Engaging Digital Discussions

Class discussions are one of the better ways to help students develop the valuable skills of creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.  Discussions enable students to ask probing questions of each other, listen to and respond to classmates clearly and appropriately, challenge ideas and expand upon observations, and view topics with a circumspect lens.  The benefits of class discussions are numerous; however, there are some obstacles to productive discussions.

One is time.  By their nature, class discussions can take a while to develop.  Oftentimes, the most interesting parts of a discussion are discovered long into the examination of a subject.  A related obstacle is equal time for all students.  Some students speak a lot, and some speak a little, and some might not even get the opportunity to speak.  Also, some students may just be reluctant to speak in front of their peers.

Digital or online discussion boards have been used to mitigate these obstacles, but they can often lose focus the longer they go on and the further they become removed from the discussion topic.  Discussion or message boards make it difficult to retain the context of the conversation at hand simply by the user-interface of the board itself.  This brings me to an excellent solution:  NowComment.

NowComment is a free (yes, free) web app that allows for dynamic and engaging discussions of online documents, articles, videos, and more.  What sets this educational tool apart from the others are its unique user-interface and features.

NowComment uses a brilliant two-pane user-interface that contains the article or video on the left side of the screen and the discussion of it on the right side.  The article or video can be marked with annotations that link to specific discussions and comments about that particular sentence, paragraph, or section.  NowComment keeps everyone on literally the same page, and the discussions become more relevant and engaging.  Here are two short videos that demonstrate NowComment's awesome features.

Resolve to be Secure

With 2019 just around the corner, it's time to plan our resolutions for the new year.  Since 2018 seemed like a year of constant hacks, cyber attacks, and data breaches, here are the top ten resolutions you can take to be digitally secure in the new year.

1.  Protect Your Passwords

First and foremost, you should change your passwords to be long and complex (at least 10 characters, uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols).  You should absolutely change them right now if any of yours is on the list of the most popular passwords of 2018.  Also, you shouldn't have any of your usernames and passwords written on paper or in a file on your computer.  It's much too easy for people to see or steal them.

Since the average person has several different accounts, usernames, and passwords, it is very difficult to remember all of them.  The best option is to use a password manager.  With a password manager, you only have to remember one master password.  All your other usernames and passwords are remembered by the password manager.  It works like this:  you use your master password to log in to the password manager.  When you get to a website, the password manager automatically fills in your username and password for that website.  Password managers will also generate long, complex, and different passwords for your accounts to further increase security.  Note:  once you install a new password manager, let it change all your passwords to ones it generates.  Also, password managers will sync your usernames and passwords across multiple devices.  Your master password should be long and complex, but that's the only password you'll need to remember.  The two best password managers are Dashlane and LastPass, and both have excellent free versions.



2.  Strengthen Your Security Questions

Many websites will ask you security questions as a way to further secure your account.  However, people may be able to guess the answers to your security questions.  How can they guess?  They can research you online to find out past addresses, schools, relatives, marriages (maiden names), etc.  They can check your social media to find out the names of your pets, hobbies, interests, etc.  An easy way to make your security questions un-guessable is to include a secret character (number, letter, or symbol) before or after your answer.  For example, if it asks for your mother's maiden name, then your answer could be !Smith or SmithX.  You should update all your security answers to include this secret character.



3.  Use Two-factor Authentication

So, you're using a password manager to not only remember your usernames, but also to remember and use long, complex, and different passwords for all your accounts.  Great!  However, these could still be breached.  It's virtually impossible for a person or even a supercomputer to guess the long, complex passwords randomly generated by these password managers, but there is still a microscopic chance.  That's why you need to use two-factor authentication (TFA).  Most commonly, this is set up through your phone.  Once you enter an account's username and password, the website will send a code to your phone that you have to enter on the website as a final step to log in securely.  Even if somebody has managed to figure out your username and password, they won't have the code that was sent to your phone.  Unless your phone was stolen, which brings me to the next resolution.



