Teach Techy Now!: 2015

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Taking your lesson plans digital!

Sometimes I feel like there is so much I can do with technology I don't even know where to begin! I get overwhelmed about all the possibilities I become trapped. So last year I decided to get myself organized with technology.

At my school we use GAFE (Google Apps for Education) - in fact we just started last year and it has been a transition for a lot of our teachers. I decided to fully jump into everything google. I began using Google Calendar for everything school related. I began using Gmail. I then even looked into Google Chrome Apps and Google Chrome Extensions. Now, I'm moving onward and upward and am using something called PLANBOARD. There are many websites out there like planboard, but let me tell you why I'm using it.

Planboard allows me to:

Schedule lessons for certain times
Add videos, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings or Forms, PDFs, word documents, and many more things DIRECTLY INTO my lesson so that all my resources are in one spot for that lesson.
Plan in units or just singular lessons
Add standards and then take a look at all the standards I hit over the year/unit to ensure all standards are hit multiple times
Create a personalized schedule with my class
Easily plan units and lessons that I can print and share with my administrators, co-workers, or even a sub! And since everything is in one place a sub will have everything they need to have the lessons go off without a hitch - an no extra work for me!
Take attendance
There's a gradebook in there too! (A new feature I haven't played around with yet)
There is also an Ipad app that works just like the website and makes it so easy to plan on the go!
DO ALL OF THIS FOR FREE!!!

Here's what it can do from their website:

Other sites like Planboard:

Planbook ($12 a year)
Mylessonplanner.com ($19.95 a year)

So, check it out:

https://www.planboardapp.com/

Here is a link specifically about the features:

https://www.planboardapp.com/features/

It's a great feature! I hope it works for you!

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

10 Google Chrome Extensions EVERY teacher NEEDS to make day to day teaching easier!

So, now that hopefully we both now a little, tiny bit more about extensions and apps in Google Chrome, I'm going to share what I think are the ESSENTIAL extensions to make day to day teaching SO MUCH EASIER!

Pagemarker

Make notes in REAL time on ANY website! How cool!! Makes pointing out where things are really easy. Students can highlight and mark up any website with notes and annotations - teaching close reading skills!
Chrome Web Store Description:

Draw directly on any website in realtime without the hassle of taking a screenshot!

Ever wanted to make notes or draw on any website? Well now you can with Page Marker! With Page Marker you can draw on any website in real time in the comfort of the browser. 

It's as simple as that! All you have to do is click the extension in your chrome browser and begin to draw!

Get it! Page Marker!

Boomerang for Gmail

Allows you to schedule emails - write them on your plan time and send at night! Or write them at 2am and send them at 10am so no one really knows that you were awake that late like a crazy person. Also allows you to see who has read it! Its an essential app EVERY teacher needs to communicate with parents! There are so many features you really need to check it out and TRY it!
Chrome Web Store Description:

Allows you to schedule messages to be sent or returned at a later date.

Boomerang allows you to schedule messages to be sent or returned at a later date. Write a message now, send it whenever, even if you're not online. Track messages to make sure you hear back, and schedule reminders right inside Gmail™

▣ What is Boomerang? ▣

Hundreds of thousands of Gmail™ users count on Boomerang for easy, integrated scheduled email sending and reminders. The service allows you to schedule emails to automatically send in the future, so you can write an email now, and the service will send it tomorrow morning at 6 AM, or next week while you’re at the beach, without you needing to be online.

Boomerang also helps you to postpone incoming emails, by making them disappear from your inbox into a folder or label, then bringing them back to the top of the message list at the specified time. It helps you keep your inbox clean, without losing track of important messages. Boomerang is also the only reminder service that can alert you if you do not get a reply to a message.

▣ Great For ▣
▸ Scheduling birthday emails
▸ Project management
▸ Remembering to pay bills
▸ Making sure you follow up with a sales lead, and that they replied to you
▸ Communicating with people in different time zones
▸ Managing travel confirmation emails, returning them on the day of your trip

Get it! Boomerang for Gmail

Screencastify

Make videos right from your web browser. This allows you to work on your computer and record your voice and your actions to show students, teachers, parents, or anyone how to do something or where to go on ANY website. Great for student projects too like webinars or webcasts!
Chrome Web Store Description:

Screencastify is a simple video screen capture software for Chrome.

