PPS Instructional Technology

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...

Google recently launched the ability to make templates of your docs, slides, sheets and forms, and store them in a district template gallery.  The idea of having district templates for docs, slides and sheets is nice, but I feel the real game changer is the ability to turn forms into templates.  In the past there wasn't a good way to take a form and provide it as a template for others to use.  There was no "view only" option in forms.  With the new template gallery, sharing forms is easy!  Here is how to get started. Creating a Form Template for the District Step 1: Go to forms.google.com Step 2: Click on Template Gallery Step 3: Click Submit Template Step 4: Select a form from your Google Drive by clicking the Select A Form button. Step 5: Check the Submit a copy of the file instead of the original  box.  This will make a copy of your original document.  That way you have a copy you can make your own changes on that won't effec...

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...

Are you a Michigan educator looking for a way to engage your students with computer science, but not sure you have the computer know-how to lead a club?  Never fear...Google is here! The Michigan Film and Digital Media Office is partnering with Google to facilitate the Google Computer Science First Program for 4th -8th graders.  Any interested parties can fill out an application to be involved in this free program.  The program is scripted and laid out in a way that ANYONE can facilitate.  Computer Science First provides all the materials (except the computers/chromebooks). There are multiple paths/interest areas/clubs to choose from. According to the CS First Website, "Each CS First club is based on a real-world theme and offers about 10 hours worth of lessons and activities. The different club themes aim to attract and engage students of varying backgrounds and interests. All materials are targeted at students in 4th - 8th grades (or between the ages of 9...

Doodle4Google : It's time again for the Doodle4Google competition.  Break out the art supplies, technology, and get the creative juices going! According to Doodle4Google Website: For this year’s contest, students can create a doodle that tells the world “What makes me…me.” Kids have all kinds of things that make them unique, so they can use all kinds of materials to create their doodles, from crayons, to clay, to graphic design, even food and video games.  Students in grades K-12 are invited to take part in the 2015 Doodle 4 Google contest. Like all Google Doodles, each doodle must incorporate the letters G-o-o-g-l-e. One national winner will also receive a $30,000 college scholarship. The contest is open for entries from October 19, 2015 to December 7, 2015. Head on over to https://www.google.com/doodle4google/ to learn more about the contest and check out the  classroom activities. Enjoy!

Over the last month, Google made some major updates to the look and feel of Google Forms .  Here is a great " how to " from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning on how to navigate through the new features. http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2015/09/teachers-guide-on-how-to-use-new-google-forms.html

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 .

Make it visual! Paste information collected with a form into a Wordle to see what the most common responses were for the survey. Graphing your Data! In a few clicks, you can graph data in a google spreadsheet.  Google has a great help document on creating a graph.  Check it out here . Add Ons: Flubaroo - Self Grading Quizzes Have you given a quiz with a Google Form and wanted a quick way to grade it?  If so, then the flubaroo add on is just what you are looking for!  Not only can it grade multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions, it can also compute the average score for the assignment, compute the average score per question and flag low-scoring questions, show you a grade distribution graph, allow you to email each student their grade and the answer key (optional) or send individual feedback to each student.  Learn more at:  http://www.flubaroo.com/flubaroo-user-guide .

It is no secret that I love Google Forms.   Paul Murray and I frequently share our love of this easy to use data collection tool with our teachers and others around the state, like in this presentation from miGoogle 2013.  One of the problems I have with data collection, however, is what to do with all the information, and make it manageable, once you have it collected.  I often look at spreadsheets full of Form responses and wonder, "There are 200 responses here!  How am I going to make sense of all this?"  Thankfully, there are some really amazing add-ons and tools that, with little effort on the users part, can make the data come alive. Tool #1: Add-on - autoCrat As a teacher, I collect information from my students/families every year.  Information such as names, parents/guardians names, preferred email address, preferred phone number, best way to contact parents/guardians, etc.  This information can be easily collected with a Form at open...

This week Paul Murray ( @Paul_Murray6 ) and I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 miGoogle Summit in Brighton, MI.  This was a great opportunity for us to learn some new tips and tricks from our fellow educators, as well as share some of our own as speakers at the conference.  There's nothing quite like a good learning opportunity to renew your enthusiasm for education and the great tools out there to enhance teaching and learning. Over the next month, my goal is to share some of the tips, tricks, and tools from miGoogle and open the door for discussion on the ways you all are using these tools in your classrooms. Let's get started: Going Google #1: Search Directly in your Google Docs This first tip comes from my presentation on Doing More with Google Docs .  One of my favorite features natively found in Google Docs in the Research Tool.  This great tool allows you to do a general Google search, or search specifically for images, videos, scholarly arti...

For those of you who have used Google Docs with your students you know that it is a great tool for communication and collaboration.  Students can work on projects together, teachers can view documents in real time and comment and offer support, and everything saves automatically!  SO many great pluses, but getting students to share and "turn in" documents was a big head ache. Enter Google Classroom! Google Classroom is Google's new learner managements system (LMS) which makes handing out, turning in, and grading assignments a dream. To learn more about Google Classroom and get started setting up your first class, check out this Blog post from Instructional Tech Talk:  http://instructionaltechtalk.com/getting-started-google-classroom/ PPS Teachers, have questions or want some help getting started, set up time with Jessica ( calendly.com/jwinstanley ) or Paul ( calendly.com/pmurray ).