PPS Instructional Technology

In Michigan, the week before Labor Day is usually the week when all teachers report back for work.  We attend countless meetings and hours of professional development before heading into our classrooms to make sure everything is just right before the students walk in the doors.  As we approach the end of the week and head to our rooms to knock out the last few items on our to do lists, here are a few tools you may or may not know about that can make your life easier this school year. Classroom Screen Looking for a great web toolbox for your TEC screen?  Classroomscreen.com is a one stop shop for tools like... Random Name Picker Classroom Noise Level Monitor Quick QR Code Generator Drawing Tools for your Screen Type of the Screen Symbols for Voice Level Desired Traffic Light Timer Clock You can set the background image and leave the tab open on your TEC (Technology Enhanced Classroom) computer and leave it as your main "Homepage". Noisli : "White ...

How many ugly looking presentations are you going to have to look at again at the end of this project? I mean, just look at this example at the right. His picture (although ruggedly handsome) is sitting right on top of the Eiffel Tower and it has all this horrible background clutter distracting from the tower itself. Not to mention the I “heart” Paris image with that unappealing square, white background. Ugh. So, how can we fix it? How can the student keep the images he has so carefully selected, but get rid of that white background and the image clutter? Enter... EditPhotosForFree.com has an EASY TO USE background removal tool that makes this quick and painless for teachers and students. Every time a student visits the Background Remover the set of instructions below appears to remind users of the four simple steps. Select an image Use the edge (boundary) tool to define the areas to keep and to remove Mark the areas to keep (foreground) with the green ...

Sample of search results from fonts.google.com A couple weeks ago, I was sitting in a training with a bunch of my favorite lower elementary teacher friends, and several of them were lamenting the fact that it is hard to find "good" Google fonts for the little people they work with on a daily basis.  Specifically, it is a challenge to find the single story lower case a and the open 4 .  This conversation, of course, sent me out on a mission to remedy this for these fantastic people.  So, the next day I put on my headphones, turned up the tunes on Spotify, and dived into the website fonts.google.com .  This website lists all the Google fonts available.  It also allows you to type in your own letters and numbers and see them in all the various fonts.  For my purpose, I typed in "abckgy 1234 This is the font."  From here I could see all 877 fonts, and look specifically for the a   and the 4.  It was quite an adventure, and I came across...

For a printable copy of this tip, click here . There is a wealth of great educational videos on YouTube which make it a wonderful resource in the classroom.  However, if we are not careful, YouTube can also be a giant black hole for our students. One way to help mitigate the issue is to use a “scrubber” like the one found at youtube.portageps.org .  Another way is to insert the video(s) into a Google Slide presentation.  By using these methods, you eliminate the advertisements before the video, the suggested videos at the end of the video, and all the extra videos that show up along the side when you go directly to youtube.com . Scrubbing YouTube Videos with Google Slides Using Google Slides is a quick and easy way to scrub a video for students.  Below are the easy steps you will need to take in order to use Google Slides to scrub your videos. Go to YouTube.com Find the video you want to use in your class. Copy the website address for the video from the U...

View Post as a Google Doc Okay, so, you're using YouTube videos in your classroom and you’re wishing for a couple features… I wish there was a way to remove all the suggested videos and other distractions so my students could concentrate. I wish my students could watch a couple of videos in sequence in a self-paced manner. I wish I could show just a portion of a video, starting at one point and stopping at another. Wishes answered! Solution #1 Here are a couple of solutions for this first wish. Visit our tech tip on YouTube: A Gift and a Curse , and scroll down to option number two. Or...Embed your YouTube video into a Google Slide from the menu, Insert > Video. Yep, that’s right! Put your YouTube, or Google Drive Video, into a Google Slide and the only distraction in the room will be that one bee that gets in the classroom that causes students to run and scream. Aahhh! And, embedding your video in Google Slides leads us to… Solution #2 Th...

Google Slides is an amazing tool.  You can make the usual presentation, but you can also do so much more!   Newsletters , posters, class newspapers, and computer-based manipulative activities are all great ways to use Google Slides in the classroom.  As our elementary teachers use their Chromebooks more and more in their classrooms, they have been looking for ways to create quick formative assessments and activities that they can assign in Google Classroom for their students to complete in order to practice skills they are learning in math, ELA, science, and social studies.  One way they are accomplishing this goal is by creating Google Slides manipulatives that they can assign to their students in Google Classroom. Here are some examples: Spelling Practice Spelling Practice Graphic Organizers Graphic Organizers Telling Time (Hour and Half Hour) Food Chain Place Value Number Charts Shapes Google Slides manipulatives are...

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...