Whimsical - A Good Tool for Collaborative Diagram Creation

Whimsical is a good tool for creating flowcharts, mind maps, Venn diagrams, and a variety of other charts and diagrams. As we've come to expect with any tool like it, Whimsical is a collaborative tool. You can invite people to collaborate with you to edit your work or to simply comment on it to provide feedback. Charts and diagrams created on Whimsical can be published as simple webpages, kept private, or exported as a PNG (image file) or as a PDF. 

To create a flowchart or mind map on Whimsical you can start with a template or create from scratch. Either way you can customize every element of your chart by using the editing tools that appear on the left-hand side of the Whimsical editor. You can quickly select shapes and lines to connect in your diagram. Text can be written on any shape that you add to your diagram. And you can even add emojis into the shapes that you use in your diagram. 

Applications for Education
As is demonstrated in my screenshot above, Whimsical could be a good tool for students to use to create illustrations of government processes like how a bill becomes law in the United States. Another use for Whimsical is to have students outline the progression of a story. Whimsical might also be used by computer science students to create wireframes and user-experience maps.

Getting Started With Google Slides - The Basics and More

This week I'm releasing a series of videos intended to help new Google Workspace users. Yesterday, I published videos on getting started with Google Drive and Google Docs. Today's videos are all about Google Slides. 

Google Slides for Beginners shows viewers eight key aspects of Google Slides that they need to know. Those aspects are outlined below:

➡Three ways to access Google Slides
➡How to alter slide layouts.
➡How to add and edit images
➡How to add and edit videos
➡How to add and edit audio
➡Using speaker notes
➡Adding captions to presentations
➡How to publish slides



Once you've learned the basics of using Google Slides you'll probably want to know more about how to use it. That's why I created Ten Things You Need to Know About Using Video in Google Slides and Five Things You Need to Know About Using Audio in Google Slides. Both videos are embedded below.

Glide 2.0 - New Layouts, Actions, and Sound Effects

Glide is a great tool for quickly creating your own mobile apps from Google Sheets. I've been using it and recommending it for the last couple of years. In fact, I featured it in the last session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. 

Recently, Glide introduced version 2.0. The latest version of Glide introduced some new layout options including a layout optimized for tablet display and a new swipe layout. There's also a new option to connect multiple steps within an application which reduces the number of screens a user has to clicks/ tap through to accomplish a task. But from my perspective the most interesting update in Glide 2.0 is support for audio. 

An overview of the new features in Glide is provided in this video. 

Applications for Education
One of the most common ways to use Glide is to create an app that houses review materials for students. Another common use is to create a directory app. You can use Glide to create a staff directory app that includes not only the basic contact information for staff members but also is a place where students and parents can find teachers' websites and supply/ materials lists. You might also add teaching or course schedules to the directory app.

Getting Started With Google Drive and Google Docs - Everything You Need to Know

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.



For more Google Docs tips visit 21 Docs Features You Need to Know.

21 Google Docs Features You Should Know How to Use

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.