Tech Tip: Google Slides

 

PowerPoint and Keynote are handy tools for presenting information, but what if your students don't have licenses to these expensive software packages? And what if you would like students to collaborate on a presentation? Google Slides is a great alternative!  Google Slides is an online presentation app that allows you to show off your work in a visual way. Here's what you can do with Google Slides:

• Create and edit presentations
• Edit a presentation with friends or coworkers, and share it with others effortlessly
• Import .pptx and .pps files and convert them to Google presentations
• Download your presentations as a PDF, a PPT, or a .txt file
• Insert images and videos into your presentation
• Publish and embed your presentations in a website

Whether you’re trying to wow your boss with an end-of-quarter presentation or impress your classmates with an animated book report, the new version of Google Slides can help. All of your new presentations will be created in the latest version of Google Slides. Any presentation you upload and convert to Google Docs format will be converted to the latest version of Google Slides.
Check out some of the new features in the latest version of Google Slides:

• Character-by-character collaboration: See updates in realtime as you edit presentations with other people.
• Drawing on canvas: Draw organizational charts, flowcharts, design diagrams and much more right within Google Slides.
• Transitions: Enhance your presentation with new ways to transition between slides.
• Shape linking: Turn shapes within your presentation into hyperlinks to other slides, presentations, or external webpages.
• Better animations: We’ve added new themes to make it easy to create show-stopping presentations.
• Commenting: Collaborate with other people by adding comments to shapes, text or slides.

Click here for an overview of Google Slides and view the video below for a brief tutorial.

Tech Tip: Google Sheets

Spreadsheets can be a great tool for organizing and manipulating data. Whether it is calculating student averages for report cards or putting together a budget, Google Sheets can help automate some basic calculations.

Like Google Docs, Google Sheets is a component of Google Drive.  It is an online spreadsheet app that lets you create and format spreadsheets and simultaneously work with other people. Here's what you can do with Google Sheets:

• Import and convert Excel, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data to a Google spreadsheet
• Export Excel, .csv, .txt and .ods formatted data, as well as PDF and HTML files
• Use formula editing to perform calculations on your data, and use formatting make it look the way you'd like
• Chat in real time with others who are editing your spreadsheet
• Create charts with your data
• Embed a spreadsheet — or individual sheets of your spreadsheet — on your blog or website

Click here for an Overview of Google Sheets from Google and view the video below for a brief tutorial.

Tech Tip: Google Docs

CDs, DVDs, Flash Drives...Are these technologies headed for the dust bin of history where they can sit in obsolescence with the VCR? With technologies like Google Docs, cloud computing is becoming a convenient way to create, edit, and share documents without relying on external storage.    

Google Docs, one of several components to Google Drive, is an online word processor that lets you create and format text documents and collaborate with other people in real time.  Here's what you can do with Google Docs:

• Upload a Word document and convert it to a Google document
• Add flair and formatting to your documents by adjusting margins, spacing, fonts, and colors — all that fun stuff
• Invite other people to collaborate on a document with you, giving them edit, comment or view access
• Collaborate online in real time and chat with other collaborators — right from inside the document
• View your document's revision history and roll back to any previous version
• Download a Google document to your desktop as a Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF, HTML or zip file
• Translate a document to a different language
• Email your documents to other people as attachments

Click here for an Overview of Google Docs from Google and view the video below for a brief tutorial.

Tech Tip: Google Drive

You know you've made it as a company when your name is synonymous with the service you provide. Need to know something on the Web?  Just "Google" it!  But Google provides more than just a search engine.  Google Drive is an outstanding tool for collaborating and communicating "in the cloud" (i.e. on the Web).  All you need to get started is a free Google account.  From there, you can create and share Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Forms (Surveys), and Drawings.  Sharing options include View or Edit.  You can also store your original documents like PDFs, Word Documents, PowerPoints, and even video files on Google Drive and access them from any Internet enabled device.  View the video tutorial below to learn more. Click here for more support from Google. In the coming weeks, I will be blogging about each of Google Drive's services, including Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Forms.

Tech Tips: Three Ring

Now that you have a year's worth of experience with APPR under your belt, it may be worth your time to explore Three Ring, an iPad app for capturing artifacts that represent evidence of student learning.

From Three Ring's home on the iTunes Store: 

"The easiest way to capture qualitative evidence of student learning. Three Ring allows teachers and students to document anything, organize it in seconds, and have it seamlessly available at school and at home. Three Ring is your ultimate instructional resource and the easiest way to make portfolios, save artifacts for IEPs, demonstrate student learning in non-tested subjects and the Common Core and much more."

Getting started with Three Ring takes just a few minutes.  Content is organized around three types of information to allow for easy retrieval later on:  Class Name, Student Name(s), and Tags.  Tags are a labeling mechanism you create--subject area, type of activity, Common Core Learning Standard, etc.  The app allows you to capture video, audio, and/or photographic evidence and upload it to the Three Ring website.  Once it is uploaded, you can access your artifacts on the Web, share them with parents via email, and download/save them to your computer.

Check out the video tutorial below to learn how to use Three Ring.

Tech Tips: Kid Blog

By now, you have probably heard about the concept of blogging, or writing a "web log." If not, check out this short video from Common Craft, Blogs in Plain English.

Have you ever thought about setting up a space to enable your students to blog? Take a moment to read a blog post from prominent edu-blogger and practicing education administrator George Couros, as he outlines some key benefits of student blogging.

One of the tools I have found to be useful to support safe student blogging is Kidblog. Kidblog allows students to exercise digital citizenship within a secure, private classroom blogging space. From their website:

• Teachers have administrative control over all student blogs and student accounts.
• Your students’ blogs are private by default – viewable only by classmates and the teacher. Teachers can elect to make posts public, while still moderating all content.
• Teachers can add password-protected parent and guest accounts to the community at their discretion.
• Comment privacy settings block unsolicited comments from outside sources.
• Kidblog is fully COPPA compliant and does not require any personal information from students.

Check out this brief overview of Kidblog and learn how you can get started today!

Model Schools Summer Professional Development

 

Model Schools Summer Professional Development

The catalog of summer professional development events from the CNYRIC's Model Schools Program is now available:   http://www.cnyric.org/itdpdevents.cfm

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• All of our offerings are covered under the Model Schools CoSer--there is no additional charge for participants to attend. 
• We are offering on-line courses as well as face-to-face workshops at a variety of venues including the CNYRIC, Tully High School, Cortland Jr.-Sr. High School, and more.
• To register for events, participants can click the hyper-linked date in the far right column, which will take them to MyLearningPlan.
• If you would like to host a Model Schools workshop in your district, please contact the Model Schools Coordinator to schedule an event.  You will not be charged a Model Schools day so long as 20% of the seats are open to participants outside your district.  If you would like to host an event that is exclusive to your district's faculty, you would be charged a Model Schools day (each district has 3 days via the Model Schools CoSer).

We are looking forward to serving your teachers' and administrators'  technology integration needs!