4.  Secure Your Phone

Forget fingerprint and face locks on your phone.  Those can be easily breached.  If you don't believe me, then read this article, this one, this one, and this one.  The most secure way to protect your phone is through a PIN or password because only you can know it.  Make sure you don't use easy-to-guess PINs or passwords.  Yes, this is another one to remember, but, if you also use a password manager, then you only have two things to remember:  the master password to your password manager and the PIN/password to your phone.  That's absolutely do-able.  If there's an option to encrypt your phone, do it.  Finally, set up the "Find My Phone/Device" feature on your phone, so if it were ever lost or stolen, you can try to find it or remotely lock/wipe it.



5.  Change Your Router and Home Network Username and Password

I bet I could log in to most people's home router.  Why?  Most people don't change the default username and password for their home routers.  I can just go to routerpasswords.com and find the default username and password for any router I want.  Once logged in to your router, I could do all sorts of nefarious things to your network and devices.  Yet, I would never do that because I'm a good guy.  But, to keep out the bad guys, you should change the default username and password to your router to something that's hard to guess.  It's okay to write down this information somewhere safe.  Finally, make sure you have a tough-to-guess password for your home network/Wi-Fi.



6.  Use an Antivirus Program

Don't bother with free antivirus programs because they often don't have necessary features, such as real-time threat monitoring and prevention.  It's worth spending the $50 or so per year to protect your devices.  The only ones I recommend are Webroot, Bitdefender, and Avast.



7.  Use uBlock Origin

Trackers, malware, potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), and other nasty digital stuff can lurk in ads and pop-ups online.  The best adblock extension you can use is uBlock Origin.  Not only will it block these bad things, but it will make browsing the web a cleaner, faster, and more enjoyable experience.



8.  Do Updates

Keeping your devices and programs updated is one of the simplest, easiest, and best ways to increase security.  Software engineers, developers, and even white hat hackers are constantly on the lookout for vulnerabilities and creating patches to fix them.  Updates will also enhance the performance of your devices and programs, so make sure to install those updates.  You can even set updates to install automatically, so that's one fewer thing to remember.  You can usually find update preferences in the "Settings" app or menu of a device or program.  Finally, make sure to turn your devices off and on a couple times a week.  This will help with updates and give the devices a chance to "reset" to fix or prevent some issues.



9.  Lock Your Computer

Even if you've followed all these resolutions, your computer will still be vulnerable if you log in to it and then walk away.  Anyone can then use it while you're gone.  A quick and easy way to prevent this is to lock it.  If you need to leave your computer, press the Windows key (looks like a four-pane window next to the Alt key) and the L key at the same time.  This will lock your computer and require your password to unlock it.  To unlock it, press Ctrl, Alt, and Del at the same time as you normally would to log in, and then enter your password.  Many organizations and businesses take this very seriously and will "write up" or discipline employees who leave computers or other devices logged in and unlocked.



10.  Think Before You Click

Finally, think before you click on something:  a link, a picture, a download button, an attachment, etc.  Take a moment to pause and question if it's safe.  Does it look legitimate?  Is there anything off or sketchy about it (incorrect grammar, sensationalism, bright/flashing animation, "too-good-to-be-true"-ness, etc.)?  Does it come from a secure and trusted source?  You can mouse over a link (without clicking) to see where it leads.  Don't download or install anything unless you know it comes from a safe, trusted, and secure source.  When it doubt, close it out.  And never ever give out usernames, passwords, account information, or any other personal/private information to any unknown, untrusted, or questionable people or services online.

The end of the year is also a good time to clean out and organize your emails.  Here is a post I wrote about five steps you can take to have a better email experience.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and secure New Year!

  

Educational Software Evaluation

My school uses a myriad of educational software and online learning programs.  In order to see if these are meeting the needs of the teachers and students, I developed an evaluation rubric to conduct a comprehensive assessment of each and every one that we use.  I would like to share it with all of you, so that you can use it for your own evaluations, or even tweak it to reflect your unique needs.  You can download the rubric here.  Finally, I would like to give a brief explanation of how the rubric works.

