoom.

 

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If you have any questions please reach out.

Brad

Want to try a new timer? This one is a sand timer and has customizable backgrounds, sounds, etc.

 If you want to try something new in your class - try this sand timer It allows you to customize the background, sounds, etc.

Embedded below you will see an example of what the timer looks like.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 40 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Want some inspiration in new tabs in Google Chrome and a way to set goals and some focus time? Try the Momentum extension.

If you would like to see an inspirational quote, a reminder of a goal, and the opportunity to set aside some focus time, give the momentum extension a try.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 48 second YouTube tutorial I created.

Take care,

Brad

Check out MagicSchool's Chrome Extension. Allows the tool to be even more streamlined and convenient!

 MagicSchool is an amazing AI tool that has numerous AI tools to assist teachers with creation of what is needed.

To make things even more convenient, they have created an extension. You can find the extension here or by choosing the settings gear at the bottom left of the page (see image below).

Once the extension is added and you pin the extension, make sure to select the blue M on the bottom right of the screen. You will see Raina (AI partner) where you can ask anything needed. You can also select the tools and then choose what is needed on that particular site.

In the 1 minute and 20 second video below you will see how I selected the tools and chose Multiple Choice Assessments and then pasted in a link and it created questions with answers.

Take care,

Brad

Does your Chromebook have inverted colors? One way to quickly change it back.

 Tired of seeing this on your student's Chromebook? 

Wondering how they get it back so quickly once you went into accessibility and took it off?

Here is how....

Simply select ctrl + search (magnifying glass) + h

That's it!

Embedded below is a 27 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

MagicSchool.ai The Basics + Toolkits for Every Teacher

 MagicSchool is an incredible resource for educators. I have shared this resource with countless educators and they all are amazed when I show them,

If you would like to learn more about MagicSchool - please click here for this playlist about the basics of MagicSchool.

If you would like access to Magic Toolkits for every teacher please click here.

Embedded below is a 46 second video sharing the information above,

Take care,

Brad

How to create a professional looking website in under 30 seconds!

I am a huge fan of Google Sites because of how powerful it is and how user-friendly it is. Today, I stumbled upon Durable.

Upon  entering the site you will see the images you see below (and you do not need to sign in).

Your site will then be created in roughly 30 seconds. You have a chance to edit as well as re-generate the site. If you like it make sure to select the thumbs up and then create your username and password.

From there you will have the ability to edit the site, preview it, see analytics, etc.

Embedded is a 2 minute and 21 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Create a stunning presentation, webpage, or document with your information in mere seconds using Gamma.

 If you have some information in text, a file, or even a one-line prompt and need to create a presentation, webpage, or document - give Gamma a try.

When you open Gamma, make sure you join and then locate the blue Create new AI and select it.

Then, choose how you would like to get started (paste in text, generate, or import a file). You will then need to select a presentation, document, or webpage.

Then, make sure to select continue (I created a presentation and chose 10 cards). You will then be presented with  a theme preview. It is up to you, but I chose to scroll to the top of the page and selected the AI Generate.

Now - watch your presentation be created in front of your eyes.

If you would like to make any changes you can select what you would like to edit as well as look to the right of the presentation and make the adjustments needed. 

To share the presentation look for the share link icon at the top right of the presentation.

Embedded below is a 2 minute YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Magic School AI - helps educators save time, by automating the task of lesson planning.

 MagicSchool is a website that utilizes AI to assist with the creation of the countless tools in a way that is seamless.

You can see below all of the tools that this site assists with.

The site allows for a free trial of all features. After a trial period you will still be able to utilize 60+ features for free; however, there will be unlimited usage and future features available for a price. To see that information you can click on this link.

Click here for PD resources.

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 17 second tutorial from December of 2023.

Take care,

Brad

Quizizz - create a quiz from any doc, pdf, webpage, text, + use their extension on any website

 In this tutorial I will create quizzes using artificial intelligence in Quizizz. Embedded below is a 2 minute and 5 second YouTube tutorial.

 

• You will see the ability to upload a YouTube video link and it will create a quiz (with answers) in mere seconds.
• once the quiz is created you can modify, differentiate, as well as translate it.

• You can also create a quiz from a Google Doc/Slide, any prompt, any doc or worksheet, as well as create a quiz with any link.

What I really want to point out is the ability to quickly and easily create a quiz while you are on any website. Make sure you add the Quizizz extension.

• Once you add the extension you can just select it and then you will be prompted to create a quiz or create one with a passage and questions. When you create a quiz with a passage, Quizizz takes the site and summarizes it for you and your students. Below you will see what the extension looks like when you select it as well as the beginning of what a quiz summary looks like from the site about George Washington.

Take care,

Brad