Earth Day 2015. Earth Day is a great time to search for information on how to celebrate and protect our planet–and it’s now a great time to find out something about yourself too.
In a doodle first, clicking on this year’s Earth Day logo (or searching for “Earth Day quiz”) presents one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes: a goofy quiz. Take the time to answer a few questions and you too can determine, share, and learn more about which animal most closely represents your personality. The quiz works on just about any up-to-date browsers on your mobile or desktop browsers, including the Android and iOS Google Apps. (We assure you it’s all 100% accurate and scientific. ;) So, Happy Earth Day to you today and everyday.
Sincerely, The Earth Day Doodle Crew. Lock Your Google Docs on the iPad – Come On, Get 'Appy! Google Apps update alerts: ‘Shared with me’ is coming to the new Google Drive UI. 10 Good Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms Add-ons for Teachers. This afternoon I was asked if I could put together a list of my favorite Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms Add-ons.
In the past I had put together lists of Sheets scripts, but most of those lists are outdated as Add-ons have mostly replaced scripts. Here's my updated list of my favorite Google Docs, Sheets and Forms Add-ons. Google Docs Add-ons: The Tag Cloud Generator Add-on will create a word cloud in the right-hand margin of any of your Google Documents that contain more than one hundred words. One of the most useful Add-ons for Google Documents is the EasyBib Bibliography Creator. The EasyBib Bibliography Creator makes it easy to properly cite resources and format a bibliography in APA, MLA, or Chicago style. Knowing the right keyboard shortcuts to type the accents and characters is one of the challenges that students face when learning and trying to type in a new language. Google Apps update alerts: Offline access to Google Docs editors auto-enabled when signing into Chrome browser on the web. How to Back Up Google Docs.
If you are like me, you worry that Google or Microsoft will lose the documents you store there in the cloud.
They have never lost anything of mine, so far. However, if something goes wrong with your system, are you sure they will be able to recover it? Just to be safe, I make a backup. Three Google Drive Updates to Note This Week. Five Ways to Use Google Forms in Your Classroom. Google Drive Blog: A few more ways to make Forms your own. Earlier this month, Google Forms got snazzed up with new customizable and pre-designed themes that let you easily create beautiful surveys—and today’s updates give you even more ways to build and share those surveys.
Find what you’re looking for Similar to Docs and Slides, you can use the “Search the menus” shortcut to get quick access to nearly all the features in Forms, without having to dig through the different menus at the top of the page. To find a feature, simply press Alt+/ or look under the Help menu. Google Drive Blog: Sharing just got a little easier. One of the perks of using Docs, Sheets, and Slides—along with any other file types you’ve saved in Drive—is that you can invite others to view, edit, or comment on any file or folder you choose.
Today we’re introducing a new sharing experience that makes it easier and faster to invite others to access your files. As you may already know, anything you create in Docs, Sheets, and Slides or upload to Drive is automatically set to private, which means only you can view it. But when you do want to share a file or folder, there are a few easy ways: Like always, just click the big, blue “Share” button at the top of an open file, or if you are in your Drive list, you can now click the person icon at the top of the page after you’ve selected one or more files. A box will pop up, and from there, you can add individual people to share with directly. The shareable link will be set to view-only by default. Google Drive Blog: Your Forms, your way. Google Forms makes it easy to gather information from a group, whether it’s something as important as requesting RSVPs for your rehearsal dinner, collecting attendance from students for a class trip, or just keeping track of who’s bringing what on a camping weekend with your friends.
One of your top requests has been the ability to add your own personal touch to forms, and starting today you can with custom themes. To add a custom theme, just create a new form and click the “Change theme” button in the toolbar. From there, you can add your own photos or logos to the header, customize fonts and colors, pick a background, and more. Now You Can Customize Background Images and Themes in Google Forms - Here's How. 10 Tips and Tricks for Google Docs. Google Docs doesn’t have the cluttered ribbon full of features you’ll find in Microsoft Office, but it does have quite a few useful tricks up its sleeve.