I identified ten areas by which to evaluate a software application or online program:

1. Curriculum & Standards Alignment:  How does the program align with our curriculum, standards, and learning goals?
2. Depth of Knowledge:  What Depth of Knowledge level does the program mostly align with?
3. Authenticity:  How is the content presented in an authentic, real-world manner?
4. Personalization & Adaptability:  How does the program personalize learning and adapt content for students?
5. Instructional Feedback & Reporting:  How does the program offer monitoring and reporting for the teacher?
6. Relearning Opportunities:  How does the program offer opportunities to re-answer questions, and what helpful information does it provide?
7. Ease of Use:  How easily can people use and navigate the program?
8. Engagement:  How does the program engage students?
9. Privacy:  Has the program signed the Student Privacy Pledge (studentprivacypledge.org)?
10. Redundancy:  How redundant is the program based on any similar programs we use?

I also included detailed descriptors for each of these areas, so evaluators will be on the same page.  The final score is out of 50 points, and there is a space for comments at the bottom of the rubric.  You could also turn this rubric into a Google Form or online survey to enable faster data-gathering and more dynamic analysis.  Hopefully, this will help you conduct a comprehensive, objective, and methodical assessment of any educational software or online learning program you use.

How to Go Paperless at School

According to an analysis done by The Paperless Project, 68 million trees are used to make paper and paper products in the United States every year.  This analysis also finds that the global consumption of paper has increased by 400% in the past 40 years.  Additionally, The Paperless Project states that the pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest industrial user of energy.  It’s time that we embrace the many powerful and efficient digital tools to go paperless and save money, energy, time, and our environment.

Here are 10 great benefits of leaving paper and going digital:

1. Reduced paper costs
2. Reduced toner/ink and printer maintenance costs
3. Less electricity costs from running printers and copiers
4. Faster, more engaging, and more collaborative dissemination of information through digital media
5. Easier and quicker access to and searching of digital documents
6. Less physical space needed to store paper documents
7. More secure storage of digital documents
8. Less time lost to printing and copying documents
9. People learning and mastering digital tools of communication
10. More environmentally-friendly

 Also, you’ll have fewer paper cuts, and those are the worst!

Here are five free digital tools that schools can use to go paperless:

G Suite Apps & Google Classroom

If your school is a Google school, then these are a given.  Within G Suite, staff and students can create all sorts of digital documents and then share, collaborate, edit, assess, organize, and archive them.  Setting up shared folders and Team Drives is also a great way to spread information.  The Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension is a valuable tool to save almost anything you find on the Internet directly to your Google Drive in one click to make the curation of digital resources quick and easy.

Other than Google Drive and its associated apps, Google Classroom is almost a one-stop-shop in and of itself to have a paperless classroom.  Within Google Classroom, teachers can post announcements, reminders, polls, quizzes, assignments, as well as direct links to documents.  Teachers can also collect assignments submitted by students, provide feedback, and send it back to students.  Teachers can keep parents in the loop by inviting them to their Google Classroom as well.  To instantly share documents or a website to students in class on their Chromebooks, teachers can use the Share to Google Classroom Chrome Extension.

Teachers, students, and other school staff can use Blogger and/or Google Sites to share information with parents or anyone else in the school community.  Blogger and Google Sites are also good to use for displaying student work, activities, and events.

Here are excellent resources on getting the most out of the G Suite apps and Google Classroom:

Google Classroom Video Tutorial

Google Classroom Tips

How to Use the Google Classroom Extension

Google Drive Video Tutorials

Google Docs Video Tutorials

Google Slides Video Tutorials

Google Forms Video Tutorials

Google Forms Tips

Google Sheets Video Tutorials

10 Important Google Sheets Tips for Teachers

PDF Conversion

You can use a copier’s Scan to PDF feature or use a standalone scanner to convert all your paper documents into PDF files.  Using a copier to do this is the easiest and quickest way since you can load several pages into the feeder at once.  If you don’t have a copier or a scanner, you can use your smartphone.  I recommend the CamScanner app, which will let you take a photo of any document, edit it (if you want), and convert it into a PDF.

Print Friendly Chrome Extension

This useful Chrome extension lets you remove text, images, and whole pages from things you find on the Internet, which will help you save toner and paper if you really do need to print something.  Print Friendly also has features to convert a webpage or online article into a PDF and/or email it.  To learn more about how to make the most of Print Friendly, check out my article about it.  Download Print Friendly here.

Remind

Remind is an app to help improve communication between teachers, students, and parents.  With Remind, teachers can send text messages, voice clips, photos, PDFs, and more directly to students’ and parents’ smartphones.  Remind has earned the FERPA and COPPA privacy badges from iKeepSafe.

