Googley Stuff

Google’s Research Tool Gets Personal

I was in a fabulous session, Revolutionary Research in Google Drive, at this past weekend’s TN Google in Education Summit. In the midst of showing the Research Tool to the group, Adam Seipel got almost as excited as Joe Cantore got hearing thunder snow.

When using the Research Tool, in addition to having access to everything on Google Search, Imanges, Scholar, Quotes, and Dictionary results, you now have access to PERSONAL results. It searches items in your Google Photos, Drive, and more. Awesomesauce!

“Personal results include documents, presentations, and spreadsheets from Docs, Sheets, and Slides, as well as images from Picasa and posts from your Google+ stream. By clicking Preview you can quickly glance at the content, and for presentations you can click Import Slides to choose slides to insert into the current presentation. You can also click Insert Link to insert the item’s URL and title. In documents only, you can insert a footnote citation with the link by clicking the Cite button.” (Source)

Check it out!

Research Tool Gets Personal

Slam: Form from a Sheet

Check out John McGowan’s two new Add-ons (currently in beta testing and still has some bugs): formIngester and formCreator.

To install formCreator:

  1. Join the formCreator trusted tester group (join the formIngester tester group as well).
  2. Use the link to get to the download the add-on link – Actually titled “QuickQuizCreatorDev ver. 2”
  3. Click the “Free” button to install. Authorize as prompted.

To use QuickQuizCreatorDev ver. 2 after installing:

  1. add-onOpen a Google Sheet
  2. Use Add-ons menu to choose “QuickQuizCreatorDev ver. 2” and “Create quiz”
  3. Click “Setup Sheet” to add a template sheet
  4. Fill in with your questions:
    1. Question Type (preset list)
    2. Question Title (the question)
    3. Question Help Text (optional)
    4. Begin Choices (possible answers to questions)
  5. In side panel, enter a “Form Title” and click “Create Form.”
  6. Wait a few seconds.
  7. Form gets created.

If you don’t want to deal with beta, try out the template Sheet that John started this with.

 

Here is a quick video of the steps above.

 

 

 

Drive And OCR

Extract Text from Images and PDFs with Google Drive

There may be any variety of reasons you may need to copy the text from a image file or PDF. Google Docs can help you with that process if you don’t have access to an application like Adobe Acrobat Pro or an OCR conversion application. Here is how.

FIRST – Upload the image file or PDF to your Google Drive account and select it.

Here I am using a PDF shared by Richard Byrne on his blog Free Technoogy for Teachers.

pdf-to-text-1

NEXT – With the file selected in your Google Drive (not when it is opened in preview mode), click on the the three vertical dots that represent the “More Actions” menu. Choose “Open with” and select “Google Docs.”

text-to-pdf-2

FINALLY – Google Drive’s optical character recognition (OCR) jumps into action. Google Drive scans the file and uses its magic algorithms to convert the file into a Google Document. It’s not perfect but it can certainly help in a pinch.

 

Note: Video has no sound 

The conversion will be most accurate if:

  • the image is high resolution
  • line height is at least 10 pixels (larger is even better)
  • text is horizontal and left-to-right (you can use Google Drawings to rotate the image if needed)
  • common fonts like Arial and Times New Roman get the best results (from my experience sans-serif fonts like Arial work best).
  • image should be sharp and free of blurring

There are limitations. The file size cannot be over 2 MB. If you are working with a PDF, only the first 10 pages are scanned and converted.

Some of the formatting may carry over into the converted text but don’t be surprised if you need to do some clean-up. Still, this process can be a big time-saver when the clock is ticking.

 

 

Google Plus Communities

Join the eduConversations on Google+

When I first began to grow my digital PLN, Twitter was my go-to space. It remains the cornerstone of my PLN but, over the years, I’ve expanded to include many more avenues. Google+ conversations, especially those in various Google+ Communities, are an ever-growing element of my learning network.

If you have a Google account but haven’t started using Google+ yet, this blog post by Alice Keeler about a presentation by @davidtedu can help you get started. The Google+ Help website also provides excellent support.

Communities in Google+ provide an area for people with similar interests to discuss various topics. You as a user also has control over how much of those posts appear in your Google+ stream. I follow a large number of Communities because I am an info junkie but I only have a core group of these actually appear in my stream. When I want to get my fix of the others, I visit the pages for those Communities and soak up the eduConversations.

I help moderate a few Google+ Communities:

  • Google Teacher Academy Wannabes – I created this community after the first time I was not select for a Google Teacher Academy. It has grown to over 300 members. Participation in the community stream spikes when GTA applications deadlines near.
  • Think Open Crossplatform Apps – This Community was created by Dee Lanier. I saw his keynote at the GAFE Southern Summit in 2014 and became a real believer in the open movement. This community is a wonderful source of motivation for staying open and for encouraging action to help pressure app developers to provide support for all operating systems.
  • GEG West Tennessee – The Google Educators Group for West Tennessee is still young but will grow as GAFE use grows in our area. I am currently the leader of the group and moderator of the site but hope to share those duties with others as the Community grows.
  • EdCamp Memphis – Not so much of a community at this point since we are just now nearing the first EdCamp Memphis. I am one of the organizers for the event and expect that this community will grow more after February 7, 2015, the date of our event.

Here are some other communities of interest you may want to check out. There are many, many more out there that I follow but these can help get you going.

Google and Google Apps Related – 

Education and EdTech Related – 

Google+ Help regarding finding more communities.

What are some of the Google+ Communities you find most helpful and why? Share in the comments for the post.

 

Google Color Palette

When assembling training materials for Google workshops, it is important to use the correct shades of blue, red, yellow, and green, not to mention the grays. The image below was made in Google Draw and includes the HEX and RGB codes for the official Google color palette as provided in the presentation template for Google Education Trainers.

Google-color-palette

 

Want the Google Draw file? Grab a copy here.

Remove Birthdays from Google Calendar

I like wishing people “Happy Birthday” but I follow lots of folks and so their birthdays can clog up my Google Calendar. If you are in the same boat, here is how to get those birthdays off of your Google Calendar.

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