Nothing is worse than pulling up a YouTube video to show in front of a classroom and then having a very questionable ad starting playing. In fact, I know a few teachers that actually have nightmares about this very situation. This whole situation can be bypassed if you use an adblocker extension, and the one I am demoing here is uBlock Origin. This is a extension that can be added to Google Chrome to stop ads from loading on videos and websites. In the video below you will see me comparing websites side-by-side to show how effective uBlock Origin can be!
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So one of the best features for Chromebooks was the Webcam Capture tool in YouTube. Using the Webcam Capture tool students could film themselves with their Chromebooks and have it uploaded to YouTube. Unfortunately though Google is pulling the plug on this great service on January 16th! So the question is, what do we do now?
Well you don't have to worry, because I found a pretty good alternative. ClipChamp allows students to record up-to five minutes of webcam footage for free. This doesn't seem long, but normally it is more than enough for student projects. If the video needs to be longer, students can film multiple clips and put them together using several different methods, the YouTube video editor, they could put them together in a playlist, or have links to each video in a Google Doc or a ThingLink. Watch the video above to see how easy it can be to do a ClipChamp webcam capture. If I had a penny for every time I needed a quarter to flip I'd have about, um, 27 cents. You will never have this problem though if you learn how to use Google to flip a virtual quarter. But why stop there, you can also have Google roll a six sided die for you! Watch the short tutorial below to see how easy it is to get Google to flip a coin or roll a die. If you are a school district that uses Naiku, I have a useful free tool for you! Derrek White from the Iron Mountain Public Schools and I came up with the Naiku Chrome App, and instead of hoarding it for ourselves I paid the darn developer fee and got it added to the Chrome Web Store for all to use for free.
What is the Naiku Chrome App you ask? Well, we had issues where students would switch windows during Naiku testing and cheat. I know your students may not do this, but ours did. So anyways, with the Naiki Chrome App you can set it as a app that a Chromebook or Chromebox can boot into or students enter into before logging in. Students are then stuck on the Naiku website and are unable to access additional windows or tabs. This would be similar to the M-Step testing. If you do not know how to add Kiosk Apps into your Chrome Dashboard, have no fear, here are the instructions: Adding the Naiku Chrome App to your Dashboard. I hope that some other school districts can find this useful! The Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District was the host of the Google Certification Academy done by Google Certified Trainer John Sowash of Sowash Ventures on June 30th and July 1st. Twenty-five educators from around the Dickinson and Iron County areas attended this two day training that focused on the use of Google Apps in the classroom and school. Educators learned about resources available to them to enhance student learning and their own productivity. Attendees also learned about the options available to them to become a Google Certified Educator and/or Trainer. This training was made possible to the DIISD by the Technology Readiness Infrastructure Grant (TRiG).
One of the hardest parts of teaching a foreign language is showing students how to insert the languages special characters. Often students had to type some special keystroke like Alt + 0225 to create a 'á' letter. This could all be made much simpler by using the Google Docs Add-on called Easy Accent. Watch the tutorial two minute tutorial below to see how easy it is to add and use. Over the years Google has been hard at work digitizing thousands of primary sources from around the world. At first it started with art collections, but now it also contains photographs, letters, and many other historical primary sources. One of the most amazing parts is you can also tour museums from around the world using Google Street View. So instead of just talking about ancient Greek culture, you can take students on a virtual field trip to the Acropolis Museum in Athens! Greek culture not your thing? Well, how about instead of just talking about how bad the Milwaukee Brewers are, take students to Cooperstown and let them see US history through the eyes of baseball. Have you ever sent an email before you really meant to? Or maybe you sent one that you immediately regret sending? Well, there is a little hidden feature in Google Mail that will let you retract the email. This feature only works for a couple of seconds after sending an email, but it can truly be a life saver! Check out the video tutorial below to see how easy it is to enable this Gmail Lab. How many of you have bookmarks? I am going to guess the majority of people just either said yes out loud or nodded their head. Well, if you are in the majority, you need Holmes! Holmes allows you to search your bookmarks right within Google Chrome. No more scrolling up and down in the endless list of bookmarks you have created. With Holmes, you only need to follow the directions in the video tutorial below to quickly and easily find the bookmark you are looking for! Often one has the need to find just the right picture for a presentation or flyer. In fact, it is not unheard of to scour the internets for hours to get that graphic that makes a Google Slide amazing.
So use this shortcut to trim some search time off of your next picture scavenger hunt. Using the Google Search Tools, you can go beyond searching for just a term, and search for pictures that are also based off of a certain color. Using the 'Color' search tool, you can find pictures that match a certain hue or even find ones that have a transparent background! |
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