📰 eLearn Update (April 2018)

Updates

Smarter sharing of files with updated Google Drive Access checker – Google Drive makes it easy to share files through Gmail, Calendar, and other apps with a feature called “Access checker.” When you send an email, calendar invite, or other communication that includes a Drive file, Access checker automatically looks to see if the people you’re sending the message to have permissions to view the file. If they don’t, Access checker asks if you want to change the permissions before you share the file.
FIDO Alliance and W3C Achieve Major Standards Milestone in Global Effort Towards Simpler, Stronger Authentication on the Web – The FIDO2 specifications collectively enable users to authenticate easily to online services with desktop or mobile devices with phishing-resistant security.
Introducing new choices for parents to further customize YouTube Kids – We are excited to announce that throughout the year, we will be rolling out three new options in YouTube Kids: collections by trusted partners and YouTube Kids, parent approved content and improved search-off control for an even more contained experience
More improvements to user management in the Admin console – The new user list view lets you view users in all or some organizational units (OUs), search for and filter users, and take actions on specific users. You can:
Test your knowledge of natural wonders in Google Earth – In a multiple choice quiz, Atlas Obscura takes you to some of the most beautiful—and intriguing—places on the planet. Know where Morning Glory Pool is? Or the hot springs of Dallol? See how well you know your planet, and explore these places in Google Earth.
Display your organization’s brand in the Google bar – Google will soon show your domain’s logo next to a user’s picture (or initials or avatar) at the top of many G Suite services, like Calendar and Drive.
See people’s profile information in new cards in G Suite apps – Google added new person information cards that appear inside your G Suite apps on the web, like Google+ and Calendar, when relevant.
More information, faster removals, more people – an update on what we’re doing to enforce YouTube’s Community Guidelines – The YouTube team provide an update to their effort to enforce guidelines. They outline the statistics and explain the place of human reviewers associated with monitoring videos.
With new security and intelligent features, the new Gmail means business – Google are introducing a new approach to information protection: Gmail confidential mode. This makes it possible to protect sensitive content in your emails by creating expiration dates or revoking previously sent messages.
Stay composed: here’s a quick rundown of the new Gmail – Google has released a range of updated to Gmail, including the ability to snooze messages, directly access other apps, such as Calendar, nudge users with reminders, smart replies for quick responses and a confidential mode that applies restrictions on messages sent out.
Think macro: record actions in Google Sheets to skip repetitive work – Google have updated Sheets adding a way to record macros in the cloud to automate repetitive tasks, as well as more formatting options.
Add custom links to the navigation bar in the new Google Sites – You can use this new custom link creator to add an item in the navigation bar.
Additional details on new macro recorder and formatting options in Google Sheets – Sheets now allows users to group rows or columns, add checkboxes to lists and custom paper sizes for printing.
Improved user management in the Admin console – Google are updating the interface you use when you manage your organization’s users in the Admin console. These changes will make it easier to find and control user information and settings.
Group users into multiple directories in G Suite – Google is making it possible for G Suite admins to cluster users in separate directories with custom visibility rules for each organizational unit (OU)
Google Fonts launches Korean support – The Google Fonts catalog now includes Korean web fonts for designers and developers working with the nation’s unique Hangul writing system.
Preserving endangered wonders of the world, for generations to come – Google Arts & Culture has partnered with CyArk to open up access to their virtual wonders and share their stories with everyone.
Use your favorite password manager with Android Oreo – With the new autofill services in Oreo, password managers can access only the information that’s required in order to autofill apps, making your data more secure.
New in Google Slides: linking in Docs, guides and rulers, and improved commenting – Google has introduced several features in Google Slides on the web to make it easier to create, collaborate on, and share presentations. This includes the ability to insert into Docs and the addition of a ruler for more precise design.
G Suite Enterprise for Education is Now Available – G Suite Enterprise for Education is generally available to educational institutions in the United States, and is coming to more countries soon. Additionally, new tools—such as Data Loss Prevention (DLP), security key management and enforcement, and Gmail S/MIME—will start rolling out to all G Suite for Education users over the next few months.
Get more control over chart data labels in Google Sheets – Google is adding new features to help the charts you create in Google Sheets better represent the data they contain. These features include showing total data labels for stacked charts and controlling where data labels are placed.
Making high quality video efficient – By analyzing aggregated playback statistics, and correspondingly altering the bitrates for various resolutions, Google has worked out how to stream higher quality video to more users.
Video is everywhere – helping brands find their audience in the era of convergence – Google announces the addition of television size screens to the YouTube advertising platform.
Inside The New Google Podcasts Strategy That Could Double Audiences Worldwide – Steve Pratt unpacks Google’s new podcasting strategy that completely reimagines how people find and listen to shows, with a particular focus on AI and Google Assistant.

Resources

Drive

Emoji Your Drive to Create Visual Interest – Beth Mossholder explains some of the benefits of using emojis with folders and titles in Google.

Chrome

Microsoft claims to make Chrome safer with new extension – Peter Bright reports that Chrome already provides effective protection against malicious sites, but Microsoft believes it can do a better job. It has released a Chrome plugin, Windows Defender Browser Protection, that brings its own anti-phishing protection to Google’s browser.
5 things you can do with Chrome Browser to increase employee productivity – Philippe Rivard highlights five features of Chrome in the workplace, including syncing across devices, safe browsing, blocking of intrusive ads, deploying a standardised homepage and pre-install apps and extensions.
Time to celebrate the 2018 Google Play Award nominees – Purnima Kochikar summarises the nominees for the 2018 Google Play Awards.
ReCall Study Time – An Extension to Get You Back on Task – Richard Byrne discusses a a Chrome extension designed to help you stop wasting time on social media sites and get back on task.
Yes, Kinder CAN Use Chromebooks! – Kasey Bell provides a review of Christine Pinto’s new book on using Chromebooks in the early years.
Cultivating Chromebook Creativity in Schools – Jonathan Wylie provides an extensive collection of applications available on a Chromebook to support creativity in schools.
5 Steps to a Podcast Using Soundtrap – Alice Keeler provides a basic workflow for recording a collaborative podcast on the web using Soundtrap.
18 Free Image Sites and Tools for Schools – Eric Curts provides a long list of sites and add-ons to find free images to use when working with GSuite.
3 Screencastify Features You (Probably) Didn’t Know About – Jake Miller provides guidance on three useful features assocaited with Screencastify, including the ability to adjust the webcam on the screen, activate various cursor effects and switch tabs while recording.
The Getting Started Guide for Touchscreen Chromebooks in the Classroom – Tom Mullaney introduces a number of possibilities to draw and annotate using the new touchscreen Chromebooks.

Research

Fast Advanced Google Search – Richard Byrne discusses a Chrome extension that puts a shortcut to the advanced search tools right next to the URL field in Chrome.
16 Curation Tools for Teachers and Students – Depending on the purpose of your curation, there are certain tools that may fit your needs better than others. Kasey Bell summarises sixteen options.
Monet was here: Masterpieces and inspirations come to Google Arts & Culture – To mark the opening of the Monet and Architecture exhibition in London, you can now explore a selection of these works from the National Gallery, and see a stirring retrospective of Monet’s paintings from 17 more museums around the world, online on Google Arts & Culture.
Visualizing the #MeToo movement using Google Trends – In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Google created Me Too Rising, a visualization of the global #MeToo movement through Google Trends data.
How Google autocomplete works in Search – In this post, Danny Sullivan explains when, where and how autocomplete works.
Dimensions – An Academic Research Engine – Richard Byrne discusses Dimensions. a search engine focused on helping users discover research publications including clinical study reports.
It’s surprisingly easy to make government records public on Google Books – Steven Melendez reports that anyone can ask that a book scanned as part of Google Books be reviewed to determine if it’s in the public domain.
Podcasts are the new black: Chips with Everything podcast – Alex Hern looks at why tech platforms like Google are so eager to master the podcast industry. He speaks with Caroline Crampton and Steve Pratt to gain a deeper insight.
Google’s Plan to Make Audio a First-Class Citizen – Steve Pratt explains how Google’s new podcast strategy is designed to make audio a first-class citizen, alongside the text, image, and video results you are used to seeing.
Google’s New Way to Find Your Next Favorite Podcast – Steve Pratt reflects on what he hopes Audio SEO will and won’t be.
Google’s Plan To Deliver The Right Audio At The Right Time – Steve Pratt considers the context-based possibilities that Google may offer, such as content for driving verses content for sitting in the lounge room.
Instant Translation, Lookahead Scrubbing, and More: The Future of Google Podcasts – Steve Pratt imagines a situation where Google’s Speech-to-Text AI’s translate the text assocaited with podcasts and searches within this content too.

Docs

CollabEssay: Why Open 30 Docs When You Can Open One? – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to use a collaborative presentation to make the feedback process easier and then split this up into seperate Google Docs for each individual student.
Amazing Add-Ons for Google Docs – GTT052 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell investigate a number of Docs add-ons, such as Kaizena, Read&Write and Easy Bib.
Using the CheckMark Extension for Chrome to Reimagine Classroom Feedback Practices – Bill Ferriter explains demonstrates how CheckMark makes it possible to add common comments to Google Docs by highlighting and then clicking one button.

Gmail

DriveMail: When Students Do Not Have Email – Alice Keeler coded the ability to create a Google Doc per student on your roster and to push comments to their document like email.
Google Tasks – A Very Simple Task Management App – Richard Byrne digs deeper into Google’s new task management app on iOS and Android.
How to Backup your Gmail Inbox to another Gmail Account – Amit Agarwal describes how to use Download Gmail add-on automatically to save a copy of your Gmail emails and file attachments to your Google Drive. Users can then use the Drive client to backup the files saved in Drive to your local Windows PC or Mac.
A First Look at the NEW Gmail – GTT053 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell go through all the new changes associated with Gmail.
Filter Gmail for Google Classroom – Alice Keeler highly recommends NOT turning off notifications from Google Classroom. Instead, manage the email notifications through filters.

Calendar

Event details now supported by Calendar Interop – Now, G Suite admins can opt in to sharing event details when users use Calendar’s Find a Time or Outlook’s Scheduling Assistant.

Slides

CollabEssay: Why Open 30 Docs When You Can Open One? – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to use a collaborative presentation to make the feedback process easier and then split this up into seperate Google Docs for each individual student.
Better Feedback with Google Slides Commenting – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to comment on specific text in a Slides.
Student collaboration in shared Google Slides – Matt Miller provides a video unpacks collaborating with Google Slides
Google Slides: Create Random Slides – Alice Keeler has developed a script for creating Google Slides presentation that will randomly choose a subset of your list.
Baby’s First Podcast Studio: Google Slides – Joshua Howard suggests Google Slides and Screencastify as a way of creating a basic ‘podcast’ with students.
Create a low-cost, printed school yearbook with Google Slides – Jennifer Scott discusses her Slides Yearbook project that involves creating a yearbook in Slides.

