How My Mind Was Blown at TCEA by Neverware Turning Craptops into Chromebooks

Link above not showing up? See my pics here.

When I attended the recent Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Conference in Austin, Texas, I came upon a little booth with a couple of young, hip folks in it who had practically nothing to show except an old craptop and a lovely logo. Intrigued, I ask for a demo . . .

That’s when Jonathan, founder of the company, booted up said craptop in about 8 seconds. What did I see on the screen??? A CHROMEBOOK! That’s right people, a CHROMEBOOK.

“Will this old crappy computer really load all of MY Apps and Extensions?”  (keep reading. Seriously, you've GOT TO SEE THIS!)

I asked dubiously. Jonathan said, rather humbly, “it should! Log in and let’s see.” So I did, and it did. And again, I was blown away. I thought, I have to rush right home and tell my friend and Tech Director Tracie Simental! Then I mentioned this plan (of rushing home and finding Tracie) and found out that our district had been piloting the solution for MONTHS! (Way to keep me in the loop, T.S.).

Anyway, my enthusiasm has not abated for this product. I’m so geeked. And now in Huntsville ISD we have lots of devices that look pretty crappy that are acting very nicely as Chromebooks. Stuff we were going to have to recycle now has a new life. What could possibly be better than that?

Here’s more from Angela of Neverware . . .

The Chromebook user experience has the power to change education as we know it, but schools face real challenges when it comes to balancing their existing technology infrastructure while embracing the new cloud-based operating system. Even for schools with the budget to invest in moving to Chromebooks, CloudReady ensures that their existing PC infrastructure remains relevant. With CloudReady, a school can take an out-of-place and out-of-date PC or Macbook and start managing it alongside their newest Chromebook in the Google Management Console. Not only does this unify management challenges, but it also expands the total number of devices a district can keep in circulation, making possible things like 1:1 programs. CloudReady removes the tension that schools face between their long-standing investment in Windows and Mac infrastructure and the benefits of moving rapidly and efficiently to the world of Google Apps for Education.

Three Minute Tech Tip: Google Chrome Extension TabCloud

TabCloud is my FAVORITE Google Chrome Extension. It allows me to upload a set of tabs then open them on a different computer, at a different time, or just after restarting my computer. INDISPENSABLE! If you enjoy it, please share this post or like and share the YouTube video. 

Click here to install TabCloud

My Favorite Google Chrome Extensions, Why I Love them, and Why You Will Too!

Learn about a few of my favorite Google Chrome Extensions in this video tutorial for use by education professionals and students. Think of all the time you can save with these great tools!

Smarter Chrome Lesson 2: Themes & Extensions (Video)

Themes may not be essential to using Chrome, but they sure are fun! Learn how to get and change your theme then see how to install extremely useful utilities into your Chrome browser.

For email subscribers, see the video here. 

Smarter Chrome: Session 1 Bookmarks and Tabs (Video)

If you're just switching over to the Chrome Browser or getting started with Google Apps for Education, this series is for you. Become a Chrome expert in no time starting with the first video in what will soon be a series. Hope you enjoy it!

Graphic Design, Chrome-o-fried! Guest Post by Brian McLane

by Brian McLane

Twitter: @brian_mclane
Website: techmantraining.com

Secondary Educator - 32 years, Ed-Tech Junkie, MA Teaching & Learning with Technology, “Head in the Cloud; Caught in the Web”

Chromebooks for Graphic Design?

I teach a high school desktop publishing class which includes graphic design, page layout, image editing, and more. We can use Chromebooks for almost everything we do. And we use completely free cloud software to do it. No Adobe Creative Suite, no Microsoft Office, no expensive, high-learning-curve software. Should I be teaching industry-standard software? Why? I teach the concepts; the tools don't really matter. My students can learn the basics in the numerous free Google Apps and Web-based applications that are available for graphic design. Let's take a look!

Image Editing

One of the first things my students need to learn is image editing. Google Apps offers more image editors than we will ever need! Our go-to app is Pixlr. We use the Pixlr Editor, but easier versions with fewer features (Pixlr Express and Pixlr-O-Matic) are also available right on the home page. Another excellent Chrome extension is Pixlr Touch Up, which allows you to quickly open an image from your computer or Google Drive and do basic editing. Pixlr Editor, on the other hand, is a Photoshop-esque application. Pixlr serves us well for basic image editing such as cropping, resizing, converting files (especially in creating png files from other formats), retouching, and adding text and effects. Other image editors available for Chrome are PicMonkey, BeFunky, Photo Editor, Sumo Paint, pZap, iPiccy, to name a few.

Print and Digital Publishing Software

Lucidpress.com

Without a doubt, LucidPress (LucidPress for Google Drive) - Layout and Design is the best web-based desktop publishing application I have found. And believe me, since the closure of the online Aviary Creative Suite, I have searched to the end of cyberspace. We had been using LucidChart for Education for creating print media, and it was adequate. Lucid Software then released LucidPress in October, 2013. Techcrunch featured LucidPress in a posting on October 2, 2013.

