3 Good Tools to Easily Create and Save Mind Maps in Your Google Drive Being able to create mind maps and save them to Google Drive is a convenience every teacher and student would love to have.Thankfully, there are now some powerful mind mapping tools that are fully integrated with Google Drive. In this way, you don't have to worry about saving your mind maps because they will be stored in the cloud for you to access wherever you are with an internet connection and right from your Google Drive account. Here are three of the mind mapping tools that are integrated into Google Drive: 1- MindMup This is a coll free mind mapping tools that you can use to create mind maps. The process is very simple, use the black canvas offered for you there and start adding child and sibling nodes to connect your ideas, once finished click to share to save it in your Google Drive 2- Mindmeiser Mindmeiser is integrated with Google Drive and you can find it right in your Google Drive list of apps.
10 Tips for Gmail and Google Calendar How fully and efficiently do you use Gmail and Google Calendar? We've sifted through the many customization options of Google's web-based applications, including such features as remote sign-out and keyboard shortcuts, to find the best time- and aggravation-savers. 1. How to Receive a Daily Agenda Want to see your day at a glance before it starts? To receive a daily agenda, click the drop-down menu next to the appropriate calendar and select "Notifications." 2. If you use multiple computers or devices to sign into Gmail and think you forgot to log out, you can do so remotely. Scroll to the bottom of your inbox: You'll see information about the time and location of the last activity on your account. The page that pops up as a result of those commands reveals whether your Gmail account is open in another location, as well as showing recent activity, (which includes whether it was accessed by browser, mobile, POP3 and so on) the IP address; and the date and time. 3. 4. Going away? 5.
8 Things Every Teachers should Be Able to Do with Google Docs Today I am sharing with you a little guide I have created specifically for readers of Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. Each time I write about Google Docs I get several emails from people asking about how to apply a certain tip. I know Google Docs keeps improving and adding more features to it but the basic features it started with are still the same. 1- Add a title to your document and save it in a folder 2- Search your Google Drive for docs 3- Connect apps to Google Drive 4- Highlight to add comment 5- Add comment to highlighted words 6- Research highlighted words in Google, Scholar, Images..etc 7- Sharing a doc with others 8- Track Revision
RoPeCast Are you following the European Championship in football these days? Well, if you like football or if you don’t, we’ve got a little riddle for you, which is based on a pun: What is the difference between the English national football team and a tea bag? To read the solution click here, hold the mouse button and drag your mouse … The tea bag stays in the cup longer! ... down here. Download Enhanced Podcast, 7:51min, 4 MB This Episode in MP3-Format List of puns Find some classics here. Puns are rated! If you are looking for puns less suitable for children, we recommend Shakespeare. 10 Excellent Social Bookmarking Tools for Teachers February, 2014 Social bookmarking is a new concept that has seen the light with the emergence of bookmarking services like the ones I cited below.Semantically speaking, ' social bookmarking' is made up of the the term " social " which is related to society and general interactions between people, and the verb " to bookmark " (used here as a gerund ending in ing) which has to do with recording and/or saving content for both later use and quick access. Weaving the semantic reference of the two words results in social bookmarking as we know it today : a collaborative and collective saving and sharing of web content.' Below are some of the best social bookmarking websites I would recommend to teachers and students. Have a look and let us know what you think of them on our Facebook page. 1- Diigo This is my favourite tool for socialbookmarking. 2- Livebinders This is another powerful tool for saving and organizing your bookmarks. 3- Scoop.it 4- Pinterest 5- Edshelf 7- Educlipper
5 Amazing Ways To Collaborate With Another Class “Ms. Clark, when are we going to do that again?” Nothing makes me happier as an educator than hearing those words – and lately, I have been hearing them a lot! It is not the question, as much as the look on the faces of my students, that I enjoy the most. It’s the inspiring glow of engagement and enthusiasm plus the fire in their eyes that makes me want to keep trying new projects. As we began our journey, some of our classes had 1:1 iPads, but others did not. If collaboration is something that interests you – and it should - here are five easy and highly engaging ways you can begin (or even improve) your journey. 1. If you have not heard of a Mystery Skype yet – stop what you are doing and read this amazing blog post by a really innovative educator Craig Badura ( @mrbadura ) from Nebraska. In this scenario, kids get to apply and use geographical knowledge, critical thinking, and the skill of deduction. Tip: The world is your oyster with this type of project. 2. 3. 4. 5. A final note
100+ Google Tricks for Teachers It's Google's world, we're just teaching in it. Now, we can use it a little more easily. With classes, homework, and projects–not to mention your social life–time is truly at a premium for all teachers, so why not take advantage of the wide world that Google has to offer? From super-effective search tricks to Google tools specifically for education to tricks and tips for using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar, these tricks will surely save you some precious time. Search Tricks These search tricks can save you time when researching online for your next project or just to find out what time it is across the world, so start using these right away. Convert units. Google Specifically for Education From Google Scholar that returns only results from scholarly literature to learning more about computer science, these Google items will help you at school. Google Scholar. Google Docs 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Gmail 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. Google Calendar 44.
