Great Google posts this week #22

Here are three good Google Sheets add-ons to ease off your workflow and boost your productivity.Some of the things you can do with these apps include: adding columns and rows with a single click, manage feedback and grading for students, and create PDF and shared documents from spreadsheet data.

ThinkB4U is an online project created out of a partnership between Google Inc. and expert safety partners Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, and the National Consumers League. It's main objective is to educate Internet users ( kids, parents, adults, teachers ) about important topics such as the protection of one's online identity, web safety, safe use of cellphones, digital citizenship and critical thinking skills.

Google in collaboration with representatives from leading educational and scientific platforms have put together this free online course entitled 'Computational Thinking for Educators' introducing teachers to the importance of computational thinking. The course is particularly intended for educators working with students between the ages of 13 and 18 who are interested in enhancing their teaching with creative thinking and problem solving.’

Google Camp is a new project from Google to provide kids with an opportunity to experiment with and learn through project-based science activities. This virtual camp is provided for free and is geared towards kids ages 7-10 but kids of all ages are welcome to join. The goal of the camp is to ‘encourage kids to ask questions, setting them on a lifelong journey of exploration and discovery’ through fun, interactive science activities and adventures.

Google Image is one of the powerful image search engines online and it is probably one of the first options students head to when searching for images to use in their multimedia projects.Of course, there other several other great platforms for searching for images to use for educational purposes but today I want to focus on Google Image and share with you some overlooked tips that students need to pay heed to when searching for images. Using these tips, students will be able to :
Search images by usage rights
Search images by type
Search image with specific set of colours
Search image by size

April Smith shares how she uses the free Google Drive service to communicate with parents and engage them in their child's education. She describes 5 simple ways to communicate with them digitally and eliminate unnecessary paper. Strategies include collecting contact data, sharing presentations, sending home newsletters, creating digital behavior logs, and having parents sign up for parent-teacher conferences.

So you own a Chromebook. But do you know how to use it like a ninja? Here are 10 keyboard shortcuts for Chrome that are well worth knowing.

The Second Grade Common Core Math standards ask students to create picture and bar graphs to represent data sets with up to four categories. (CCSS MATH 2.MD.D.10)

Drawing bar graphs is plenty fun, but we decided to kick it up a notch and create some bar graphs in Google Spreadsheets!

Google Docs is a powerful word processing tool that many schools have adopted. As it’s similar to Microsoft Word and other word processing tools, most of its features are intuitive to use. However,...

Richard Byrne explains the differences between Google Apps for Education, Google Drive,  and Google Docs.

Teachers can take their students on virtual field trips with Expeditions. For more information, visit google.com/edu/expeditions

The Chrome browser is a blank canvas and Chrome Extensions are the paint that can make it into a work of art. Much like shades of paint, there are tens of thousands Chrome Extensions to choose from, making it hard to ..more ›

When using Google Forms for formative assessment you probably want to provide students feedback on their answers. Particularly if the question is a short answer question. If you add feedback to add...

Google Classroom allows you to assign work and collect it. What Google Classroom does not have (thankfully) is a gradebook. This allows you to use Google Classroom with whatever gradebook system yo...

Google Classroom is a great way to share resources, assignment directions and Google Docs templates with students. One issue with Google Classroom is that attached templates are visible in the assi...

One of my colleagues recently got the position of assistant principal in a new school. This got me thinking, in a school with no prior practices and protocols, how could GAFE help: Sharing Work On ...