#111 Useful Google in Education posts this week

September 12, 2017
After we have seen how to use Google Images to search for and locate free-to-use images, here is another handy visual to help you make the best of your Google search experience. The content of this visual is based on insights provided by Google Search Help. The 12 tips below will help you refine your Google searches and get precise search results using a wide variety of search operators. For instance, you will learn how to search for content published in social media or through hashtags, how to search for a specific site or related sites, how to search for an exact match and many more.This visual is also available in PDF format from this page.https://goo.gl/wdSm2t

March 14, 2017
Today we created for you this handy infographic featuring some important tips to help you (teachers, educators and students) effectively use Google Images. More specifically, you will get to learn how to use a reverse image search to search for similar images on the web. You will also learn how to use Google Image advanced setting to apply narrow down your image search and filter search results. The visual is also available for free download in PDF format from this link https://goo.gl/mTighj.

April 7, 2017
With the widespread of fake news online it becomes extremely hard to distinguish between fact and fiction. Thousands of new articles are being published every single minute online. The veracity and truthfulness of this content is not readily known. Readers have to dig deeper and further investigate contextual elements, among other things, to determine whether a particular news story or a certain claim is factual or not. That’s why last month Google in partnership with Jigsaw released a new feature in Google News that allows readers to view whether the content they are reading has been fact checked by news publishers and fact-checking organizations. A fact-checked news item in Google News has an attached ‘Fact Check’ tag.

April 1, 2017
A few days ago, we shared with you this handy infographic featuring 12 important tips to help you refine your Google searches and get precise search results. Today, we are introducing you to these equally important resources shared by Google Inside Search. These are free self-paced courses to help you develop and improve your Google search skills. You will get to learn ‘tips and tricks to become a fast and effective fact-finder with Power Searching with Google, deepen your understanding of solving complex research problems using advanced Google search techniques with Advanced Power Searching with Google, and join  a growing global community of Power Searchers.’

September 13, 2017
A few weeks ago we published Google Maps Cheat Sheet featuring almost everything teachers need to know in order to effectively tap into the potential of Google Maps be it in instruction or in everyday life. Today we are adding another excellent resource to the list. This is an infographic we created based on Bloomtimes’ post’ Top 10 Google Maps Tricks You Should Try in 2017!. Some of the things you will get to learn from the visual include: how to calculate total travelled distance, how to access trips history, how to see what a place looked like in the past, how to view popular places nearby and many more. Check it out and share with us your feedback.
 

This is just one of those amazing features of Google Docs that you have to see! This may be old news to you, but just in case, I feel that it’s my mission to make sure everyone knows that citations are built-in to Google Docs.

. UPDATE: Google released Team Drives to all G Suite education and enterprise customers on March 9, 2017 The schools, universities and businesses we work with love how G Suite makes sharing and collaboration easy. However, there has always been one big problem they don’t love – the potential for shared data loss when people leave an organisation. Google’s release of Team Drives is a long-awaited solution to this problem. In this post, we’ll explain how shared data loss can occur, what Team Drives are, how they differ to existing shared folders and how your organisation can use this new feature to protect against shared data loss.

Google Keep is a great way to give students long-form narrative feedback for what they write in Google Docs.Use Keep to give long-form typed feedback, organize notes by student and by assignment, and add images (including animated gifs and memes) in Google Keep. Bonus - use the Google Keep mobile app to add recorded vocal feedback and drawn or written feedback.

Password Protect ANY Google Drive Document or file today with this simple workaround and create your own Breakout EDU challenges. To add security when sharing a document, you can choose to share it within your domain or a certain group. You could also add another level of security on top of sharing it to a group or to certain people by password protecting your document using a form. Learn how to do it in a few easy steps. WARNING: this method is for educational use within class and not for secure 'high level encryption ' The password set using this method can be found via the source code and thus, whenever dealing with technology savvy students and/or people who have a technical background finding the password wouldn't be too hard. You can however use this to pace lessons and give additional links and files to students who have completed a form. Furthermore, students could be challenged to explore the source code to 'find' your password.

Catch up on everything new in Google Apps from the summer, and see great ideas and resources!
Below is the recorded video from our August 2017 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda and all the awesome resources and Google Apps updates from the last three months. This includes 42 new Google updates and loads of Google resources for your class.