G Gems 35: Extend yourself!

1. Voice typing in Google Sheets IS POSSIBLE with the Voice in Voice Typing extension from the Marketplace.  Just install the extension and double click in any cell to record the entry.

It's very accurate! Here's a demo video >>>

2. Have you tried Grammarly's tone detector yet? I've been using this for about 3 weeks now and it's proving quite entertaining as it tries to guide me to write appropriately worded content whilst correcting spelling and grammar.

I've enjoyed challenging it to see how accurate it is, and obviously, as a beta, it's still learning but it's been quite helpful beyond the novelty value on more than one occasion already. 

Grammarly guides you on the wording and tone of an email
as well as checking your spelling and grandma 😉

3. Check my links is a useful extension. It shows you which links are working properly and which ones are no longer valid for any pages or documents that you visit. Super handy for documents containing links to 3rd party sites, other documents or resources.

Activate the extension and it highlights links using the scale above.

Add Check my links here

G Gems 32: If you're Appy and you know it...

If like so many people,  you'd love to be able to set up your own app but don't have a clue where to start Glide might be right up your street.

Glide works with google sheets to help you create FREE apps within minutes.

This could be used for all manner of purposes including:

• PE Club Timetables
• Revision Session Timetables
• Holiday/Weekend Session Timetables
• Subject Apps with links to key resources
• Directories
• List of students and staff for trips
• many more uses

Here's a very basic screenshot of the sheet I used to test this out.  

I've included the type of social media platform and the link to them in separate columns. This is the result.

Pretty simple to do.



Here is how it appears in the app - I chose the dark mode setting but light is also available.


Click here to go to the live app




In your dashboard it's really easy to control and you can update your google sheet via the dashboard or in sheets itself.

Why not give it a try? You can be up and running in minutes!

G Gems 28: What a difference a year makes! Let's head to Bootcamp.

So just a year ago I attended the Google for Education Back to School Summit in London which was being hosted by my good friend and former colleague/student Dean Stokes for Appsevents. This was my first visit to Google and quite an eye opener as we played around with Jamboards and sat on inflatable pink flamingos for a coffee and a chat. It was a very inspiring day and prompted me to get more involved. 

Within a month, a October half-term 2017 I set aside a day to complete my Certified Educator Level 1 exam and passed, so did Level 2 the following day. I passed again and was feeling really pleased with myself. 

Fast forward to January and I was asked to lead some Google training, not for teaching staff but for Educational Support Staff in my schools. As the unsung heroes and the glue that keeps schools together, I wanted to make sure I got the right notes and the team came away with something to actually use in their every day work lives. The feedback was positive: Mission Accomplished. 

In July I was asked to run some CPD for a local primary school with teachers and but for a few WiFi issues, that went well too. At the same time I was constantly chatting withy wife, who is a Finance Assistant in a secondary school, about her workload and balance. I've tried to get her using more G Suite but it's a but to be fair, when she gets home she wants to relax, not launch into training mode, even though we both know I can help: Work in progress.

At the end of July 2018 I completed my Certified Trainer application and was successful so set about planning my 12 sessions for the year. With day 1 of the Autumn term in the calendar already for LSAs I devised and ran a short digital escape room designed to raise their awareness of Google Forms and Classroom. That went well too so I offered to run a term long in house CPD pathway on G Suite for staff which begins next week. It begins next week as the original date has to be postponed following a text from Dean Stokes asking if I could make it to Scotland this weekend to help out with an Appsevents bootcamp for Support Staff. I got the nod from my bosses and booked my flights and hotel.

My first day delivering a bootcamp - Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen

Yesterday was that day as I delivered my first full day Support Staff Bootcamp at Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen. What an amazing building to work in on my first visit north of the border!

After a hearty breakfast in the hotel, including haggis and tattie scones, Dean, Ben Rouse and I headed off to set up.

The group of 6 support staff I was working with were all in different roles and confessed to different levels of confidence and frustration but they were awesome and very positive throughout. (Always appreciated on your first one, so thanks folks!)

We had a packed day and it was awesome to see faces light up and "You mean, I can just do that...?" flying around the room.

As I explained to the group, my view is that support staff in schools using G Suite often get the tools thrust upon them because it's been brought in for teaching and learning. Often they are self taught and know what they know, which can be limited so it was great to dive deeper into Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slide, Sites and more with them. When the day finished everyone was really appreciative and full of ideas so I'm happy.

This massive part of the educational work force is often massively under appreciated and that's why I've created a Facebook group for Support Staff using G Suite.