Screencastify is a simple video screen capture software (aka. screencast recorder) for Chrome. It is able to record all screen activity inside a tab, including audio. Just press record and the content of your tab is recorded. So you can easily create a screencast for video tutorials, record presentations etc. It also supports desktop capturing, allowing you to record anything on your screen (not just tabs).

Videos are recorded as webm/vp8 files with ogg vorbis audio and can be saved to disk or uploaded to Youtube or Google Drive with a single click. 

Screencastify does not depend on any external software (like Java, Flash or other plugins). So it also runs on Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

Video recording happens completely locally. So your recordings are not transferred to any remote system unless you choose to upload them. Your video files are stored on a sandboxed local HTML5 file system managed by Chrome. When choose to store your recordings on Google Drive, they are uploaded to your Google Drive account after recording and removed from local storage. This helps to save local storage space, especially on Chromebooks and allows access your recordings from other devices.

Keyboard shortcuts can be configured in the Options.

The free version allows to record videos that are 10 minutes long. To record longer videos, it can be upgraded to a paid version (see https://www.screencastify.com/buy for details).

Get it! Screencastify

Read and Write for Google

A great extension to help ELL students and students with learning disabilities. Gives students suggestions for what to type next in google docs, students can highlight text and hear it translated to other languages, students can have text read to them, and so much more. ESSENTIAL for any classroom! You do have to register for a teacher account to access all the premium features, but it is FREE for teachers.
Chrome Web Store Description:

Boost reading and writing confidence. Offer support for Google Docs/web to students with learning difficulties, dyslexia or ELL/ESL.

Boost reading and writing confidence. Offer support for Google Docs/web to students with learning difficulties, dyslexia or ELL/ESL.

Read&Write for Google™ offers a range of powerful support tools to help students gain confidence with reading and writing, including:

• Hear words, passages, or whole documents read aloud with easy-to-follow dual color highlighting

• See the meaning of words explained with text and picture dictionaries

• Hear text translated into other languages

• Get suggestions for the current or next word as you type

• Turn words into text as you speak 

• Highlight text in documents or the web and collect for use in other documents

• Simplify and summarize text on web pages

Read&Write for Google™ is a user-friendly chrome extension for use with PCs, Macs and Chromebooks. It works with web pages and common file types in Google Drive, including:

- Google Docs
- PDF
- ePub
- Kes

Install Read&Write for Google™ to access ALL of these features FREE for 30 days!

After 30 days, you can still access Read Aloud and Translator features in Google Docs and web pages. Premium features for Google Docs, web, PDF, ePub, and Kes files are available by purchasing a subscription for single users, groups of users, or domains.

Teachers can get a FREE premium subscription to Read&Write for Google.  To register and activate your subscription, go to rw.texthelp.com/freeforteachers after installing the Read&Write for Google trial.

Get it! Read and Write for Google

Print Friendly & PDF

Ever want to print something but it turns out to be 15 pages because of all the adds and junk on the side of the pages? Well that's no longer a problem. This extension will let you print any article and will instantly remove all the junk. No more copying/pasting/formatting craziness! :)
Chrome Web Store Description:

Print Friendly and PDF any Webpage

Save Paper and Ink When You Print

Print Friendly removes ads, navigation and junk before your print. Pages are optimized for the ultimate print reading experience.

Edit Before Printing
Click-to-delete any content before printing. Remove images or individual images. Change the text size from larger to smaller.

Print or Save as PDF
Generate PDFs for archiving, sharing, or saving. PDFs include clickable links, and source URL so you can continue to interact. 

Features

* Print Preview
* Save as PDF
* Email Page
* Remove Images and text you don't want
* Change font size

Get it! Print Friendly & PDF

Crafty Text

Make text really big over any website! If you want to show the website so that students know what they are going to and then give them the web address - use the crafty text extension to put the web address really big so they can see all the intricacies and type it correctly the first time!
Chrome Web Store Description:

This extension allows the user's text to be displayed on screen on top of a web page in large type

CraftyText is a simple app. It allows you to enter text, which then shows up big in the center of the screen. It works on top of your favorite website. Note: no data are transmitted to the developers. The permissions requested are due to the fact that it works on top of whatever website you're browsing.

