Doc Stickers: Google Docs + Google Keep=Brilliant Feedback Idea! Guest Post by Stephanie Filardo

Stephanie Filardo: Photo credit
Valerie Callan Photography

Guest Blog Post by Stephanie Filardo, follow Stephanie's blog here and find her on Twitter here. 

Stephanie is currently a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri

I remember getting papers back with stickers and stamps as a kid.  While I may not remember the specific assignments and what I learned from them, but I remember how it made me feel when I saw a sticker or stamp on them.  While my teachers were just taking stickers from a page and adhering them to all of the student papers, it meant something because they took them time to do it.  They didn't have to do it, they cared enough to do it.  It meant something to read "Excellent!" "Great job!" "A+!" and even better when it was the coveted scratch-n-sniff sticker!

This idea is brought to you by the wonderful integration of Google Docs and Google Keep.  Enjoy!

Today, I'm excited to tell you about DocStickers! If you can give me 90 seconds of your time, this video is worth a watch! Otherwise, continue below.

One of my students asked for this sticker,
so I made it. I may have to provide grape 
bubblegum with it for the full effect though!

With most of my assignments having gone digital, I still want to be able to bring this joy to my students.  I've kicked this idea around for a while, but there really wasn't a seamless way to get images/digital stickers into a Doc...until the latest Google Keep update (in Docs).  So while I can't bring you a way to make your student papers smell like grapes, cherries, or bubble gum, I can show you a way to bring the joy of stickers to your students' digital assignments.  DocStickers was born!

Example of a DocSticker in a student assignment.  "Now you're flying!"

Check out the Original Post for some pre-made DocStickers, templates, and tutorials for you to get started (link opens in a new window):

FREE DOC STICKERS HERE: Original DocStickers Post on i3algebra.blotspot.com

One thing I want to make VERY clear.  This isn't about turning a worksheet into a digital assignment just to add a sticker to it.  It isn't about creating more work for you as a teacher.  It IS about helping you give feedback to students (and making your grading time a little bit cheerier).  It IS about making sure we aren't just "passing back" (returning on Google Classroom) assignments without some sort of feedback.  Much of the work my students do has gone digital.  This was true in my math classroom, and it is a reality in my computer science classes.

There are many forms of feedback I utilize and this is a complement to written and/or verbal feedback.  Can it be more than that?  I hope so.  The Google Keep integration lets you insert more than just images, and Keep is very much a lesser known tool despite its power for cross-device bookmarking, shared lists and notes, etc....the possibilities are seemingly endless.  I look forward to sharing more ways you can utilize this tool both as a teacher and with your students.

I have high school students who remember getting stickers and stamps on their work when it was handed back.  And although it may seem childish, they miss it.  They miss the way it made them feel; .I want to make sure that joy doesn't go the wayside as we go paperless.


Tweet me @i3algebra #DocStickers I'd love to know what you think!

If you would like to share this idea (edcamp, tips session, etc) I'd also love to collaborate with you to help you share this idea in the greater context of student feedback.

Quick-Start Flyer

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Google Team Drives Solve a BIG Problem (But They May Be Hard to Wrap Your Head Around)

Scenario One: Organized Ms. X

A group of teachers wants to work together on unit plans. The department chair creates a folder and gives each of her colleagues edit rights to the folder. After all, she doesn't want to have to change permissions on every individual file.

Along comes Ms. X who is new to the Googleverse. She has her very own organizational structure and being a very organized person, she wants to put her lesson plans into the folders she has created for each of her units throughout the year, so, she drags each of those lesson plans out of the disorganized mess of a folder created by her department chair into her own organizational structure.

You know what's next. UH OH. All of those materials have now "disappeared" from the folder where they once lived---the folder that gave the entire team the ability to work together on the files. 

Scenario Two: Upwardly Mobile Mr. Y

Mr. Y is a part of the same team as the department chair and Ms. X described above. He is always looking for his next coaching position in a bigger district with a better football team. (Sorry for the stereotype Mr. Y.) After school ends...during the month of July, he finally finds his dream job and his district releases him from his contract so that he can take it.