Here’s a video about Remind:

Padlet

Padlet is an online application to create, share, and collaborate on digital bulletin boards.  Users can access Padlet on a smartphone, tablet, or computer to post almost anything to a Padlet board, such as photos, documents, videos, music, Google files, and more.  Users can also comment on them to give feedback, suggest ideas, and ask questions.  Padlet is a great way to share and curate information and resources.

Here's a video about Padlet:

These tools will help schools save money, energy, and the environment all while improving productivity, communication, and collaboration.

Create and Book Appointments with Google Calendar

The work days of teachers and school administrators are nothing short of busy.  One of the more difficult things to coordinate amidst all the hustle and bustle is meetings.  Finding common free times, making appointments, canceling appointments, and just remembering it all is a huge task in and of itself.  Google Calendar has a hidden gem of a feature called “Appointment Slots” to make all of this simple, efficient, and easy.

Appointment Slots is exactly what you think it is.  It is a way to create a calendar with customizable time slots that people can reserve for meetings, conferences, or any other kind of appointment.  I’m thinking of using this feature to create calendars for teachers to reserve the use of iPad carts, so there are plenty of other uses for this feature besides personal appointments.  Here’s how to create your own Google appointment calendar:

1.  Sign in to your school Google account, and open Calendar.

2.  You can use your existing calendar, or you can create a new calendar just for appointments.  I recommend creating a new calendar to use only for this purpose.

3.  On the left side of the screen, click the + sign next to “Add a coworker’s calendar”.  Then, click “New calendar”.

4.  Name your calendar and add a description if you want.

5.  Once you’ve created the new calendar, click the calendar itself on the date for which you want to create appointment slots.  Then, click “Appointment slots”.  Now, you can adjust the title, date, time, and duration of slots.  You can also click “More Options” to change other things.  Click “Save” to finish creating them.

6.  To have people book appointments, click on the title of the appointments on your Calendar.  Then, click “This calendar’s appointment page”.  This will open a webpage to book the appointments.  Copy the URL of this webpage and send it to whomever you want to book appointments.  People must have a Google account to book appointments.  They can book appointments by clicking on an available slot, and then clicking “Save”.  They can return to this page to cancel or change their appointment.

This is what the appointments page looks like:

You and the people booking appointments will get notifications and reminders through Calendar.  Since teachers and school administrators do so much through Google as it is, this is an efficient way to make the scheduling and managing of meetings easier and simpler.

5 Steps to Optimize Your Email

According to research done by the Radicati Group, an estimated 11.2 billion emails were sent every hour of every day across the world in 2017.  The research also found that an average office worker received 121 emails and sent 40 emails per day.  Email was the preferred method of communication for 86% of professionals.  In light of this digital deluge, the efficient management of emails is an important way to bring clarity and calm to your work life.  Here are five steps you can take to tame the wild world of email.  I will be focusing on Gmail, but these steps can apply to any email service.

1.  Purge

If you were to take only one of these steps, this is by and far the most transformative.  Simply put, delete all the emails you truly don’t need.  Decluttering your inbox (or anything else for that matter, such as a room or a car) will make it much easier to find things, and it will make the things you still have easier to manage.  In Gmail, check the box next to the emails you want to delete.  Once you have all those selected, click the trash can icon near the top of the page to delete them.  The deleted emails will still be in your Gmail trash, and you can go there to permanently delete them.

2.  Unsubscribe

Over the years, you have probably signed up to get emails for a variety of sources.  You may also be getting emails from places where you didn’t sign up.  Spam filters are usually good at detecting and removing spam emails, but many unwanted or useless emails still get to your inbox.  There is a quick and easy way to reduce the number of emails you get by unsubscribing from them.  At the bottom of an email is usually a link that you can click to unsubscribe or update your email preferences for that sender.  Just click on that link and unsubscribe.  Here is what those links may look like:

3.  Organize

The first two steps will greatly reduce the number of emails you have in your inbox, which will make this step of organization much easier.  In this step, you will create labels for you Gmail.  These are essentially folders that you can drag and drop emails into to categorize and organize them.  This will help you manage all your emails and make it easier to find them since they’ll be in categories.  On the left side of Gmail, you will see “Inbox”.  Scroll down that left side until you see “More” with a down arrow next to it.  Click on “More”, scroll down, and then click on “Create new label”.  Now, you can name the label something like “Lesson Plans” or “Parents” or “Administration”.  Once you have created all the labels you want, you can drag and drop your emails into these labels.