Forms

Doing more with Google Forms – GTT049 – Matt and Kasey again tackle Google Forms but this time focus on add-ons.
How to Create a Custom Google Forms Theme – Richard Byrne provides a series of screenshots to support the creation of custom Google Forms themes.
Enable These Google Forms Settings to Save Time When Making Quizzes – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to set your Forms preferences so that you always have a point value assigned to your questions and made every question required.
How to Automatically Issue Certificates When Students Pass a Quiz in Google Forms – Richard Byrne shows how to use Certify’em to automatically issue certificates to students when they pass a quiz in Google Forms.

Sheets

Advanced Techniques with the Google Sheets Query Function – Ben Collins walks through the advanced syntax and use cases of the super powerful QUERY function in Google Sheets
Translate in Google Sheets – Jake Miller provides an introduction to translater formula using Google Sheets
Google Sheets: Check Multiple Checkboxes At The Same Time – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to use spacebar to select multiple checkboxes in Sheets.
Storyline JS – Turn Your Spreadsheets Into Stories – Richard Byrne discusses Storyline JS, a tool that lets users create an interactive, annotated line chart with Google Sheets and javascript.
Checkboxes () are now available in Google Sheets! Here’s three ways you can use them. – Ben Collins provides some possible uses of the new checkbox option in Google Sheets, including creating dynamic charts, creating a to-do list, as well as show and hide information on a test or similar such document.
Tab-Level Edit Rights in Google Sheets – Jake Miller provides a short tutorial for how to adjust tab-level access rights in Google Sheets.
Google Sheets: Spreadsheet Settings – Alice Keeler unpacks the various settings associated with each spreadsheet in Sheets.
Google Sheets: Sort a Range – Alice Keeler explains how to sort a range as opposed to sorting a whole sheet.
Google Apps Script Patterns: Google Analytics in Google Add-ons and Apps Script projects – Martin Hawksey shows some patterns you can use for using Google Analytics client side in HTMLService and server side with any Google Apps Script code you are running in the backend.
Google Sheets Add-Ons – GTT050 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell investigate a number of Sheets add-ons.

Sites

How to Convert Old Google Sites to New Google Sites – Richard Byrne provides a guide to moving from old to new Sites.
A Replacement for the Deprecated “Announcements” Element in Google Sites – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to import Blogger posts into Google Sites.
New to New Google Sites? 5 Features You Should Know How To Use – Richard Byrne discusses five features of new Sites that everyone should know about, including favicons, custom headers and video from Google Drive.
How to Embed Flipgrid Topics Into Google Sites – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to include Flipgrid in your Google Site.
Designing Beautiful Google Sites – Chris Betcher provides some tips for creating beautiful Sites. This includes a discussion of linerisation, an important element in responsive design.

Classroom

Google Classroom: Spiral Review on the About Tab – Alice Keeler coded a spreadsheet that allows users to keep adding to a spiral review all school year and it automatically updates the exact same Google Slides. Every hour the Google Slides changes to show a different 5 spiral review questions.
Google Classroom: Short Term Goal Setting – Alice Keeler suggests creating a new assignment in Google Classroom titled something like “Short-Term Goal for this week” to monitor goals. Ask students to, in the Private Comments, state their goal for the week along with their actionable plan to reach that goal.
Submitting Photos to Google Classroom – Alice Keeler suggests sharing images in Classroom using Google Slides to improve the workflow.
Filter Gmail for Google Classroom – Alice Keeler highly recommends NOT turning off notifications from Google Classroom. Instead, manage the email notifications through filters.

Drawings

18 Tips: Google Drawing Tips Sheets – Alice Keeler has created two graphics collecting a number of tips and tricks associated with Google Drawings.
Making Learning Transparent – Finding, Making, and Using Transparent Images for Learning – Eric Curts explores all things transparent when working with Google.

Geo Tools

Shellebrating Christmas Island’s extraordinary nature with Street View and Google Earth – on Google Maps Street View and Google Earth, you can explore Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands’ unique wildlife, dazzling ocean vistas and lush rainforests, including the grand finale of the red crab migration—the spawning.
How we explored the whole wide world with Google Earth in the past year – To celebrate the past year of whizzing around the globe, Gopal Shah provides a look at what made Google Earth go round over the last 365 days.
Take your own journey: Experience one of Parks Canada’s breathtaking destinations with new Google Street View imagery – As a result of the long-term collaboration between two iconic organizations – Google and Parks Canada – virtual visitors can explore mountain-top vistas, meandering ocean-side trails, and UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Connecting Classrooms

Simple Ways to Integrate AI in the Classroom – Kasey Bell discusses some different possibilities with incorperating Google Assistant in the classroom, including building with AI or telling an interactive story.

Keep

5 Features of OneNote That You Won’t Find in Google Keep – Richard Byrne documents five things OneNote can do that Google Keep can’t.
4 Ways to Use Google Keep for Feedback and Assessment – Kasey Bell provides four ways to use Google Keep to provide feedback, including badges, a stored comment or a Bitmoji.

YouTube

An Update on Our 2018 Priorities – Susan Wojcicki discusses some of the work that YouTube is doing to support users, such as transparent communication and different ways to engage.
How to Quickly Create a Livestream on YouTube – Richard Byrne steps through how to create a livestream on YouTube right from your laptop just like you can on a mobile phone.
5 Ways to Use YouTube Live in School – Richard Byrne outlines five uses of for YouTube Live in School.
Tube – A Distraction-free Way to Search and Watch YouTube – Richard Byrne introduces Tube, a new tool providing a minimalist view of YouTube.
YouTube’s Plan to Clean Up the Mess That Made It Rich – Lucas Shaw and Mark Bergen unpack YouTube’s history and how it go to where it did, they also unpack how it plans to address the current crisis around polarisation. One of the challenges is that YouTube still seems commited to a long term solution of improving the technology so that humans can train the algorithms.

Blogger

A Replacement for the Deprecated “Announcements” Element in Google Sites – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to import Blogger posts into Google Sites.
Blogging Q&A – Richard Byrne provides a Q&A addressing a range of questions associated with blogging, including which platforms to use, how to maintain momentum and reach new audiences.

General

(Cerf)ing the Internet: meet the man who helped build it – In an interview with Vint Cerf – one of the early developers of the web – Elizabeth Leoni and Cerf discuss some of his work at Google.
Making it work: Google and Walmart fund innovators in workforce development – Through Grow with Google, Google has made a major commitment to helping people access skills and opportunity in the new economy. Through these initiatives, they are joining forces with leading social innovators to fuel the pursuit of a more equitable and efficient labor market.
Teaching and Learning Webinar: K2CanToo – Lisa Thumann leads a conversation with three teachers – Janet Burnett, Susan Stewart and Mia Leonard – exploring activities for 4-8 year-old students.
10 ways Google tools can make the end of the year ROCK – Matt Miller provides a number of reflective activities associted with GSuite for the end of year.
Googley Poem Projects for National Poetry Month (or any time of year) – Eric Curts collects together a number of poetry activities using GSuite for Vicki Davis’ 10 Minute Teacher Podcast

📰 eLearn Update (March 2018)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for March 2018.

Updates

Inbox types now supported in the Gmail app for Android – If you’ve selected a specific inbox type for your Gmail account on the web, you’ll see that same email configuration in your Android app.
Menu and toolbar updates in Google Docs editors – Google are making more updates to the menus in Docs and Slides around text formatting, table menu and splitting of text and highlight colours.
Improve collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides with Activity dashboard – To help inform collaboration, Google are introducing an activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It’s a feature that lets users with edit access see who has viewed the file and when they viewed it.
Bringing new languages from around the world to Gboard for Android – Google are bringing Chinese (both traditional and simplified Chinese) and Korean—plus twenty additional languages—to Gboard for Android.
It’s Street View after all: Disney Parks come to Google Maps – Street View is going the distance, from California to Florida, to make Disney part of your world.
Find shared content with new file organization in Google Drive – Google are going to start intelligently organizing this section so you may also see people listed, along with files they’ve shared with you. The predictions will improve as the system learns how it’s used.
New ways to secure businesses in the cloud – Google announce a number of enhancements to better manage your data.
Quickly flip through papers on your phone – Google are making it easier to use your phone to find, scan and star scholarly articles.
Cloud Identity: Manage users, devices and apps in one location – With Cloud Identity, employees get simple, secure access to their business-critical apps and devices, while administrators get the tools they need to manage it all in one unified location.
Introducing Subscribe with Google – Subscribe with Google lets you buy a subscription, using your Google account, on participating news sites.
Elevating quality journalism on the open web – Google are partnering with the Credibility Coalition to drive the development of technical markers that can enable third party assessments of online content.
The Google News Initiative: Building a stronger future for news – Google are launching the Google News Initiative (GNI), our effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age. It’s focused on three objectives: Elevate and strengthen quality journalism; Evolve business models to drive sustainable growth; and Empower news organizations through technological innovation
Chromebook tablets for versatile learning – Google announce the first education tablet made for Chrome OS, and gives schools the easy management and shareability of Chromebook laptops.
Subscribe to Highlights notifications for Google+ communities and collections – Google are adding more options for how often you’re notified about new posts in the Google+ communities and collections to which you subscribe. Instead of getting all or no notifications, you can now opt to get “highlights” only.
Control session length for Google services on the web – Google are giving G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education admins the ability to specify the duration of web sessions for Google services.
YouTube Studio: Better Insights, New Metrics & Faster Access to News – Google announce features for YouTube Studio including three new metrics that will give you better understanding of how your videos perform, and an all new Dashboard that shows you personalized news and information for your channel.
Inbox types now supported in the Gmail app for Android – Going forward, if you’ve selected a specific inbox type for your Gmail account on the web, you’ll see that same email configuration in your Android app.
Get more useful information with captions on Google Images – Google share new changes to Google Images to provide even better visual discovery with more context on the image results page.
Add a custom favicon in the new Google Sites – To help your site stand out, Google now allows you to customize your favicon—the icon which appears in a browser tab or bookmark list—to match your site.
Google Home and Bluetooth speakers make the perfect pair – Google announces the ability to connect Google Home with bluetooth speakers, therefore extending the reach of the device.
Transitioning Google URL Shortener to Firebase Dynamic Links – To refocus Google’s efforts, they are turning down support for goo.gl over the coming weeks and replacing it with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL). FDLs are smart URLs that allow you to send existing and potential users to any location within an iOS, Android or web app.
New ways to read more with audiobooks from Google Play – Two months ago Google launched audiobooks from Google Play. They have a few updates to make it even easier, whether you like to listen on the go with your phone or at home with the Google Assistant on Google Home.

Resources

Drive

3 Ways Google Drive and MS Office Can Live Together in Harmony – Eric Curts explains how to get the most out of working with both Google Drive and Microsoft Office.
Deep Dive into Google Drive – GTT047 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell take a look at Google Drive, including the various shortcuts and syncing documents.

Chrome

Got Chromebooks? Student Help Desk Support – Austin Houp discusses how he set up a student help desk as a part of the district-wide Chromebook rollout.
Previewing Android P – Google has releaseed the first developer preview of Android P, the newest version of Android.
3 Website Tricks Using Chrome’s Developer Tools – Chrome’s Developer Tools are great for diagnosing or fixing problems with websites, Logan Booker unpacks three: reveal form passwords, delete obtrusive elements, as well as inspect cookies and local storage variables. — even if you’re not a web developer
Moving Your Passwords From Google Chrome To A Dedicated App Just Got A Lot Easier – Patrick Lucas Austin explains how to download a CSV of all your logins that can then be used to upload to a third-party password manager.
The first Chrome OS tablet is here – Jacob Kastrenakes suggests at $329, the Tab 10 is somewhat more expensive than other Chromebooks, which often start below $300. But if schools are looking for something like an iPad, Acer has just given them an option.
Mute YouTube – Alice Keeler explains how to mute tabs in Google Chrome to stop audio from automatically playing.
A Cool Kaizena Update – Kaizena have updated the way they handle voice comments, by improving the speed and providing the ability to record ever if your wi-fi drops out.
GSFE Admin Podcast #20 featuring Cyrus Mistry – In this episode featuring Cyrus Mistry from Google, the panel discuss the development of Chromebooks over time and the steps involved in bringing a new feature to market.
Goo.gl Is Being Shut Down – 5 Alternatives – Richard Byrne discusses five options to goo.gl which is being shutdown.

Research

Find out how journalists across the world use technology today – A new interactive explorer produced by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Google News Lab makes it easy to dig into a wealth of new survey data from hundreds of newsrooms worldwide.
Making it easier to find and share GIFs with Google – Google announce the acquisition of Tenor to support access to GIFs across Chrome.

Docs

How to Add Voice Comments to PDFs and Word Documents – Richard Byrne explains how Kaizena, originally just a tool for voice commenting on Google Docs, can also be used to add voice comments to PDFs and Word documents.

Slides

Make progress (bars) in presentations with Slides Add-ons – Wesley Chun and Grant Timmerman show how to create a progress bar in Google Slides using Google Apps Script.
The Worst Presentation Ever! – Tracey Poelzer shares the worst presentation possible to highlight aspects to consider when designing a slidedeck.
11 tips for creating stop motion in Google Slides – Jake Miller demonstrates how to use Google Slides to create a stop motion video. This is a good way of introducing students to all the different affordances assocaited with Slides.
Google Slides: Add Slide Numbers – Alice Keeler explains how to add numbers to Google Slides, as well as how to customise them using the master.

Forms

Google Forms: Pre-Fill an Answer – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to combine pre-filled links in Forms with Sheets to generate multiple sheets using variables.
Quizzes, Quizzes, Google Forms Quizzes – GTT048 – In Episode 48 of Google Teacher Tribe, Matt Miller and Kasey Bell unpack some of the different ways that Google Forms is used in the classroom.

Sheets

Creating custom branching in Google Forms with Google Apps Script – Martin Hawksey creates a starting point for generating custom Forms with Apps Script.
Weather API + Google Sheets – Tom Woodward shares a script for saving weather data to Google Sheets.
Google Script – Plain Text – Tom Woodward shares a script for adjusting the data formatting in a Google Sheet produced from Google Forms.
Learn the QUERY function in Google Sheets – Ben Collins provides a walkthrough of the QUERY function in Google Sheets.
Google Forms: Pre-Fill an Answer – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to combine pre-filled links in Forms with Sheets to generate multiple sheets using variables.
GroupDocs: Randomly Assign Groups With a Template – Alice Keeler provides a guide to her add-on for allocating students to random groups.
Slow Google Sheets? – Ben Collins provides 27 ideas to speed up slow sheets.
Recording .mp3 audio in Google Add-ons/Google Apps Script to Google Drive – Martin Hawksey provides a boilerplate for recording audio to Google Drive with Google Apps Script.
Coding with Conditional Formatting by @bmossholder – Beth Mossholder explains that conditional formatting uses If/then statements to code the spreadsheet. To introduce If/Then statements, have students try paint by numbers.

Sites

Google Sites: Copy Site Link – Alice Keeler explains which link to share when it comes to the New Google Sites.
How to Add an Image Search Box to Google Sites – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to add a search widget to the New Sites.
How to add a blog or comments box in New #GoogleSites using @Padlet – Jeffrey Bradbury suggests embedding a Padlet into Google Sites to make it more dynamic.

Classroom

Google Classroom: Email a Summary of Student Work – Alice Keeler explains how to send parents a summary of student work within Google Classroom.

Geo Tools

Google Maps learns 39 new languages – Google are making Google Maps even more useful by adding 39 new languages—spoken by an estimated 1.25 billion people worldwide: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Georgian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Indonesian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, and Zulu.

Connecting Classrooms

Machine learning meets culture – Art Palette lets you choose a color palette, and using a combination of computer vision algorithms, it matches artworks from cultural institutions from around the world with your selected hues.
Develop bot integrations with the Hangouts Chat platform and API – Google have added the ability to craft your own bot integrations using the Hangouts Chat developer platform and API.
10 Practical Uses of VR in the Classroom – Bob Hand provides a range of possibilities associated with VR, such as visualising maths and assist students with disabilities.

Keep

Write Notes and Save Bookmarks to Sync With Google Docs & Slides – Richard Byrne discusses how to use Google Keep to takes notes and keep bookmarks that are accessable in a number of applications.

YouTube

ViewPure Now Offers Curated Playlists – Richard Bryne discusses some recent additions to ViewPure of curated playlists.
YouTube, the Great Radicalizer – Zeynep Tufekci highlights the problems with YouTube’s algorithm and the way that it supports the extremes.
Mute YouTube – Alice Keeler explains how to mute tabs in Google Chrome to stop audio from automatically playing.
One of the Biggest Violators of YouTube’s TOS Changes Its Tune – Richard Byrne announces that KeepVid are now respecting the terms of service and no longer allowing people to download all videos.

General

How to BE a Better Leader – Jay Atwood provides a number of leadership tips and where technology can fit,
Machine Learning Crash Course – Google has created a Machine Learning Crash Course.
The Building Blocks of Interpretability – Google has published “The Building Blocks of Interpretability,” a new article exploring how feature visualization can combine together with other interpretability techniques to understand aspects of how networks make decisions.
Classroom Hacks: Google Edition – GTT045 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell share seem simple strategies for getting more out of instruction and interaction in the classroom, such as using Hangouts as a document camera or changing the url for different purposes.
Your G Suite Helpline – GTT046 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell provide a guide to keeping up with Google.
Are you ready? This is all the data Facebook and Google have on you – Dylan Curran shows how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it.

📰 eLearn Update (February 2018)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for February 2018.

Updates

Improving the menus in Google Docs editors – Google are making some word changes to the menus in the web versions of the Google Docs adn Sheets editors
An invitation you’ll want to accept: updates to G Suite meeting room hardware – Google announced updates to make these meeting solutions even better for enterprises, including: expanding Jamboard and Hangouts Meet hardware to new countries, adding AI-powered autodraw to improve your jams and offering more Hangouts Meet hardware options for larger rooms
Email members of a Team Drive – To improve collaboration in Team Drives, Google are adding the ability to email all the members of a Team Drive.
New ways to comment on Microsoft files (and more) in Google Drive – Google are making it possible to comment directly on more file types including Microsoft Office files, PDFs and images—without having to convert them into Docs, Sheets or Slides.
Free Screen and Webcam Recording on your Chromebook. Easily Capture Lectures, Webinars, Demos, Tutorials and more – Screencastomatic is now available on a Chromebook.
An invitation you’ll want to accept: updates to G Suite meeting room hardware – Google has announced the addition of AutoDraw to the Jamboard software.
The Instant Motion Tracking Behind Motion Stills AR – Google has announced a new Augmented Reality (AR) mode in Motion Stills for Android. With the new AR mode, a user simply touches the viewfinder to place fun, virtual 3D objects on static or moving horizontal surfaces.
It’s Safer Internet Day: Key tools to protect yourself online #SaferInternetDay – As a part of Safer Internet Day, Google has rolled out a new version of our Security Checkup, which now provides personalized guidance to help you improve the security of your account. Instead of the same checklist for everyone, the Security Checkup is now a tailored guide to securing your data – your own personal security advisor.
A secure web is here to stay – Beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”.
AMP stories: Bringing visual storytelling to the open web – The AMP story format is a recently launched addition to the AMP Project that provides content publishers with a mobile-focused format for delivering news and information as visually rich, tap-through stories.
The browser for a web worth protecting – Chrome is stopping all ads on sites that repeatedly display video ads that play at full blast or giant pop-ups where you can’t seem to find the exit icon even after they’ve been flagged
Bringing the power of AMP to Gmail – Google announced the addition of AMP to email allowing users to potentially complete various actions within the body of the email.
New Drive File Stream settings for your organization’s deployment – Drive File Stream lets you stream files directly from the cloud to your computer and select files to be available offline
The Google Assistant is going global – Nick Fox discusses the expansion of Google Assistant. With more languages, more features and closer integrations with phone makers and carriers, the Assistant is getting better for you?
Richer Google Analytics User Management – Google are introducing more powerful ways to tightly manage access to user groups inside Google Analytics and enforce user policies.
Google Domains: an easy way to get online – Google are releasing more domain endings, as well as opening the coverage to Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom and Vietnam.
Move projects forward from one place—Hangouts Chat now available – Google have released Chat into the core suite. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate easily and efficiently. With dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time—plus threaded conversations—Chat makes it simple to track progress and follow up tasks.
Providing more comprehensive results to your questions in Search – Google are extending search to include multifaceted featured snippets. Google is able to recognize when there could be multiple interpretations of that query
Google Vault support for Hangouts Chat – Google have announced the integration of Hangouts Chat with Vault.

Resources

Drive

Understanding G-Suite File and Folder Sharing Settings – Jeff Bradbury looks at Sharing Settings inside of G-Suite and unpacks the many possibilities.

Chrome

The Chromebook Creativity Project – Jump in – Andy Losik has started an attempt to collate all the creative applications available for use on Chromebook.
The @TeacherCast Top 21 Favorite Chrome Extensions for Classroom Teachers and School Leaders – Jeff Bradbury’s short list of favorite Chrome Apps and Extensions.
HTTP still under attack – Dave Winer collects together a number of concerns associated with Google’s push to HTTPS, including the cost on the web of such a decision, as well as the possibilities of other solutions to solve the problem of security.
CheckMark v1.0 – Chris Craft announces an update to Checkmark, allowing users to customise the comments, as well as save a version to Drive so that they can be accessed on multiple computers.

Docs

How to Set a New Default Font for All of Your Google Docs – Richard Byrne walks users through how to change the default font in Google Docs.
These Google Docs Add-ons Make It Easy to Find Public Domain Images – Richard Byrne documents two add-ons which make it easy to add images from Pixabay and Upsplash.
The Built-in Google Docs Features Starter Pack – Richard Byrne lists ten features that new users of Google Docs can benefit from learning early on.

