Tech Tip Tuesday: 3 Helpful Extensions - part 3

Have you discovered extensions yet?  The purpose of an extension is that it will extend the functionality of a web page.  They are available in the Chrome web store, and most of them are FREE.  Once you install an extension, it will appear at the top right corner of the Chrome browser.  Each Tuesday, I will introduce three new extensions that I find helpful and I hope you do too.  

Keep Awake

This extension works best on Chromebooks and it will disable the power settings on the Chome OS.  For example, it will prevent the Chromebook from going into sleep mode.  

Office Editing for Docs, Sheets and Slides

This extension will allow you to view and edit Microsoft Office files without having Office installed on your computer.

goo.gl URL Shortener

This utility extension will shorten the current URL address of any website using Google URL shortener service.  It will also allow you to create a QR Code for that current website.  Simply click on the goo.gl URL extension, then click on 'QR Code' and it will be generated instantly!

At this point, you will need a screen capturing tool to save the image to your computer.  You can use Windows Snipping Tool, Jing or Snagit.

Did you know? Google Take Out

Did you know that you can backup information from your Google account?  If you are interested in backing up your data, which I would highly recommend, simply perform the following:

• login to your Google account using the Google Chrome browser
• Click on your profile, then 'My Account'
• Under the Personal info & Privacy section, click on 'Control your Content'
• Under the 'Download your Data' click on 'Create Archive'
• At this point, you can turn on the services that you want to back up, then click 'Next'

The next screen will be shown, giving you a summary of services you want to archive and prompting you a delivery of the data, either send a downloadable link via email, or add to drive.  

Finally click on the 'Create archive' button to start archiving your information.  

You will receive an email with a link to your archived information or you will have a folder on your Google Drive called, 'Take out' that contains a zip file in it.

Google Classroom Menu Update

The Google Classroom always listens to feedback from its users.  Prior to this update, if students needed to create a Google Document, they had to click on the 'Add' drop down menu and in the Create section of the menu select 'Docs' to create a Google Document.    A screenshot is shown below.

I know this has been confusing for students in my school and I am happy to see the Classroom team separated the two options into two different menus.  This will help clarify the proper procedures for users.  If a student wants to add or attach a file, or a link, they click on the 'Add' menu.  If a student wants to create a document, slide, sheet, or drawing, they click on the 'Create' menu.  A screenshot is shown below.

Tech Tip Tuesday: 3 Helpful Extensions

Have you discovered extensions yet?  The purpose of an extension is that it will extend the functionality of a web page.  They are available in the Chrome web store, and most of them are FREE.  Once you install an extension, it will appear at the top right corner of the Chrome browser.  Each Tuesday, I will introduce three new extensions that I find helpful and I hope you do too.  

  Readability

This free extension will de-clutter the current webpage.  It will give you the option to read the webpage now, read the webpage later, or save it to your Kindle, as shown below.  This is a great extension to help keep students on track and not get easily distracted by ads, or pictures.

 

  Too Long To Read (TLDR)

This free extension will create a summary of the web article, blog post, news and more without leaving the webpage.  It will create a summary of four different lengths and offer it in a variety of languages.

 Newsela

This free extension publishes news articles on five different reading levels from grades 3-12 to improve literacy. Newsela adopts to the reading level of your students by empowering them to adjust the complexity of the text.

Classroom and Forms Integration

The classroom team has recently integrated Google Forms much easier while using Google Classroom.

Before this update, teachers would have to create an assignment and attach the Google Form link to the assignment using the Drive or link options.  The students needed to open the assignment, click on the Google Form link to complete the form (quiz, survey, etc), and hit the submit button on the bottom of the Google Form.  Then, back in Google Classroom, they needed to mark the assignment as done.  It was a two step process to complete the assignment correctly.  

Now, with the latest update from Google, the integration of Classroom and Forms is much easier.  Please watch this short video on the new workflow of integration on Google Forms and Google Classroom.

I hope you find the screen cast helpful!  

https://youtu.be/q_UaWKOm0xU

Tech Tip Tuesday: 3 Helpful Extensions

Have you discovered extensions yet?  The purpose of an extension is that it will extend the functionality of a web page.  They are available in the Chrome web store, and most of them are FREE.  Once you install an extension, it will appear at the top right corner of the Chrome browser.  Each Tuesday, I will introduce three new extensions that I find helpful and I hope you do too.  

These extensions were shared with me by my friend +Tom Mullaney.  Having a great PLN has so many advantages!    Thanks +Tom Mullaney!

Extensify 

This extension is an extension manger.  Simply click on the icon for Extensify, and it will display a list of all the extensions that you installed.  It will allow you to enable/disable all the extensions quickly.  There is no need to go through the Chrome menu settings, simply use the Extensify extension.

  Grammarly

It will provide you with a spell check and a grammar check for social media, documents, emails and more!  It will suggest the correction and you have the option to correct it or ignore it.  For more information visit,  https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check.

 Colorzilla

The eyedropper feature will allow you to get any color from a web page and it also provides you with the color elements as shown below.  

Once you find a color you want, it will save it so that you can manipulate it and add it to other objects.  

  

Celebrate Success, Digitally!

I found this awesome tool, called Credly, that will allow you to create badges for students, teachers, administrators, and more!  It can be used for anything!  Anyone who is deserving of an achievement can receive a badge.  You can create one for showing good character, act of kindness, conquering a skill, and much more!  The image shown above are badges I created for staff and students at my school.

Simply create a free account and start creating your customized digital badge.  It's that easy!

Credly will allow you to customize a badge by selecting a shape for the badge, an image or upload your own, changing the text color, the border and fill color, and adding a special effect to the border.  

There are 3 easy steps:

1. create your free account
2. create your badge and give it a descriptive name
3. give the badge to the person by email

The recipient will check their email for the notification.  A sample is shown below.

The recipient will  have the option to save it or share their achievement via social media.  

The tool also provides you with an option to upload a .csv file with email addresses for bulk notifications.

I am truly impressed with the ease and quickness of creating a badge.  I would highly recommend using this tool to celebrate success!

Google Apps Update Alert - Avatar Changes

Change to default avatar for Google account owners Posted: 30 Sep 2015 01:41 PM PDT Google account owners with Google+ enabled have the option to add a photo to their account profile to signify when they are logged in and help make it clear which account they are using. To extend these benefits to those account owners who haven’t added a photo to their account, we’ll be replacing the default Google account avatar with a custom avatar showing the account owner’s first or last initial (or digraph, where applicable), depending on the structure of their name. In some cases where initials are not available, a color alone will be used. Starting this week, Google Apps users* with Google+ enabled who haven’t set an account photo will see this change in the Google Bar. The change will be gradually reflected across all Google products over the coming months. *Note: Users with initials using scripts other than Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean will see this change later this year. Launch Details Release track:   Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release Rollout pace:  Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility) Impact: All end users Action: Change management suggested/FYI Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted Launch release calendar Launch detail categories Get these product update alerts by email Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates