G Suite Gems 13: I can't believe it's not BETTer!

I can't believe it's not BETTer! 

So last Friday I was fortunate, after 3 years of trying, to get the chance to attend the Bett show 2018. To be honest I didn't really know what to expect having only ever visiting Excel once before for the Motor Show.

On arrival, as a newbie, I must admit to feeling a little intimidated and overwhelmed. Aside from getting zapped at the entrance and given a lanyard, very little information was shared so in I walked with trepidation to a maze of stands.

Now don't get me wrong, some of what I saw was great. I really enjoyed listening to a keynote speech by Bram Bout, Director of Google for Education, talking with others about the soft skills employers are looking for these days: problem solving and collaborative skills topping the list. Take note careers advisors and teachers, #curiosity is key!

Dean is a former teacher/Leader of Learning Technologies
 in 2 secondary academies

I had a great time catching with my pal and former colleague Dean Stokes, who is UK Director of the excellent Appsevents.com - I'm always eager to see what Dean and his colleagues Ben Rouse and Oli Trussell have to share and am never surprised to see their stand packed out. When I got there Dean was in the middle of a demo on using Google Classroom and Quizzes alongside Science Journal with a group of around 30 keen-faced individuals. Talking to Dean afterwards, that was their 55th demo of the week (and counting).

No matter how much I think I know, these guys always manage to hit me with something new and nothing is too much trouble. It was through talking to Ben that I came across Squidnotes.com as a note taking app that has tremendous potential for maths and MFL teachers particularly as it could remove the annoyance of inserting special characters and accents.

As I continued round the massive space, weaving in and out of what seemed like endless rows of Interactive Whiteboards and fad robots, it struck me that when you sift through all that, actually, there wasn't much individuality. In fact, some of what was on display seemed almost dated already. This surprised me but perhaps it shouldn't have. Is it just that those of using #Edtech somehow take it for granted and don't appreciate what we have?

After a Costa with the GEG Uk group - thanks to Andy Cooper for arranging and Andrew Caffrey for buying - it was off to a talk about how Google fits within the new GDPR and then to look at some Chrome Flipbooks with Active pen and IT solutions for School-wide notifications.

So here are the things that stood out for me from Bett 2018:

• Appsevents.com for G Suite training needs. These people really know their stuff and how to engage an audience 
• Equatio, a maths extension from the Texthelp team which is FREE for teachers 
• Use the Explore option in Google Sheets to make people think you're a formula
  
  wizard. Ask the question in word form and then "discover the formula" and use it. You can also use Explore to link from docs/slides to other docs without disrupting your workflow - Check out @gsuite’s Tweet: G Suite Tip 
• If you're looking for an IT system to send school-wide notifications, check out www.netsupportsoftware.com who offer a 30 day free trial for up to 50 PCS/laptops 

So there you go, my first BETT impressions - underwhelmed by much, inspired by some but worth it?   Probably.

G Suite Gems 12: Super 6

Super 6: 

6 super things I've discovered this week
(don't laugh if you already knew)

Tab Glue

A few weeks back I introduced colleagues to Tab Scissors (from Tir) and the feedback has been great. I've found it particularly helpful when displaying two different student pieces on screen to compare.

This week, I'm sharing Tab Glue with them, just because I wanted to see how many asked if it was possible to glue the cut tabs back together. The answer was many but some found it for themselves which pleases me. If you haven't tried using Tab Scissors or Tab Glue give it a go and sit them side by side in your toolbar.

Black menu for Google (from carlosjeurissen.com)

Wow! I'm loving this addition. Added to your toolbar, this great extension gives you a quick drop down access to your files, apps and searches.

What's more, you can completely control what appears in the drop down bar. Check out the image below for an example








Adblock Plus

Fed up of annoying ads, try Adblock Plus and let it take care of them for you. The handy extension even keeps a tally to show off what a great job it's doing for you.

Get it here .






Document signing using Google Drawings

Are you often asked to electronically sign documents? Did you know you can use Google Drawings to do this in Docs or Sheets?

Example of a document signed using Drawings

Well you can - just watch this short video to find out how.






Did you know you could hover over busts in silhouette on a google drive folder to quickly see who has access?

Try it! 




Setting Alerts 

To create a Google Alert for a certain topic, name or event, do the following:

• Go to the site at www.google.com/alerts
• Type your search term or phrase in the search box just like you are making a normal Google search.
• Note: Be sure to put quotes around your search phrase as usual if you want to make sure those words appear in that specific order, such as "West Ham United".
• Click the "Show options" link if you want to tweak how often you get updates and which sources to search.
• You will see a preview below showing you representative results.
• When done, click "Create Alert".     You can edit/remove alerts at any time. 

G Suite Gems 11: Change your way of thinking

Change your way of thinking: 

Using Slides where you might once have used Word or Publisher 

Explore the potential of Slides

When you've worked in a particular way for a substantial amount of time it can be easy to get stuck in a fixed mindset and way of working. When I first started using G Suite my first summary was  pretty much "Docs is Word, Sheets is Excel and Slides is Powerpoint but you can share and you don't have to save".

In the most part people took that on board and because everyone is always busy, not everyone had time to explore new or different features. So for a couple of years people, myself included, bemoaned the issues of bringing a previous 'handbook' or 'guide' created in Word across to Drive, opening as a Google Doc and then finding the formatting messed up. For some, it was too frustrating and they reverted back to the familiar Word format, others persevered making the necessary readjustments and a few explored other options. It was here that the breakthrough came.

No-one had ever envisaged making a booklet using Slides, possibly because they thought page set up was only available in landscape. Well, with custom page set ups, anything is possible. Not only can you easily position titles, text boxes and images but you can very easily add video with the updated Insert functions of Slides. Add to that the ability to link slides together you can easily create a document that can be easily navigated online. 

We all know that teaching methods in maths have changed a lot over the years and as a parent myself, sometimes I struggled to know the best way to help my daughter. 

Here's an example of a document I put together for my school with the help of resources from the excellent corbettmaths.com to help parents/carers support their child's learning/homework in maths.

Supporting your child in mathematics - take a look at this video based resource.

We're also now working on the use of Slides for a Student's Guide to the Academy for our new intake in September 2018.

The other advantage is of course that a document created in Slides can be published to the web and placed on your website with auto-play and auto-advance settings to play as a scrolling video.

Oh and why not use Google Drawings to create adverts, posters and logos?

It's far more accessible than you might think! 

G Suite Gems 10: Slides, Video, Finding Files and Archiving

InsertingVideo 📼 and Finding Files 🔎 and Archiving 📙

Add a touch of class to your videos in Slides...
Long gone are the days of messing around with copying links and struggling to embed videos into a slide deck.

Start typing key words, paste in the URL if known or search your videos in Drive

Slides offers you the perfect solution with it's updated INSERT>VIDEO option that allows you to add a video directly from Youtube by search, URL or from your Google Drive.

That's a HUGE time saver in itself but how about upping the ante?

By inserting an image of a TV or cinema screen on to your slide, you can insert, overlay the video and resize to fit the TV screen. Then select Video Options to choose auto-play or mute audio options.

Size the inserted video accordingly and choose auto-play on the right or mute audio. You can even choose a start/end point.

Check out this example Slide deck with inserted video on cinema screen   and give it a go for yourself! 

I recently used this with some Year 7 students who were putting together revision slides for Spanish. They loved the idea and alongside the chosen images of things like numbers and time they added videos that auto-played as they read the words, allowing them to match spelling to sound. They said it was "much better than just going through old stuff". Praise indeed for this great feature!!

Finding files in Drive - HELP ME! they cry.
As colleagues and friends are using G Suite more and more they are finding their Drives becoming busier and busier. In many cases, they spend time opening folders and documents hoping to find what they're looking for because they aren't using the full power of the search facility. Check out this video to explore the advance search options you might not be aware of. We've all been there but this might change the way you organise your drive from now on.

Click here to watch the video



And finally...

Are you still archiving old versions of documents into a 2017 archive folder and creating new ones called "New" or "Current" or "2018 version"?




A lot of people are, but there really is no need to be doing this when all you need do is name the
version in Version History.

By choosing to name your versions appropriately you can easily revert to a previous set up, review a previous version and maintain any comments or suggestions in one place, rather than having several copies of a similar document clogging up folders unnecessarily.  Personally, I'd suggest a version naming protocol but this may be different depending on the needs/purpose of the document. 

This is equally useful for keeping track of the writing process from first draft to final piece. Remember, wherever you see the traffic lights (3 grey dots) there's a feature waiting to be discovered!

G Suite Gems 9

⏲ 5 ways to save time and space with G Suite ⏲

1. Clip it Good - save time by saving images from the web direct to your google photos

We all remember the days of having to right click, save image as, selecting a folder (and then probably uploading that saved image to our Google Drive).

Well, if you want to save images direct to google photos with a simple click try this handy extension:

Clip It Good 

Once installed, refresh and then:
Right click - from the drop down select Clip it Good and then Clip it Good which in this case is the folder I've chosen in Google Photos to send all images to. (You can name your destination folder however you like).

2. Save time and save space on your bookmarks bar


From this:

We've all had times when our bookmark bar has got so full that we start to lose our bookmarks off the end of the bar, kind of defeating the object of a one click bookmark.