If you have support staff in your school that would like to see hints, tips and share best practice, please invite them to join.

Also look out for #googleESS on social media 

Sharing is important but more importantly in this day and age, G Suite can change your world.

As I said to Ben and some of the group afterwards, I'm not selling anything except a better work-life balance. What's not to like? 

Thanks to Dean, Ben, Appsevents, everyone who took part in the day and also my schools for allowing me the time! 

G Suite Gem 23: Sheets Levels Up!!

Check boxes in sheets
No more fiddling around trying to insert special characters or Ys and Ns

Use the new insert check box function in sheets.


Translate in sheets: 
So I can't believe I've only just found out about this! As a MFL teacher by trade, this is very exciting, not because I want my pupils to rely on google translate, but because it gets them excited about finding out new words!

Open up a sheet, chuck in the formula and watch the magic happen.

G Suite Gems 20: getting better and better

In a week where I've seen people yet again encouraging people to move away from Google because of "security" alongside the standard "I've been trying for ages but I just can't get on with google" my sense of humour has had a real test! 

Dispel the myths and read for yourself here Google For Education and GDPR and here Privacy & Security 

So with that cleared up, let's embrace the world of G Suite and see what's new:

Slides - users with portable IOS devices will now find they have a draw option when presenting a slide deck on screen. This means you (or your students) can now write directly on a slide to annotate, comment or highlight key areas. This could be a real game changer for many in the classroom, especially maths, science and MFL teachers where you can now free write symbols, equations and special characters without needing to insert. 

New Google Sites - a welcome update: users of new google sites can now upload their own favicon (that's the little guy who appears in a browser tab or in your bookmark bar). This can help your site visitors more easily recognise your site, and help you build your brand.

Upload a favicon 

Google Docs Menu update - one of the things I love about G Suite is how things are constantly changing and that's down to the feedback submitted AND the fact that Google actually listen to it. 

I'm loving the update to Docs menu that has separated out text and highlight into their own boxes. I've lost count of the number of times I've highlighted when I meant to change font colour or vice versa but no more! 

Google Drive searching - searching in Drive is so simple but I know many people still spend ages scrolling through trying to find a file rather than heading straight to it. The update to drive to allow you to see the 4 most recent files as Quick Access was an excellent addition and now comes another: 


The “Shared with Me” section shows the files that have been shared with you by another owner (searching by owner is a great way to find docs by the way) but the lovely people at Google are going to start organising this section for you so you may also see people listed, along with files they’ve shared with you. Simply click on a document to quickly open it. 

Check out google's blogspot here
And finally... it's now less that a week to the @Appsevents Google Summit in Wembley. I'll be heading along for day 3 and looking forward to catching up with friends but I'm also really pleased to see support staff bootcamps running on the Friday. In my opinion, a school's support staff are key to getting the whole organisation to embrace collaboration through GforE. When these unsung heroes understand how they can work more efficiently within their own teams and beyond,  and champion this, the rest of the staff will have to get on board. 

If you're a member of school support staff, get along to one of these bootcamps and save yourselves a whole heap of work in the long run.

G Suite Gems 19: 5 STAR FEATURES

5 STAR FEATURES

Web paint - a great extension for marking up websites, screenshots etc from @TomEMullaney

Really easy to use and lots of options available.

Screencastify - use this popular extension for creating your own dubbed or translated videos or news reports. Use existing videos, mute the audio and re-record over the top. Great fun for creative writing, media and modern languages - make your own voiceovers today. 

See a short demo - don't judge!  

Googlinks with drawing

Here's a link to a googlink I made on the recent snow days in the UK - this one is a walkthrough for those new to Google Docs features. Google Docs Googlink

Music Lab - Musical Art

Check out this Musiclab creation and then try your own. This great feature is really fun to use - create your own music or musical art in seconds

Checkmark - this great extension got it's anticipated upgrade and now you can customise the comment bank. Great for MFL and schools with bilingual students.

See an example here .   

Random Student Generator for Google Classroom - let this great little extension select students at random from your selected Google Classroom at the touch of a button.

G Suite Gems 18: Don't Do It Yourself (with videos)

Don't Do It Yourself!

1. Explore for great slide design
 If you don't like the designs offered to you as standard in Slides, use the Explore option to create some more for you

2. Creating easy organisational charts in Google Sheets 
Avoid spending ages fiddling around with layouts and updating when staff or structures change.