Get it! Crafty Text Extension

Google Drive Quick Create

Sometimes we need to make a google doc really quickly and don't have drive open! So instead of making it cumbersome and having to open a new tab - just click on the extension and pow -instant access to google docs, sheets, forms, drawing, and slides!
Chrome Web Store Description:

Create new Documents for Google Drive from your browser bar.

Add a simple menu to your browser bar to quickly create new Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Forms, and Drawings for Google Drive.

Get it! Drive Quick Create

HTTPS Everywhere

In case you don't know HTTPS means you are looking at a secure website - why not make every website secure? This extension helps you do just that - help protect your information just by installing this extension.
Chrome Web Store Description:

Encrypt the Web! Automatically use HTTPS security on many sites.

This is an port of the popular HTTPS Everywhere extension for Firefox, created by EFF and the Tor Project.  It automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure "http" to secure "https".  It will protect you against many forms of surveillance and account hijacking, and some forms of censorship.

Get it! HTTPS Everywhere

Goo.gl URL shortener

We all know that links to website can get really long and that typing in those links takes away from valuable learning time in the classroom. Shortening URLs makes it faster and easier for us and students to get to sites, so we don't take any more time away from the learning. Now instead of going to a whole different website and copying and pasting you can instantly make any web address a short URL with this extension. Just install it, and when you're at a website that you want to make the web address shorter, just click on the extension icon and it does it for you, right there!
Chrome Web Store Description:

URL shortener, and share with many different service!

goo.gl url shortener is an extension which allows you to shorten the current website URL with the Google URL Shortener service http://goo.gl/

Get it! Goo.gl URL Shortener

Omnibox Timer

Allows you to start a timer easily - directly from the Omnibar. No need to open any additional app or stop your work in Chrome - just type "TM" and a space then the minutes you want the timer to run for and voila! Easy Peasy timer!
Chrome Web Store Description:

A simple timer built for Chrome

You can set timers from the omnibox. It is good for Keyboard lovers. Type 'tm' and space, then you can set the timer from the omnibox. When time is over, Chrome will show a desktop notification and tell you a message you entered. The default message is 'Timer done!'.

Get it! Omnibox Timer

And a couple extra for good luck:

Chromnitweet

Allows you to tweet DIRECTLY FROM THE OMNIBAR! Wahoo! SO easy to keep active in the fabulous Professional Learning Network that is twitter! Just type TW in your omnibar, space, and then your tweet! Hit enter and it goes out to the twitter world. :)
Formal Description from the ChromeWebStore:

Update your Twitter status right from Chrome's Omnibox (URL bar).

Update your Twitter status right from Chrome's Omnibox (Omnibar, Awesomebar, URL bar, location bar, etc.).

Usage: Type "tw [your Tweet here]" into the Chrome Omnibox to easily Tweet from whatever web page you're on.

Detailed instructions:
* Start by highlighting Chrome's Omnibox (Ctrl-L on PC or ⌘-L on Mac).
* Type "tw" (without the quotes).
* Hit spacebar.
* Type out your Tweet
* Hit enter.

Note: Long URLs will be shortened automagically once you submit, so if your tweet contains a URL, don't worry about going over 140 characters.

Get it! Chromnitweet

Move it

This app is great for us and for our students. You set it up so that it reminds you to move - every 15 min or 30 min or 45 min or every hour. It gives you a short brain break from just staring at the screen! I love it! Sometimes its annoying, but it really helps me keep track of just how long I am just sitting at my computer.
Formal Description from the Chrome Web Store:

Get active with Move It, the easiest way to be reminded that you should integrate a break into your work online..

Busy working on your computer? Spending hours searching the internet? Get active with Move It, the easiest way to be reminded that you should integrate a break into your work online. Simply add the Move It extension to your browser, set the notification interval, and your screen will present you with a random brain break and exercise to complete. Once you complete it, hit done and the next will arrive after the designated interval elapses again.

