Dear Friends!
In this week’s edition of Weekly Tech Tips we focus on productivity centered around your inbox and calendar and scheduling those Zoom meetings.
Also, I found a way to get permissions added for apps and addons that are blocked by our GSIS Google Suite for Education Account. Thanks Jan and Mr. Lush! I have a few that I want to green light (Adobe for Chrome, Timify, Brainpop), but before I request the key to the kingdom, I would like to know if there are folks out there with an app, addon, or extension that they have wanted to try but were denied due to the permission settings on our GfE account. Please let me know. I will try to get those permissions granted by the end of the week.
Mr. Kwon and I will be sending out a Wifi / Zoom survey to help ascertain the status of connections and bandwidth throughout the school. I will attach the survey to the end of this newsletter and send it out a separate email as well.
Weekly Tech Tips
Scurrying back and forth between online and in person classes is going to take some getting used to. I found it rather stressful and confusing myself. I hope that some of the tips and tools in this week’s edition will help mitigate some of the stress, save some time, and help better organize your days. Let’s start with that inbox.
This Week’s Apps and Resources
This is a very popular addon to Gmail and many of you may already use it, but recently Boomerang added a new feature that could be useful when trying to schedule meetings or events. The new feature allows you to share your schedule or a piece of it with an email recipient so that you can schedule a meeting or event. As your schedule changes, so do the free blocks of time that the email recipient receives. When added to all the other features that boomerang has been offering for years now, it makes a powerful, if somewhat cumbersome, email management tool. A few images to see what I mean:
Boomerang offers a ton of email management features
It does add another row to the bottom of your compose box and things start to get a little cluttered.
It is also worth noting that the features that Boomerang “adds” to your inbox are often already available in plain old Gmail (snooze, read receipt, schedule send, canned response … (you didn’t know that?, please see this article)), but the addon makes them more accessible and customizable. I am going to try it out this week and decide whether or not I want to keep it, but I think the new scheduling feature may come in very handy especially for office hours, departmental meetings, and parent- teacher conferences.
Here is a short video on how it works.
BTW it is accessed via the little calendar button on the bottom row (it’s the last button).
If you find Boomerang to be a bit much ( I feel ya) then here is that article again that has tips on how to get more out of Gmail as it is with no addons.
I have added this extension and removed it a few times now. It has been inconsistent, but new updates and going back to teaching online have prompted me to give it another go. It’s an extension to your browser that opens your calendar to schedule a Zoom meeting. It looks like this:
Since we are sometimes online and sometimes in person I thought it would be helpful for me to just sit down with that “Online / On Campus” schedule and knock out all my online Zoom invites in one sitting. You could just as well open Zoom and sit there and schedule your Zoom week, but then you would have to add them to your calendar and paste the invites and copy them to Schoology. The extension takes you straight to the place you would be if you scheduled the meeting in Zoom and then clicked “Add to Calendar”, so it saves a step.
IF you use Google Classroom (GCR) you can also automatically email the invitation to your entire class. See where I have invited my whole class under Guests circled in red.
I guess we still have to go and paste it into Schoology as a rule, but in case you forget to do that, your students get an email with an invite if you use GCR, have your rosters correct and hit the send button after scheduling.
Clipboard History Pro (Chrome) / Alfred (Apple)
SInce we have to do a lot of copying and pasting in general and even more with Zoom invites it might be handy to have a clipboard manager if you don’t already. The concept is simple, instead of your computer only storing the last item clipped on your clipboard, the manager keeps a list of clips that you can paste from. These are two that you can try. Clipboard History Pro has free and paid versions. Alfred, as far as I know, only has a paid version.
This is a little more advanced, but it could be huge. Make an app out of a Google Sheet. I have only started playing with this myself, but it could be very useful for a wide range of tasks. It connects a spreadsheet to an app-like interface and allows that interface to be shared and installed just like a regular Android or iPhone app. My first project will be to see if I can make a Covid 19 Home-Screening Survey app. It would not only make filling out the form much easier for everyone, but it would also generate a spreadsheet with everyone’s answers on it instead of a box full of paper slips. This could be great for clubs, parent teacher conferences, so many things. I am looking forward to learning more about this and if you are too please share your experiences.
This Week’s Courses, Tutorials, Webinars and Talks
This came to some of our email boxes over the weekend. It is focused on STEM subjects and emphasizes the use of Gizmos, which I really like. They are little applets or simulations and are available for all ages.
Still waiting for a final version of the block schedule before we make the Google Block Calendars.
Sorry about that, I know a lot of people really like the colorful blocks on their Google Calendar, I know I do. Dr. D has indicated that there could be changes and I certainly don’t want to make all those calendars twice. Furthermore, since we have 4 block schedules this year I will only be using the 11th - 12th Grade Schedule and the Chapel Schedule.
Here’s that Wifi Survey. Don’t worry if you are not reading this. I will email it to you.
That’s it for this week.
Have a good one.
Scott
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