3. Add an automatic table of contents in Google Docs
It's like actual magic!

 4. Fake sites for evaluating with students
Check out these great AND CURRENT sites for teaching students about evaluating web sources - originally shared by Eric Curts   Fake sites - hours saved searching for or even creating suitable resources. I particularly like this one, sounds very dangerous!

5. Make the students think

I love this kind of approach to thinking and they make great starters or points for discussion around learning. Here's an example, I can't remember where I came across this but show this to your students and see what THEY can tell YOU about what it is telling us. Enjoy!

what patterns can you see? It's a great way to represent familiar material in unfamiliar ways to boost independent thinking.

I've recently set up a Youtube Channel. 

I'm always open to feedback and suggestions so please feel free to drop me a message.

G Suite Gems 17: Reducing workload

G Suite Gem 17: Reducing Workload

5 top tips because I've got that Friday feeling.

Classroom bookmarking: 

If you're an avid Classroom user, why not save yourself a few clicks by adding each classroom to your bookmark bar? Each one can be edited to a shortened name and keeps the theme colour for the class on the bookmark bar icon.   

Equation toolbar:

Ok, so many of you will know of and may have used Equatio from the TextHelp team and it's great, but did you know Google Docs has it's own Equation Toolbar?  

Go to VIEW and Equation Toolbar and type away with lots of different options that are otherwise tricky on a keyboard.

Watch a brief demo here - great for Mathematicians and scientists alike.

Pupil Pref - this is a great Google Doc add on to give your docs a range of colour transparency effects with just one click rather than having to change page set ups. You can change colour in one click, great for any visually impaired readers.  Click here

Voice typing:

Use this awesome function to redraft work, correct errors, dictate letters or even practice your speaking in another language. It's awesome! Watch here

Forms: 

I've been working this week on taking our school's GCSE Options process on to Google Forms. It's very exciting to know that this year we'll almost completely eradicate errors and confusion with students completing their forms as we can control selections available to them. 

No more duplications of subjects, subjects in the wrong blocking, misspelt subjects or ones we don't even run.  Add to that the fact that no-one is going to have to sit for hours typing up the choices made because it all drops straight into sheets and that both students and parents will get confirmation by email of their choices immediately and everyone's a winner. 

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 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 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 7

🎄🎄🎄Happy Holidays 🎄🎄🎄

The school bell rang for the final time in 2017 this afternoon but I'm already making plans for training and support when we return in January. 

Aside from running individual and group #googlePD sessions at my own schools, I'm also rapidly booking up visits to other schools to demonstrate the power of G Suite for Education. 

Yes, 2018 is already looking busy and I wouldn't want it any other way.

So, as the year draws to an end though, I thought I'd share below a few responses to one of the questions I get asked the most:  

These responses alone speak for themselves but there are many other reasons too. 

If you haven't yet explored G Suite, you're missing out! 

Oh and a word of advice from experience; if your school is looking to go Google, your admin team are your greatest allies. This often undervalued resource can really champion the best google habits with the teaching staff. 

Invest in them in 2018!!

G Suite Gems 🎄🎄🎄 Special 10 Dec 2017: A little off piste at Le Mountain View Winter Gathering

G Suite Gems 🎄🎄🎄 Special: A little off piste at Le Mountain View Winter Gathering

It's snowing and I'm sitting with a cup of soup, reflecting on a great afternoon/evening at +Google London HQ this past Friday where Google for Education hosted their end of year Winter Gathering for partners, reference schools, educators and trainers.

I love events like this as you not only get to meet some great people and make superb connections, but you also get to let your creativity flow. Something that can be hard to do in your standard office or school environment.

So in between games of shuffleboard, the photobot.co Ski lift gif booth and some VR skiing I was able to chat with lots of new faces and some old friends about all things G Suite. I also got to witness 6 great demoslams.

Not only is it great to find out about upcoming features (sorry, no spoilers here) or find new ways of using existing features but I also had the chance to offer some feedback on current features which would make things even better.

Sometimes, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that some of the systems we use on a daily basis might be groundbreaking to someone else, just because we are used to them. I'm really looking forward to sharing our experiences with colleagues and new contacts in the coming year.

Many thanks to all at Google for this great event and especially to Dean, Ben, Oli & Dan from Appsevents for inviting me along. 

Maybe starting the weekend on a ski lift was an omen? Le Mountain View Turtle neck is certainly going to get more use than expected this week!

And finally....

It wouldn't be right to go without sharing something so don't forget to track Father Christmas - you can even play some games and learn to code while you're there!! In the spirit of the event....

SLAM!

Here's to a great Christmas and a great 2018. Things just get better and better. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