Adding images into Google Slides on the iPad using Google Classroom 3/12/15

Update: After a few more trials we've learned that this process is still far from perfect. The original steps below will work initially, however, there are two key caveats.

1. It appears to work best if a student only adds the assignment to Google Classroom as a last step with a finished product. Adding during the draft phase can cause issues and the "Turn-in" feature is not recommended.
2. The teacher cannot edit or comment directly on the shared slides. This will break the sharing. The edits and comments will not be visible to the student. Only comment using Google Classroom's comment tools if needed.

For whatever reason, the Google Drive iPad apps still do not allow you to add images into Slides or Docs. Fortunately, there is a workaround for adding images in Google Slides that I recently learned about here. This method works well but in testing with students we ran into some hurdles getting the template out of Safari and into the Google Slides app. It was even more difficult if the student had the Google Chrome app installed because the "open-in" feature isn't available. 

This video tutorial demonstrates a method using Google Classroom that bypasses the Safari/Chrome method. To do this I recommend the following steps.

Teacher

1. Create a blank presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint, name the template, and save it.
2. Open Google Drive and go to the Setting icon in the upper right of the screen, click on settings and uncheck the box for "Convert uploaded files to the Google Docs format". This step is important. The process will not work if the presentation is converted to Google Slides. 
3. Upload the template file and then change the settings in step 3 back to "convert"
4. Open Google Classroom and create a new assignment
5. Add the Template by clicking the Google Drive icon
6. Be sure to leave the file access set to "Students can View File" - Do Not select "Make a Copy for Each Student"

Student

1. Open the Google Classroom app and click on the assignment
2. Open the template attachment - This will open the Google Slides app
3. DO NOT EDIT YET
4. Click on the 3 vertical dots (settings), select Share, and then Make a Copy
5. Click on the 3 vertical dots again and select details
6. Look for the light grey edit pencil icon next to the title. Click on this to delete the title and rename it. Don't forget your name
7. Go Back to Google Classroom, open the assignment and click on the Your Work tab.
8. Click on the Add Attachment option and select the Google Slides presentation 
9. Return to the presentation to edit and add images. Click on the + icon to select images from your camera roll or to take a picture with your camera

Adding an image with a caption and hyperlink in Google Docs

Adding an image with caption and hyperlink in Google Slides

The slideshow below includes a video tutorial and step-by-step guide for adding an image with caption and hyperlink in Google Slides.

Google Classroom - How the Turn-in feature affects the workflow of providing feedback

In this video I look at the advantages and disadvantages of using the Turn-in feature in Google Classroom. Depending on your style and method of providing feedback to students you may or may not want to have students use the Turn-in feature. 


The second video is not mine but does a nice job of demonstrating how sharing permissions change on a document when using Google Classroom.


Have you experienced success or challenges using Turn-in? Feel free to reply below.

Sharing Google Forms with Colleagues

Video Guide to Sharing a Google Form

Visual Guide to Sharing a Google Form 

The new Google Docs Add-ons featuring the Text Help Study Skills Highlighting Tool

Last week Google Docs and Spreadsheets received an update called Add-ons. This new Add-ons tab connects documents with third party tools that add new features or functionality to the document. The Add-ons Store looks and feels very similar to the Chrome Web Store.

One of the new Add-ons that I feel could have great benefit in the classroom is the Text Help Study Skills highlighter. This is a premium feature in the Text Help Read and Write for Google extension so the fact that it is being released for free in the Add-ons store is notable. 

The new Add-ons tab is easy to use. You'll find it located on the Google Docs or Spreadsheet toolbar. Click on Get Add-ons to browse the Add-ons store. 

The Study Skills highlighter could be very helpful for teachers who like to mark-up student work by denoting specified colors for certain errors. The Study Skills highlighter makes this much more convenient than in the past using the built-in highlighting. The clear highlights option makes removing these mark-ups much simpler as well.

