December 6, 2016

It’s Back!

Quickly and easily cite sources in Google Docs

Around September, Google replaced the Research tool with a new one called Explore. Explore was designed to provide suggestions to help the user in creating a better final product. But educators quickly discovered the Explore tool was lacking some critical components students and teachers came to depend upon. One of those was the ability to quickly and easily cite sources as well as create footnotes in the Google Doc.

Recently, G Suite has released many new updates including the return of citations as footnotes being a part of Explore. You can change the format of your citation from MLA, APA, and Chicago.

(hint: Explore does bring websites & images based upon what has previously been typed in the document but I still find it’s best is to teach students how to use the search bar at the top and do their own advanced Google search to find exactly what they need from a reliable source.)

For more information on how to use the Google Explore feature, click here: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2481802 

December 6, 2016

4 Hidden Chrome Tricks to Increase Your Efficiency

This article was posted by BetterCloud Monitor on November 17th, 2016.

“To make your browsing experience even better, here are four great hidden tricks in Google Chrome that can save you time and increase your efficiency.”

1. Pin a tab: Never accidentally close a tab again.

2. Organize tabs by moving them in bulk: You probably know that you can drag tabs around to organize them by just clicking and dragging, but did you know that you can drag multiple tabs?

3. Use a keyboard shortcut to go to specific tabs: Love keyboard shortcuts? How about a keyboard shortcut to go right to a specific tab?

4. Drag a URL to instantly create a shortcut on your desktop: You can highlight a link in the address bar and then drag it to your desktop.

Click here to watch the video with step-by-step instructions:

https://goo.gl/pYfxau 

November 29, 2016

FAKE NEWS versus The Truth: how to spot the difference

One of the biggest discussions right now is about the use of fake news in social media sites, especially on Twitter and Facebook, and how quickly it can be shared.

Here are just a few articles concerning this trend:

• Students have 'Dismaying' Inability to Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds - NPR
• Facebook, Fake News and the Meaning of Truth - BBC
• We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs. Here's What We Learned - NPR

School Librarians are Information Teachers and are here to help. We are at the forefront of teaching Information Literacy.  These are must-have skills both students and adults should process such as the ability to:

• Consider the source. (Authority) 
• Read beyond the headline. (Authority)
• Check the author. (Authority) 
• What's the support? (Accuracy & Reliability) 
• Check the date. (Relevance and Reliability) 
• Is this some kind of joke? (New in the post-truth world!) 
• Check your biases. (Questioning) 
• Consult the Experts. (Questioning)

The above information was shared in a wonderful blog post by Judi Moreillon: https://goo.gl/OLqpC

November 29, 2016

5 Excellent Google Doc Templates for Teachers

I am always a firm believer in sharing of resources so no one has to spend time “reinventing the wheel” so to speak. This includes using resources that have already been created and then customizing them for my own purposes. This is why I always search for a Google Doc or Sheet template before I start from scratch. There are many wonderful templates available online that can save you a lot of time. 

In a blog post by Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, is an article titled 5 Excellent Google Dos Templates for Teachers.  Here are the top 5 templates:

• Newsletter
• Project Proposal
• Lesson Plans
• Brochure
• Class Notes

To access any of these Templates, go to Docs Gallery and click on the Template Gallery on the top right-hand side and scroll through the different templates.

November 22, 2016

Practical Ed Tech Tips Facebook Page 

Richard Byrne, the writer of the blog titled Free Technology for Teachers, has recently created a Facebook page where he and others share practical educational technology tips with each other.

The new Facebook page is:

https://goo.gl/UHEUPR

Today, there is a podcast between Richard, Dr. Wesley Fryer and Larry Ferlazzo.

In addition, there is an interesting article about not clicking on a link that looks like this: ɢoogle.com as it is a fake site. The real site is Google.com. Here is part of the article: “When you point your browser to ɢoogle.com, it’s actually leading you to xn— oogle-wmc.com...Yeah, that sounds fishy enough, and I don’t recommend visiting it. It’s definitely not the same as google.com, and looks spammy enough to potentially do harm to your computer.” ....sneaky...very sneaky.

And that is not all.....I could spend all day on this Facebook page. I am sure you will enjoy it too. Take a look at it today and Like it to continue to stay on top of the latest information.

November 22, 2016

Work in Google Docs Offline 

Last week, our school ran into some internet issues. It happens to the best of us. You are working on a document in Google Docs or Sheets and suddenly, you lose connection to the internet. However, what most people forget is you can continue to work in Google Docs offline as long as you have it selected in Settings and you are using Google Chrome.

Here is how:

1. Go to your drive account (drive.google.com)
2. In the top right, click on the cog icon 
   
3. Go to Settings
4. Make sure to put a checkmark in the box under Offline. This will allow you to work offline and allow the documents to sync when the internet returns.

That’s it! It is not perfect and there are some bugs with working offline such as not being able to use all of the functions (like use the Explore feature) and you do need to have Google Drive already opened in your browser before you go offline but it does work in a jiffy if you need it.

For More Information: https://goo.gl/Qpc6af 

November 15, 2016

Improve Reading Comprehension with Google Docs "Black Out"

This idea was shared on the G+ for Education Group by Eric Curtis from his blog titled Control Alt Achieve.

Basically, he heard about a way for students to identify main ideas, and summarization skills to help with their reading comprehension called the “Text Reduction Strategy” by Andrea Heick in a post at TeachThought. 
(link to original article: https://goo.gl/8Rs0Xe

Here is how it works. Students are given a piece of text and a black marker. They are instructed to read the article and to decide what information is critical and what is not. Then they re-read the article and black out all text that is not critical leaving behind just the main ideas.

In the original article, Andrea Heick suggested giving students a magazine article and a black marker. However, Eric Curtis suggested sharing a Google Doc with the students and having them use the highlighting feature that is built into the program.

Eric Curtis does an excellent job of showing step-by-step instructions on where to find articles of interest for the students, how to share the document and finally how to “black out” what is not critical. Read his post here: https://goo.gl/5FbZN6