Googley Stuff

New Addition to Google Educator Groups

I helped start GEG West Tennessee awhile back and, while we haven’t been as active as I had hoped, we have had a face-to-face event and have been looking for more ways to be of service to our members.

With the announcement last week of the redesigned Google for Education Training Center and the new certification structure, I knew we would have a renewed purpose but wasn’t quite sure how it would realize itself.

Then I checked my email and read this from our GEG Program Manager:

“We want to work with you to go further, and deliver an experience to all GEG participants that incorporates the aspects of learning we are pushing for with students: personalized, collaborative learning.”

GEG Study Groups are a way for GEGs to discuss and study the Google for Education training center resources.

Best of all is the Study Group Guide that has been provided. It lays out a semi-structured way for GEG participants to review and learn the new material as well as pass exams and obtain certifications together.

“GEG Study Groups will help GEG participants not only improve their product knowledge, but will support them in making real change in the classroom; ultimately enabling educators to effectively use technology to save time and drive student learning.”

Why haven’t I linked to the study guide? Well, I’m not sure yet if that is available for sharing outside of the GEG Leader Community but I will check as soon as I can. I can say that it includes a suggested calendar (proposed 10-weeks prior to taking a level test) for meet-ups as well as a way to organize the curriculum. They are continuing to refine and expand the study guide with GEG Leader feedback and results of a school-wide pilot they are running.

The addition of GEG Study Groups will allow for a form of more focused support by GEGs and those of us serving as GEG Leaders are indeed grateful.

GEG Study Groups

Learn more about Google Educator Groups
and how to join by visiting the GEG website.

Print a Google Doc with Comments

This may be a trick other people have known and used for awhile but I just learned it so I am sharing here.

I am working on the outline for the literature review for my dissertation. Outline only but I used the comments feature to document my thoughts regarding the various elements of the outline and how I plan to tie them together. That way my instructor can help advise me in my thinking.

I wanted to print out the Google Doc along with the comments. Turns out, here is how to do just that.

First, on the Google Doc, use the File menu to select Download As and then Web Page. An HTML file will be downloaded to your computer. Open that HTML file in a web browser and you will see the text of the Google Document with footnotes for each of the comments.

File - Download As - Web Page

Create a Permalink for a Google Hangout

I heard about the Unhangout Project from the MIT Media Lab and MacArthur Foundation while at #EdCampUSA last week.

While I can’t dive right in to trying this (requires admin set up on their end), I was looking around their site and came across a service they offer that CAN be used right away.

Get a permanent link to a Hangout to make that Hangout into an easily reusable online meeting room; a conference call that is always available.

WARNING – Anyone using the permalink can enter the Hangout! No invitation is needed. So, while you want to make a handy permalink, I wouldn’t make it too obvious and I wouldn’t share it widely or post on social media.

  1. Go here – https://unhangout.media.mit.edu/h/
  2. Enter what you want for the ending of the permalink (which you can make shorter with a URL Shortener service later).
  3. Enter a quick title and description then create the permalink.
  4. Using the permalink takes you back to the page you are on at that time and you can launch the Hangout with the “Join Hangout” button.
  5. Various permissions must be accepted as the UnHangout Hangout App needs access to an assortment of services and features.

This won’t be useful for everyone but might be what you are looking for. If it is, great! If it’s not, share it out because someone else may find it helpful.

 

Use TeacherCal with Google Calendar!

If you are a teacher STOP what you’re doing and go to edusync.com and check out TeacherCal!

It is so super easy to set up (only takes a couple of minutes) and will be a HUGE benefit to you in running an efficient classroom for the coming school year. Not only will this increase communication and make file sharing easier with your student (especially if you aren’t lucky enough to have access to Google Classroom) but you can add parents to the loop simply by sharing the calendar with them!

Use this one interface to plan your lessons and set up to automatically share with all stakeholders (students, parents, grade-level teams, administrators).

I would go into more detail but, honestly, it is so easy and, because it is designed by teachers for teachers, the website provides an excellent overview.

  • TeacherCal is free!
  • TeacherCal allows teachers to create Google Docs right from their calendar!
  • TeacherCal automatically organizes your content in Google Drive!
  • TeacherCal syncs with Google Calendar!

Soon they will release EddyCal which will give students and parents an intuitive one-stop app.

Yes, it is in Beta but it doesn’t feel like a Beta. It is polished, not buggy at all, and ready for primetime!

Kudos to the EduSync team lead by CEO Ryan Lynch!

 

Scan Barcodes Into a Google Form / Spreadsheet

The Scan to Web (and Scan to Spreadsheet) app has come in very handy for me this year. No need for a small school district to spend lots of money on fancy barcode readers when a few dollars spent on an app will do. Here is a quick video showing what I’ve been doing today as I get our new Chromeboxes set up for our computer labs.

Create Pseudo Slides from Google Form Submissions

Have you ever wanted to trigger a script on a Google Sheet of Google Form responses that would create a Google Slide containing the submitted information? Try this.

I recently shared a hack that made Google Slides act as a pseudo Google Doc so YouTube videos could be embedded. This post gives Google Docs the chance to fill a need not available in Google Slides – the creation of a new “slide” using autoCrat after a Google Form submission is received.

Let’s say I have a Google Form (inspired by Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways series) that I ask my PLN use to crowdsource interesting ways to use Google Docs in the classroom. That form currently looks something like this (feel free to make a submission):


 

I would love to be able to trigger a script on the Google Sheet of form responses that would create a Google Slide containing the submitted information. Ideally, it would be a slide appended to an already existing Google Slide presentation. Unfortunately, that is not currently possible.

Yes, I know I could follow the same process Tom did by just making the actual Google Slides file freely editable by anyone but I’d rather have a bit more control and avoid digital vandalism.

Here is my hacked workflow.

When someone submits the Google Form above, the information is sent to a Google Sheet. I could have chosen to have autoCrat run on submission but, dreading spammy submissions, I am going to run the script manually after I review submissions. When I do run the merge script, autoCrat uses this Google Doc (see screenshot below) as the template for the merge. It has been formatted to look like a Google Slide (explained later in this post).

pseudo slide screenshot
 

The resulting autoCrat merge looks like this:

merged slide
 

If a URL to an image is provided in the submitted data, I will probably grab that image and slip it into the document but, for now, that’s the only way an image will get in.

Here is a comparison of what a similar Google Slide would like.

Compare Doc and Slide
 

It’s not perfect but it helps.

FYI: The Google Doc is set to a landscape orientation with all four margins decreased to 0.3 inches. I chose the Executive setting for paper size as it most closely resembled the slide size.

Page set up
 

If you are interested, here is an embedded Google Drive folder containing any of the merged documents I have reviewed and published.

 

I expect that, after reviewing, adding images, I will be converting these Docs to PDF so I can combine the PDFs into one document.

What ideas do you have for making this hack more efficient? I would love to hear them! Share in the comments below.

 

 

Back To Top