The Spring Break Edition: Getting more out of Google Docs

By -

Happy Friday and Happy almost Spring Break. I hope that you have a great week next week.  This week I wanted to focus on a few things within Google Docs that may make your life much easier.

Google Docs -  Did you know that there are already made Google Docs templates for you or your students to use? These are templates for Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet, and Google slides.    The easiest way to access these is to just type in docs.google.com, slides.google.com  or sheets.google.com into the address bar. (You will have to be signed into your CCSD account) and there you and your students can choose Templates for Reports, newsletter, essays, etc. . .  Because these are Google Docs that means that they are also collaborative Documents


Also Google has added an "Explore" icon in these products as well. Explore is a new way to interact with your documents. For instance, in Google Slides it will recommend templates for you to use based on the text and pictures. In Spreadsheet it can calculate formulas for you.  Or in docs the explore icon can easily cite sources among other things.



Look for the explore icon on the right side of Google Spreadsheets and Google Slides.



Finally, a very underused function of Google Sheets are notifications rules.  For example, maybe you have sent out a form seeking volunteers but you may not know when the last time someone filled out the form.  If you go to the spreadsheet (Where all the responses are collected) Go to the Tools Menu at the top and click on notifications you can set on a notification to get an email when someone submits the form. You can choose to get these emails right away or in a daily notification.  











Here is to a great rest of your afternoon and a Happy Spring Break

Take Care,
Clint








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Google Updates for 2019

By -
Image
Happy Friday, I wanted to let you know about several new updates for Gsuite for Education that has taken place or soon will take place. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Sites -   These services will soon have a new look. Nothing will change functionally but it will probably look a little different. These have started to roll out on January 15th and will continue to roll out to all users across the world by February. Some of the things that you and your students may notice is the change in typography, controls (buttons, dialog and  sidebars). Also the icons will change a little and look "cleaner and fresher". Again, these are cosmetic changes and nothing that will affect the day to day use of these products. If you want to read more about these changes you can check out the GSuite Update Blog  Google Classroom - Lots of great things happening in Google Classroom. It really is amazing how much it has grown and changed in the last few years! This fall Google created
Read more

The Unplugged Blogpost

By -
Image
The other  school morning my 6 year old daughter who is in Kindergarten got up with me around 5:30 AM . I am in the kitchen getting the coffee going and I typically read for a few minutes to get going in the AM .  Ruby walks in the living room without saying a word and goes and gets her Kindle Fire tablet and her headphones and sits on the couch. Not a "Good morning Daddy", nothing, just wakes up,gets her device and sits on the couch and stares at the screen. I immediately think, "well great!,  parent fail, we're having too much screen time and she's addicted to the screen and she is 6. Am I modeling this behavior  for her? ".  Just to put myself a little  more over the edge I say Good morning and then I inquire about what she is watching.  Her device has  parent controls enabled so she can play kid games, and watch kid videos etc. . . so, anyhow, to put me over the edge a little more she is watching a Youtube Kids video of girls her age playing with Barbi
Read more

Free PearDeck for Teachers

By -
Image
Happy Friday! I have a free premium Tech Tool for you to try over the next 3 months if you are interested. If you click  ON THIS LINK you can have access to a great tool called Pear Deck.  This is a feature that I have had a few requests about  our district purchasing.  I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago and was able to get a free trial for all the teachers in our district. Pear Deck is a great way to create easy interactive formative assessments using Google slides. You as the teacher can control the Google slides presentation for everyone in your class. You can build in interactive elements for both new slide presentations and presentations that you have already created! For a student to access your Pear Deck they click on a link and enter in a code. HERE are some instructions to get you started. HERE are some already created pear deck  templates HERE are some  video tutorals to get you going Please let me know if you have any questions Take Care, Clint
Read more