Google Drawing Templates Galore from the Best of EdTech! (Redux)

Google Drawing Templates: Please do not request access, open the template you want and create a copy. Thanks to everyone who contributed to these set! Eric Curts, Kasey Bell, and Matt Miller.

http://bit.ly/GoogleDrawingTemplates

Get the Most out of Google Apps for Education with Synergyse Training (NOW FREE!) by Guest Blogger Michael Wallace

Guest Post by friEdTech Technical Guru Michael Wallace reposted from Mike's blog here.

Synergyse is Free!

Synergyse is now free. For those of you who are not familiar with Synergyse, it is a Chrome extension that can supplement Google training. There are hours of videos that cover basic tasks a person new to Google would want to learn about. They also cover a few in depth topics. At The Village School we purchased Synergyse for the entire staff. I did find the price a bit high, but now that it's free I would recommend it to any organization. There are two ways to install Synergyse, individually, or by Google OU,  I'll cover both.

The first way is to install it for your self. In Chrome go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Synergyse. You should see an extension that looks like this:

Click the "Add to Chrome Button" and you should get a pop up like this:

Click "Add Extension" and that's it. Now when you go to Gmail, Drive, or a host of other Google pages you should see the Synergyse logo next to your profile photo like this:

If you don't see it the first time refresh the page and it should load.

This is all great and dandy for one or two people, but what if you have hundreds or even thousands that you want to share this great tool with? If you're an admin for your Google Apps domain you can push it out to the entire organization or any Google OU you wish. You start at admin.google.com and click on Apps. Then you go to "Additional Google Services" -> "Chrome Management" -> "User Settings." On the left of this page it should have your organizational structure like this:

My structure here is simple, yours may be more complex. Select the OU you want to push Synergyse to. Press CTRL+f  (Command+f for Mac) and type force-installed in the find box.

You should see the "Force-Installed Apps and Extensions" setting.

Click on "Manage force-installed apps" and select "Chrome Web Store." Type Synergyse in the box then click add.

Click Save to close this window and make sure to click save again on the Chrome User Settings page.

That's all there is to it. The next time a user in the OU you pushed it to loads Gmail, Drive, or one of the other supported Google services they will see the Synergyse logo and can click on it to learn about working in the Google environment.

Part 2: Get your Computer (and Files) Ready for Summer (Install Google Drive)

Part 2 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the best way to upload ALL your files (or a whole bunch of files) over a longer period of time without having to drag and drop or babysit the process. We'll do this using the downloaded version of Google Drive which you'll install on your computer.

This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to the cloud! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone.

Links you'll need:

https://www.google.com/drive/download/

http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

Part 1: Get your Computer (and Files) Ready for Summer

Part 1 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the fastest and easiest way to upload your files to Google Drive. If you have a whole lot of files, wait for Part 2, which will show how to install Google Drive and sync files from your computer's hard drive to the cloud. If this video helps you, then share it!

This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to Google Drive! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone.

Links you'll need:

http://drive.google.com

http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

Google Cardboard Apps for the Classroom via @friEdTechnology

• Google Streeview, as explained here
• The Cardboard app itself (Android, iPhone) which includes the following . . . 
• Earth: Fly where your fancy takes you on Google Earth
• Tour Guide: Visit Versailles with a local guide
• My Videos: Watch your videos on a massive screen
• Exhibit: Examine cultural artifacts from every angle
• Photo Sphere: Look around the photo spheres you've captured
• Watch YouTube videos in 360, here are some videos to try out
• The New York Times VR stories located here
• Titans of Space Guide to the Planets (Android)
• Orbulous, which the makers describe as “just looking at things.” What things? Greenbot reports “You’ll see vivid, 360-degree photos from around the world, whether it’s mingling amidst tourists on aging architecture, looking out over a city surrounded by sparkling blue water, or even taking in the sights within a museum. A small bit of background noise adds to the immersion.” (Android)
• Polar Sea 360° is a 10 part television series and interactive journey that follows sailors, scientists, hunters and artists on a journey through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage. Part of the series was shot using revolutionary 360 degree cameras, that put you in the center of the action and let you experience the Arctic like never before.(Android, iPhone)
• YouVisit VR lets you step into exotic locations like Machu Picchu; browse leading colleges and universities, including Harvard and Yale; become immersed in breathtaking live events like TomorrowWorld. (Android, iPhone)

For more about Google Cardboard, check this out.

How to Get "Google Expeditions" via Google Cardboard Today, No Waiting! (FREE VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS!)

If you've been curious about the Google Expeditions Pioneer program but your school hasn't been chosen for a visit, you can check out a little known feature right now that is very much like Expeditions!

All you need is Google Cardboard (literally a viewmaster made of cardboard), which you can buy here or lots of other places, and an app on your smartphone called Google Streetview, Android / iOS.

Next, open the Streetview App on your phone and tap the Explore area:

Want to make sure your Cardboard viewer works optimally with your smartphone? Tap this settings button from within any panorama . . .

Then click "Setup."

Hope you enjoyed this, if you did, please share it or let me know in the comments!

