Using the Share to Classroom Chrome Extension

Part 1: Sharing a typical website.

Part 2: Sharing a document in Google Drive.

***If you are at all familiar with Google Drive and Google Classroom, you know that using the Share to Classroom extension to share a document from your google drive is not the most efficient way to do that. In fact, to use the Share to Classroom extension to do that is not just more complicated than using Classroom, it's much more complicated. So no, I'm not posting a tutorial on how to do that.

Gee! Sweet!

Earlier this month Google made a rather significant change to its Google Apps for Education collection of apps. Google Apps for Education has been renamed (rebranded?) as G Suite for Education (GSFE).

But the change isn't only in the name. The change also means that the current collection of apps associated with GSFE will be updated with "new intelligent features that make work easier and bring teachers and students together", according to the announcement.

These changes include the addition of an "Explore" feature in both Sheets, Docs, and Slides. In Sheets, teachers and students can use the new feature to quickly visualize data to make judgments on how to proceed. In Docs, teachers and students can the new feature to find related topics, images, content, and Drive files that may provide additional information on the subject of the document. In Slides, the new feature can suggest slide formatting options to make formatting the presentation go quicker so teachers and students can spend more time on adding rich content.

You can read more about these updates on the official blog post and the Google for Education site.

Four More Reasons to Love Google Forms

When I assign problems from the textbook, I love being able to create a Google Form that the students can use to check their answers as they work. I create the form, add a few directions on how to enter their responses, fill in the form myself, and then (reason 1) I enable the Flubaroo Add-On to automatically grade student responses against my own.

This workflow has several benefits; 1) the students get their graded responses by email within seconds, 2) the email can be used as documentation to show they did the assignment, 3) the students can go back and fix the questions they got wrong, 4) and there is no limit to the number of times the student can submit their solutions.

But all of this is dependent on one tiny little thing. When I create the form I have to set it up to collect the username of the student submitting their answers. That isn't done automatically. Otherwise Flubaroo has nowhere to send the emails.

Today I posted an answer check form where I forgot to collect usernames. Whoops! Students were submitting their responses and not getting them back. And did I ever hear about it. To fix the problem I went back into the form and changed it so that it would collect usernames. Then I changed the response destination to a new spreadsheet so that the username field would get filled with each submission. I copy and paste the old data into the new sheet and we're all good to go.

When I did that, I opened the new sheet and, much to my surprise, (reason 2) the old data was automatically imported into the new sheet. I didn't have to copy and paste any data. That made me happy.

In addition to that, I checked the old sheet and saw that (reason 3) the username column was appended at the end of the columns. This apparently happened automatically when I changed that setting. So I didn't need to create a new sheet at all.

And the most amazing thing about this, there were students who had the form open as I was updating it, and when they submitted the form, it used the new settings and their data went into the new sheet even though they never refreshed the page. (reason 4) The updates I made took affect in real time.

I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen For Screen Captures

One of the most useful tools in any classroom is a screen capturing app. Screen capturing apps allow you to capture an image of whatever is on your screen at the time. Sometimes you want a full screen image. Sometimes you want to capture only a specific region of the screen. Other times you may want to make a video of what is happening on your screen. TechSmith SnagIt is a great tool for both Mac and PC that can easily capture whatever you need from your screen. Educators can purchase SnagIt at discounted rate. So if you want the full version for your laptop, contact your administrator as soon as possible.

The SnagIt Chrome extension is also a great tool for students to use on their chromebooks. At least it was until TechSmith discontinued it. As of late August it would no longer be receiving updates and would not be available in the Chrome Web Store. The announcement set off quite a tizzy on Twitter. But TechSmith could not be persuaded to keep SnagIt going.

Fortunately, there are other screen capturing apps and extensions available for Chromebooks; Awesome Screenshot, Clipular, Nimbus, Screencastify, and CaptureCast just to name a few.

Google Sites For More Eyes

Google unleashed a massive update to its Sites app user interface this summer, making website creation a breeze.

The old Sites allowed for the creation of more technically capable sites, but you had to know what you were doing to take advantage of them.

The new Sites is designed with the user in mind, making website design and creation a snap. Teachers and students can quickly create informative and visually appealing web sites without little to no technical background knowledge.

Google Finally Seeing the Big Picture: Adds Images to Forms Questions

Google recently added several new updates to its Forms app. You read about the new Quiz feature in a previous post on The EdTech Bacon. They also added the ability to use images in most question types including as question options for multiple choice and checkbox questions.

When creating a form, hover just to the right of the question title and a little icon for inserting an image should appear.

When creating a multiple choice or checkbox question, hover just to the right of each answer choice and the same icon should appear, allowing you to include an image for some or all of the question’s choices.

Students and Teachers Excited About Hapara

Teachers and students at Hebron High School were recently introduced to Hapara, an internet managing extension for Chromebooks. Hapara allows teachers to focus student attention on specific websites online to minimize student distractions.

Teachers can also use Hapara to check which websites students have open in front of them at any time, what is currently on any student’s screen, what documents they share with others, and so much more.

Students love the fact that their teachers can prevent them from accessing music sites like Spotify and Pandora. Students also appreciate having other distracting sites blocked so they can focus more on completing assignments.

Survey Says: Updates to Google Forms Make the Grade...ing Easier

Recent updates to Google Forms allow teachers to have multiple choice, dropdown, and checkbox questions automatically graded when students submit. With Forms’ new Quiz feature, teachers can give quizzes directly from Google Forms, have it graded, and collect valuable assessment data automatically.

Google's Cast for EDU Projected to Be Big Hit

Over the summer Google made changes to its Google Cast services that now allow students to project their screens to classroom projectors. In order to work, teachers must first install the Google Cast for EDU app on their laptop.

Once installed, the laptop must be given a name. Once named, students can request to cast to the teacher’s laptop, which would then display on the screen from the projector. Several teachers have already put Cast for EDU to work in their classroom.

Updates to Google Classroom Are the Hot Topic

Almost as if they planned it that way, Google Classroom has received a number of new updates and features just in time for the new school year. Perhaps the most notable feature is the addition of topics. Assignments, announcements, and questions can now be tagged with a topic. Those topics can then be used to filter posts in the Classroom stream, making it easier to sift through your classroom posts.

Parents and guardians may now be subscribed to receive weekly email summaries for their student’s progress in Google Classroom. You can add multiple guardian email addresses in the Students tab.

The classroom code has also been moved to the Students tab. This allows the topic filter box to take a prominent place on the Stream tab.