Mr. Y has created each of the files in the first 9 weeks folder of this team. By the end of July, his account with the district has been automatically deleted. His team comes back to school in August to find the first 9 weeks folder containing all of their mutual work is completely empty. Turns out, Mr. Y owned all of the files within even though the entire team contributed to them. Unless the technology department can restore his files and transfer ownership, they are gone forever.

Google Team Drives solves two enormous Google Drive issues that have plagued us since we became dependent on collaboration and the cloud. 

Google's official documentation describes them best . . .

Google Team Drives are shared spaces where teams can easily store, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device. 

Unlike files in My Drive, files in Team Drive belong to the team instead of an individual. Even if members leave, the files stay exactly where they are so your team can continue to share information and get work done.

Note: Team Drives is available on G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, or G Suite Education editions. If you can’t use Team Drives, contact your administrator.

Want to take a look at how to create a Team Drive and learn more about what they are? Watch the video below!

Also check out this (better organized!!) video from my colleague JP Hale from Taylor ISD

IT Directors: This is the one to send to your teachers to help them learn about Team Drives before you turn it on.

Interesting aspects of Team Drives:

• They have themes! Much like the current version of Google Forms. 

*At press time, you cannot change the permissions of objects inside the Team Drive. I wonder if this will be possible in the future?

*It's also not possible yet to add a file to your own Drive AND a Team Drive with the Shift+Z "trick." << Sad Trombone>>

The "hard to wrap your head around it" part comes when you start considering WHEN to create a Team Drive. For example, you'd want a Team Drive for the English Department not for First 9 Weeks Unit 1---anytime you have a new group who all needs to see a set of files, that's Team Drives time, but not necessarily with a new project, unless the new project also entails a new group. You feel me? Maybe not, this is going to take some time!

Learn even more about Team Drives in the G Suite Learning Center here. 

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MIND BLOWN: Now Possible . . . Narration in Google Slides (and it's EASY and FREE)

So, we hope everyone who reads the friEdTechnology OR Brenham ISD blog is ready to have their minds blown! 

By Guest Blogger Tom Spall, find him on Twitter @Tommyspall

I would like to thank two incredibly smart, Google-tastic friends: Jessica Powell and Amy Mayer from FriEdTechnology for this blog post! It's awesome what happens when folks put their minds together! #PLN

In a recent Brenham Tech Daily blog post we discussed the new G-Suite update to Google Slides where you can now upload a video straight from your Google Drive into your Slide Presentation. Jessica Powell has taken this a step forward and decided to turn her presentations into voice-navigated (self-paced) presentations.

The practical use for this in education and/or self-paced training is enormous. Just think of educators conducting training sessions online using this method. Or students taking a self-paced, voice-navigated test at their own speed. Every day Google is allowing for us to change the game in education!

Below is the original idea from my buddy, Jess P.

From +Jess Powell-Allbright (@SimplyEdTech)

"I'm sure by now you've heard the awesome news....you can now insert videos from Google Drive into your Slides presentations so that you don't have to rely on YouTube videos.

One tip I wanted to share with you all that I'm using with my self-paced course materials, Voice-Navigated Presentations:

Use Screencastify's "Webcam" recorder to narrate your slides.

Upload to Google Drive.

Insert the video into your slide.

Then, right click on your video to see "Video options"

Choose "Autoplay when presenting"

I shrink my video super small so it's hidden.

There you go. Now your slides presentations can be self-paced, using the link to slide option, AND voice-narrated. Making online coursework using Slides is super easy now!"

+Amy Mayer (@friEdTechnology) was able to take this great idea and create a wonderful tutorial for you that takes you through the various steps needed to make this happen! Watch below:

Narrated Slides from Amy Mayer

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Learn to use the New Autocrat 3.0 to Make Certificates (or Anything Else)

Hi there, educators! I hope you enjoy this tutorial showing how to make certificates using Autocrat 3.0, which is quite different, and I think much easier, than the previous version. If you like it, please share it with others on social media, subscribe to you YouTube channel or leave a comment. Thanks in advance!

