Three Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed This Week

This week Google rolled-out updates to Google Calendar, Google Drive for Mac & PC, and Google Drive for Android & iOS.

The most exciting of the three updates this week is the addition of a goal setting and tracking feature in Google Calendar for Android and iOS. Earlier this week I wrote an extensive overview of this feature. The highlight of the goals feature in Google Calendar is that Calendar will help you identify times to work on your goals.

The Google Drive desktop app for Mac & PC was updated this week to allow you to sync sub-folders instead of just top-level folders. You can now choose which sub-folders to sync so that you don't have to sync the entire contents of a folder if you don't need everything else that is within its parent folder.

The Google Drive Android app had a couple of updates this week. First, now when you upload a file from your phone or tablet it will appear in your chosen folder instead of just a generic "uploads" folder. The second update added support for inserting Google Drive files into Whatsapp and or Yahoo Mail on your Android phone or iPhone.

Use Your Voice to Give Students Feedback on Google Drive - Cool Kaizena Updates

This is a guest post from Greg Kulowiec of EdTechTeacher.org, an advertiser on this blog. This post first appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com.

Kaizena is an outstanding web based tool that allows teachers to provide audio feedback on student work that has been created and shared through as Google Docs. Kaizena is not a native tool in a Google Drive account, but can be added through the Google Drive apps store.



Alternatively, teachers and students can go to the Kaizena website and connect the app to an existing Google Drive account.



Providing students with audio as well as text-based feedback, and getting that feedback back to students, can now be a streamlined process. Teachers can begin in Google Drive by selecting a student writing assignment and choosing Kaizena as the tool to open the document. This will automatically open a new tab in the browser and import the document into the Kaizena feedback platform.



Alternatively, teachers can go directly to the Kaizena website and pull any existing Google document into the feedback platform.



The process of creating feedback consists of highlighting a section of student work and tapping on the microphone to record audio feedback. Entire sections of a paper can be highlighted or just individual words.

NEW Features to Kaizena

The most helpful feature that appeared in the recent update to Kaizena is the ability to send a feedback link back to the student directly through the comment section of the original Google document.



Now the student simply clicks on the comments button in their Google Document to find the link to the audio feedback.



Organization in Kaizena used to be challenging, yet a recent update includes the ability to create Boxes to organize document that have received feedback. These Boxes can be used to collect assignments, or teachers could make boxes for individual students.



The last and most interesting update to Kaizena is the ability for teachers to have a unique Kaizena URL that students can visit to request audio feedback on a Google Document. The unique teacher URL will appear on the top of your homepage in Kaizena.

Once students visit the URL, they are prompted with an option to ask for feedback.



The teacher and student workflow for this process is quite seamless. Once the student picks a Google Document from their Drive, they have to select the Box for the work to appear for the teacher. As previously mentioned, a teacher may create assignment-specific boxes, student-specific boxes, or potentially an “Ask for Feedback” box where students can submit their document. The teacher will receive an email indicating a student request has been made, and the document will appear as “unread” in the Kaizena homepage.

To learn more about Kaizena and working with Google Apps, join Greg Kulowiec for Google Chromebook & The Google-Infused Classroom in Cambridge, MA, July 10-11. EdTechTeacher has Summer Workshops in six cities this summer: Atlanta, Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Hello Sign Puts an End To "Print, Sign, Scan"

Hello Sign is a tool that I've featured in the past, but I've used it so much lately that I feel like I need to share it with everyone again. For a variety of reasons over the last couple of weeks I have received a ton of email attachments that I've needed to sign and return to their senders. Every time that I've received one of an attachment needing my signature I haven't printed or scanned one piece of paper. Instead, I've used the Hello Sign Chrome app.

On your computer you can use Hello Sign to record your signature by using your mouse or by importing a picture of your signature. Then whenever you need to sign a document just upload it to Hello Sign and apply your stored signature. You can email your newly signed document directly from Hello Sign.