Find facts and do research inside Google Documents Today we’re introducing the research pane—a new feature that brings the web’s wealth of information to you as you’re writing documents. The research pane taps into Google Search directly from Google documents, so whether you want to add a cool destination to your itinerary for an upcoming trip to India or you're looking for the perfect presidential quote for a political science paper, you don’t even have to open a new tab. You can access the research pane from the Tools menu by right clicking on a selected word that you want to learn more about, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac. If you find something you like, you can add it by clicking the insert button or, for images, by dragging them directly into your document. Hopefully bringing knowledge from the web to Google documents will make your writing process just a little bit more efficient.
The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction My colleague Katie Hull-Sypnieski is leading a February 1st Education Week Webinar on differentiating instruction, and I would strongly encourage people to participate. Katie’s the best teacher I’ve ever seen…. In addition, Katie and I have co-authored a piece for Education Week Teacher on the topic that will be appearing there soon (it’s appeared: The Five By Five Approach To Differentiation Success), and an upcoming post in my blog there will be talking about it, too (that two part series has also appeared). I also did a second two-part series in Ed Week on differentiation. Also, check out The Best “Fair Isn’t Equal” Visualizations. Given all that, a “The Best…” post was inevitable, and here it is. Here are my choices for The Best Resources On Differentiating Instruction: The Best Places To Get The “Same” Text Written For Different “Levels” Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction is by Rick Wormeli. Reconcilable Differences? Deciding to Teach Them All is by Carol Ann Tomlinson.
Google Drive's Create menu now lets you add and access third-party, Drive-enabled apps Google on Friday announced a new feature for its Drive service: a significantly revamped Create menu featuring third-party apps. For consumers, the change means Drive-connected apps are easier to access while for developers, their work is now more visible to potential users. Here’s how it looks: It’s a small change but a significant one if you dig a bit deeper. As you can see, and as Google explains, the menu means that the few hundred Drive-connected apps that exist are now on the same level as official Google apps (documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, and drawings on the left, everything else on the right). Not only is there more space in the Create menu for your apps, but users can add them with the handy “Connect more apps” link at the bottom. It looks similar to the Chrome Web Store; there are a few apps listed, a filter by category option, and of course a search box: What’s interesting here is that Google Apps users got an updated Drive menu just two days ago.
20 Google Docs Secrets for busy teachers and students. Google Docs has revolutionised the way we create and edit content on the web. It is a genuine collaboration tool like nothing that has come before it. Up to 50 people can simultaneously edit a spreadsheet, presentation or document at no expense, and it is available on all mobile and desktop platforms. Today we are going to look at 20 great tips every teacher and student should be using to get the most of the collaborative learning opportunities Google Doc’s offers. Allow editing without signing in: If you’re sharing a document with classmates who don’t have a Google login, just make it available to edit without signing in. Chat away: In Google Docs, you can see anyone who is currently editing the document, and if needed, send a message to chat with them. Embed Docs anywhere: Get a link to your document or spreadsheet, and you can embed or publish it anywhere, including Facebook or a class blog. Create graphs: Visuals are great tools for getting your point across.
Back to School With Google Docs Last year all of the students in our school district received Google Docs accounts and I was kept quite busy all year getting students up and running and then finding innovative ways to use the tools for learning. Upon reflection,if I got the opportunity to do it all over again there are three things I would make sure to do at the start of the year to kick off Google Docs. 1. Encourage Teachers to Create an In Box with a Google Form One of the challenges of using Google Docs with a class full of students is in managing all those Google Docs. Teachers create and publish a Google Form, or In Box, in a convenient place for students to access. 2. The Google Docs revision history tracks all changes that have been made to a document by each collaborator, which makes this a useful feature for student accountability. 3. If you're looking for an easy and efficient way to provide students with a starting point for a digital project, Google Docs Templates can help. How to Use an Existing Templates
15 Options for Creating Screen Capture Images and Videos - Including on Chromebooks For the next few days I'm taking some time off to relax, play with my dogs, and ski with friends. Rather than leave the blog dormant for a few days, I'm re-running some of the most popular posts of the year. TechSmith Snagit is a screen capture tool from the producers of the popular screencasting tools Jing and Camtasia. TechSmith Snagit is a Chrome app and extensions that allows you to capture all or part of screen then draw and write on your screen capture. The Snagit Chrome extension is what allows you to capture your screen. The Snagit Chrome app allows you to save your screen captures in your Google Drive account. Vessenger, producers of a group messaging system, offers a free program for capturing and annotating images on your computer screen. Using the print screen key on your PC or "command+shift+4" on your Mac are easy ways to create a screen capture. Monosnap is a free screen capture tool for Mac and Windows. Pixlr offers a large set of image creation and editing tools.