But one of the more exciting features of the Study Skills highlighter is the ability to extract highlights into a new document. This feature could be used to structure close and critical reading activities where students identify vocabulary, main ideas, and supporting evidence from a text, and then using the extract highlights tool as notes and/or as a form of assessment. I demonstrate this scenario in the video below.

In the video I also feature the http://newsela.com (a website for leveled expository text and news) and the Clearly extension.

I'm looking forward to exploring the potential of the new Add-ons for Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Have you found a good Add-on? Please consider sharing by replying in the comments section.

A Guide to creating “Flipped” and Blended learning resources

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by Scott:
 http://flickr.com/photos/proudfoott/237234776/

If you are thinking about Flipping direct instruction or creating blended learning resources that students can access independently but still have accountability for doing the work then I recommend using Google Forms or Moodle Quizzes for getting started.

Google Forms

The fastest and easiest starting point (in my opinion) is to use Google Forms to create what I call a “Fast flipping form”. I often use this example to demo the idea of a Flipped Form. Students open the form link, watch the embedded video, and answer a few formative questions. The teacher gets a spreadsheet that is time stamped, shows their user name, and provides data on their level of understanding. You also have a summary graph view for visualizing the aggregate scores on the assessment questions.

Here’s my visual guide and video tutorial for creating the “Fast flipping form”.  You can put the form link on a Moodle page, Weebly site, etc. It can also be embedded so that the form is viewable right on the Moodle page and not as a separate link.

Pros: Google “Flipped” Forms are fast to make, simple for students to access and use, and provide a quick at-a-glance dashboard (the spreadsheet) for checking who did and did not do the assignment and what they did or did not understand.

Possible Cons: The only videos you can embed currently are YouTube videos (the workaround is to put a link to any video or any web content in the description field), also the summary view graph for your data will reflect all students and isn’t able to be broken down by sections.

A few other suggestions:

• I recommend collecting student names using two fields (last name) and (first name) to assist with sorting in the spreadsheet
• Create a drop down or multiple choice listing for separate section hours. Again this is to assist with sorting the data.
• Force students to be logged into the school’s Google Apps Account to view the Form to ensure that the data is tracked to the actual student.
• Optional. Use Moodle to deliver the form and embed the form on a page. This would give you the ability to check if a student(s) are viewing the video resource fully by looking at the activity data which tracks the amount of time spent inside an activity. It’s a way to say “Look, I can check if I think you are opening the form and clicking through the questions without watching.” Also, constructed response questions that require some understanding to write the response can help with accountability.

Moodle Quizzes

Another way to structure a “Flipped” assignment based on video and assessment questions is to use the Moodle quiz feature. You create a quiz question and embed the video in the first question (see below), or use the “Description” option for displaying video content. You then add any additional questions that will help you assess student understanding.

Pros: You can provide automated feedback, remediation, or extension activities based on student answers. You have another question styles including matching, Cloze, and mathematical response. You have the ability to sort data by sections and to have longitudinal data of individual student activity because of Moodle’s grading and database features. It also automatically calculates a score (there is a way to do this with scripts in Google Forms). A quiz can be completed over multiple login sessions and automatically force the student to retake if they don’t master the material.

Cons: Not everyone has or uses Moodle. Moodle quizzes take longer to create and the construction of quizzes and analyzing the results is sometimes less intuitive.  

I’ve included a couple of screenshots to help you visualize what a Moodle “Flipped” activity would look like.

Quick Guide to Collaborative Google Presentations

Collaborative presentations can be a great way to start using Google Drive in the classroom because “slides” act as a personal workspace for each student or group of students but with the added ability to view and even co-edit the slides of others. It’s also a great way to demonstrate the power of collaborative cloud based document creation. But remember! - Collaborative means that some decisions can affect the whole group. For instance, changing a theme impacts everyones’ slides. This is a great opportunity to discuss digital citizenship norms  and respecting the work of others. Some of the suggestions below will help you to manage a collaborative document and consider the best approach for your classroom.

Step 1 - Create a presentation

Click on the create icon from the Google Drive homepage and select Presentations. You’ll be prompted to pick a theme.

