Chrome Extensions

Chrome Extensions are useful tools to add to your Chrome browser.

Using Chrome as your browser, go to your Chrome Store.

Once here you can find all kinds of great tools.  You can also personalise your Google Chrome page by choosing from a number of themes.  Go ahead and try them - you can easily change between any of them with a click.  

Here are some great extensions to add to your Chrome:

Synergyse Training - this extension is added to your Google Apps, so that anytime you are in a google app (document, spreadsheet, draw, presentation, forms) it will appear.  If you have any questions or need a tutorial on any aspect of the app, you can click on it.

 What is looks like when you search for it in the Google Store.

The icon on your Google app.

Some of the many tips provided.

Another excellent one that I use all the time is the URL shortener. Search for Google URL shortener extension in the Chrome Web Store.

This extension goes onto your toolbar.  When you want to share a url address and you don't want to have it looking like a long, convoluted line of letters, numbers, symbols, you can click on this extension and it provides a nice, short url for you to use. 

Those are just two of hundreds of extensions you can choose from.  There is one that changes anything on your screen to a different language.  One that reads what's on your screen out loud to you.  One that shows your calendar with one click.  One for twitter, pinterest, and other social media.  The list is endless.  Have fun exploring and if you come across any that are really useful, be sure to share!

Google Draw

This is an excellent Google Draw tutorial by Mark Keenan.

Click >> Here<< to go to Mark's blog and watch his tutorial.

Putting a google calendar icon on your iPad or iPhone

This is one way to put a link to your Google Calendar onto the home page of your ipad or iphone.

There is an actual app you can use but I personally don't like the layout of the calendar in that app so I have done mine this way.  This gives you the same view that you would see on your laptop.

Go to 'Safari' on your device and search for Google Calendar.

Enter your school email address and password for your GAFE accounts.  This will bring you to your own Google Calendar.  It should show up in 'Desktop' view.  If it doesn't just scroll to the bottom of the calendar and choose 'Desktop' view.  

Next: See the little box with the arrow pointing up in the top left corner?  Click on that.

This will give you options of what to do with this webpage.  Choose 'Ad to Home Screen'.  This will place an icon on the home screen of your ipad or iphone.  It's not a 'pretty' icon but, hey it works.  :D 

 

Walah! You now have easy one touch access to your Google calendar.

Creating a Signature Line in GMail

Go to your Gmail account


Click on the gear icon
 in top right corner


Choose 'Settings'

Scroll down until you find the 'Signature' section

Click on the box to enable the signature

Type in the signature box as you would like your signature to appear, adding a link to your Google site (copy and paste the url from your Google site)

When you are finished, scroll to the very bottom of this page and 'Save Changes'

That's it!  Now every email you send from your Gmail will automatically have your signature line.

(In this section of Gmail, you can find other interesting options that you may find useful for yourself.  Have a quick look and see what options are available.)

GAFE

Observing a Google Apps for Education lesson at St Pius X with Joy Paton. 

Google Calendar

Here is a link to a great post about using Google Calendar.  Thanks Mark for sharing it!  I'll post it here so I know where it is for future reference.

Google Calendar Link

Using Labels in your Blogs

Using labels is an excellent way for people to find all blog posts about a certain topic or person.  This
can be useful to bring up all posts about a student in order to quickly view their learning for the year.   It is also helpful for linking together posts for professional development or for registration criteria.

When you are writing a post you will see on the right side of the screen the heading 'labels'.  Click on this and type in all the labels that apply to the post you've written.  When you save and publish, the labels will appear at the bottom of the post.  Over time you will create a collection of posts applicable to each label.  By clicking on the label beneath the post you will bring up all posts that had that label applied.

Read this article for further information about the benefit of using labels.

To add a gadget that displays your labels, go to your blogger dashboard and choose 'layout' and then click on 'add a gadget'.

Choose 'labels' from the list of gadgets.  Once you've clicked on this, a window will open up that will give you choices of which labels you'd like displayed, and how you want them displayed.  This is a great way to quickly and easily find posts in your blog of certain students or topics.

      

We're Blogging!

With the implementation of Google Apps for Education, it has opened the doors for our teachers to begin to blog using blogger.com.  It is very exciting to see staff learning and taking something new on board to implement into their teaching and the sharing of their students' learning.  Some staff attended a workshop to learn the basics and some were miraculously able to follow my written directions!  (Here is the link to the instructions)

We have also discovered the blogger app that is available for ipads, iphones and android phones.  This makes writing a blog post as easy as sending a text.  Make sure you download it and try it out.

For two weeks we are having a Friday Techie Breakie session before school to share ideas and learn some of the extra features of blogging and google sites.  We will also be looking at how to easily put picasaweb  photo albums onto our google sites.

It's exciting to share with each other and to encourage each other to continue to learn.

Here is the link to the list of Web addresses of the staff who have google sites and blogs started.  (It is only viewable by CBS staff.) We are all on a learning journey and everyone is finding their way around the different features, as well as figuring out how and when to build their sites.  Join us on our journey!  If/when you create your own site please be sure to add your url to the doc for CBS staff to share.

Happy Blogging!!!