Slides

Google Slides to Link Help and Feedback – Alice Keeler highlights some benefits to using Slides rather than Docs.
Use Collaborative Google Slides to Create Historical Tweets – Ashley Fort shares how she has students use a Google Slides deck to create a fake Twitter profile of famous people they have researched. The students then tweet as the famous person within the Google Slides.
9 Awesome Add-ons to Supercharge Google Slides – Eric Curts showcases a number of Slides add-ons, include Slides Toolbox which lets users cut down on clicks associated with repeated tasks.
Google Slides: Watch Students Collaborate with Grid View – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to use grid view in order to monitor a collaborative slide deck.
Learning in motion: EASY stop-motion animation with Google Slides – Similar to Pivot animations, Matt Miller explains how to use Slides to create animations. He also provides a video tutorial to support this.
Google Slides: Have Students Copy Infographics – When introducing infographics, Alice Keeler recommends recreating a template that already exists. She provides a number of tips and tricks to support this.
Google Slides: Dice Place Value – Alice Keeler shares a template for representing place value using Google Slides
Google Slides: Create a Drop Shadow on Text – Alice Keeler shows how to use Google Slides and Drawings to add a drop shadow to text.

Forms

Google Forms: Link to Next Activity – Alice Keeler provides a workflow for how to use Forms to collect responses and then provide a link to the next task or resource.
How many types of questions can you use in Google Forms? – In this video, Jeff Bradbury walks viewers through the Google Forms Question Types to see how they look from both the teacher and student point of view.

Sheets

A Student’s Guide to Using Google Sheets – Alice Keeler provides an introduction for students to four basic features: how to expand a column, turn on word wrap, make a big answer box and create a new sheet.
Google Apps Script Patterns: Getting a Google Sheet header row – Martin Hawksey explains how to grab the header row in Google Sheets, a common operation, for example, when populating a document or sending emails.
Google Sheets: Embed an Image – Alice Keeler explains how to use =IMAGE() to embed an image in Google Sheets.
Google Apps Script Patterns: Using the destructuring assignment syntax and object arrays to process Google Sheet rows – Martin Hawksey demonstrates how to use object arrays to process data in Google Apps Script as an alternative to inserting columns.
Google Apps Script Patterns: Conditionally updating rows of Google Sheet data by reading and writing data once – Martin Hawksey continues his dive into Apps Script, demonstrating how to create a record of sent emails after using GAS to send them.
Explaining syntax differences in your formulas due to your Google Sheets location – Ben Collins explores the syntax differences that occur based on your Google Sheets location.

Sites

Google Sites: Hide a Page – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to hide a page within the New Sites from the navigation menu.

Classroom

6 Uses for Google Classroom Ask a Question – Alice Keeler shares some ideas for how to use ‘Ask a Question’ in Google Classroom, including as an exit ticket, to poll the class and check for understanding.
Google Classroom Video Guide by Alice Keeler – ViewSonic has uploaded 49 short videos on Google Classroom created by Alice Keeler to a YouTube Playlist

Drawings

Dazzling Classroom Creations with Google Draw! – Emma Cottier demonstrates versatility of Google Drawings and its potential as a learning tool for students to create learning representations based on any curriculum topic
5 Google Drawings features you (probably) don’t know about – Matt Miller goes through some lesser known features of Drawings, such as the ability to insert video and pre-designed diagrams.

Geo Tools

The insane amount of backward compatibility in Google Maps – Huan Truong looks at the Google Maps API, showing how backwards compatiable it is. Where many other applications break, Maps seems to keep on working.
Google My Maps Tips and Tricks – Tom Mullaney provides an overview of MyMaps and its various possibilities.
Personal Connections and Google Maps – Ryan Jolivette shares how he and his students used to MyMaps to engage with Geography, as well as collaborate and explore digital citizenship.

YouTube

Bringing the power of YouTube to more countries with YouTube Go – After initially releasing in India, Google are releasing YouTube Go, an application that supports patchy connections, to more than 100 classes.
How to Use YouTube Video Essays in the Classroom – From critique to creation, Tanner Higgens provides a number of activities assocaited with YouTube essays.
YouTube penalises Logan Paul for dead rat Taser video – Alex Hern has reported that YouTube has once again penalised vlogger Logan Paul for posting inappropriate content, just weeks after he was suspended from the company’s paid-content program over a video trivialising suicide.
Preventing Harm to the Broader YouTube Community – Google has announced additional steps we may take beyond our current strike systems when channels upload videos that result in widespread harm to our community of creators, viewers and advertisers.
Updates to YouTube Live Streaming – Google is realising the ability to engage with live chat after the conversation, as well as live captions.
How to Record your Android Screen with the YouTube Gaming App – Amit Agarwal provides a guide to recording Android using the YouTube Gaming app.

Photos

Capture more of your favorite moments with Google Clips – Google announces the release of Clips, a new type of camera that captures the moments that happen in between posed pictures by using on-device machine learning to look for great facial expressions from the people—and pets—in your life. It turns these into short clips without you having to use video editing software.

General

Updating our “right to be forgotten” Transparency Report – Looking back at three years of delisting requests.
Dynamic Learning with G Suite – Kasey Bell shares a number of ideas for making learning more dynamic using Google.
Googling Libraries – A collection of ways Google G Suite for Education can be used in the library, including the creation of digital spaces, supporting research, organising thinking and making connections beyond the classroom.

📰 eLearn Updates (January 2018)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for January 2018.

Updates

What’s New in Google Data Studio? – There have been a number of updates to Data Studio, including the ability to coordinate colours, field reports editing and the display of images in tables.
Improved accessibility for Google Sheets, Slides, and Drawings – Google has added Braille support for Sheets and the option of magnifiers to Slides and Drawings.
New navigation menu for Admin console – Google has grouped menu options based on how customers use them to create a logical multi-layered menu. This makes the menu shorter and more scannable, helping users find things quickly.
Additional Changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to Better Protect Creators – Google has announced that new channels will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months to be eligible for ads. We will begin enforcing these new requirements for existing channels in YPP beginning February 20th, 2018.
Share a Copy of a Google Form – Alice Keeler has coded an Add-on for Google Forms that creates a copy of the Form you are using and asks who you want to share the copy with
Introducing the security center for G Suite—security analytics and best practices from Google – Google are introducing the security center for G Suite, a tool that brings together security analytics, actionable insights and best practice recommendations from Google to empower you to protect your organization, data and users.
More menu improvements in Google Docs and Slides – Based on usage data and your feedback, Google are making some changes to the menus and toolbars in Google Docs and Slides on the web.
Exploring art (through selfies) with Google Arts & Culture – Google has created an experiment that matches your selfie with art from the collections of museums on Google Arts & Culture
Legacy Google Drive desktop sync client now shutting down on May 12th, 2018 – Google is shutting down the legacy desktop sync application.
Google Earth Pro 7.3.1 Released – Google released a new version of the desktop version of Google Earth Pro version 7.3.1 (which is free despite the confusing “Pro” name).
Improved attachment compliance in Gmail – Gmail Data Loss Prevention (DLP) has been identified to not only check for certain attachment types, but it also checks the attachments in case they have been falsely renamed.
A new year for Chrome video – Google have begun adding support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) to get vibrant colors, darker blacks, and brighter whites from the latest HDR displays.
Tools for every school: G Suite for Education updates – Jonathan Rochelle discusses the addition of some enterprise features, such as encryption and cloud searching, to GSuite for Education.
Tailoring education for the 21st century: perspectives from educators – Google’s latest study ‘Fostering exploration and excellence in 21st century schools’ found that a holistic approach is key. This includes integrating different educational strategies and techniques, and empowering teachers with greater autonomy.
Three new ways to manage files and free up space on Files Go – Files Go is our new app for freeing up storage on your phone.
Pioneer new lessons in your classroom with Google Expeditions – Google announce a beta program that allows schools and educators to create their own expeditions.
Publish sites to a specific audience in the new Google Sites – Google have added the ability to share sites with specific audiences.
Gmail contextual gadgets going away on August 1st, 2018 – With the launch of Gmail of Add-ons, Google is closing down contextual gadgets.
A reintroduction to Google’s featured snippets – In this post—the first in a new series going behind-the-scenes on how Google Search works— Danny Sullivan explores when, where and why we provide featured snippets.
Take your Blocks models to the next level – Brittany Mennuti explains that the latest release of Blocks, available on Steam and the Oculus Store, has lots of new features that make it more powerful and even easier to use

Resources

Drive

How to Embed MP3 Audio Files In Web Pages with the help of Google Drive – Amit Agarwal provides a step by step guide for adding and embedding audio from Google Drive.
Backup your digital information and devices – Ian O’Byrne talks about the importance of having important information backed up three ways: the original file on your computer, a local backup and a backup in another location.
View your Slack activity from within Google Drive – Google is adding activity events to allow you to see, in Drive, when a file is shared or discussed from within Slack.

Chrome

Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6 – Tom Warren says that Microsoft might have celebrated the death of Internet Explorer 6, but if Google isn’t careful then it might just resurrect an ugly era of the internet where “works best with Chrome” is a modern nightmare.
How To Set A Default User In Chrome – Patrick Lucas Austin explains how to set a default user with Chrome.
Chrome extensions galore! – Matt Miller facilitated a chat associated with Chrome extensions, with teachers sharing their perspective.
Clean out your browser extensions – Ian O’Byrne argues that one of the best ways to mitigate risk is to regularly clear out your browser extensions that you don’t regularly use.
Another round of click-fraud extensions pulled from Chrome Store – Richard Chirgwin reports that Icebrg’s Justin Warner and Mario De Tore have claimed that a cumulative half a million Chrome users have been hit by four malicious browser extensions pushing click and SEO fraud.
Nasty New Chrome And Firefox Addons Won’t Let You Uninstall Them – Logan Booker explains that viruses don’t want to be removed, so the nastier ones will fight to stay put by disabling protection software, cloaking their presence and even generating fake windows and dialog boxes to give you a bum steer.
How Google Fights Password Thieves – Kate Conger sheds some light on how Google accounts become compromised, as well as how Google finds new ways to fight back.
Manage Multiple Google Accounts – Alice Keeler provides a quick reminder on the importance of adding multiple accounts to the browser.
Taking Notes on a Touchscreen – Three Options Compared – Richard Byrne compares Zoho Notebook, OneNote and Google Keep for taking notes on a touchscreen.
Try These 5 Keyboard Shortcuts – Alice Keeler provides an array of shortcuts for Windows, Mac and Chromebooks.
All types of Chromebooks for all types of learners – Cyrus Mistry discusses the release of a new generation of Chromebooks, as well as ways that they are being integrated with STEAM.
“Ok Google, read my book”… Introducing audiobooks on Google Play – With audiobooks on Google Play, rolling out today in 45 countries and nine languages, you can turn your time stuck in traffic, on the treadmill, or waiting in line into reading time.