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Google Drawing Templates Galore from the Best of EdTech! (Redux)

Google Drawing Templates: Please do not request access, open the template you want and create a copy. Thanks to everyone who contributed to these set! Eric Curts, Kasey Bell, and Matt Miller.

http://bit.ly/GoogleDrawingTemplates

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The Definitive Guide to Google Classroom "Parent View" aka Guardian Summaries

In this guide, Mike Wallace and Amy Mayer seek to provide you with all the knowledge you need as a PARENT, TEACHER or GAFE SYS ADMIN to get the most out of Google Classroom Guardian Summaries. We sure hope it helps! If it does, please share this post and encourage your colleagues to get on our email list here.

All materials referred to in this post can be found here.



PARENTS: If your child's school is using Google Classroom and has enabled Guardian Summaries, your job is easy. All you have to do is click "Accept" when you receive the email from ...@classroom.google.com. It will look something like the screenshot you see below:

After you click the blue ACCEPT button, you'll get an option to choose the frequency of the emails you receive (daily or weekly) and your time zone. Presumably, this will keep the summaries from coming to you at 3 a.m. and waking you up. 

If you don't get the invite, check your email's SPAM folder. The email should come from a "no reply" email address and that may push it into SPAM. If you still don't get the invite, ask your child's teacher to remove your address and re-add you. This will remove you from all classes where you have been invited, but that's ok because you didn't get the invite anyway. If that STILL doesn't work, create a new Gmail email address and ask the teacher or system administrator to invite that address. Remember, you can always forward messages to your existing account so that you don't have to permanently change your address. 

If you STILL don't get the email, the problem most likely is that your email provider is blocking emails from Google at the server level before they get to your inbox. ​This is a problem that neither we nor Google will likely be able to solve; however, there are two possible workarounds.

1. Sign up for a Gmail account here. If you don't want to check another email address, you can use these directions to forward email from that account to your current account.

2. Contact your email provider and ask them to release the emails from Google Classroom. they will be looking for messages from @classroom.google.com.

If you choose to enact solution 1 above, you would then need ask your child's teacher to add your new Gmail address to Google Classroom.

TEACHERS: Your job is a bit more difficult, and depending on the settings your Google Apps System Administrator has chosen, this next step could be a tad time consuming. However, it will also be WORTH IT. 

Scenario 1: Your Admin has allowed YOU to invite guardians. Below you will see a gif showing you how to invite a guardian manually if this feature has been enabled for you. Here are some written directions. 

Scenario 2: Your Admin has added guardians to Classroom. This is a dream come true! In this case, just go to the Students tab in your classroom and toggle the switch beside "Include this class." You'll also need to decide if you want to add ALL the classes you teach or just this one. Both options are pictured below. 

GAFE SYS ADMINS: 

You also have some work to do, and as you can see from the directions above, everyone is counting on you (as usual)! There are also two scenarios for you to consider. 

Scenario 1: Teachers are already contacting students' guardians. They already know who those guardians are and presumably there is a system in place so that they know when a guardian becomes not a guardian anymore or is added. Considering this, it is possible to allow teachers to add guardians themselves. They may even ask you for this privilege because they will be able to keep this information updated themselves. In this case, please watch the video below to learn how to allow teachers to manually add guardians. 

Scenario 2: Your district collects and maintains guardian data and you take the responsibility seriously. You want there to be ONE system that houses this information and you want to maintain control of it. In this case, you will want to populate guardian data yourself.

Before you set up the script or begin the process, email parents AND teachers to let them know what's going on. Here are some email templates you can use. Don't forget to replace the GREEN text with your school's information.

FOR THE REAL TECHNICAL PEOPLE: In order to automate this process, you will have to install GAM (Google Apps Manager). You can get it from Github here and you can learn how to use it here. Once you get GAM installed, please see this example Script and CSV file Mike Wallace has generously provided.  This script will work for districts with up to 3000 students; larger districts will need a more complicated setup to mitigate the time it takes to download a list of invites from Google. If you need help with this process, please feel free to contact friEdTechnology for a quote here.


We sure hope this helps! Please let us know in the comments or on YouTube if you have any further questions or anything to add!

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What is Blended Learning?

My friend J.R. shared this infographic with our friEdTechnology Team yesterday and I thought it might be helpful to lots of other educators as well. Thanks to Knewton.com for the graphic and included rights to republish.

Created by Knewton

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GradGopher.com has just Changed the Game for Saving Google Apps Data

By Guest Blogger Carlos from Grad Gopher

(P.S. This is NOT a paid post! I asked Carlos to write this for us because Grad Gopher is going to save you TIME and make sure you get all your DATA. It really is AMAZING.)