So why not shorten your bookmarks to just the logo?

Just right click on any bookmark and select edit and delete all the text leaving just the URL and click the blue SAVE button

Step 1

Step 2

This will leave you with just the symbol/logo that you instantly recognise, leaving you either with a very tidy bar or acres of space for more bookmarks. Shazam!


To this:

3. Slide Skip - OMG!! A game changer for regular presenters.

How long have a been waiting for something like this? For those of us who often put together presentations using a slide deck, Slides now offers the option to temporarily sleep or 'skip' slides in a deck. Just select the slide and then in the tool bar under SLIDE, select SKIP SLIDE.  Slides will then skip that slide when you are in presenter mode. To reselect in, just click on the skipped slide and uncheck 'Skip slide'.

This is perfect in my school where we use similar presentations for a number of events - we no longer have to create a whole new version of the presentation and then delete slides we don't want. In theory we could have 1 slide deck for the whole year and just skip irrelevant slides for each event.  

Here you can see 'Skip Slide" is checked and the corresponding slide has the crossed through eye icon
in the slide sorter window. When presenting, this slide will be skipped automatically.

Brilliant!!

4. Images for actions 

Have you ever tried creating images that force actions? 

For example, perhaps an image of the cover from Of Mice and Men that is actually a hyperlink to a Drive folder full of resources on the novel or a page on a website? 

Any image can be made into a hyperlink really easily. Here's a link to a basic example of Sean Bean helping us open a new blank google doc. (As a GoT fan, I'm still not over it)

To do this for yourself, right click on the image > link > enter the URL for the action desired so the link to a folder, file or webpage.

5. And finally...
Google Keep location based reminders - great for those who work at different locations.

I use it on my phone and macbook, set reminders for certain locations as I work between 2 sites. The reminders pop up when I get to the selected location and not before by using my current location. Clever stuff right?

I made the mistake of showing my wife and now she uses it for a shopping list, adds things we need, selects our local supermarket as a location and has added me to the Keep note as a collaborator so now, when I'm driving home, I get near to Tesco and up pops a lovely message to get milk! 😆

In some training I ran for support staff this week, that 1 thing in particular was easily the most popular amongst the ladies who suddenly developed mischievous looks on their faces.

G Suite Gems 8

Happy New Year 🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾

I don't know about you but I don't hold with this "new year, new me" philosophy, nor do a wait for a specific date to start making changes.

For me, if it's something you want to do, learn or achieve, just GET ON WITH IT.

As we begin 2018 I've found that I've enjoyed writing and sharing this blog and have been pleasantly surprised by the feedback and audience it has attracted. So here's hoping my contributions continue to give people ideas, solutions and make their lives easier - because that's what floats my boat.

With that in mind, to kick off 2018 here are a few things I've come across personally that could have a big impact in the classroom, office or business.

Padlet - a great way to share links with colleagues or students

I'd not come across padlet before but what a great little tool! I think it can be incredibly useful for removing the need for those frustrations like "Where did you find that?" or "What was the link we needed Sir?"

There are loads of public examples which could be used immediately or you can create and customise your won very easily. I've started mine for sharing add-ons/extensions etc with colleagues, it's early days and it will grow rapidly I'm sure - take a look here: G Suite Gem Padlet

Alternatively, here are some educational examples from a padlet user called Lisa that may be of interest School Hyperdocs by Lisa

Use Google Keep to extract text from photos 
Here's a really handy tweet from @GoogleforEdu with video on how you can use your phone camera and Google Keep to extract text from sticky notes etc >  integrate Keep with your camera
Give it a try!

Tab Scissors extension   

Got lots of tabs open and want to split the screens quickly? Try Tab Scissors extension which does it for you at the touch of a button

Timelines in Google Sheets
Easily create timelines for a range of subjects or uses with this great addition from KnightLabs.com 

Timelines have so many uses in so many areas but can appear like a minefield to create digitally if you're not sure where to start - this great addition walks you though it and give some great examples too.  Check out the instructional video here.

Aside from obvious uses in history lessons, try using this with Google sheets in the following areas:

English: Storyline development, character development, biographies, Author publication dates

Science: Discoveries of elements, planets, space exploration dates etc

Geography: Timeline of populations over time, geographical changes over time

PE: rule changes over time, equipment changes, history of major events, world record times

Music: Timeline of musical genres and their influences, biography of musicians

Business/Economics: Global economy & growth, growth of major companies/corporations

Technology: Development of technology over time, development of tools over the years

Here's a great example with a timeline of the life of Whitney Houston 


Enjoy and wishing everyone a fantastic 2018.