ARCHIVED 2015-16 Tech Tips
(5-23-16) It's the end of the school year and you are finishing up your first year with Schoology! Congratulations! You have put so much work into your Schoology courses throughout the year and now you want to save that so that you can use it again next year. It's very easy - click on the icon to the left to watch a short video explaining how to finish your Schoology year.
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(5-10-16) We've figured out the 2-finger tap on the touchpad, but do you wonder now how a 3 finger slide on the touchpad can help? If you have multiple tabs open on your chromebook, by moving your 3 fingers left and right on the touchpad, you'll see the different tabs light up at the top of your screen as you move your fingers. What a nifty way to get to your other open screens!
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(5-3-16) Have any of your students had an orange box suddenly appear on the screen around any input field and had to turn their volume down because their Chromebook kept reading text aloud? ChromeVox is a screen reader which has been installed and somehow gotten turned on. Sometimes the students do not know how to turn it off! It's an easy fix! Simply press Ctrl-Alt-Z simultaneously to enable or disable this feature.
(4-25-16) Want to award your students for hard work well done? You can award your students Badges in Schoology! Schoology offers a selection of badges that you can choose from, or you can upload your own images. The student(s) will receive a notification if a badge was received. Click on the icon to get a tutorial on how to award badges. This is exciting since we all love to work for something!
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(4-18-16) Are you tired of sharing a Google document with your students and always having to remind them to Make a Copy before making their changes? Did you know you can Force a Copy? Simply change the URL before sharing. Get your shareable link as you always have. For example, OVbznZMfdY/edit?usp=sharing is your link. Delete back to / and replace with the word copy. So - change OVbznZMfdY/edit?usp=sharing to OVbznZMfdY/copy. Share this link with your students and when they click on it, they will be forced to create a copy. It's as simple as that! Try it out.
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(4-12-16) Do you need a chromebook friendly word cloud tool? Tagul.com gets our highest recommendation. Students can access with their Google accounts so that they do not need to enter a username or password. Students can type, paste, or import words from a website. Students can choose from a wide range of shapes or upload their own. They can also adjust the font, layout of words, and/or colors. Students can save their work to access or edit later. When finished, the students can download the image, print, or share the image online from the site. Click on the icon to go to Tagul.com.
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(4-5-16) Have you ever accidentally hit Send before you wanted when writing an email? Or you realize immediately after sending that you made a typo in the email? Now there's an "Undo Send" feature. To enable this feature in your mail, click on the gear in the upper right corner of your Mail window. Select Settings from the drop down menu and scroll down and put a check mark next to "Enable Undo Send" feature. You can also set the amount of time after the Send that this feature is available (up to 30 sec). Now after sending an email, you will see the message "Your message has been sent. Undo View Message". Click Undo within 30 seconds and the message will be unsent (no longer accessible in recipient's mailbox) and you can make the necessary changes before sending again.
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(3-29-16) Do you want to insert research into a Google Doc? Located in the Google Docs toolbar, under Tools, is a research option. When chosen, a research box opens on the right side of the screen, which allows the user to search specifics (i.e. everything or specifically images, scholar, quotes, or dictionary) based on the topic entered into the search box. If a quote or cite is chosen, the item is automatically inserted in the correct format! This research option is extremely user-friendly. Click on the icon for an example.
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(3-8-16) Google Apps just released a new collection of templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides that users can access. What’s more, a few of them are edu-inspired: specifically, the Google Science Fair (GSF) has supplied a science fair template in Slides, and Reading Rainbow created a lesson plan and a book report template in Docs. To access these templates, go to Google Docs (or Sheets or Slides) and click on MORE in upper right. You will see all of the templates available.
(3-1-16) Need help finding legit and true websites? Click on the icon to the left for some quick tips on validating websites.
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(2-23-16) Can you never remember your password to all of the many sites you have signed up to use? LASTPASS is the answer to your prayers! You create a vault of all of your usernames and passwords and it is accessible on all devices you have installed LASTPASS onto. Click on the icon to the left for some quick instructions to get started and start saving yourself some frustration!
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(2-17-16) Remember to use those shareable links! When preparing a document using Google and you wish to share, or share through a link in Schoology, click on the blue Share button at the top right of your screen, select whether you want the students to view only, edit, or comment, and then click on Get Shareable Link. That is the link you want to share or copy and paste directly into Schoology for your students to quickly access. Your students can also make a document their own by clicking on File, Make a Copy.
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(2-2-16) Have you been hearing about what a great assessment tool this thing called Kahoot is? Have your students been wanting to play Kahoot but you aren't quite sure what is involved or how to set it up? Here is an easy-to-follow tutorial with tips on creating your own Kahoot as well as how to access the thousands of Public Kahoots already created for you to use.
(1-26-16) See an article or website that you want to look at further but don't have the time right now? Now you can just save it in your Pocket! Pocket works from anywhere - your computer, smartphone, tablet and in just about any application - including your Internet Browser, Email, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. It also syncs across your phone, tablet, and computer so you can come back to what you save whenever and wherever you’d like, even when you’re offline. Click on the icon to the left for information on installing and using.
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(1-12-16) Tired of typing on your laptop and you accidentally touch the touchpad with your hand and your cursor jumps to another part of your document without your knowledge? Here's the answer! Click on the icon to the left for a quick tutorial on installing TouchFreeze. Note: TouchFreeze does not work on Chromebooks.
(1-5-16) Nervous about sharing or showing a YouTube video in class? There are so many ads, links to other videos, etc. on the screen that you don't want students viewing. There is an easy way to "purify" your YouTube video. Click on the icon to the left, copy the URL of the YouTube video you want to purify and paste into the box shown on the screen. Click the orange Purify button to the right of the URL, wait a few seconds and your video will start playing on a clean screen with nothing else on it. Click in the address bar at the top and copy that new URL to Schoology to share a clean, pure video with your class. Make it even simpler to use in the future by dragging the Purify button into your Bookmarks bar and just click it next time you are on a YouTube page you want to purify.
(12-15-15) Want to have students' speech be transcribed to text?
(12-8-15) Is your Lepapps email Inbox FULL of emails regarding students turning in assignments? It is easy to set up filters to automatically filter your incoming emails to the appropriate label (or folder) for better organization of your Inbox. Click on the icon for detailed instructions on how to do this!
(12-1-15) Need sticky notes to organize your thoughts and plans? Bookmark this sticky note website to access and create your own personal and colorful corkboard.
(11-24-15) Are your students with dyslexia having a hard time reading on the computer? There is a Chrome extension that will convert text to the award winning OpenDyslexic font that is easier for them to read? Click on the icon to the left and click “Add to Chrome” next to the Helper Bird app and a little red bird will show up in the top right corner of your screen next to your address bar. To turn this feature on or off, click on the red bird and slide the Off/On bar. Wait a second and the page will be converted. Try it out!
(11-17-15) Want to get rid of web article clutter? Click on the icon to get detailed instructions regarding using Readability to obtain a clean and neat version of only the article as well as save and share it in Schoology.
(11-10-15) Did you know that Ctrl+Alt+? will show you how to get all the shortcuts on a Google Chromebook? Click on the icon for detailed instructions. |