Our new, game-changing software GradGopher.com was built out of the frustration of teachers and students looking to save their information with no easy solution. GradGopher.com copies your Google Drive (Shared & Owned files), Gmail emails (with attachments), Contacts, and Calendar events to another Google account of your choosing and it only takes a minute to set up!

Unlike Google Takeout,

• GradGopher copies all the files shared with you! 
• GradGopher saves you a ton of time! 

“GradGopher literally saved me about 40-50 hours worth of manual labor. I can't say enough about this. It is really everything you hoped for and more.” - Colin Davitt

• GradGopher puts all your stuff in folders just like it was in your school account, all your organization is saved! 
• GradGopher works really fast! 

Forwarding emails can take more than a month to get all emails. Do you have that amount of time before your account is deleted?

• GradGopher makes sure you can continue to access your files on your phone or wherever!

Within a minute of setup, GradGopher will begin copying for you. Once the copy begins, you have complete freedom; you can close your browser, shutdown your computer, or even go in and out of the accounts if you want!

People are telling us that GradGopher is like magic, but actually it’s just thoughtfully designed software to help you move forward in your life without any hassles! :)

Here’s our “How it Works” video if you want to see it in action! 

If you have any questions, please follow and tweet at us twitter.com/GradGopher!

Like us on facebook: Facebook.com/GradGopher

Check out reviews from teachers, students, and IT admins: Facebook.com/GradGopher/reviews!

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Get the Most out of Google Apps for Education with Synergyse Training (NOW FREE!) by Guest Blogger Michael Wallace

Guest Post by friEdTech Technical Guru Michael Wallace reposted from Mike's blog here.

Synergyse is Free!

Synergyse is now free. For those of you who are not familiar with Synergyse, it is a Chrome extension that can supplement Google training. There are hours of videos that cover basic tasks a person new to Google would want to learn about. They also cover a few in depth topics. At The Village School we purchased Synergyse for the entire staff. I did find the price a bit high, but now that it's free I would recommend it to any organization. There are two ways to install Synergyse, individually, or by Google OU,  I'll cover both.

The first way is to install it for your self. In Chrome go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Synergyse. You should see an extension that looks like this:

Click the "Add to Chrome Button" and you should get a pop up like this:

Click "Add Extension" and that's it. Now when you go to Gmail, Drive, or a host of other Google pages you should see the Synergyse logo next to your profile photo like this:

If you don't see it the first time refresh the page and it should load.

This is all great and dandy for one or two people, but what if you have hundreds or even thousands that you want to share this great tool with? If you're an admin for your Google Apps domain you can push it out to the entire organization or any Google OU you wish. You start at admin.google.com and click on Apps. Then you go to "Additional Google Services" -> "Chrome Management" -> "User Settings." On the left of this page it should have your organizational structure like this:

My structure here is simple, yours may be more complex. Select the OU you want to push Synergyse to. Press CTRL+f  (Command+f for Mac) and type force-installed in the find box.

You should see the "Force-Installed Apps and Extensions" setting.

Click on "Manage force-installed apps" and select "Chrome Web Store." Type Synergyse in the box then click add.

Click Save to close this window and make sure to click save again on the Chrome User Settings page.

That's all there is to it. The next time a user in the OU you pushed it to loads Gmail, Drive, or one of the other supported Google services they will see the Synergyse logo and can click on it to learn about working in the Google environment.

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Part 2: Get your Computer (and Files) Ready for Summer (Install Google Drive)

Part 2 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the best way to upload ALL your files (or a whole bunch of files) over a longer period of time without having to drag and drop or babysit the process. We'll do this using the downloaded version of Google Drive which you'll install on your computer.

This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to the cloud! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone.

Links you'll need:

https://www.google.com/drive/download/

http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

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Project Based Learning (PBL): How Do I Know if I'm Doing it Right?!?

This video seeks to answer the #1 question I get about Project Based Learning, and that is, "Am I Doing This Right?!?" The question speaks to the integrity of my favorite people, educators, and their desire to do the best they can by the students they teach. I hope this video helps you know where to focus your energy when you are trying to shift your teaching practices.