4.  Use Email Groups

In a school or business, there are always certain groups of people we email on a regular basis.  Typing in each recipient in the To field (and even remembering all the people you want to include) can be tedious and time-consuming.  Having a ready-made email group makes the sending and organizing of emails faster and easier.  Email groups can be handy for teachers as they can create groups for parents, committees, courses, extracurricular activities, etc.  Below are screenshots and instructions on how to do this yourself in Gmail.

First, click the down arrow next to “Mail”, and then click on “Contacts”.

Next, click on “New Group...”, and then name the group.

Now, you can add people to the group.  Click the button with the plus sign, and then type in the email addresses of the people you want in the group.  When you’ve included all of them, click “Add”.

On the Contacts page, you can select a group to email.  Or you can return to the Mail page (click the arrow next to Contacts), compose a new email, and type the name of the group in the To field.

5.  Undo Send

We have all experienced that sinking feeling in the moment after sending an email you wish you didn’t send.  Gmail has a way of making that wish come true.  There is an undo send feature in Gmail that gives you the ability to stop an email from being sent even if you already hit the send button.  When you’re in Gmail, click the gear icon on the right side of the screen.  Then, click “Settings”.  Click the box next to “Enable Undo Send”, and then select the amount of time you want to give yourself to undo a sent email:  5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds.  Once you have undo send enabled, a narrow window will appear at the top of your Gmail inbox with the option of undoing the sent email and showing you how much time you have left to do it.

Hopefully, these steps will help you live a more manageable, organized, and efficient email life.

A Super Citation Tool

If academia had a scarlet letter, it would be P.  Those who dare to claim somebody else’s work as their own or even leave sources uncited would be branded with a gasp-inducing red P.  If you haven’t guessed it, I’m talking about plagiarism.  All kidding aside, people have lost jobs, students have been expelled, and publications have lost credibility because of plagiarism.

In my day, we had to pore over citation manuals or just memorize how to cite common sources in the most popular styles to write our research papers and works cited pages.  Only for the styles to change the next year!  Now, there are a few tools out there that will do all this work for you…and do it flawlessly.  The tool I’m going to focus on is one I think does it the best and offers additional useful features.

If you’ve heard of or used RefME before, then you should know that it has changed its name and all its services to Cite This for Me.  You can create your free account on its website.  The first neat thing about Cite This for Me is that all your references, citations, work cited pages, and notes are stored in the cloud, so you can access them from any computer, tablet, or smartphone once you sign in to your account.

Cite This for Me has a great Google Chrome extension that allows you to cite, quote, and save any reference you access online through Chrome to your account.  You can get this extension by clicking here.  Once you have the citation information, click “Add to bibliography”, and you’re done.  Here’s what that looks like:

Cite This for Me can do citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles.  You can see all of its features for creating a works cited page below:

Cite This for Me provides many other great features, such as topic ideas, a plagiarism checker, and a spelling/grammar checker.  Also, it has an add-on for Microsoft Word, so you can seamlessly import citations and works cited pages from Cite This for Me directly into Word.

Now, you can go forth and live an academically sinless life!

Finding Images Right Within Google Docs and Slides

A few months ago, I wrote about effective ways to use Google Image Search to not only find the perfect picture for your needs, but to also get pictures that are free and legal to use and/or modify.  This is important for students because it allows them to be good digital citizens and avoid plagiarism.  There is a way to do this within Google Docs and Slides, which makes the whole process of finding and inserting images much faster and smoother.

When you are using Google Docs or Slides, click on “Insert”, and then click on “Image”.

A new window will appear, and you should click on “Search” to begin looking for images.  You are given three choices of databases to search:  Google, Life, and stock images.

Depending on your needs, you can conduct the same search in one or all three of these databases to find exactly what you want.  The images that do appear in your search will automatically be ones that are free and legal to use because of the built-in filter with the search.  If you are using a G Suite for Education account, then all of the images will be filtered with Google’s Safe Search as well.