Research

No, Google’s Arts & Culture app isn’t secretly evil – Karen Hao explains that the Arts and Culture app is set up in a way that prevents Google from feeding its algorithms as there is no built-in feedback loop
Every Lesson is a Search Lesson – Alice Keeler discusses the importance of searching and why we need to teach it explicitely.
The Shallowness of Google Translate – Douglas Hofstadter demonstrates the problems with Google Translate based on the lack of understanding and meaning within the process.

Docs

The Engaging Lesson: How to Combine Mind Mapping & G Suite – Nancy Morris explains how to combine mind mapping with Google Docs in the creation of ideas and knowledge.
Control F: Replace the Extra Space – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to remove double spacings from your text using find and replace.
All Kaizena features now available inside Google Docs – Kaizena announce an update to Google Docs Add-on allowing students to record voice messages, embed lessons and track skills right inside a Google Doc
Ten Overlooked Google Docs Features – Richard Bryne shares ten features that are often overlooked, such as the ability to restrict sharing and adjust page layout.

Gmail

Delegate additional Gmail privileges to users – Google have introduced three new Gmail privileges that G Suite super admins can grant to other users—without needing to give them super admin status: (1) Email Log Search, (2) Access Admin Quarantine, and (3) Access Restricted Quarantines.
15 Gmail Hacks for Busy Teachers – Reuben Yonatan provides a series of tips associated with Gmail and supports this with easy to follow graphics.
How to Create & Send Screencasts from Your Inbox – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to generate and send screenshots from your inbox using Loom.
How to Send Emails with Google Forms Based on User’s Answers – With the Forms Email Notifications add-on, you can automatically send emails to anyone each time a user submits your Google Form.

Calendar

New Google Calendar web UI to begin automatically upgrading users on January 8th, 2018 – From January 8th, Google will begin auto-upgrading users whose domains are set to the automatic (default) rollout option.
Make Appointment Slots in Google Calendar – Alice Keeler provides a how to make appointment slots in the new Google Calendar.

Slides

Everything is Digital When You Can Take a Picture of It – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to use Slides to capture work and then provide feedback.
21 New Free Interactive Pear Deck Templates for Google Slides – Eric Curts says that wth the new version of the Pear Deck add-on a few things have changed, including 21 pre-made interative templates.
This Add-on Makes It Easy to Create Photo Slideshows – Richard Byrne explains that Photo Slideshow is a free Add-on that makes it quick and easy to import an entire Google Photos or Google Drive folder into Google Slides
Free Music to Use In Google Slides Presentations – Richard Byrne provides a guide to an add-on for inserting music and some links to some free repositories.
How to Create an Interactive Diagram in Google Slides – Richard Byrne shows that by linking slides you can create an interactive diagram in Google Slides.
Ten Overlooked Google Slides Features – Richard Byrne discusses a number of features assocaited with Slides that will let you accomplish the things that you used to do in PowerPoint or Keynote while others will just save you a bit of time
Google Slides: Collaborative Meme Template – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to include all 4 C’s in an assignment involving the creation of a meme.
How to Add Q&A to Your Google Slides Presentations – Richard Byrne creates a short video documenting how to add Q&A to your Google Slides presentations.

Forms

formRecycler – Easy Reuse of Google Forms Questions – Richard Byrne shows how to use the formRecycler add-on to copy questions from one form to another.
Google Forms: Require a Valid Email Address – Alice Keeler steps through how to require a valid email address to be submitted via Google Forms.

Sheets

3 new tools to help improve your Apps Script development and management experience – Google are providing three new tools to help further improve your workflows and manage Apps Script projects: Apps Script dashboard, Apps Script API and Apps Script Command Line Interface.
BigQuery + Data Studio (pricing, upload limits, formatting) – David Krevitt addresses some questions associated with BigQuery and Data Studio.
Conditional color formatting with custom formulas in Sheets – David Krevitt discusses custom formulas for conditional formatting.
An easy formula: 5 reasons your business should try Google Sheets – Google provide a guide to why Sheets is so powerful, bringing together a number of updates and improvements, such as automation and artifical intelligence.
How to use Google Sheets: A Beginner’s Guide – Ben Collins provides a tutorial that will help take users from being an absolute beginner with Sheets, through to a confident, competent, intermediate-level user.

Classroom

Google Classroom Tips – Tony Vincent collects together a number of his graphics assocated with Google Classroom in one space.
Google Classroom: Edit Class Name – Alice Keeler provides some guides on naming Google Classroom’s and how to modify them.
Google Classroom: Submit a Screenshot and use DriveSlides – Alice Keeler discusses the use of DriveSlides to collect together student screenshots.

Drawings

Use Google Drawings as an Alternative to Thinglink – Richard Byrne discusses how Thinglink recently made some changes to their free plans that further limited access for students and suggests using Google Drawings instead to create hyperlinked images.
Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity – Matt Miller and Laura Steinbrink provide a series of visual activities to do with Google Drawings to support deeper thinking.
Add an Image to Your Tweet – Alice Keeler has shown how to create a graphics to add to Google to share on Twitter.
Resize a Google Drawing – Alice Keeler explains how to change the size of a canvas in Google Drawings.

Geo Tools

Google Maps No Longer Lets You Post Negative Reviews About Your Crappy Job – Sidney Fussell explains how Google has updated its Maps policies to ban certain business reviews left by former employees.
Polar Bear “Street” View Lesson Plans – Richard Byrne discusses Polar Bears International offer of lesson plans designed to help students learn about polar bears and their habitat.

Connecting Classrooms

Hanging Out with Google Hangouts – GTT038 – Kasey Bell and Matt Miller discuss Hangouts and its potential in the connected classroom.
Finding a class to partner with virtually AND activities to do together – Matt Miller provides twenty activities to do with virtual partner classes.
Hangouts Meet metrics in Reports API; tablet support now available – To help you better understand Hangouts Meet usage within your domain,Google are introducing more than 50 new metrics in the Reports API Customer Usage report. These new metrics provide details on the duration, size, and device-specific characteristics of the Meet calls across your organization.
Google’s art selfies aren’t available in Illinois. Here’s why. – Ally Marotti explains why the Arts & Culture Selfie feature is banned in Illinois due to laws around biometrics.
Google Is Testing a New App That Would Let Anyone Publish a Local News Story – Bulletin is an app for contributing hyperlocal stories about your community, for your community, right from your phone. If you are comfortable taking photos or sending messages, you can create a Bulletin story.
Google Home in the Classroom? – Holly Clark discusses the possibilities and potentials associated with Google Home.

Keep

Google Keep: Quick Student Feedback on Google Docs and Slides – Larry Goble suggestions making your own lists, stickers and comments in Keep to use when providing feedback in Docs and Slides.

YouTube

The Social-Media Star and the Suicide – People may want to punish Logan Paul’s crassness and disrespect in posting a dead body, but he, like every other social-media star, was responding to the incentives that have been set up for them.
When Playing a YouTube Video – Tony Vincent provides a simple graphic with three useful shortcuts to use when playing video on YouTube.
It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech – Discussing the democratic problems with YouTube and Facebook, Zeynep Tufekei argues that we can decide how we want to handle digital surveillance, attention-channeling, harassment, data collection, and algorithmic decisionmaking, we just need to start the discussion.
Transcribing audio with less pain – Christian Bokhove explains how he uses YouTube to transcribe audio.
My Unprofessional Videos – Richard Byrne explains that he makes ‘unprofessional’ videos for three reasons: best use of time, value and modelling a meaningful process.
10 Interactive Tools for Students to Create How-To Videos – Farid Gasim lists a number of applications that students can use in the creation of videos.
YouTube to fund videos that ‘counter hate’ as pressure over extremism grows – Alex Hern reports that YouTube is to spend more than $5m funding creators who “counter hate and promote tolerance.”
Content moderation is not a panacea: Logan Paul, YouTube, and what we should expect from platforms – Tarleton Gillespie explains there is no simple answer as to where such lines should be drawn in regards to YouTube, as every rule associated with content moderation will be plagued with “what abouts”
Now even YouTube serves ads with CPU-draining cryptocurrency miners – Dan Goodin reports the use of malicious adds within YouTube that are being used to support the mining of bitcoin.

Photos

When It Comes to Gorillas, Google Photos Remains Blind – Tom Simonite explains that Google’s caution around images of gorillas illustrates a shortcoming of existing machine-learning technology. With enough data and computing power, software can be trained to categorize images or transcribe speech to a high level of accuracy. But it can’t easily go beyond the experience of that training. And even the very best algorithms lack the ability to use common sense, or abstract concepts, to refine their interpretation of the world as humans do.
Go-to Google Photos tips for 2018 – Daisy Lui provides some tips associated with Google Photos, including the ability to share, remove clutter and organise using labels.

General

EdTech Trends for 2018 with Martin McKay – Martin McKay discusses the use of data from 12 million users to develop a set of nationalised writing norms.
g(Math) Has Been Deleted – Try These Three Alternatives – Richard Byrne provides some other Add-ons students might consider using for inserting graphs and equations into your Google Documents and Google Forms.
Answering your questions about “Meltdown” and “Spectre” – Matt Linton and Matthew O’Conner provide a Q and A associated with the impact of Spectre and Meltdown.
Review & Revoke Social Logins & Third Party App Access – Ian O’Byrne raises several concerns with social logins for new accounts, such as trusting one site with personal or private information that you gave to another site.
How Google Keeps Our Data Safe- Teaching and Learning Webinar – Lisa Thumann leads a webinar discussing data and the protections put in place by Google to protect it.
15 Ideas to Google-Fy Student Projects – Whoos Reading curates a list of activities that Google can support.

eLearn Updates (November 2017)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for November 2017.

Updates

View and modify all of your Team Drives using the Google Drive API – Google are making it easier to manage Team Drive by providing new methods in the Google Drive API that enable developers to build tools for Team Drive membership management, cybersecurity solutions, and more.
Introducing kid profiles, new parental controls, and a new exciting look for kids, which will begin rolling out today! – Google are rolling out profiles for the YouTube Kids app.
Insert images more easily in Google Docs, Slides, and Drawings – Going forward, when you select Insert > Image or click the Image button in Docs, Slides, or Drawings on the web, you’ll see a range of options to select from, including upload or search the web.
Google Arts & Culture shines a light on 5,000 years of English heritage – Through more than 30 multimedia exhibits and 10 editorial features on Google Arts & Culture, you can experience online almost 3,000 historic gems from the Prehistoric, Roman, Medieval, Tudor, Civil War and Stuart periods through the 21st century and from the perspective of the historians, experts and curators who manage the collections and heritage sites across England.
New languages now supported in Google Docs and Slides files, as well as Docs editors templates – Google have increased the range of langauges and templates available associated with GSuite.
Seamless Google Street View Panoramas – Google has announced an upgrade to the algorithm that combines photographs in the creation of 360 images associated with Street View
Engaging users through high quality AMP pages – Starting Feb 1, 2018, the policy requires that the AMP page content be comparable to the (original) canonical page content.
5 ways we’re toughening our approach to protect families on YouTube and YouTube Kids – Across the board Google have scaled up resources to ensure that thousands of people are working around the clock to monitor, review and make the right decisions across our ads and content policies.
EDU in 90: The Latest, Fall 2017 – Tim Anderson and Drea Alphonso share updates relating to CS Ed Week, Global Education Symposium and a new Google for Education website.
EquatIO for FREE – Equatio from Texthelp is now free for teachers.
More realtime data on Google Trends – Google is opening up more data from News, Shopping, Images and YouTube to show what people in the world are looking for, as they’re looking for it—whether it’s just out of curiosity, to write a story or something else.
Easily add a site-wide footer in the new Google Sites – Google are making it easy to create and manage the site-wide footer in a single place in the new Google Sites.
Easily copy Hangouts Meet conference information across your Google Calendar events – Google are making it easy to copy and paste Hangouts Meet conferences across events.