Keep active with Move It!!

Get it! Move it!

Session Buddy

Ever working on a project or doing research on something and have about 10 tabs open and then your computer wants an update forcing you to close all your tabs and get rid of your hard wok? NOT ANYMORE! Session buddy allows you to save sessions and easily close the chrome app and then reopen it just where you left off! So wonderful. :)
Formal Description from the Chrome Web store:

Manage Your Browser Sessions

Session Buddy is a session manager for your browser that allows you to:

●  See all open tabs in one place.

●  Save open tabs and restore them later. Great for freeing up memory and avoiding tab clutter.

●  Recover open tabs after a browser or system crash.

●  Organize links by topic and find them when you need them with keyword search.

●  Easily consolidate link sets and eliminate duplicates.

●  Export link sets in a variety of text formats for use in email messages, documents, spreadsheets, and online posts.

●  Create sessions from a list of URLs.

Get it! Session Buddy

Tab Packager

Ever wanted to set up a whole day of websites and share it with your students easily??Well now you can! Tab Packager allows you to take all of your open tabs in a Chrome window and make it one link to share with students, parents, anyone! Talk about making switching between websites super easy!
Formal Description from the Chrome Web store:

turn your open tabs into one super short link!

Create a link to a list of all of the tabs open in your current Chrome window!

Simple, fast and with a tiny footprint, it's now easy to share a bunch of links you're looking at, to anyone, anywhere, anytime, using only one link! Just click the button, wait a split second and a single link will appear.

Access the link to customise it, add content and share it!

Check out a demo of what you can do with a tab.bz link here: http://tab.bz/demo

Get it! Tab Packager

Pin it Button

Pin anything from anywebsite to one of your boards on Pinterest! When pinterest first came out, they had a bookmark that allowed to you to do this, chrome has just updated it and made it even easier! It better detects pictures/images for you to pin!
Formal Description from the Chrome Web Store:

Pin the things you find on the web Save creative ideas from around the web with the official Pinterest browser button for Chrome.Just click the Pinterest button next time you find something interesting that you want to save for later. Collect recipes from your favorite food blogs, articles you want to read later, ideas for your home and more!Links get saved as visual bookmarks, which are way easier to recognize and organize than the the same old text bookmarks your browser gives you.New for version 1.3: Hover over any image and Pin right from there.

Get it! Pin it Button

Invisible Hand

This Extension is AMAZING! It lets you know if you're getting the best deal by searching other websites for the same product you are searching for. It may not make teaching easier, but it can help you keep every cent possible from our salaries!
Formal Description from the Chrome Web Store:

Automatically get the lowest price on whatever you’re buying NEW: InvisibleHand now supports hotels, rental-cars and flights. It will automatically find the lowest price when you search for travel online.InvisibleHand discreetly notifies you if the product you’re shopping for is available more cheaply from another retailer or travel site. The notification provides a convenient link straight to the relevant page on the competing website.InvisibleHand supports over 600 retailers in US, UK and Germany. It also works with the most popular airlines and travel sites in the UK & US and supports hundreds of airlines & thousands of hotels.This money saving extension gets its name from the 18th century economist Adam Smith's concept of the invisible hand of the market. Smith didn't have Google Chrome to help prove his point, but we hope he would approve.Starting from version 0.1.4 InvisibleHand shows a price notification when you perform product searches on Google. And when you search for a product, that product can appear in your list of ‘recently viewed’ products at a retailer.

Get it! Invisible Hand Extension

Monday, July 20, 2015

Google Chrome, Apps, and Extensions, Oh my! What's the difference??

So I have been doing a lot of research this summer on how to make my teaching life more efficient and easier for me to manage. There is so much to think about each day, each moment, and so I was looking for some teaching apps and extensions in Google Chrome that will make life so much easier.

But First I had to learn. A lot. Like, what the heck is an extension? How are they different than apps? What is a chrome app? How is it different than the apps on an iPad? Or are they all the same?

