Embed a Drawing IN a Doc

WEBSITE ↬ LINK to blog post

AUDIENCE ↬ teachers

CONTENT ↬ any/all

GRADE LEVELS ↬ all grades

I can see some of you scratching your head on this post ... but if you are using a Google doc for your students and want an "interactive" portion, you can! It just takes a little bit of thinking to ensure you keep the interactive part available.

You probably already know you can create a Drawing for students to sort items or a t-chart they can separate on or embed a graphic organizer for digital work or any number of other reasons to provide a non-traditional space for students ... but did you know you can do all of this AND put it in your Google Doc??? Yep!

Google Drawings are the perfect space for many of the above mentioned activities. And for many teachers, Google Docs are used regularly. So let's combine the two!

Want to see it in action? I create a quick <5 min video to share the step-by-step.

And to level it up, why not teach your students how to do this, too? 

If you like this resource, be sure to check out the other resources like it tagged below.

Pairing fonts

WEBSITE ↬ Fontjoy
AUDIENCE ↬ teachers & students

CONTENT ↬ all/any

GRADE LEVELS ↬ grades 3-ish & up

I very much enjoy creating Slides, Docs, and other material for both students and teachers. I do my best to make it pleasing to the eye while still sharing the message. I stumbled across this website and it finding what I didn't even know I was really looking for!

Fontjoy has a very simple premise ... it's a website that helps you pair fonts that work well together. If you read the "How it works" page, you find there is machine learning at work. I don't truly understand how it exactly works, but I do know that it has helped me on multiple occasions make very pleasing font combos!

Now - I don't think the youngest of students really need to worry too much about font pairings, but I do believe students in late elementary (especially ones who show solid computer skills) might benefit from understanding of how to best put fonts together. By middle school and high school, students can really benefit from this website.

And if nothing else ... help yourself out! It's fun to check out!

Day 15: Templates for Teachers

Templates for Teachers [LINK]

My last share of these 15 days is a very personal one. My colleague & friend, Beth Kingsley  (@bethkingsley13) & I created this site. We very much enjoy creating templates for activities that can be used in any classroom. This site is built from a love of teaching and learning. Please feel free to click on any of our templates, preview them and then click the "Use Template" to make it your own. You are welcome to modify as needed. Our hope is that you find something here that can serve you and or your students soon!

We will be working over the next several weeks to provide a better organization to the site ... so for now, please scroll through. We look at this site as a work-in-progress for sure! There is even a place for you to submit a request for a template we can create & share. We 💖 this stuff!

We have templates for:

• newsletters
• class award certificates
• magazine covers
• "Who Was ...?" books
• holiday themed activities
• digital badges
• "Who Would Win?"
• social media
• lesson plans

. . . . and more!

Finally, we are excited to announce we will be presenting at OETC (the Ohio Educational Technology Conference) on February 14. We'd love to see you there! We will spend some time sharing our site and then dive into "how" we create what we do, then provide some time for you to create!


Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

Day 8: Applied Digital Skills

Applied Digital Skills [LINK]

If you've read even a few of my entries, you know that I love Google. I use it all day every day. I can't say enough how much I love it.  About 2 years ago, I learned about Google's Applied Digital Skills program. Another incredible program from Google!! 

Here's my summary - as a teacher, you are given a Google account, as are your students. Google Docs is fairly simple to get up and going with ... Slides, while more involved, still fairly simple. You get rolling with these two and you think you are flying high. Then you hear others talking about Google Calendar and then Google Sheets and don't forget about creating your own Site!?! The list goes on and on. How do you incorporate all of these? How do you teach your students when you don't know these apps yourself? 

Introducing ...... Applied Digital Skills!!! 

Pre-created project based curriculum from Google. Lesson plans and a platform to work with are part of the package. And to make it better, Google includes short instructional videos ... FOR THE STUDENTS ... to watch and learn. Seriously. (Can I tell you it is my dream to work for Google?!) 

The website is very teacher friendly. Click on the teacher tab and you are provided the steps to get started. The curriculum tab allows you to search their ever growing collection of projects by Audience (the "who" you'd do the project with); Apps (the Google application you want to dig in to or cover); and/or Topics (the skills you are wanting to cover). 

Please don't limit your thinking that you have to be tech teacher to utilize this curriculum. There is no limit on the content areas that can benefit. And even though Google deems their youngest audience to be late elementary, don't feel like younger elementary "can't". It will take a bit more work and some modification of expectations, but it CAN be done with younger students. 

Another winner from Google! Check it out today.

Please click HERE for the collection of all 15 resources.

CheckMark Chrome extension ... an update worth a look!

Do you use the awesome Chrome extension CheckMark? EdTechTeam is the creators and they have updated it so now it works in Google Classroom! Check out the short video LINK.

Not sure what the CheckMark extension is/does? Here's a quick overview from the Chrome Webstore:

CheckMark by EdTechTeam makes the process of providing feedback on student work in Google Docs and Slides faster and more efficient. After installing CheckMark by EdTechTeam, simply enable the extension and select some text in a Google Doc or a Slide presentation! You'll see an overlay of frequently-used comments that you can easily select and customize to your liking.

If you comment on your students work in a Google Doc or Slide, I highly recommend checking it out. You can read more here ↬ http://www.checkmarkclass.com/. 

2 Awesome Google Slides Updates!

GSUITE UPDATES BLOG → New in Google Slides: linking in Docs, guides and rulers, and improved commenting

Google is always updating/improving their products - very teacher-like, might I add?!

This past week they announced 2 pretty awesome ones involving Slides. They include 2 awesome GIFs to quickly demonstrate.

The short version of the article:

• You can now insert slides INTO a Google Doc & keep a "live" connection, so if changes are made on the Slide, it'll update in your Doc. (p.s. Did you know you can do this with charts in Sheets, too??)

• You will now find a "visual ruler" in Slides to help with alignment in Slides! This is a HUGE step up for Slides, especially for those of us who have 'perfectionism' tendencies. 

If you have questions, don't hesitate to let me know!