Step 2 - Create a title slide that includes directions for the activity and specifies the slide criteria

Step 3 - Make a model

I find that it’s helpful to have a slide that the teacher creates ahead of time modeling the format and content examples. You can even make a template slide and use the duplicate slide feature to provide each student with a scaffolded workspace.

Step 4 - Pre-number or Pre-name the slides (optional)

You may want to pre-create the slides and label these ahead of time to designate whose space is whose. This is handy especially for first time users.

Step 5 - Sharing

Share by email - if you have a list of every student’s email (Google Forms are great for collecting these) then you can add individual students to the presentation. Click on the blue share tab in the upper right hand corner of the presentation or right click on the file from the Google Drive homepage.

The advantage to this method is that students will have access to the document via the “shared with me” tab of their Google Drive homepage and that all changes to the presentation are tracked to the user who made them. Students who tamper with the presentation can be identified using the revision history and unwanted modifications can be reversed.

Share by weblink - if you can’t add students individual via their email address you can create a public or semi-public link that allows students to access the document anonymously.

The advantage to this method is that it does not require your students to even have a Google Account. The link can be easily shared if the teacher has a webpage or uses a service like Edmodo or Moodle. A URL shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl.com are helpful for making the links shorter in the case of teachers who do not have a classroom website. The disadvantage is that anonymous can sabotage a project if expectations are unclear and monitoring is minimal. The good news is that the revision history may allow you to restore work that was mistakenly or purposely modified.  

How to enable "Offline" access and editing in Google Drive and protect against lost work during a wifi outage

Yesterday a student came to me with a Google Drive issue due to intermittent wifi connectivity at home. Sometime during the night as she was composing her essay she lost wifi connectivity on her Chromebook and subsequently lost all of her work during that period of time.

Fortunately, there is a solution to protect against this type of data loss in Google Drive and as an added bonus have the ability to edit Google Docs, Presentations and Drawings even when there is no internet connection available.

Video Link

Please note that you can only enable "offline" access and editing in Google Drive on a Chromebook or on a computer using the Chrome browser. 

How to enable "offline" access and editing in Google Drive

1. Open the Google Drive menu (Inbox)
2. Click on the "more" tab on the left hand side menu 
3. Click on "offline" 
4. Syncing should begin immediately for Chromebook users
5. If you are using the Chrome browser on a computer you will need to click on "enable offline

Be patient when switching between offline and online mode. It can sometimes take a few seconds for changes to be updated when syncing between modes.

Opening and editing Word and PDF documents on the Chromebook

In a somewhat ironic follow up to my last post, I want to share a resource I put together for our 1:1 Chromebook program at Marysville High School which outlines some steps for making the opening and editing of Word and PDF documents on the Chromebooks a little less painful. As I mentioned to my staff, the process that I'm sharing is not the only solution, merely one that I hope will reduce some of the steps normally involved. And as I also shared with my staff, this process may be changing soon if Google releases the Quick Office viewer and editing features to Google Drive later this Fall. 

Even though I don't advocate asking students to complete digital worksheets, there are sure to be times when viewing and marking up Word or PDF documents found on the web is necessary and helpful. 

Opening and editing Word and PDF documents on the Chromebook

Click here to watch the video tutorial

1. Install the Docs/PDF PowerPoint Viewer extension
2. Immediately after installing a Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer Options tab will open, displaying the file types that will be opened in the Google Drive viewer.
3. Check the PDF option (Option 1) at the top and then click Save at the bottom of the screen

4. Click on a word document on any website
5. The document will now open in the Google Drive Viewer
6. To open and edit Word or PowerPoint click on the “Edit Online” icon
7. This will make a new editable copy for the student to work on
8. For more info on how to collect Google Docs from students go here.
9. For PDF documents click “Add to Drive” icon
10. Install PDF Zen Editor and Viewer Chrome App
11. Locate the PDF file in the Google Drive inbox, right click on the file and select PDF Zen
12. In PDF zen use editing tools to mark up, click on “Actions” icon to save changes back to Google Drive or to get URL link for sharing or submitting in Moodle/Edmodo.