Using this embedded image search tool within Google Docs and Slides will help keep students on task as they don’t have to leave the file they are working on to search for and get images elsewhere.  It will help them find appropriate and free pictures to use.  Finally, it will streamline the whole process to get the work done more efficiently.

Google Chrome Tips and Tricks

Google provides many time-saving and effective services and apps to help us get our work done faster and better.  Its browser, Chrome, is one of those tools.  Here are five neat things you can do in Chrome to make a teacher's or student's life a little easier.

1.  Set Specific Websites to Open at Startup

If there are particular websites that you always use or want right away when you open Chrome, you can make them load automatically at startup.  Click the traffic light menu button (three vertical dots) on the upper right side of Chrome.  Click Settings.  Then, configure how Chrome starts up.  Click the blue "Set pages" to choose the websites you want.

2.  Do Math

Chrome can solve simple and complex math problems, equations, and measurement conversions.  Just type in what you want solved into the ominbox (the white box where you enter website addresses), and hit enter.  You can also click on the microphone icon in the Google Search bar to do this by voice.  Here's an example:

3.  Save Webpages as a PDF

If you want to save a webpage as a PDF so you can save it electronically to your computer or flash drive, Chrome can do that.  Click Print, and then click Change under Destination.  Finally, choose Save as PDF.  This will save a PDF copy to your computer.  Now, you can keep the webpage for offline viewing, print it, or share it with others.

4.  Zoom and Full Screen

There are two ways you can quickly and easily zoom in and out of any website.  First, press the Ctrl key and the plus (zoom in) or minus (zoom out) sign key at the same time.  Second, click the traffic light menu button (three vertical dots) on the upper right side of Chrome.  You'll see the following options for zoom in, zoom out, and full screen (the box):

5.  Open Recently Closed Tabs

Sometimes you may close a tab that you want to have back.  An easy way to do that is to press Ctrl, Shift, T at the same time, which will open the last tab you closed.  You can also right-click on a new tab to open the last closed tab.

These five tips and tricks will help you and your students be more efficient and productive while doing work with Google Chrome.

How to Create and Use Gmail Groups

In a school or business, there are always certain groups of people we email on a regular basis.  Typing in each recipient in the To field (and even remembering all the people you want to include) can be tedious and time-consuming.  Having a ready-made email group makes the sending and organizing of emails faster and easier.

I created email groups for each grade level in my school, so we could have organized and targeted conversations about technology.  I also created an email group for our Technology Committee to keep those messages together.  Email groups can be handy for teachers as they can create groups for parents, committees, courses, extracurricular activities, etc.  Below are screenshots and instructions on how to do this yourself in Gmail.

First, click the down arrow next to "Mail", and then click on "Contacts".

Next, click on "New Group...", and then name the group.

Now, you can add people to the group.  Click the button with the plus sign, and then type in the email addresses of the people you want in the group.  When you've included all of them, click "Add".

On the Contacts page, you can select a group to email.  Or you can return to the Mail page (click the arrow next to Contacts), compose a new email, and type the name of the group in the To field.

Hopefully, this makes all your emailing faster, easier, and more organized!

How to Use Google Image Search

Finding the right image can work wonders for a presentation, document, or website.  Using Google Search to find the right one can leave you with thousands to choose from, which can be overwhelming and time-consuming.  Just like with using Google Search to find websites or publications, there are filtering tools you can use to fine tune your search and quickly find the right image.

Click on Tools, and several filter drop-down menus appear.  The first lets you filter by the size or dimensions of an image.  You can even specify a particular size by clicking on "Exactly...".

The next one filters by color.  For example, I could filter by yellow if I wanted to find yellow foliage.  The transparent option is very handy because these images have no background, so you can seamlessly integrate it into anything you want.  Images with no background look slick when you add them to something.

The Type filter allows you to narrow your search by the following attributes in this screenshot:

The next filter gives you the ability to find images from a certain period of time.  You can even set a custom range if you know of an exact time-span from which you want images.

The next one might be the most important since it identifies if you can legally reuse and/or modify an image.  This filter is especially important to students who must maintain standards of digital citizenship and avoid plagiarism.  The first two filters apply to commercial use.  You can reuse without modifying the image, or you can reuse and modify the image.  The last two filters apply to noncommercial use.

