PPS Instructional Technology

Let's start with the FACTS! Your U Drive is here to STAY! (No worries about that tool going anywhere) Some buildings will get a TEC Refresh (Your Building Techs will let you know if that's you) Google Drive provides UNLIMITED storage space (No file too large!) You have a NEW storage drive on your Windows Desktop or Laptop... the Y Drive! All of these facts are very important to you! Why? Well, our files are precious. We invest enormous amounts of time into developing documents for educating our students and for managing our day to day operations at each of our schools. Files are important. Read on to learn about your NEW Y Drive and the TEC Refresh (at the end of this post) ... To start, Jessica sent an email out titled "Google Drive is now a Drive on your Computer". (You can search your inbox here if you wish to read it.) That email discusses your NEW Y Drive. Officially, Google calls this new service the Google Drive File Stream. We have already installe...

It's the end of yet another school year... So many happy moments! Our seniors are graduating. Our retirees, who have given us so much, are preparing to leave. Each person leaving Portage Public Schools is stepping into a new adventure. For many of you who will depart from our ranks, it will be important that you are able to take with you some, or all, of the products you have created. Most of these items live in the Google-sphere and you need to know how to pack 'em up and ship 'em out. So... today's post is about How to Take Your Files Stored in Google With You When You Leave . Quickly, let's mention your U Drive files. Simply grab a flash drive or log into your favorite cloud storage service and drag-n-drop or upload those files. Done. DISTRICT EMPLOYEES: Make sure you work with your supervisor to transfer ownership of any files critical to the success of your team. See how to transfer ownership in this article . With Google, there are three ways to t...

Google has been busy in the last month updating both Gmail and the look of Google Drive.  Many of you may have already noticed and explored the changes, but for those of you who would like the "cliff notes" on the updates, this tip is for you! Gmail The most significant of the changes have been happening with Gmail as Google rolls out a new look, and updated features.  The "new Gmail" is not on by default.  To switch to the new Gmail, click the gear in top right hand side and select "Try the new Portage Public Schools Mail".  This will switch you over to the new mail.  No worries if you don't like it once you are there, for now you can switch back to the "classic" style without issue. Now that you have switched over, you are probably wondering, what are some of the new features to check out?  Here is a rundown of some of my favorite new features that will help make your life a little bit easier. Take action on an email by simply ...

Need to print this tip?  Click here for a printable version . Although the need to print student documents has significantly decreased, there are still times when you want to print multiple student docs at one time.  For example, maybe you assigned a writing assignment in Google Classroom that you want to print for their writing folders.  You could go into each document individually and print it, but this can be a time consuming process.  Instead try using the app PDF Mergy to combine the documents into one PDF.  Then you only need to print one document.  WARNING: Just because you can print lots of docs at once, doesn't mean you should!  Please use this tip with caution and save paper whenever possible! To get started, you will need to go to the Chrome Web Store and add the app PDF Mergy . Once you have the app added to chrome, you are ready to go. Find the documents you want to print.   Here are some tips to finding the documents....

As stated in my post on "Starring" Google Drive files, finding files in Google Drive can be really tricky sometimes.  Thankfully you have several tools in your toolbox to make it easier.  One of those tools is the Power of Google Search embedded in Google Drive. At the top of the Google Drive window, you will see a box that says "Search Drive".  From here you can search for the file you are looking for, but in order to get the best search results possible, it helps to narrow down your choices. You can select PDFs, Text Docs, Spreadsheets, Photos & Images, Presentation, Videos, and more.  If you need to get even more specific, you can click More search tools and a whole new option of tools will pop up.  You can search for file type, Date Modified, Item Name, Has the Words, Owner, Shared with, and Located in.  This will really help you narrow your search. Animated Gif from: http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2015/12/better-search-exper...

Google Drive can be an overwhelming soup pot of files, folders and mystic unicorns.  It can be frustrating to find what you are looking for in a timely way.  Thankfully, there are some quick and easy ways to make finding your files easier.  The first of these ways is "Starring" your files. You can “star” folders and files in Google Drive in order to make them easier to find.  I would relate this to bookmarking websites for quick reference.  Once a file is “starred” it can be found quickly by clicking on the Starred section on the left side of your google drive window. Adding a “star” to a file/folder from Google Drive. Right click on the file/folder in Google Drive. Select Add Star Adding a “star” to a file from within the Document You can also add a star from within a document.  Simple click on the star that is next to the Name of the Document. Removing a Star To remove the star, simple right click on the document name in Google Driv...

For anyone who regularly uses Gmail, you probably get numerous attachments a week.  Some of these attachments are fine staying where they are in your Gmail, but others you want to save to your Google Drive so you can access them or manipulate them at a later time.  Thankfully, saving Gmail attachments to Google Drive is simple and can be accomplished in 3 quick steps. 1. Hover your mouse over the attachment in the email. You will see the download arrow and the Google Drive triangle appear. 2. Click the Save to Google Drive triangle. 3. Now you can move it to a folder you already have, or create a new folder.

As we approach the end of another school year, it is important for all students to know that ALL files and folders in their network storage drive, otherwise know as the U Drive , will be purged or deleted during summer maintenance . What does this specifically mean for students? If you need to keep any of your files from this school year, you will need to move them into your Google Drive or another service of your choosing. Any students leaving the district (Congratulations, Seniors!) will have to move their files into another storage location outside of the Portage Public Schools Network and their @portageps.org Google Account. There are several methods for making this move; however, we recommend either of the following methods below. Moving U Drive Files to your PPS Google Drive Account If you will be at PPS next year, this is the one for you! Login to a student computer with your Portage username and password Open Windows Explorer or My Computer to go to your...

I have been a Picasa user for years.  I love the ease of use and the way it allowed me to share pictures with my family, friends, and as a teacher - the parents of my students.  A couple years ago, however, Google moved their photo storing service to Google+.  I did not appreciate this change because it made something that was easy and seamless for me to become a lot more cumbersome.  I still have some teachers in my district who use this feature, and I help them whenever possible, but my love of the tool has waned. This is why I was so excited to read in my email today that Google is moving Google + Pictures to Google Drive!  Most of the teachers in my district are becoming comfortable with using and navigating Google Drive.  Having a folder labeled "Google Photos" will increase their ability to share photos via their Google Sites and Google Blogger. So, PPS Staff, according to the Google release notes: "This feature will start rolling out for c...