Resources

Drive

Take a Snapshot Alternative for Docs, Slides, and Drawings – Eric Curts discusses the recent changes to inserting an image and explains the work around to taking a snapshot.
Using Icons to Help Organize Google Drive Folders – Richard Byrne provides links to sites you can use to copy icons to label folders and files visually.
How to Force a Docs Copy WITH Pre-Loaded Comments to Help your Students – Eric Curts provides a number of uses for the recent changes to copying a Doc with comments, including adding instructions and links to resources. He also explains how to including comments in a forced copy (/copy?copyComments=true)
Get It In Drive – Alice Keeler explains how to save all sorts of content to Google Drive using the Save to Google Drive Chrome Extension

Chrome

EquatIO adds the power of @Desmos to turn your Math Classroom into a Paperless Paradise – Jeffrey Bradbury explores a paperless Maths classroom with a focus on the integration of Desmos’s graphing calculator into EquatIO.
Chrome Has a Malware Problem, and Google Needs to Fix It – Paul Wagenseil looks at the current problem with Chrome and the rise in malicious extensions.
25 G Suite Add-ons & Chrome Extensions for Teachers & Students – Richard Byrne documents 25 of his top add-ons and extensions.
Chrome will start blocking annoying website redirects – Jacob Kastrenakes explains how over the next couple months, the browser will start blocking various types of annoying, unwanted redirects, where a website or ad suddenly loads a new page, either because it’s been hijacked by a bad ad or because it intentionally wants to force visitors to see one.
Creating Folders and Subfolders to Organize Chrome Bookmark Bar – Beth Still provides a video that walks through how to create folders and subfolders on your bookmark bar to reclaim even more space in your browser.
Whisper by EdTechTeam – Chris Craft introduces Whisper, a free Chrome extension that lets teachers message their class as whole or individual students without interrupting the work. Notifications show up on the student machine as a browser notification that can be viewed in the moment or any time later.
Awesome Android Apps for Chromebooks – Eric Curts builds on an early post to provide a list of useful Android applications to use with Chromebooks.
Webcam Snapshot Chrome Extension – Alice Keeler introduces a new Chrome extension that allows you to use your webcam to take images and save them to Google Drive.
5 FAQs About Whisper for Google Classroom – Richard Byrne provides a short run-down of the questions most frequently asked about Whisper.
Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled – Keith Collins demonstrates how Google was apparently collecting cell tower data from all modern Android devices to supposedly improve speed and communication.
What Chrome’s Incognito Mode is Actually for, Explained by a Google Exec – Joe McGauley speaks with Darin Fisher to provide a firsthand take on how people should be using incognito mode and what people shouldn’t be expecting it to do for them.
Microsoft Office Lands on Chromebooks Everywhere – Robby Payne announces the rollout of Microsoft Office to Chromebooks via Android apps.
Staggering Variety of Clandestine Trackers Found in Popular Android Apps – Yael Grauer documents how researches at Yale Privacy Lab and French nonprofit Exodus Privacy have uncovered the proliferation of tracking software on smartphones, finding that weather, flashlight, ride-sharing, and dating apps, among others, are infested with dozens of different types of trackers collecting vast amounts of information to better target advertising.
Mobile Learning with Google – GTT032 – Kasey Bell and Matt Miller explore the some of the affordances associated with various Google mobile applications.

Research

Tools and Tips to Help with Writing – Richard Bryne collects together a number of sites and extensions that support writing and feedback.
Google Image Search Tilts Towards The Photo Scraper Sites – Alan Levine unpacks some of the intracises associated with the way Google searches for images, showing how and why it places copies of images over the originals.
5 Google Search Tips – Alice Keeler provides five basic tips to help users get around the options associated with searching in Google.

Docs

CheckMark: More Time for Feedback – Stephanie Signer reviews the new CheckMark add-on and the benefits it has shown in her classroom.
Interactive Learning Menus (Choice Boards) with G Suite – FREE Templates – Kasey Bell discusses the use of learning menus to provide choice and differentiation in the classroom.

Gmail

Infographic of Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts – Alice Keeler provides a list of some useful shortcuts which can be switched on in Gmail.
You There…. Filter Your Gmail – Alice Keeler steps through how to setup filters to organise Gmail.

Slides

Google Slides: Right Click on the Filmstrip – Alice Keeler describes a new menu in the filmstrip view accessed by right-clicking.
Seven Tips for Getting More Out of Google Slides – Richard Byrne shares a few tips and tricks learned over the years that might help you get even more out of Slides.
Fun with Google Slides – Mari Venturino reflects on the use of Slides, including entering lab results, publishing newsletters and taking notes.
Editing Photos in Google Slides – Beth Still provides a short video documenting the editing options associated with images in Google Slides
Google Slides: Photos For Class – Alice Keeler explains how to use Flickr and Photos For Class to appropriately attribute images when using Google Slides.
Link to Slides – Alice Keeler talks about the new feature in Slides to link to update content from another presentation.
Using Google Slides for Peer to Peer Feedback – Meagan Kelly shares a template on using Google Slides to store all student responses and encourage peer to peer feedback.

Forms

Google Forms: Create a Spreadsheet – Alice Keeler provides some tips and tricks associated with connecting a spreadsheet to collect responses to a form.
AutoMastery Google Forms Add-on – Richard Byrne discusses an add-on which allows you to automatically differentiate assignments for students based on the score they receive on a Google Forms quiz.
Making Google Forms Quizzes with Math (Free, Easy, and Quick) – Eric Curts explains how teachers can quickly, easily, and freely add mathematical (and scientific) symbols, expressions, and equations to Google Forms for quizzes they are creating using images created online.
Creating Educational Scavenger Hunts Using Google Forms – Similar to Digital BreakoutEDU, Ronen Cohen discusses how to use Forms to create scavenger hunts.
Response Validation in Google Forms – Tom Mullaney provides a short tutorial on how to use response validation, something useful when creating digital breakouts.

Sheets

Google Forms: Create a Spreadsheet – Alice Keeler provides some tips and tricks associated with connecting a spreadsheet to collect responses to a form.
Use the Equals Sign to Cell Reference – Alice Keeler talks about the potential of refering to cells, rather than repeatedly typing in the same infromation.
Go Slow Workshop on Google Sheets – Alice Keeler explains how to use Sheets as a space to write and respond.
Everything you always wanted to know about Google Apps Script Manifest Files (but were afraid to ask…) – Martin Hawksey explains manifest features and also highlights current opportunities for improving the user authentication flow and managing manifest files to aid project management including library versioning.
Running Total Array Formulas (using the MMULT function) – Ben Collins covers the topic of matrix multiplication using the MMULT formula, one of the more exotic, and challenging formulas in Google Sheets.

Classroom

Collection of Google Drive Templates – Darren Maltais has created an extensive collection of activities that take full advantage of the power of Google Drawings and Google Slides.
Seven Tips for New Google Classroom Users – Richard Byrne provides some practical tips for getting going with Classroom, including using the topic tab for ongoing resources and develop a consistent naming convention.
Google Classroom: Students Submit Bitmoji – Alice Keeler provides a collection of uses assocaited with Bitmoji and Google Classroom.
A Google Assistant in the Classroom – GTT031 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell discuss what Google AI can do in your classroom.
Google Classroom Question Feature – Instant Small Group Instruction Groupings – Kelly Fitzgerald explains how to use a multiple choice question to generate instruction groupings.

Drawings

Duplicate with Control D – Alice Keeler suggests that rather than using Control C to copy and Control V to paste, try Control D to duplicate
Aw Snap — Introducing Digital Annotation with #BookSnaps – Kevin Hodgsen explains how to use Drawings to create Snapchat styled book snaps.

Geo Tools

5 Ways to Use Google Earth & Maps Outside of Social Studies Lessons – While Google Earth and Google Maps are great for history and geography lessons, Richard Byrne explains some benefits of using Earth and Maps in other areas.
Earth View from Google Earth – Richard Bryne discusses the Earth View from Google Earth Chrome extension that allows you to view a different vibrant image from Google Earth each time you open a new tab.
Google Maps gets a new look – Google have updated the information and colour scheme associated with Maps.

YouTube

YouTube Playlists: Why You Need Them and How to Make Them – Beth Still walks through the process of adding videos to playlists and some of the associated benefits.
YouTube – The Australian Story – Daniel Stephenson summarises a new report looking at the use of YouTube in Australia

General

Deep Thinking with GSuite – GTT029 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell discuss using G Suite tools to support deeper thinking and move beyond substitution.
Ditch That Marking: 5+ ways to improve grading – Ben Whitaker provides a number of ways to improve feedback and grading using Google.
Embrace Tech and Analyze – Alice Keeler discusses shifting the way we teach to live in a world where technology is a reality
Quill.org: better writing with machine learning – Emily Smith reflects on the benefits of Quill, an AI informed grammar application, to improve the quality of writing.
How Do I Make This Worksheet Digital? – Alice Keeler provides a number of ways to reimagine the worksheet in a digital environment
How to Package Your Digital Assignments – Kasey Bell provides some things to consider when setting digital assignments.

eLearn Update (October 2017)

Updates

Exploring Contemporary Art with Google Arts & Culture – Working with more than 180 partners all over the world, Google Arts & Culture is shining a light on contemporary art, with a new collection of online stories and rich digital content at g.co/ContemporaryArt.
Bringing Google Earth to Expeditions with Seurat – Seurat is a powerful tool for bringing immersive experiences with high fidelity graphics to mobile VR.
Google Drive reporting will show activity-based metrics in the Admin console – Google is making changes to reporting in the Admin console to better reflect the Google Drive activity happening in your domain.
Announcing our new YouTube Creators Site – Google unveils a new creators site for YouTube to better keep up-to-date with the latest news, events and platform updates.
Space out with planets in Google Maps – Google announce that you can now visit various planets and moons in Google Maps right from your computer
A cleaner, safer web with Chrome Cleanup – Google have rolled out three changes to help Chrome for Windows users recover from unwanted software infections.
New security protections, tailored to you – Google are announcing two new protections to help you stay safer online — an upgrade to our Security Checkup and new phishing protections in Chrome.
Time for a refresh: meet the new Google Calendar for web – Google is taking what works with Calendar’s mobile application, like the modern colour palette and sleek design, and bringing it to the web with a responsive layout that auto-adjusts to your screen size.
Say “yes” to HTTPS: Chrome secures the web, one site at a time – Google recently announced managed SSL for Google App Engine, and has started securing entire top-level Google domains like .foo and .dev by default with HSTS. These advances help make HTTPS automatic and painless, to make sure we’re moving towards a web that’s secure by default.
Turns out, security drives cloud adoption — not the other way around – A MIT Sloan Management Review survey of more than 500 IT and business executives cited the increased need for agility and speed and increased confidence in cloud security as the primary drivers of increased cloud usage.
Do more from your inbox with Gmail Add-ons – With Gmail Add-ons, your inbox can contextually surface your go-to app based on messages you receive to help you get things done faster.
Expanded page hierarchy in the new Google Sites – Google are making it possible to nest five levels of pages in the new Google Sites, up from the two levels previously allowed.
Data Studio: Richer Visualizations and Analytical Functions – The Data Studio team has been hard at work launching new features to allow for richer visualization and new views on data.
The meeting room, by G Suite – Google have announced a range of upgrades to Hangouts Meet, including Hangouts Meet hardware, the ability to record to drive and bring in up to fifty people.
Ten third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SSO apps catalog – Google is adding SAML integration for ten additional applications: Aha!, Atlassian Cloud, Datadog, Desk, Github Business, HackerOne, Mavenlink, Mixpanel, SpringerLink, and Springerlink Test.