Now, you can find the right image without worrying about being sued!

Better Bookmarks

The Internet abounds with great resources and materials for teachers.  Thus, bookmarks have become a teacher's very close, if not best, friend.  However, teachers end up having lots and lots of these friends, and they can only fit so many on the always-visible bookmarks bar that runs under the URL bar in the browser.  Once that bookmarks bar fills up, anything you subsequently bookmark will be added to a drop-down menu at the end of the bar.  People have come to me asking where their new bookmarks went.  Here is where you need to look:

Click on that double arrow to bring up the list of bookmarks.  That's where new bookmarks will go when the bar is full.  You can drag and drop them into the bookmarks bar.  Also, you can drag and drop the ones already in your bookmarks bar to rearrange them.  Still, this doesn't solve the problem of running out of room for bookmarks in the bar.  Here is a solution.

Much like with icons on your computer desktop, smartphone, or tablet, you really don't need the text next to a bookmark to know what it is.  Almost every website uses favicons (a portmanteau of favorite and icon), which are the icons you see in the bookmarks bar.  Most are instantaneously recognizable, such as the one I'll use for an example:  IXL.  You can edit the bookmark to delete the text, so all you have is only the favicon.  This will allow you to store many more bookmarks in the readily accessible bar.  Here's how to do it.

1.  Right click on the bookmark.

2.  Click "Edit..."

3.  Delete the text in the "Name" box.

4.  Click "Save" at the bottom of that window.  This is what IXL will look like without text next to it.  QwertyTown would just have the QT favicon if you did the same for that one.

Voila!  Now, you can keep more of your bookmarks right where they're easy to see and access!

Super Shortcuts for Chromebooks

This Tech Tip is about using shortcuts to be more effective.  I'm not talking about cutting corners or taking the easy way out.  This is a blog about technology after all.  I'm talking about keyboard shortcuts.  And since this blog is geared toward technology in education, I'll be explaining keyboard shortcuts for Chromebooks, which are being increasingly used by teachers and students every year.

Allow me to digress for a moment to offer some interesting statistics about Chromebook usage in American classrooms.  According to a 2016 survey conducted by Front Row Education of over 2,500 teachers and administrators in the United States, over 60% of classrooms have access to Chromebooks, which is up 15% from the previous year.  Even 54% of Kindergarten through Grade 2 classrooms use Chromebooks.  Finally, 67% of teachers on the West Coast have access to Chromebooks while 62% of East Coast teachers have access to them.

Using keyboard shortcuts is an easy way to be more productive and efficient.  I created a PDF with the top ten keyboard shortcuts for Chromebooks, which you can download below.  Or you can use the Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension I wrote about earlier to save it directly to your Drive.

In the PDF, you'll find the classics of copy, cut, and paste.  You'll also find some other interesting shortcuts you may not have known.  To search for a word, phrase, or any other text, press Ctrl and f to open the find bar in the upper right.  From there, you can quickly find what you're looking for, which is very helpful when researching something.  If something you find on the Internet is too small or too large to comfortably see, press Ctrl + or Ctrl - to zoom in and out.  The percentage of the zoom will appear in the upper right when you do so.

You can quickly open a new tab without having to use the mouse by pressing Ctrl and t.  If you accidentally close a tab you still want, press Ctrl, Shift, and t to reopen the last closed tab.  Taking screenshots has many great uses from creating instructions to presentations.  To take a whole screenshot, press Ctrl and the screenshot key.  To take a screenshot of only a particular area of the screen, press Ctrl, Shift, and the screenshot key.  The screenshot key looks like this:

Here is the PDF with the top ten keyboard shortcuts for Chromebooks.  With these, you and your students will be productivity pros in no time!

How to Get Better Google Search Results

Google Search has become so ubiquitous that it generated a new verb:  Google.  Don't know something?  Google it!

Google's search engine is arguably the best; yet, we sometimes get less-than-the-best search results.  Or we can't even find what we're searching for altogether!  There are some tips and tricks to using Google Search to refine the results and find exactly what you want.