You may never find these features unless you go looking for them. Google’s web-based office suite has matured over the years and now offers everything from offline access to third-party add-on support. It’s still an easy-to-use office suite that works everywhere with excellent real-time collaboration features. LibrAdventures - A Map of Writers and Their Stories.
LibrAdventures is a neat use of Google Maps that displays the place and the events that influenced famous authors and their works.
LibrAdventures also includes some artists and film directors. You can explore LibrAdventures by selecting a name, a location, or an event from the drop-down menus at the top of the LibrAdventures homepage. You can also explore LibrAdventures by clicking placemark icons on the map. Applications for Education LibrAdventures could be a good resource for helping students see the connection between place and stories. Add a trendline to a chart - Docs editors Help. You can see patterns in your data by adding trendlines to charts in Google Sheets.
Trendlines are often helpful for financial or scientific data. You can add trendlines to scatter plot, line, column, and bar charts. 3 things you might not know about Google for Education. Official Google Blog: Hop on board—and go almost anywhere—with public transit on Google Maps. More than 70 percent of the world’s population doesn’t own a car1—a surprising fact for anyone who’s sat for what seems like hours on end in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Millions of people rely on public transit to get around. That’s why, since 2007, we’ve worked to include public transit routes and schedules in Google Maps. In fact, buses, trains, trams and subways included in Google Maps travel 200 million kilometers every day—that’s the equivalent of driving every single road in the world three times! Google Aims To Make Teaching & Studying Easier As It Launches Classroom. Google recently did its bit to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Day by launching a new free organizational tool for teachers. Google Classroom will be available as a part of the Google Apps for Education suite. It seamlessly integrates Google Drive, Google Docs, and Gmail to help teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback, and communicate easily with their students. Teachers can apply for a preview of Classroom and the selected teachers will be invited to try the tool before Google opens it up for the world by September – i.e. for schools and teachers who use Google Apps for Education.
Google says that Classroom will definitely make a teacher’s life a lot easier. Teachers can create assignments and send out announcements. Classroom Project Manager Zach Yeskel said: Official Google Blog: Providing more CS professional development for K-12 teachers with an expanded CS4HS. Two Things Every Student Should Know about Google Scholar. March 25, 2014 Google Scholar has a wealth of resources that are not usually available through several search engines including Google itself. Google scholar is geared towards scholarly and academic content like peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, theses and many more.As such, Google Scholar is an essential element in students learning toolkit.
Besides being a search engine for scholarly content, Google Scholar also provides a host of other great features to help students in their research. Below are two important tips students can use with Google Scholar, check out this post for more tips. 1- Google Scholar Alerts A couple of days ago I talked here about Google Alert and explained how you can use it to keep track of relevant new content on the web. How To Use Google Voice Commands In Google Drive. Editor’s note: This is a revised version of an article we originally ran on March 22nd, 2014, updated to reflect the latest Google innovations. Since its inception, Google Drive has been a source of excitement for innovation-minded educators.
However, as with any new teaching technology, you may find yourself thinking “it sounds intriguing, but will it really make a difference?” In regards to Drive features like audio feedback, the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. Aside from offering convenience and helping spare teachers from endless amounts of typing, the addition of voice commenting brings with it profound benefits to the learning experience as a whole. Google Maps: Revert to the Previous Version of Google Maps. Google just recently upgraded its Google Maps interface for users who use the browser version. As with any new design changes, some features from the previous version of Google Maps did not make it into the new Maps interface.
8 Powerful Extensions to Use on Google Spreadsheet. March 12, 2014 As I mentioned in an earlier post today , Google recently announced the introduction of add-ons to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. With these add-ons installed, users will have access to a plethora of new features and services that were not available before. In this post, I am sharing with you some of the important add-ons you can install on your Spreadsheet to make it more practical. Bring a little something extra to Docs and Sheets with add-ons. You use Google Docs and Sheets to get all sorts of stuff done—whether you're staying up late to finish that final paper or just getting started on a new project at the office. But to help take some of that work off your shoulders, today we're launching add-ons—new tools created by developer partners that give you even more features in your documents and spreadsheets. 10 Important Google URLs That Every Google User Should Know.
Glogster EDU - 21st century multimedia tool for educators, teachers and students. Google Apps for Learning: 9 Best Practices. Starting March 3, educational technology specialist Jennifer Bloomingdale launches three exciting courses on Google Apps. How to Use Google Slides to Organize Research. Thank you, and welcome to the new Google Maps. Over the coming weeks the new Google Maps will make its way onto desktops around the world.
Many of you have been previewing it since its debut last May, and thanks to your helpful feedback we’re ready to make the new Maps even more widely available. It’s now even easier to plan your next trip, check live traffic conditions, discover what’s happening around town, and learn about a new area—with Pegman’s help if needed. A New Google Drive Update to Enhance Group Work. Meet the new Google Sheets. More magic in Slides: editable themes and widescreen presentations. Presentations give you the ability to bring a story to life in a visually compelling way—whether it’s a pitch for a new product idea, a deck for a history class assignment, or an introduction to your surfing club.
Today you can take the magic up a notch with two new features in Slides—widescreen format and editable master slides. With widescreen presentations, you get a ton of new space to fill with words, charts, tables or even a simple, beautiful image. Since the majority of monitors and displays are now widescreen, new presentations will be widescreen by default. You can change the size of your slides using the pull down menu in the theme chooser, or by visiting Page setup in the File menu. Every presentation you make with Slides has a theme that comes with a set of preset colors, font styles and sizes, backgrounds, etc. to give you a consistent look and feel throughout your deck.
One of your top requests has been to customize these presets throughout your presentation. Voila! A new Google Maps app for smartphones and tablets. Today we’re introducing a new Google Maps app for Android smartphones and tablets, also coming soon to iPhone and iPad. Custom Google™ Background. Sweet! Now You Can Use Google Slides Offline. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. Google's Open Course Builder: A Giant Leap into 21st Century Online Learning. 80 Ways To Use Google Forms In Your Classroom. Google drops support for .doc in Google Apps - 27 Sep 2012 - Computing News. Tutorials on how Practitioners can Use Google Forms.
Free Technology for Teachers: Gmail for Beginners - A Video Tutorial. Drive Blog. The Innovative Educator: 8 Ways School Leaders Can Use Google. Drive Blog. Panoramio - Photos of the World. 5 Ways to Use Google Sites in Teaching & Learning. eLearning Tools-Resources-etc. How To Create A Google+ Page. Start Now on Google Plus. For all that I believe the world has all discovered and become settled into Google+, I’ve heard that lots of people have yet to find their footing in there, and haven’t really set up a home. First off, if you’re still looking for an invite, there are lots and lots and lots of people who have free invites. Just search Twitter for #plusinvites, and you’ll find lots of URLs to pick from. But then what? Start Now on Google+ : Start With Your Profile First off, go to your profile page. And then, this is really important, where it says “Employment” (not occupation), put something REALLY interesting in the “current” one that lets people know who you are, what you do, and where.
How to use Google Scholar. Google+ Hangouts Go Mobile & Get More Collaborative. Google Will Share Your Browsing History On March 1st [News] Effective March 1, Google will commence its new (and controversial) Privacy Policy which enable it to do more in terms of gathering and storing search queries, history, logs, and personal information from its users. Other than closing your Google account(s), you cannot fully block the search engine site from gathering this type of information. But as Daily Mail Online outlined, you can take three easy steps to remove your browsing history from your Google account.
Why would users want to clear their browsing histories? Google Takeout Downloads All Your Google Docs in One Swoop. Google Search with Social Analytics. Google Presentations. Google and Memory. Google Across the Curriculum. Tips. Docs Blog. Google Docs: May in Review. Comments in Google Docs. BrandMyMail - Live social content, blog posts, signatures and more - in your mails. A Peek Inside Google – Behind the Numbers [Infographic] 5 Ways to Use Google+ in your Classrooms. 5 Reasons to Use Google+ 40 Google Plus Tips for Newbies. 34 Google+ Resources for Your Business: Advice from the Pros. World Wonders Project by Google.