Posts & Resources

DRIVE

How to Force Copy of Drive File and Shorten URL for Easy Sharing – Richard Byrne explains how to share a copy of a file in Drive.
Upload Drive Files to the Google Template Gallery – Richard Byrne explains how to add templates to the gallery associated with a particular instance of GSuite.
Google Drive: Star Your Documents – Alice Keeler suggests starring anything you will come back to.

CHROME & BOOKS

X-Ray Goggles Help Students See How Webpages Are Made – Richard Byrne provides a guide to using X-Ray Goggles to see the web.
Google’s new Pixelbook is a $1000 Chromebook you’ll actually want – Karissa Bell unboxes the new Pixelbook.
10 Multimedia Things you can do on a Chromebook – Chris Betcher summarises ten amazing web-based tools that provide users with a surprising amount of rich media functionality in the browser.
Read&Write Assistive Technology App – Richard Bryne discusses some of the benefits of the Read and Write extension, including the free access for educators.
Use More Tab – Alice Keeper discusses all the different uses of the tab key.
QR Code Generators and Readers for Chromebooks – Richard Bryne provides some options for reading QR codes with a Chromebook
Mercury Reader Chrome Extension – Richard Byrne discusses Mercury Reader, an extension designed to support distraction free reading.
Seven Summarization Tools for Students – Eric Curts collects together a number of tools to support the summarisation of information
How to Match Colors Using ColorPick Eyedropper – Richard Byrne outlines ColorPick Eyedropper, a Chrome extension that allows you select a color from a webpage.
Chrome Extensions to Help You Stay Focused – Richard Byrne provides a list of Chrome extensions that might help you remain on task if you spend long hours working online or if you tend to get easily distracted.
Using Android Apps on Chromebooks – Eric Curts goes through some tips and tricks assocaited with using Android Apps on a Chromebook.
ll Canberra secondary public school students to get Chromebook in 2018 – Emily Baker discusses the the news that off 2018 every public school student from year 7 to 11 will receive an Acer Chromebook when school returns next year.

RESEARCH

Google scraps controversial policy that gave free access to paywalled articles through search – Thuy Ong explains how Google is ending its controversial First Click Free (FCF) policy that allowed Google search results access to news articles hidden behind a paywall.
Advanced Google Search to Gain Different Perspectives – Richard Byrne explains how to change the region where your search takes place in settings to generate different perspectives and points of view.

DOCS

3 Google Docs Tools – Alice Keeler documents items worth checking out in the Tools menu of Docs.
Enter CheckMark – Chris Craft introduces CheckMark, a brand new Chrome extension designed to give teachers the ability to provide students feedback quickly and easily
CheckMark Extension for Providing Feedback on Google Docs – Richard Byrne discusses a new extension for Docs which allows you to use canned responses to provide feedback
Three Options for Adding Voice Comments in Google Docs – Richard Byrne provides three different options for providing voice comments, including Kaizena, Read&Write and Talk & Comment.
Add-on: Doc to Slides – Alice Keeler documents a new add-on that allows users to populate a slidedeck from text in a Google Doc.

GMAIL

Using Canned Responses in Gmail – Richard Byrne unpacks the labs associated with Gmail, focusing on canned responses.
Five Gmail Extensions to Increase Productivity – Richard Byrne takes a look at some apps and extensions that help increase productivity with Gmail, including Boomerang and email templates.
Teaching Email Signatures by @dyerksjr1 – Don Yerks demonstrates the importance of having an email signature, how to create one, and how to use it to answer an “Exit Ticket.”
Google Just Made Gmail the Most Secure Email Provider on the Planet – Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai explains that anyone with a Gmail account can now activate what the company calls “Advanced Protection,” a set of features that make it harder to hack into your Google account.
5 New Productive Gmail Apps and Extensions You Should Try – Mihir Patkar shares a range of extensions and add-ons to help users become more productive in their use of Gmail.
Five More Gmail Extensions to Increase Productivity – Richard Byrne provides a list of add-ons in Gmail can help with productivity, including scheduling and newsletter creation.

CALENDAR

How to Avoid a Common Google Calendar Mistake – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to avoid confusion by removing the Google Hangout link from Calendar invitations.
Top 10 G Suite Calendar Updates – Monica Martinez visualises the recent updates to Calendar in an infographic.

SLIDES

New! Google Slides: Grid View – Alice Keeler highlights some of the benefits of the grid view, including applying transitions and adding a comment.
How to Use Grid View In Google Slides – Richard Byrne documents how to access the new grid view associated with Google Slides.
How can New Google Slides features be used in your school? – Jeff Bradbury and the TeacherCast team unpack the new features associated with Google Slides.
Google Slides Explore Tool Color Match – Alice Keeler shows how to use both the Explore tool and the master to customise the colour and templates associated with Slides.
Top 10 Tips GSuite Slides Add On- Pear Deck – Monica Martinez demonstrates some of the potentionals associated with Slides add-ons throught he use of Pear Deck.
Google Publishes Series Of Video Instructions About Creating Online “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories – Larry Ferlazzo collects together a series of instructional videos about using Google Slides to create these kinds of stories online.
Free photos, icons, magic and more with Google Slides add-ons – Matt Miller unpacks the add-ons made available with the changes to Google Slides.
Changing the color of all links in Google Slides with Google Apps Script – Martin Hawksey explains how to use Google Apps Script to change the default link colour.
Google Slides: Find an Individual Student’s Slide – Alice Keeler provides a few tips associated with using Google Slides to collaborate.
Create your own “My School App” in Google Slides for mobile devices #edtech – Micah Shippee explains how to make a basic school app for communicating information home.
Add-on: Doc to Slides – Alice Keeler documents a new add-on that allows users to populate a slidedeck from text in a Google Doc.

FORMS

24 Tips for Google Forms Quizzes – Eric Curts shows how allowing multiple correct answers allows you to ask more sophisticated questions that have more than one correct answer, as well as account for variations in the correct answer.
24 Tips for Google Forms Quizzes – Eric Curts provides a video documenting (at least) 24 tips and tricks for getting the most out of the new features in Google Forms when making online quizzes.
Five Great Add-ons for Google Forms – Richard Byrne provides a quick guide to using add-ons with Forms, as well as a summary of some useful options.

SHEETS & SCRIPTS

It’s My Birthday, Make Me a Spreadsheet – Alice Keeler provides some tips and tricks associated with spreadsheets.
10 techniques to use when building budget templates in Google Sheets – Ben Collins shows some useful techniques in Sheets that you can use for building your own budget templates.

SITES

Google Sites: From Beginner to Ninja – Christine Hayes breaks down the new Google Sites and explains how to create one.
A Google Calendar Widget for Google Sites created with Google Apps Script – Martin Hawksey builds upon the Google Calendar Chrome Extension to create a widget for the new Google Sites.
Embedding almost anything like a Twitter Search widget in new Google Sites with Google Apps Script – Martin Hawksey explains how Apps Script has a HTML Service which lets you create and serve HTML content. This means you can copy any embed code you get from a third party site like Twitter, publish it with Google Apps Script and then embed this in your new Google Site.
Embedding Slides in “New” Google Sites – Jake Miller runs through how to embed a slideshow in the new Google Sites.
Why You Should Give Google Sites Another Try – Richard Byrne reflects on some of the developments associated with the new Google Sites, suggesting if it has been a while since you used it, that it might be a great time to give it another try.

CLASSROOM

Enhance Your Google Classroom Experience – Richard Byrne takes a look at some apps and extensions that help make Classroom even better.
4 Must-Have Google Classroom Skills for Teachers – Kasey Bell shows how to maximize the options associated with setting assignments in Google Classroom to meet the needs of students and save valuable time.

DRAWINGS

Mosaic Art Geometry Project with Google Drawing – Jenn Judkins discusses using shapes in Drawings to create art work that explores shapes.

GEO GOOGLE

Street View goes to the “top of the world” – Emma Upton shares the story behind one of the new Street View collections that captures Canada’s Quttinirpaaq National Park.
Meet Pegman – Richard Byrne discussess pegman, the icon in Google Earth and Steet View that allows users to move around
Google Street View App – Richard Byrne discusses some of the purposes and potentials associated with the Google Street View App on iOS and Android.
Games to Sharpen Geography Skills – Richard Byrne documents some games that provide students with fun and engaging ways to learn geography

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS

How Google Hangouts helped us scale one of our Googleyest programs – Ann Farmer explains how Hangouts has helped scale Talks at Google and unite the Google workers under one common interest: listening and learning

YOUTUBE

Book Review: Streampunks (YouTube and the Rebels Remaking Media) – Kevin Hodgsen reviews a book from Robert Kyncl, YouTube Chief Business Officer, taking a look underneath the hood.

PHOTOS

Top 10 Tips for G Suite Snapseed – Monica Martinez provides a range of tips assocaited with the Snapseed App.

GENERAL

Thinking Maps in Slides, Post in Classroom – Christine Pinto explains how to create thinking maps using Slides and then share using Classroom.
Google’s new browser experiment lets you learn about basic AI – James Vincent provides an introduction to Teachable Machine, a new experiment from Google for learning about AI.
EdTechTeam Virtual Summit: #BestYearYet – The EdTechTeam ran a day long virtual conference exploring the topics of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking.
Lions, Tigers, and Google Feedback Oh My! – GTT027 – Kasey Bell and Matt Miller unpack the various ways that you can provide feedback using GSuite
Artificial Intelligence and High School Students — Trying AIY for the First Time! – James McLurkin describes what happens when a few students are allowed to design with an AIY device for a few days.

eLearn Updates (September 2017)

Here is a collection of links and resources associated with GSuite and Hapara for September 2017.