LucidPress includes over 70 templates for creating both print and digital newsletters, brochures, flyers, pamphlets, photo and video books, invitations, and more. I don't allow my students to use templates; they must start with a blank page and create their own design, but the templates are there if needed. LucidPress integrates with Google Drive and is available for Google Chrome in the Chrome Web Store. I especially like the collaboration feature, which allows me to create a "team" (class) of all my students. Their projects are automatically shared with me, and on my computer I can watch them work in real time! They can also work together on shared documents.

LucidPress has a clean, easy-to-use interface. See a screenshot of the LucidPress Editor. Give LucidPress a try. You will find that it is a terrific free alternative to Microsoft Publisher or Adobe inDesign.

Chromebooks are not just Google Drive-Driven

All of the sites I've discussed can, of course, be accessed on any laptop or desktop machine with internet access. So why am I focusing on Chromebooks? Many people are probably under the impression that Chromebooks are useless outside of their integration with Google Drive. After all, you can't even install programs on a Chromebook. That's actually the beauty of Chromebooks! You don't have to install software! All the software is in the cloud; a Chromebook doesn't rely on Google Drive alone. So if you have a Chromebook (or Chromebooks in your school/organization), you can do much more with it than you may realize.

In part two of Chromebooks for Graphic Design, I will take a look at Weebly for Web design and give a quick shout-out to some other useful Google Apps and Web-based software for graphic design, so check back soon!

Lucidpress screenshot:

Lucidpress: Deep-Fried Layout Design with Templates on Top

Guest Blogger Charly has been a camp counselor, K-12 math tutor, and collegiate print and digital journalist. She’s currently enjoying writing and snowboarding in Utah.

Have you ever wished there were an easy-to-learn design tool which would let you and your students fry up print and digital documents in the cloud? What if it were completely free and ran from your browser? Lucidpress leverages a powerful yet user-friendly interface to bring image and text editing capabilities to your fingertips. Both beginning and advanced teachers and students can jump into Lucidpress and learn the tools the first time they use it. The best part is that unlike other programs, Lucidpress allows for real-time collaboration: between teachers, between groups of students, and between teachers and their students.

Lucidpress is a web-based design tool that is ideal for making posters, flyers, and digital yearbooks and newsletters. You can create professional-looking documents—both print and digital—without juggling multiple programs.

Posters

Here is an example of how to make a poster in Lucidpress:

Doesn't it look great? Here are the details on how you can access this poster template:

1. Go to your Lucidpress documents
2. Click Create > New Document > For Print > Posters.
3. Select the poster template you want to work with.
4. Double-click to open the template in the Lucidpress editor.

Flyers

Here is an flyer template created in Lucidpress:

Looks mouthwatering! Once you are in the editor with this template (follow the previous steps, then choose Flyers), here’s how to make changes:

1. Double-click text areas to customize your text.
2. Double-click images to replace with your own images from Google Drive, Google Search, Facebook, Flickr, or Dropbox.
3. Double-click shapes to change their color and shape, or to delete them.
4. In the right-hand dock, you have more fine-tuning options, such as page size, word wrap, and special effects for images. This is a great opportunity to get more advanced students collaborating with beginners!

Digital Yearbooks

For more ambitious users, here is a page from a digital yearbook:

Digital interactivity brings the interactivity of video to your yearbooks, magazines, and newsletters. This is an exciting tool for budding journalists and yearbook staff to capture moments from the school year and share it with the school.

To insert YouTube video content into a digital yearbook, follow these steps:

1. From My Documents, select Create > New Document > For Digital > Yearbooks.
2. From the left-hand Content bar, drag the video icon onto the canvas.
3. Paste the YouTube URL when prompted.
4. Your video content is ready to be shared!

Check out the Lucidpress video below to see the collaboration possibilities for your students and colleagues.

This is just a taste of the creations you can whip up in Lucidpress. You’ll discover templates for training resources, photo books, newsletters, and reports. Lucidpress works equally well for print or digital documents. WIth a high degree of customizability, students—and teachers!—will have fun choosing the best typefaces, images, and colors for school projects. They’ll learn how to work with a team and incorporate feedback from others. Plus, it’s easy to incorporate Google Drive content and share with others.

You can sign up for a free account right now. Because of our continued commitment to education, we’re happy to offer Lucidpress completely free of charge to students and teachers. If you have a Lucidchart account, you can even use the same login credentials.

----------------------------

Thanks to Brad Hanks in Education Outreach for putting me in touch with Charly who provided this article about Lucidpress, and thanks to Lucidpress and Lucidchart for providing AMAZING tools FREE to educators. We appreciate you!

Install Lucidpress into Google Drive via this link.

Smarter Chrome: Three Simple Chrome Tricks

Three simple tips/tricks to help you work smarter in Google Chrome. Enjoy!

Intro to Google Drive and Chrome for Educators

Interested in how Chrome (the browser/operating system) can work for you in schools? How Google Drive is different from Google Docs? What Google Drive Apps you should you install?

Great!

Check out this video tutorial. Don't forget to comment if you learned something new or have something to add.