Monday, November 16, 2015

A Smoother Ride in Drive Part 3: Using Drive Without Going to Drive

We have two amazing little tidbits for you today!  You can search your Google Drive and create new Google Docs, Sheets, Drawings, and Slides without actually opening Google Drive!  Say WHAT?!?!

Searching Your Google Drive From the Address Bar
Search your Google Drive directly from the address bar using the Omnidrive Chrome Extension.  Simply type the word drive in your address bar and press the space bar.  You are now searching your Google Drive.  So type in some keywords, press enter, and voilĂ ! 


Creating a New Google Document Anywhere!

The Google Docs Quick Create Extension is one of the Divas' favorites!  You can create a new Google Doc, Slides, Sheet, or Drawing from anywhere in Chrome, without the hassle of going back into Drive and clicking New.






Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The Right Way to Switch Between Google Accounts

You probably have multiple Google accounts: elmhurst205, personal, graduate school, etc.

You may have let students or colleagues log into their Google accounts on your computer.

If you log into these Google accounts in the wrong way, it can cause Chrome, Hapara, WeVideo, Google Classroom, and Google Drive to get confused about which account you want to use.

Don't use this method!:


Instead, you should create multiple Chrome user profiles:

Here's a video about how to add Chrome user profiles:

Note #1: Make sure to also remove the accounts that were added in the wrong way.

Note #2: This will only help if you are fastidious about going to "switch person" to access your other account.  If you "add account" even once, you'll be back to square one.

A simpler way to avoid the problem is to use Internet Explorer or Firefox to access your personal account and Chrome to access your elmhurst205.org account.

Contact an ITC if you'd like help setting up multiple users.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Create Interactive Video Lessons with EdPuzzle



EdPuzzle is a great tech tool to use when you want your students to watch videos independently, either at home or during class.  You can upload your own videos or select videos from sites like YouTube, KhanAcademy, TedEd.  Most importantly, you can embed multiple choice or short answer questions during the video. This allows you to quickly and easily assess your students’ understanding of the material in the video.  


It’s great for flipped classrooms, because you can see when students watched the videos and how many times they watched each part of the video, giving you insight into their study skills.  You can also get a “pulse” on the students’ understanding before class and adjust your in-class lesson plans accordingly.


Some fun features include being able to re-dub your own audio track over someone else’s video and to crop videos to cut out unimportant parts.  Once you create a class for each class period, you can set due dates and quickly grade students’ quizzes.  


To Get Started:
  • Create a teacher account, complete the tour, and link to your Elmhurst205 Google account
  • Go to “My Classes” to add a class for each class period.  (Students will use the class code to sign up)
  • Create an assignment from the “Search” or “My Content” pages

If you’d like help getting your EdPuzzle account set up, contact an ITC to schedule an appointment.