TurboNote - Take & Share Notes While Watching Videos

TurboNote is a great Chrome extension that enables you to take notes while watching a video in the same web browser window. Unlike some similar extensions, TurboNote isn't limited to working with YouTube videos. TurboNote can be used on Vimeo, Netflix, and Facebook videos.

With the TurboNote extension installed you can take notes while watching any video. To take notes just tap the TurboNote extension icon in your browser and a menu for taking notes appears. Any notes that you type are automatically time-stamped. You can go back and edit your notes at any time by opening the TurboNote sticky notes option as seen in the video below. All notes can be shared via social media and email.


Applications for Education
TurboNote could be a great extension for students to use to write questions that pop-up while they are watching a video that you've assigned to them or that they have found on their own. They could then share those questions with you and or their classmates. I would have students share their questions with me then research the answers and share those with me too.

A Google Apps Guidebook Published by Students

My friend Kern Kelley and his students at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine have spent most of this year putting together The Google Apps Guidebook. Kern and his students, collectively referred to as the Tech Sherpas, created the book for teachers who are new to using Google Apps for Education. The guidebook takes teachers through the core features of Google Apps for Education including Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Sites, Forms, Sheets, and Classroom. They also share tips for learning and leading Google search lessons.

Kern has long been my go-to person for questions regarding advanced aspects of Google Sheets and Forms. I jumped to that section when I received a copy of the book. I quickly found a great tip about using case-sensitive data validation to password-protect Google Forms. I also found a handy tip on conditional formatting in Google Sheets that will help me automate some functions in future Google Sheets.

For visual learners, The Google Apps Guidebook offers plenty of visuals that illustrate key steps in formatting of Documents, Slides, Classroom, Sheets, and Slides.

Like any physical how-to book about technology, The Google Apps Guidebook does suffer a little bit from recent changes to Google Apps. For example, this week Google rolled-out new features in Forms and Classroom. Those new features won't be found in the book. Fortunately, the book has more than enough evergreen content, the search lesson for example, that the book is worth your investment.

Overall, The Google Apps Guidebook is a good publication for new Google Apps for Education users. It can be purchased in bulk for professional development purposes. Tell Kern that I sent you.

Mac Users Can Now Quickly Move From Evernote to OneNote

If you're one of the many people considering leaving Evernote after the latest round of "updates" made its free plan almost worthless, Microsoft has something for you. OneNote is a free tool that works on every platform. Microsoft has offered an Evernote to OneNote transition tool for Windows users for a while. Late last week Microsoft introduced a similar tool for Mac users. Evernote to OneNote transition tool for Mac lets you quickly move all of your Evernote content to OneNote.

OneNote offers a free web clipper tool that works in Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. OneNote also lets you take notes online and offline, digitize printed material like business cards, and share your notes with other users.

If you're considering a switch to OneNote, take a look at some of Jeff Bradbury's tutorials on how to use it in your classroom.

Applications for Education
OneNote can be a great tool for students to use to organize research projects. The web clipper lets them save articles and other resources while conducting web searches. The notes features lets them create outlines for their projects and share those outlines with you for review.

Google Expeditions Will Soon Be Available to iPad Users

Last week Google released another round of updates to their Expeditions program. Expeditions is the virtual reality program that lets students experience immersive views of more than 200 places including the International Space Station, coral reefs, the Taj Mahal, and the White House.

Currently, to experience Expeditions you must have a Google Cardboard viewer and a supported Android device. According to last week's Google for Education blog post, soon you will be able to experience Expeditions on iPads. On your iPad you will be able to use full screen mode to view the Expeditions virtual field trips.

At the Google I/O conference the Expeditions product manager shared some of the early lessons learned by using Expeditions in classrooms. The video of that presentation is embedded below.

How to Impose Time Limits on Google Forms

Google Forms is a great tool for creating and delivering online quizzes and surveys. Like with any quiz or survey, you may find yourself needing to impose a time limit for responses. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to impose a time limit on a Google Form.


You can find fifteen more Google Forms tutorials in the playlist embedded below.