So many good questions! All this tech vocabulary can be confusing. And if we as teachers are confused, then our students will definitely be confused. So I'll try to summarize what I've learned and refer you to this google developer website for even more tech vocabulary! ;)(https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/apps_vs_extensions)

OK, so here we go!

GOOGLE CHROME:
Google chrome is a WEB BROWSER - it is an application that gives us access to different web sites and all the possibilities that brings.

Other examples of WEB BROWSERS are firefox, internet explorer, and safari. All are apps and all have similar purposes with slightly different features.

Google Chrome is my personal favorite web browser to use. It seems to have the easiest interface, gets updates all the time, makes using GAFE super easy, and has really great options for apps and extensions to make my life easier and better!

APPS:
This is a very common word today, and most people know that Apps is short for applications. This is simply another word for a program. Program is typically the word used when people discuss applications on computers, desktops, or laptops. Apps became the popular term when iPads and tablets came out because it is more comprehensive. An app can run on its own (when online it is an app, when offline it typically referred to as a program) or it can run in a browser (online and is specifically called a web app). All google chrome apps are "web apps" and run within the browser Chrome. You must have internet access for them to work. Web Apps can be games, links to other websites (previously and also known as shortcuts or bookmarks), photo editors, QR code readers, and more.

The important thing to know about Apps is they STAND ALONE. Apps can be the same across devices, like google drive can be accessed as a web app in chrome, on android devices, or on Apple iOS devices. Some apps are only meant to be web apps, while some can only work on iOS, and some can only work on Android. It's kind of like having different brands of make up - you can find similar products from multiple brands. They're all apps, but it just depends on the developer to know what interface/device it will work on.

Example: One app you can download from the chrome store is the "Lego Builder App". To find the apps you have downloaded you need to click on the apps launcher button. (Looks like the image below and is in the upper left hand corner of chrome under the back arrow button - OR if you're on a chromebook the apps launcher button is in the bottom left corner on the dock and is still the 9 squares, just no color)

After clicking on the Apps Launcher Button you'll see you're web apps screen with your theme in the background, mine looks like this:

If I click on the last app on the top row, the lego builder app, it opens a new tab and takes me to this website: http://www.publishyourdesign.com/design.

So, if you think of web apps as another set of bookmarks, you wouldn't be far off. They can help you stay organized and it provides additional functionality to the web browser google chrome.

Whew...ok, still with me? Extensions are where it gets really exciting.

EXTENSIONS:
Extensions are similar to apps in that they can be games, photo editors, etc. However, extensions are meant to work ACROSS many websites; they DO NOT STAND ALONE.

Extensions are present by the Omnibar (previously known as the web address bar - it is now called the omnibar because you can do more than just type in a web address from this bar) and can be used on any website.

See all of the little icons next to the omnibar (the long white bar toward the top)?

Those are all the extensions!

Example (and possibly my favorite extension): Page Marker - this extension lets you write on any website, in real time, without having to take a screenshot or without having to do a recording before hand!! Talk about highlighting important information!

Here's a screenshot of me using it showing where extensions are:

And I can write on ANY website! An app wouldn't let me do that, it takes an extension to enhance chrome and make it work for you and your crazy teach lifestyle!

Check out my next blog post about ALL the apps and extensions EVERY teacher needs to use to make teaching easier!

Check out apps and extensions at the Google Chrome Web Store:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore

Till Next Time!

Shannon

Meet me! The woman behind Teach Techy Now!

I am so excited about starting to blog all the awesome things I am doing with Technology in my classroom. My students love it, and life is good in elementary school!

I am the media specialist at a school near Detroit, MI. I work with my students weekly to enhance their literacy skills while getting them excited by speaking their language - technology! I am also in charge of daily professional development for our staff - how to use this, how to fix that, how to incorporate technology on a daily basis. I am also the librarian! I wear many hats and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

My school district is in the middle of a 1:1 initiative and by the 2016-2017 school year we will be entirely 1:1! I'm really excited about this, but it's a lot to keep track of.

Aside from school I am a runner and crafter extrodinare. I love to be outside and to scour Pinterest for things to make for my home and to make my bulletin boards the best possible. :)