A couple weeks ago we lost the 'View Image' button while using Google Images due to pressure from photographers & stock photo companies (source). Now you can bring back that button by using certain Chrome Extensions like View Image. Watch the tutorial below to see this extension in action (View Image YouTube Tutorial)!

Recently Google has made some really cool updates to the Google Arts & Culture app for both iOS and Android. One of the most popular updates is the 'Is my portrait in a museum feature?' This little addition is something that can be used for a Friday Fun Day Activity, a indoor recess activity, or a way to get students to explore famous artwork from around the work. Watch the video below to see exactly how to use the Google Arts & Culture app.

Keyboard shortcuts are a great way to save you time when creating or editing a document. They can save you having to stop typing and use the mouse and can limit the amount of menus you may have to go through. Watch the short YouTube video about to see some common shortcuts to make you a little more productive!

Many people rely on Google for many things throughout the day. We use GMail, Google Drive, YouTube, Chromebooks, and many other items that access our Google Accounts without ever really thinking about it. Sometimes though, it may be a good idea to take a break and find out who and what is exactly accessing our Google Accounts. Watch the video above to see how easy it can be to see what is happening with your account and control what can access it.

Just in time for Halloween, we have a Google Halloween Special. Check out the ThingLink below to find five Halloween themed templates that challenge students to use Google Drawing, Docs, Slides, and even Sheets!

Having trouble viewing the ThingLink? Here is just the information and links :-)

​Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides - This template lets students use Google Slides to create their very own customized pumpkin! This was created by Eric Curts, @ericcurts.

Free Google Slides or Powerpoint template for Halloween: dark and scary! - This awesome Google Slides template from SlidesCarnival can be used from anything from Halloween fact collection to creative writing. This was created by Slides Carnival, @slidescarnival.

Google Docs Format Pumpkin Poem - This great resource teaches students to format text in Google Docs to create a pumpkin. It also contains a tutorial video! This was created by Mrs. Derita, http://mrsderita.weebly.com/.

Halloween Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings! - Turn Google Drawings into a Halloween themed magnetic board! This was created by Kasey Bell, @shakeuplearning.

Perler Beads via Google Sheets - Have students create a Halloween scene using Google Sheets. This was created by Justin Cowen, @cowen_rocks.

If you are still looking for more resources, you can view last years Halloween Special here: Halloween Activities 2016.

A favorite craft of young children is perler beads. Don't remember perler beads? Those were those little tiny cylinder shaped beads that you arranged on a little peg board. Once arranged you broke out the clothes iron and melted the beads a tad to keep them together.

Breaking out an iron in a middle of clothes though may not be the best idea, or having books of perler beads spilled across your floor may not make you to happy. So to still get the creativity of perler beads without the mess try using the Perler Beads Google Sheet template here: Perler Beads - Halloween. 

Learners can use the different editing formatting tools inside Google Sheets to create the amazing scenes. You can see a synopsis of the different tools below:

Take control of your screen with Tab Resize! Tab Resize allows you to automatically split your Chrome tabs across your screen in the arrangement of your choosing quickly and easily. This can allow students to easily read information on one part of the screen and type their thoughts on the other side. This is a super handy extension to have in your toolkit of resources!

If you have never heard the term TL;DR before, it stands for "too long; didn't read." It is a common phrase you can find on message posts around the internet but now it can also be used in your web browser. There are a couple of different Chrome Extensions that can provide your learners with the ability to TL;DR a website. These extensions have several benefits to help those in your classroom and assist those that need a little extra assistance. TL;DR extensions can help students judge a website quickly while researching to see if it contains information they need. The extensions can also remove districting images from the text and help keep the learners on task. Lastly, TL;DR extensions can also help the struggling reader in your classrooms. Instead of being overwhelmed by giant articles, a student with reading disabilities can be presented with a summary of the text.

There are two awesome Chrome Extensions that you and your students can use to bring TL;DR into your learning environment. In the video below you can see the comparison of different TL;DR Chrome extensions, tlda and TLDR:. Give it a watch and then leave a comment with which one you prefer best!

The end of the school year is coming soon and the need to help graduating Seniors, retiring staff, and others moving out of the district, move their Google type things to a new account will be upon us. To help those with this need I created a little informational guide and video that shows how to use Google Takeout Transfer.

Direct Link to Guide | Direct Link to Tutorial Video

NOTICE:
The new Google Sites is now available for personal Google accounts! Thank you to fellow edtech awesome person Melinda for letting me know!

First off just let me say I love GIFs, Giffy, GIF, GIF. So when I found the GIFit! Chrome extension I was like, THIS IS AMAZING! Using the GIFit! Chrome extension I can create a GIF from any YouTube video that I could then add to my website, a Google Doc, a Google Slide, Google Classroom, or any other resource that supports GIFs. 

This GIF on this post was created using GIFit! and shows how to install the extension. If you need something a little more in-depth, I created a YouTube tutorial video that shows how the extension works and how to insert it into a Google Doc. You can find the video below.