PPS Instructional Technology

Hey, teachers! You and your students might be feeling a little Google Classroom Overload with all those pesky, old classes just hanging around. Well, no fear! There's a way to clean those up! I have a couple of classes from the 2016-2017 that have A LOT of really useful information in them. I don't want to delete them (Oh, the horror!), but I do want to get them out of the way as I am using my Google Classroom every day. So... what do I do? I ARCHIVE them! Here's how... Locate the Google Classroom Tiles that you would like to archive Click on the menu (verticle dots) at the upper-right of a tile (1) Click Archive (2) Confirm that you would like to archive this class. (Once archived students will no longer see that class either. Whew!) (Optional) Delete Old Classrooms (Or just to access archived classrooms) Deleting old classrooms has some benefit, but you must also be careful. When you archive a Class, you can still access that...

Do you have a Google Site? Do you need one? Have you experienced how painful the Old Google Sites is? Photo Source: Wikimedia Well, let me tell you about the New Google Sites!   Google Sites are now created and stored in Google Drive and it's all drag-n-drop! So intuitive, it's crazy! Photo Source: Flickr, Alexandre Normand Just look at these screenshots of a finished site! Desktop, Narrow Window Smartphone View Here's a three (3) minute video about How to use the new Google Sites. And Steegle.com has created a series of 10 videos , anywhere from 2-10 minutes in length, about the various features within the new Sites. Invite Jessica or Paul over and we would love to show you around... 30 minutes tops! Or visit Google Drive... Or the New Google Sites at  https://sites.google.com/new Enjoy!

I frequently get asked by teachers if it is possible to upload files to a google form.  There are many reasons that teachers may want students to do this.  Maybe they need pictures for the yearbook, or they want them to upload an mp3 file of them playing a piece of music, or having a conversation in a foreign language.  Maybe you had your students draw a pictures to explain a concept in science, and now you want them to attach a picture of it to the form as part of an assessment.  Not to long ago, this was not possible.  We had some creative work arounds, but not the simplicity many teachers wished for.  Thankfully, Google heard your pleas and has now added the attach a file option! In the article, New Time-saving Features in G-Suite for Education , author Ryan Webber states: Also debuting today, is a top-requested feature from our education customers — the new “File upload” question type. Students can now upload files from their computer or Drive — all...

Paul and I go to a lot of tech conferences/meetings as part of our jobs as Technology Integration Specialists.  We always enjoy the idea sharing and conversations we have with our fellow EdTechies, and every now and then we have one of those "Oh my gosh! Why didn't I think of that!" kind of moments.  Thankfully, our most recent "Ah-ha" moment is one that many of you have also been pondering, especially as we move to 1-1 with chromebooks.  I hope you find this little tip as awesome as we did! Last week, we had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the MiGoogle Conference (#migoogle) at Lake Fenton High School.  During the conference, one of the presenters - Justin Knull (@Everyday_Genius), shared the idea of using Google Slides as a Microsoft Publisher replacement, specifically in regards to creating newsletters.   Finding a good replacement for Publisher has been a struggle for us as we have moved almost exclusively to the Google world since t...

Paul and I go to a lot of tech conferences/meetings as part of our jobs as Technology Integration Specialists.  We always enjoy the idea sharing and conversations we have with our fellow EdTechies, and every now and then we have one of those "Oh my gosh! Why didn't I think of that!" kind of moments.  Thankfully, our most recent "Ah-ha" moment is one that many of you have also been pondering, especially as we move to 1-1 with chromebooks.  I hope you find this little tip as awesome as we did! Last week, we had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the MiGoogle Conference (#migoogle) at Lake Fenton High School.  During the conference, one of the presenters - Justin Knull (@Everyday_Genius), shared the idea of using Google Slides as a Microsoft Publisher replacement, specifically in regards to creating newsletters.   Finding a good replacement for Publisher has been a struggle for us as we have moved almost exclusively to the Google world since t...

This summer the big buzz at Tech Camp wasn't the Skyward gradebook or online assessments...it was GOOGLE CLASSROOM !  Google Classroom is a document management system from Google that really helps teachers organize and manage their classes.  It allows you to easily handout and have students turn back in assignments in a logical and organized manner.  This product launched just over a year ago and since that time it has taken the classrooms around the country by storm.  Learn more about Google Classroom in this blog post . Now since Google never leaves well enough alone when it comes to any of their products, it is no surprise that they have recently made some substantial feature adds to Google Classroom just in time for the start of a new school year.  These new features include some of the most requested items we heard from our PPS teachers who were piloting Google Classroom last year.  Here is what Google had to say about the new features they have adde...

Kalamazoo RESA, Berrien RESA and the Southwest Michigan TRIG Consortium would like to invite you to Going Google , a Google training, on June 15th at Mattawan Middle School. Click Here to Register If you have any questions, feel free to contact Keith at ktramper@kresa.net .