How to Hide Google Classroom Assignments from Your Personal Calendar

Last week I received an email from a reader who needed a little problem with her personal Google Calendar. The problem was that every assignment that she posted in Google Classroom was also showing up on her Google Calendar. This isn't a big deal if you only have one Google Classroom. However, if you teacher many sections of a course and have many Google Classrooms, your personal calendar could quickly be overrun with events and reminders.

To remove Google Classroom assignments from your personal Google Calendar you need to log into your calendar then remove the check mark from the Classroom Calendars that appear under "my calendars." Watch my short video to see how to do this.


Learn more about Google Calendar and Google Classroom in my online course Getting Going With G Suite.

Three Places to Find Free Video Clips for Classroom Projects - And How to Share Them

On Sunday I published a fairly extensive guide to finding media for classroom projects. That guide was entirely text-based. A few folks have asked if I can include some video tutorials in it. Therefore, yesterday I recorded the following short video in which I show three places to find free video clips that you can download and share with your students to use in classroom projects.


Learn more about working with media and making videos in my upcoming course, Video Projects for Every Classroom.

Six Resources for Learning About the Science of Flight

Yesterday marked the 115th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first successful airplane flight. That reminded me that I have a bunch of interesting resources for learning about the development of and science of flight.

The Wright Brothers - The Invention of the Aerial Age is another good timeline for teaching about the developments made by the Wright Brothers. Dig into the Interactive Experiments section of the timeline and you'll find Engineering the Wright Way. Engineering the Wright Way offers interactive simulations in which students learn about wing design by joining the Wright Brothers for test flights in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

How Things Fly features an interactive module in which students design their own airplanes. The activity starts with a simple and slow airplane that students have to modify until it reaches a target speed and altitude. As students modify the wings, fuselage, and engines of their airplanes they are given instant feedback on the effects of those modifications. In some cases the feedback includes the airplane crashing and the students having to start over again.

VR Hangar is a virtual reality app produced by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This free virtual reality app is available to use on Android phones and on iPhones. VR Hangar contains three virtual reality tours that feature landmark moments in aviation history. Those moments are the Wright Brothers' first flight, Chuck Yeager's record-breaking flight in the Bell X-1, and the Apollo 11 mission. Each of these tours incorporates artifacts from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The National Park Service's timeline of the Wright brothers timeline is part of a larger timeline about inventions and innovation in the United States.

After looking at the National Park Service's timeline of the Wright brothers I looked for some more resources about the history of aviation. Scholastic offers a small set of activities for students to complete to learn about the Wright brothers, Amelia Earhart, and NASA missions.

You can find plenty of videos about aviation on YouTube. This is one playlist that you might find appropriate for your lessons. The first video in the playlist is short and direct which is what makes it my first choice for classroom use.

Coming Soon - PIN Access to Google Drive Files

Sharing Google Drive files with people who don't have Google accounts is possible if you set the file to "anyone with the link can view." However, that's not a great option if the file contains information that you don't want the entire world to be able to access. Google has announced a potential remedy to that problem in the form of PIN access for Google Drive files.

PIN access for Google Drive files is a beta feature and your G Suite domain administrator needs to apply to participate in the beta. The PIN feature will let you invite people who don't have Google accounts to collaborate on a document, slideshow, or spreadsheet by entering a PIN. Just like when you share files with G Suite users, you will be able revoke access for those who access files through a PIN.

Applications for Education
I can see this PIN feature being useful for administrators who need to share documents or spreadsheets with contractors and consultants who work with your school district but are not employees who have G Suite accounts. PIN access could be a more secure option than downloading a document and sending it as an attachment.

Vote for Your Favorite Ed Tech Tools of 2018

Last week I asked you to nominate your favorite educational technology tools of the year. The nominations are in and the final voting is now open. You can vote for your favorites in the form embedded below. (I removed the categories of favorite iPad and Android apps because there weren't any apps that received more than one nomination).