Tech Tip Tuesday: Insert Camera Pictures into Google Docs

With so many ways for students to share information with you, the teacher, we are always looking for the quickest and easiest way to do so. Here is a little trick to get students sharing images of their work right in a Google Doc.

Let’s say students are working on a math problem, and are asked to work as a group to solve the problem. Students work on a white board, white board wall (ala Model Classroom) or simply on a piece of paper. Once finished, they simply take a picture of the problem being solved and post it into a table that you, the teacher, pre-created in the Google Doc with their names. To do this, students would simply click INSERT –> IMAGE –> CAMERA. A popup will appear asking for permission to utilize the built-in Mac computer. Simply allow, then the camera will load with the ability to snap a picture and insert! Students can then use the camera to point at the white board/white board wall/paper, take a quick pic, and insert into the table.

Simple, quick, and effective. Have them follow this up with a quick little group selfie so that you know who was present in the group and voila… you can quickly award points for the in-class assignment.

Hope this helps!

Tech Tip Tuesday: G Suit Training and Learning Center

Are you struggling to keep up-to-date with Google or learn a little trick when trying to get work done? Wish you had on-the-spot training help when it comes to learning Google related tasks? Google offers a pretty good resource where you can learn more about using the various Google Apps as well as news and updates from Google. The site is called the G Suite Learning Center.  They also have a useful YouTube channel  where you will find a variety of videos and how-to’s, tips, and updates about new features.

Want to take your training a step further? Google also has the Google Educator certification where you learn valuable skills inside and outside the classroom. Plus you get to walk away with a pretty neat certification and badge from Google. PLUS- you can get PD hours for doing so! You can access the PD opportunity in Schoology here.

One final resource when it comes to Google training. Better Cloud offers some really good tips, tricks, and resources for working with the various Google tools. Check it out here. 

Hope this helps! As always, should you need more Google help, please reach out to me when needed.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Add Music or Voice Over to Google Slides

For years, PowerPoint has had the ability to add music or sound files to a presentation giving you the ability to incorporate background music during a presentation, or voiceover during a self-paced lesson/study.

Well, Google has finally added this same feature!

First, you’ll need to add audio files to your Google Drive. The one caveat to using this feature is that the audio file MUST be in your GDrive. So, if you have it on your Mac hard-drive, you’ll first need to upload to your Google Drive. Once you have music in there the rest is pretty easy…

First, open your Google Slides Presentation –> click INSERT –> and click AUDIO. A popup window will load finding all audio files you have in your Google Drive. Select the one you want then click SELECT.

The file will be added to your Google Slide Presentation as an audio icon. You can move this icon anywhere on your slide. You can also edit some features. Right-click on the audio icon, then click FORMAT OPTIONS. This will popup. From here there is a lot to choose from, but click AUDIO PLAYBACK –> then decide how you want your audio to play. You can choose for it to play automatically or on a click, and you can choose for it to only play on this slide, or across all slides by unchecking the box. If your audio file won’t last the length of your slide deck, you can even make it loop upon finishing.

What a fun way to spruce up you (or your students) presentations!

So what if…

• You created a slide deck as part of a self-paced learning module/activity and you added voice overlay to the presentation.
• Students added music to a multimedia presentation to make it more engaging and lively. Imagine a history of film presentation, complete with music from major motion pictures. FUN!
• English teachers added audio files of books/readings to go along with some direct instruction content in a slide deck.

Hope this helps!

 

Tech Tip Tuesday: Using Schoology’s Workload Planner

How many times do your students complain when you assign work that they already have too many things due that day from other teachers? What if there was a way to check and see what other assignments your students have from their other classes before you assign yours?

In your Schoology course, in your left navigation menu, there is a Workload Planning App. Click on that, and it will load all of the students in your course as well as the weekly schedule. This tool will show you see when your students have things due on the same day. You can also break down the information at the top by only looking for days with 2 or more assignments, 3 or more, etc.. just by clicking the dropdown menu.

For example, if I wanted to assign something for Wednesday January 8, I would notice that the teacher below has 2 assignments due that day already. By clicking on it, it will tell me exactly what type of work she has due from other courses.

---

This is a really great feature when trying to make an informed decision as to whether or not assign something for a specific date, or change it to help my students be more successful on it.

Hope this helps!