It's Simple: Ask Your Students . . .

I had the pleasure of hearing Shannon Miller speak a couple of weeks ago and her message was simple yet profound: JUST ASK STUDENTS what they THINK, NEED, and WANT. I re-shared this message as the keynote speaker at the Texas Foreign Language Association conference last week. Sensei John Cadena was listening and provided his students that very opportunity today. I wonder if you can use his graphic organizer for gathering student feedback to improve your class room tomorrow? I hope so. Thanks for sharing, John. Check out John's blog here.

Best Tools for Screencasting

Check out this infographic featuring my favorite screencasting tools that are free or deeply discounted for education. If you have a favorite that's not on this list, please let me know in the comments!

High Quality PDF Version

Getting Started with Google Hangouts

I worked with the fine faculty of Dimmitt ISD last week and they were very interested in how to use Google Hangouts to bring guest speakers into their classrooms. I promised them a video, which come to think of it, you might want too. Hope it helps!

You Might be a Teacher If . . .

Google Edu Infographic: How to Force a Copy of a Document

Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here.

Try it out! Click this link to take a copy of the file. This technique also works on other Google filetypes (Sheets and Slides).

Original URL:

https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/edit?usp=sharing

Edited URL (the Force Copy URL):

https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/copy

Learning to use the New Autocrat is Working SMARTER

Autocrat is a ROBOT that does your work for you. You heard me right. It's like Rosie from the Jetsons. If you don't take a few minutes to learn this, you're literally working HARDER not SMARTER, so come on y'all, who wants to do this? Stay late today, watch, then save TONS of time later when Autocrat is working for you.

Watch the Video Here 

if you don't see it below

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and get Videos Delivered to your Inbox

As you can see, learning Autocrat is just like hiring the gal below without all the interpersonal drama. Do it. 

What IS Google Classroom?

If you've been wondering what Google Classroom is (or is NOT), this video from moi is for you! Should you get ready for implementation? Can you replace your current system with Classroom? This video will help you answer those burning questions. Then, join the discussion below this post on Google+ to share how your school is using Classroom to improve instruction.

Also, don’t forget to install the free Synergyse training for Classroom by visiting https://www.synergyse.com/ and clicking the large green Install button!

Create FREE Animated Gifs using Snagit and your Chrome Browser

Animated Gifs have returned to the scene as a GREAT teaching tool. You can email them, post them on a website or on social media, add them to a document or slideshow, but any way you put them, they're a powerful, succinct way to get across the steps of a technology process. Easy, fun, and FREE! Thanks TechSmith for the great addition to the Chrome browser!

Install the App here and you also need the extension, available here.

Video here if you don't see it below.

Updated Student Choice Continuum

The idea of the "Student Choice Continuum" has had quite a bit of traction thanks to followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Thanks for your feedback. Below please find the updated Student Choice Continuum which has discarded the "Based on Curriculum" anchor found in the original version. Educators pointed out to me that any of these activities could be based on curriculum or not and that often teachers think their activities are based on curriculum (word search) when they are actually not helpful to student learning. Keep sharing and sending feedback! I'm listening!

Vector Version (svg format)

Extra Large PNG Version

Top 5 Reasons To Give Google Play for Edu Another Look

Guys, You are SERIOUSLY missing out if you haven't looked at the new Google Play for Education store. And NO, you don't have to have a Google Play tablet to take advantage of it! Learn everything you need to know to get started in my post on the Synergyse Blog here, or click the image below.

CrowdSchool Seeks to Crowdsource PBL Units, Asks for a Start via Indie Go Go

CrowdSchool recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help scale its platform for teachers to create, share, and sell project-based Challenges. CrowdSchool seeks to make it easier for teachers to find and use project-based resources in the classroom.

All three Co-Founders have teaching experience, and Chief Learning Officer Tim Monreal still teaches middle school Social Studies. Pedagogy is at the heart of CrowdSchool and they are designing a platform that emphasizes 21st century skills like collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and creativity.

With a successful IndieGoGo campaign, CrowdSchool will launch a marketplace where teachers can search for a variety of project-based Challenges. Teachers will then be able to use a CrowdSchool Challenge online with students in their class. They will crowdsource project-based Challenges from teachers. Once teachers create a Challenge they can decide to share it for free to other teachers or list a price of their choosing. Project-based learning takes a lot of preparation time and CrowdSchool wants to make the planning process easier for teachers.

Although CrowdSchool is using IndieGoGo to raise funds to launch a full marketplace, they are currently adding Challenges and resources for teachers to use immediately in the classroom. On Friday, they released the first public CrowdSchool Challenge: "Create a Campaign to Reduce Bullying in your School or Community."

To use the Bullying Prevention Challenge Sign up here. It's completely free and they will send you everything you need to start using your Challenge within 24 hours.

To learn more about CrowdSchool visit their website , check out their IndieGoGo campaign page, or take a couple of minutes to watch the inspiring video posted below. 

'

Article provided by CrowdSchool's own Tim Monreal. Thanks Tim!

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!

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.