Skip to main content

Weekly Tech Tips 6 September 2020

 Dear Friends!


I’ll be keeping it short this week as we are all getting busier by the day. With the recent Zoom and internet outages I’d like to make sure everyone is aware of some alternatives and workarounds in case they happen again.


Weekly Tech Tips


You can continue to work on Google Docs, Sheets and Slides even when offline, but you have to install Google Docs Offline. Here is the Google Help page on the topic. It is pretty straightforward, but I do have to warn you that if you set it up while in one Google account, you will have to always use that Google account in order to work offline. So choose which account you install and sign up on accordingly.


If you do not already have it installed, I also recommend Google Backup and Sync. This simply allows you to keep a local copy of specific files or folders on your computer's hard drive as well as in the cloud (Google Drive). When changes are made on either, they will sync so that you always have the same thing in both places. It also allows you to move large amounts of files and folders easily using your computer’s file manager. Google Drive’s file management system leaves a lot to be desired. So you can just organize the files using Preview or File Explorer and Google Drive will update.


This Week’s Apps and Resources


I do not have any apps to recommend this week other than those above. Sometimes I need to take the time to work with the apps I have recently installed before adding new ones. It’s kinda like all those unread books I have in my library. I do have a couple of updates though.


Not sure how it happened but the problem I was having with GSIS Google Suite for Education permissions seems to have disappeared (for most apps). Thank you. That means that the apps I wrote about weeks ago are now available for you to try. 


I have installed the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Chrome. I never really liked Kami or DocHub or Xodo. I found them all slow and cumbersome. I think I like the Adobe app better. After all, pdfs are their thing. It seems lighter and faster, but it is still web-based and your files have to reconnect from time to time.


Another one I mentioned earlier that was blocked is Timify. This was a Google Form addon that was supposed to add a raft of features to your Google Form Quizzes. Well once we gained access I checked it out and was not impressed. First of all it is now called Quilgo and as soon as I installed it it warned me of a bug and a sloppy work around. It didn’t work the way I expected it to either. If you have a different experience please do share. The concept sounded great.


We still do not have access to Jamboard as far as I can tell. I will keep pushing this one. It is a shared whiteboard app native to Google. I think a lot of teachers would find it helpful in online classes. See what you think. Here is a Jamboard I created on my personal account. 

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1YjGHbJYzCpKr2qP7-AjpzqqG-LRMkmdLGO6Q2IN0IqY/edit?usp=sharing

You should be able to get on it and add comments, pictures, notes pages etc…

Add a note, let me know what you think and if you know of any other apps like this that we might try. I know you could do all this (almost) on a shared doc, but the Jam has a lot more flex and flow.


This Week’s Courses, Tutorials, Webinars and Talks


None of those this week. Ain’t nobody got time for that.


That’s it for this week.


Have a good one.


Scott

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weekly Tech Tips 29 August 2021

  Dear Friends, Welcome to this week’s installment of... Weekly Tech Tips This week is all about speed. See below how you can take a flat file MC quiz and pretty quickly turn it into a  Quizziz. Quizziz is also adding adaptive practice which is nice. Notice how you can copy over ALL the MC options then drag down one at a time to populate the choices instead of copying each one over. I was able to make this 13 question MC quiz from an IB database in about 10 minutes.  So now when I give this quiz tomorrow I don’t have to worry about making copies or if the printer works or forgetting about it because I already scheduled it for exactly 10 minutes after class starts. And my favorite part is that when the student are done I get a fantastic report like this: that tells me not only who missed what, but provides some basic item analysis. I also like the fact that the question pops up in the report so I don't have to note the question and go back to the quiz to find it. Solid...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekly Tech Tips 9 May 2021

Dear Friends, Man how time flies when you have 1001 things to do!  Weekly Shortcuts  You have to know that if you ever accidentally close one or more tabs in Chrome that you can get them back with CMD + SHIFT + T. You can do this multiple times to get back tabs you may have closed earlier and need back. If you need to go farther back, go over to your history under the “snowman” (three vertical dots in the upper right corner of your browser). Weekly Tech Tips I keep the focus on spreadsheets again this week. I mentioned last week that it's spreadsheet time of year and I think that is the case whenever it's time to log scores and calculate final grades. I don't know of any of my colleagues who use Schoology or PowerSchool to actually calculate grades. I'm not sure how the elementary teachers keep up with it, but as far as I know everyone in secondary has some version of their own spreadsheet to manage all the calculations required by the IB (Intentionally Byzantine?)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekly Tech Tips 7 March 2021

  Dear Friends, I hope you are happy. Weekly Shortcut Ever need a scratch pad to work out a calculation or idea on? Especially during grading season I always find that a scratch spreadsheet comes in handy if I am looking at grades and different ways to calculate them. A scratch spreadsheet is always up when I am doing grades. It lets me quickly and accurately copy my grades over from my gradebook and run any calculations or stats I want without fear of messing up my actual gradebook. Instead of going into the matrix (the nine dots in the upper right-hand corner of most Google App windows) or going into Drive and clicking the rainbow plus New button, you can just open a new browser window and type:  sheet.new. You can create a new blank doc with doc.new and yes a new blank slide presentation with slide.new These are by default stored in the upper level of My Drive. If you do this enough you might like to save another step and just make new sheets and docs a part of your New T...
Post a Comment
Read more