Special (and HUGE) thanks to my colleague Kristy Edgar for the amazing animations, graphics, and visuals for this video. She made a simple soundtrack come alive and be entertaining.

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How do I Keep Google Drive Organized?!?

Figuring out how to keep Google Drive organized seems to baffle many users. Here's a handy infographic to remind you of some tips and techniques! (Updated 9-6-15)

PDF version here

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Google Edu Infographic: How to Force a Copy of a Document

Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here.

Try it out! Click this link to take a copy of the file. This technique also works on other Google filetypes (Sheets and Slides).

Original URL:

https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/edit?usp=sharing

Edited URL (the Force Copy URL):

https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/copy

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Google Edu Infographic: Getting Started with Add-Ons

More Add-Ons for Edu can be found at http://goo.gl/0YJ8Og and http://goo.gl/Yj8WoM

Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here.

How to get Add-Ons:

• Open a Google file
• Click Add-Ons
• Search for or Choose the Add-On you Want
• Click the Blue Button that says +FREE 
• Use the Add-On by clicking "Add-ons" from the menu bar in your file

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3 Minute Tech Tip: Automatically Label Incoming Email with a Filter + a Label

This week's tip comes from a colleague who wanted a way to automatically label email messages based on certain criterion. This technique will DEFINITELY help you keep your inbox organized as well as draw your attention to important topics. Hope you enjoy it! If you do, please hit the thumbs up button you YouTube or share the video with others via your social networks or email.

If you'd like to submit an idea for a tip, please shoot me an email via the contact button on the top right of the blog.

Credits, and because I am asked all the time: Screencast software from Techsmith, Camtasia for Mac does both the cool features you see in this video: the magnifying glass and the picture in picture. I love it. Thanks Techsmith!

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Getting Started with Google Classroom

As you may have heard, Google Apps for Education recently released Google Classroom. While it is NOT a Learning Management System (LMS), it does simplify procedures for teachers sharing files with students. Most notably, it automatically creates a copy of a specified file from Google Drive for each student within an organizational structure then allows students to "turn in" those files virtually, which changes the permissions of the file from student-owned back to teacher-owned. Students retain view rights. If you're looking for a tool to simplify and save time when using Google Apps for Education with your students, it's arrived! Hope you enjoy this hastily made video. Please leave comments if you have questions, and I'll do my best to get back to you.

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Smarter Chrome: Session 1 Bookmarks and Tabs (Video)

If you're just switching over to the Chrome Browser or getting started with Google Apps for Education, this series is for you. Become a Chrome expert in no time starting with the first video in what will soon be a series. Hope you enjoy it!

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How to Create Data Validation for Phone Numbers in Google Forms

I've always wanted to know more about the Data Validation setting in Google Forms, and yesterday, thanks to a participant question and a Google search, I learned how to make sure phone numbers in forms are entered in a consistent format, in this case, ###-###-####. 

Here's how . . .

Set up your "Phone Number" question in a form, then choose the Data Validation setting and Regular Expression. Insert the pattern below into the box and type your directions to the right.

Data Validation String for American Phone Numbers: ^[2-9]\d{2}-\d{3}-\d{4}$

If not being able to make sure your data is consistent in a Google Form has always bugged you too, well, now you know how to fix it!

Wrong . . .

Wrong . . .

Right!

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6 Steps to Make Staff Development Sticky

The biggest problem with staff development is that many times, it doesn't work. .If you want it to "work," then you have to work. .Here are some ideas each of us can implement ourselves (school leaders, you can help!) to make sure our own professional learning sticks. If you've attended staff development with me, and want to do #6, please email me at amy@friedtechnology.com. 

Download Printable Action PlanGoogle Doc Action Plan
Download this file in any format you want here. Use this within your school or district freely, republish freely online with a link back to this page and an acknowledgment of authorship. 

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Scaffold for Writing a Driving Question for Project Based Learning

Need help getting started writing a Driving Question? Try using the scaffold below; however, don't get locked in! This is just an IDEA for a starting point. Feel free to rearrange, get rid of, and add elements as you please. If you have suggestions to make this graphic better, please let me know if the comments or via the contact form on the right.

Want this graphic as a Google Doc so you can edit it? Sure thing. Click here to get it. 

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