Here is a PDF that you and your students can use to become a Google super searcher:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxCFzzS4E07-WEhZZlBuUC1mSm8/view?usp=sharing

Just use the modifiers in this PDF when you search for something in Google, and the results will be much better.  You could also print this PDF and post it in your classroom, so your students can use these Google search tips anytime.

If you're like me, your Google Drive is filled with documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations, and a plethora of other things I know I have, but can't always find.  As with Google Search, there are some tricks you can use to help find what you want in Drive.  Check out this great infographic on Google Drive search tips.

Now, we can finally find what we're searching for!  I just wish it worked for finding my earbuds!

A Little Saving Goes a Long Way

In the spirit of saving resources, I'll keep this post short.  Here is a great way to save toner and paper while making what we print easier to read.

Meet the Print Friendly Chrome Extension.  This extension lets you modify things you want to print from the Internet in order to reduce toner and paper.  You can use this extension to easily delete text, images, whole pages, or other things you don't want on the printed copy.  Watch this brief tutorial on Print Friendly:

Once it is installed, you can go to a webpage (or almost anything you want to print from the Internet), and then click the green Print Friendly icon in the upper right of Chrome.  A window will appear in which you will remove things that you don't want printed.  All you have to do is click on what you want to remove and then delete it.  You can also save this as a PDF once you're done editing it.  Here's how to install it in Chrome:

1.  Open Chrome and click this link.
2.  Click the blue "Add to Chrome" button in the upper right.
3.  The extension will install, and you'll be good to go!

This is a must-have tool to save toner and paper while increasing the readability of what you print.  And it helps you save a tree!

Put It in (Google) Drive

This Tech Tip is about saving what you find on the Internet to your Google Drive. First, for those that would like tutorials about using Google Drive, please click here.

Bookmarking websites and other web content is a great way to keep and organize helpful information.  Yet, what do you do when you come across documents, PDFs, images, spreadsheets, or slideshows that you want to keep and possibly modify for your own use?  You can often find these files on the Internet, and here is an easy way that you can store them in your Google Drive, so you can always have them at your fingertips.

Meet the Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension.  With this extension installed, you can save documents, images, and videos to your Google Drive with just a couple clicks.  Then, when you go to your Google Drive, what you saved will be right there.  For example, if you find a PDF on a website that you want to keep, you can right-click on the file, and an option to “Save to Google Drive” will appear.  Click on that, and that PDF will now be in your Google Drive.  Right-clicking on what you want to save is probably the easiest way to use this extension.  Here’s how to install it in Chrome:

1. Open Chrome and click this link.
2. Click the blue "Add to Chrome" button in the upper right.
3. The extension will install, and you'll be good to go!

Now, you can kick your online saving into overdrive with Save to Google Drive!

Subtract the Ads

Welcome to my blog!  Here you will find helpful information about Google, Chromebooks, iPads, Promethean and SMART boards, and many other education technology tools.  As always, please let me know if you have any questions or need any help with them.  Here's the first one - and some may already know about this.

First, if you haven’t made Chrome your default browser, you should because it will make using Google for Education applications and other Chrome products much better.  If you haven’t installed Chrome, please click here to download and install it.  Once it’s installed, here’s how to make Chrome your default browser:

1.  Open Chrome.
2.  Click on the three vertical dots in the upper right (Chrome menu).
3.  Click Settings.
4.  Under the “Default browser” section, click “Make Google Chrome the default browser” button.

For my first post, I thought it would be a good idea that it be something everyone, staff and students, can use.  It is the AdBlock Chrome Extension.  AdBlock helps to protect privacy, improve Chrome browser performance, increase webpage loading speed, and clear away distracting (and sometimes inappropriate) ads across the Internet.  Also, it removes ads in YouTube videos.  Finally, it's free!  Here's how to install it in Chrome:

1.  Open Chrome and click this link.

2.  Click the blue "Add to Chrome" button in the upper right.

3.  The extension will install.

4.  The extension icon will appear in the upper right of Chrome as a red stop sign with a hand in the center.

5.  Click that icon and click Options.  Uncheck the box that reads "Allow some non-intrusive advertising".

6.  Close and restart Chrome, and you'll be good to go.

Enjoy the wonderful world of zero ads! It's a true addition by subtraction!