This week I'm releasing a series of videos designed for new Google Workspace users. All of the videos will be published on my YouTube channel throughout this week and next week.
The first videos in the series is Getting Started With Google Drive - Settings and Uploads. This video explains how to adjust the display of your Google Drive dashboard, how to upload files into your Google Drive, and how to convert Word files into Google Docs format.
Creating and Sharing Google Drive Folders is the follow-up to the first video in the series. In this video you'll learn how to create folders, how to share folders, how to import folders, how to add and remove files from your folders, and how to organize folders in Google Drive.
After setting up Google Drive you're ready to start creating Google Documents. In the third video in the series you'll learn everything you need to know to create your first Google Documents. The video covers all of the following points:
➡Three ways to access Google Documents.
➡How to change Google Documents fonts.
➡How to add images to Google Docs.
➡To to conduct a Google search within Google Docs.
➡An easy way to create footnotes in Google Documents.
➡How to share Google Documents.
➡How to publish Google Documents.
➡How to download Google Documents.
This week I'm releasing a new series of videos covering everything a new Google Workspace user needs to know. The videos will be released throughout the week on my YouTube channel. I actually teased the series a little bit on Friday when I published two videos detailing twenty-one features of Google Docs that all users should know how to use. The two videos were Ten Google Docs Editing Features You Should Know How to Use and Ten More Google Docs Features You Should Know How to Use. But since I didn't count correctly, the first video actually covers eleven features. Both videos are embedded below. The list of features covered in the videos is listed directly above them.
➡Smart Compose & Automatic Substitution
➡Personal Dictionary
➡Voice Typing
➡Headers & Footers
➡Page Orientation and Margin Settings
➡Custom Line Spacing
➡Grids & Columns
➡Special Characters
➡Find & Replace
➡Version History
➡Prevent unintentional sharing of documents.
➡Publishing vs. Sharing Google Documents.
➡Adding more fonts to Google Docs.
➡Applying borders to sections of documents.
➡Applying borders to images
➡Adding text to images
➡Creating dynamic lists
➡Creating and inserting drawings
➡Creating and inserting charts
➡Using integrated web search.
Good morning from Maine where the rain is petering out after two days of solid soaking. Hopefully, we'll see some sunshine today so that we can play outside. Everyone in my house gets a little stir crazy after more than a couple of days without extended outdoor playtime. I hope that wherever you are this weekend that you get to play outside. It's good for the mind and body.
The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
My YouTube channel has more than 36,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools.
I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fourteen years.
And if you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.
This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin and WayBetterSite. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.
The July session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp begins on Monday at 10am ET. If you haven't registered, you can do so up until an hour before it starts.
There is a July session and an August session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. In all both sessions we'll cover ten key topics over the course of ten live webinars (recordings will also be available).
Register online or email me to register your group of five or more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a group discount? Yes, there is a group discount available. You can save $50/person if you have five or more people registering from your school district. Email me for a discount code to apply to online group registrations or to initiate a PO registration.
Can I register with a purchase order or check? Yes, you can certainly register with a purchase order. Send me an email or have your business office send me an email to initiate that process. Because of the additional paperwork and delay in receiving funds, the early registration discount doesn't apply to purchase order registrations.
Can I get CEUs/ contact hours? You will receive a certificate from me indicating that you participated in ten hours of professional development time. Whether or not your school, state, or province will accept it for license/ certificate renewal is a determination that you will have to make. The rules about CEUs vary widely from state-to-state and I can't possibly keep track of them all.
What platform are you using for the webinars? All of the webinars will be conducted through the GoToWebinar platform. I've tried many other webinar services, but I keep coming back to GoToWebinar because of it's reliability. I've used it for almost a decade for hundreds of webinars. You can access GoToWebinar on any computer or tablet.
Will the sessions be recorded? Yes, all of the live webinars will be recorded. If you have to miss a session, you'll be able to watch the recording. That said, I find that people get the most out of webinars when they can attend live broadcasts and ask questions in real-time. Therefore, I encourage you to pick the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp session that works best with your schedule.
I'm taking this week to recharge and get ready for the next session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. For the next few days I'm going to highlight some of my favorite new and new-to-me tools so far this year.
Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva's templates, download the PDF and then upload it to TeacherMade where you can quickly turn that PDF into an online activity.
On TeacherMade you can upload a PDF then add to it fillable text boxes, lines for matching activities, multiple choice questions, and interactive hotspots to highlight specific points in the PDF. You can also use TeacherMade to add audio to an uploaded PDF. Depending upon the type of questions that you select, TeacherMade will automatically score assignments for you.
Watch my video to see how you can use Canva and TeacherMade together to create online worksheets for your students. The video also shows how a student can access the online activities that you create with TeacherMade.
Applications for Education
I'm always apprehensive to write about worksheets because a lot of people hear or read "worksheet" and think that it's just a time-filler for rote practice. Canva offers worksheet templates that aren't just rote practice activities. For example, in the video above I used a worksheet template for evaluating writing. When you browse through Canva's worksheet templates gallery you'll find lots of templates that have a similar goal of providing guidance for an activity rather than rote practice of skills or facts.
The thing that I've always appreciated about Canva is that it enables people like me who don't have a natural knack for graphic design to create good-looking graphics, presentations, and PDFs. Looking through Canva's worksheet templates I found plenty of templates that I would snap-up if I was teaching social studies or language arts today. Unfortunately, I didn't see any good templates for computer science so I guess I'll have to make my own.
This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web. Featured graphic created by Richard Byrne.