Updates

YouTube Live: faster, easier and more accessible – Users can now adjust the latency associated with streaming video, as well as better moderate live chats.
Drive File Stream launching to all G Suite customers – With Drive File Stream, all your files are always ready for you on your desktop via Google Drive.
Google Data Studio: quicker and broader access to data – Google wants to make it easy to access data within Data Studio. They are launching a new Data Studio “Community Connectors” developer program allowing users to visualize data from any source.
A better world for wheels on Google Maps – Google Maps now offers answers that allow those on wheels to find accessible places. They are calling on Local Guides, a community of people who contribute their expertise about places on Google Maps, to add more wheelchair accessibility attributes to the map.
Variable speed playback on mobile – Variable speed playback was launched on the web several years ago and is one of our most highly requested features on mobile
Analyze your business data with Explore in Google Sheets, use BigQuery too – For those who want to take data analysis one step further, you can sync Sheets with BigQuery—Google Cloud’s low-cost data warehouse for analytics.
Optimize your Android apps for Chromebooks – While most apps and games already work fairly well on Chromebooks without any changes, Google is still pushing for a developer to consider the various options associated with a laptop device.
Embed websites as iframes in the new Google Sites – Going forward, you can embed an entire web page as an iframe in a new Google site. This will allow you to pull in content from other websites and Google tools like Apps Script, Data Studio, and App Maker, saving you the trouble of duplicating and updating that information on your page.
Get a closer look with Street View in Google Earth VR – This update lets you explore Street View imagery from 85 countries right within Earth VR
Export data from Google Vault in PST format – To save those businesses time and to make the process of producing and importing data easier, we’re now giving Vault admins the ability to export Gmail, Google Groups, and on-the-record Google Hangouts chat data in Microsoft Personal Storage Table (PST) format.
Addresses, phone numbers, and contacts now converted to links in Gmail and Inbox to save users time – Gmail and Inbox by Gmail on Android, iOS, and the web will begin converting text to interactive hyperlinks whenever they detect phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses in emails.
See the status of a Gmail message after it’s been delivered – Using Gmail’s Email Log Search feature in the Admin console, G Suite admins can track the delivery of messages sent and received by users within their domain.
Introducing limits on file access requests in Team Drives – Request Access notification will be sent to the creator of the file, or a limited group of individuals who had relevant interaction with the Team Drive. We will no longer always send it to all members of the Team Drive.
Search in the new Google Sites – Users can now click the magnifying glass in the top right corner of their screen and search across an entire site.
Set restrictions on what content people interact with and share on Google+ – Google is making it possible to add restrictions on content in Google+, allowing Administrators to lock down interactions to ‘organisation’ only.
Even more reasons for creators to love the YouTube Studio app – Creator Studio app is being rebranded YouTube Studio. They are releasing many new features as well, including the ability to schedule posts, a summary of subscribers and custom thumbnails.
Better ways of getting around – Settings, advanced search, case law, and “my library” moved into the side drawer, which is now present on all screen sizes and all devices.
Admin console tools to better manage Google Calendar events of former employees – When you delete a user, you can choose to transfer their future events to a new owner and optionally, release the resources that these events occupy.
Present like a pro: new updates in Slides designed to make you look good – Google have made a number of updates to Slides, including integrating Keep, providing add-ons and syncing content between different presentations involving the same content.
Create custom headers and footers in Google Sheets – Going forward, you can customize the headers and footers in your Google Sheets documents with the text of your choosing.
Use Google Drive and the Files app to organize content on your iOS 11 device – Google has announced full integration of the Drive application with the Files app on devices running iOS 11.

Posts & Resources

DRIVE

How To Add a Drive File into Multiple Folders – Alice Keeler shows how to add files to multiple folders (or labels).
How to Install Backup and Sync for Google Drive – Richard Byrne steps through installing Backup and Sync, the replacement for Google Drive Desktop.
Google Drive is NOT Going Away: Explained – Michael Fricano II responds to some of the confusion associated with Google Drive and the Backup and Sync application.
3 Google Drive Shortcuts – Alice Keeler provides three simple shortcuts to rename files, open the sharing dialogue and exploring file details.

CHROME & BOOKS

Loom – Screencast on Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs – Richard Byrne shows how to use Loom, a Chrome extension, to record short screencasts (ten minutes) involving either the desktop, an individual tab, and or your webcam.
This Teacher Has Her Kindergarteners Building Web Pages On Chromebooks #Gafe4littles – Vicki Davis and Christine Pinto discuss the use of GSuite in the early years.
6 Android Apps to Try on a Chromebook – Kasey Bell explains how to utilise Android Apps and where to start on enabled devices.
Safe Browsing: Protecting more than 3 billion devices worldwide, automatically – Stephan Somogyi and Allison Miller document the history associated with safe browsing and where it might go next.
Chrome’s Plan to Distrust Symantec Certificates – Devon O’Brien, Ryan Sleevi, and Andrew Whalley explain how at the end of July 2018, the Chrome team and the PKI community converged upon a plan to reduce, and ultimately remove, trust in Symantec’s infrastructure in order to uphold users’ security and privacy when browsing the web.
Customize Your Google Chrome Settings – Richard Byrne helps new Chrome users locate and customize their Chrome settings.
Device Losing Enrollment – Lenovo Devices – A bug relating to the new version of Chrome that un-enrols Lenovo Chromebooks.
Stop Calling Google’s Chromebooks Toy Computers – John Patrick Pullen discusses the rise of Chrome OS and the Chromebook and reflects on his experiences in using a Pixel, compared with something like a Macbook Air.
At New Zealand schools, Chromebooks top the list of learning tools – Suan Yeo explains how Chromebooks have become the dominant device in New Zealand schools, providing access to learning opportunities and inspiring students to chart new learning paths.
Teachnology: The Writing Process in a Digital World – Scott Bayer provides a workflow for Chromebooks using Google Classroom to support the writing process.
5 Free Resources for Math Teachers Using Chromebooks – Richard Byrne discusses a number of options associated with mathematics and Chromebooks.
Caution: Chromebooks – Gary Stager raises some questions to consider when choosing a Chromebook over other computing options

RESEARCH

A Handy Google Scholar Search Refinement Tool – Richard Byrne explains how to refine results using ‘date’.
Hipster Google: Library Edition – Eric Curts look at a dozen Google research tools that are lesser known, or maybe you have not had a chance to use much.
How to Organize Shelves in Google Books – Richard Byrne provides a short guide to creating your own bookshelves within Google Books.

DOCS

How to Cite Sources in Google Docs – Kasey Bell demonstrates how to add footnote citations by using the Explore tool in Google Docs.
Auto-Built (and Linking) Table of Contents in Google Docs – Tom Woodward provides a short video outlining how to add a table of contents to a Doc.
Calendar Templates Using Google Docs – Steve Wick provides a few methods for creating a calendar template within Google Docs.
7 Reasons You Need to Try Voice Typing in Google Docs – Kasey Bell discusses how to use voice typing with Google Docs and a number of possible benefits.

GMAIL

The Gmail survival guide for busy teachers – Matt Miller provides a series of tips and tricks to get on top of email, such as scheduling, filtering and setting boundaries.
Email Templates in GMail – Tom Woodward provides a short video introducing canned responses.

SLIDES

Countdown Timers in Google Slides – Steve Wick shows how to insert a silent YouTube video that can act as a timer when presenting.
Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides – Eric Curts has created a Jack-O-Lantern template for designing your own pumpkin.
Strap on some Add-ons in Slides – Jay Atwood provides an introduction to add-ons for Google Slides.
Generating Google Slides from images using Apps Script – In the latest G Suite Dev Show episode, Wesley Chun walks through a short example of creating a slideshow from a collection of images.

FORMS

Google Forms: Alternating Colors for Response Answers – Alice Keeler shows how to quickly apply alternating colours to help visualise responses to Forms.
3 Things to Know in Google Forms – Alice Keeler documents some lesser known features of Forms, including the ability to change preferences, validate responses and choose the sheet where responses go to.

SHEETS & SCRIPTS

Easy data visualization and analysis with Google Data Studio – Though not an official G Suite service, Data Studio is currently available globally for free. We hope it helps you share more data and make better business decisions.
Community Connectors: Access all your data in Google Data Studio – Ben Collins unpacks the new community connectors which allow users to bring third-party data in Data Studio.
Analyze your business data with Explore in Google Sheets, use BigQuery too –
Switching To Google Sheets: How one government agency doubled their productivity – David from CILF unpacks the different ways that Department of Primary Industries in NSW uses Google Sheets to organise their work and improve productivity.
Exit tickets with Datastudio – Fredrik Hedström explains how to represent responses to exit tickets using Data Studio.
Create “Pi Poems” with Google Sheets – Eric Curts shares an activity that involves using Sheets to create a poem based on the first 32 digits.

SITES

9 Google Sites Tips – Alice Keeler provides a number of tips to get going with the new Google Sites.

CLASSROOM

How to manage Google Classroom like a boss with notifications – Matt Miller unpacks the notifications associated with Google Classroom and how to use them to develop your own workflow.
Unpacking Google Classroom for 2017-18 – GTT021 – Kasey Bell and Matt Miller discuss the latest updates to Google Classroom.
Amazing Mobile Features of Google Classroom – Eric Curts unpacks the various features associated with Google Classroom mobile app, including the ability to add digital handwriting, recording media, inserting content from other apps and receiving notifications.
How to Infuse Google Classroom with the Power of YouTube – Kasey Bell shows how to integrate YouTube with Google Classroom. This includes adding announcements or creating a writing prompt.
3 features of Google Classroom that provide teachers more instructional time with their students – Jeffrey Bradbury discusses sharing the class code, using topics and posting questions as some newer means for maximising teaching time in Google Classroom.
Google Classroom: Post to Multiple Classes – Alice Keeler explains how to assign work and posts to multiple classes, useful if several classes require the same information. This, however, does not work with scheduling.

DRAWINGS

Visual Thinking with Google Drawings – GTT023 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell discuss the potential of Google Drawings to create comic strips, infographics and graphic organisers.

GEO GOOGLE

Google’s New Street View Cameras Will Help Algorithms Index The Real World – Tom Simonite explains how the improvements in Street View technology are being incorporated into Google’s algorithms and artificial intelligence to build a deeper understanding of the world.
5 Tutorials on Mapping Stories – Richard Byrne provides some advice on how to have students create maps based on stories that students read.
View the world through someone else’s lens in Google Earth – Whether you’re looking for travel inspiration, preparing a geography report for school, or simply taking flight from the comfort of your couch, Stafford Marquardt shows how the new Photos layer in Google Earth gives you the ability to look at far off places up close.
Launch Tour Builder Tours in Google Earth with One Click – Eric Curts explains how Tour Builder with a simple menu option will open your tour automatically in Google Earth.

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS

Step inside of music – Alexander Chen discusses the new collaboration between Google and the Song Exploder podcast which allows viewers to interact with music but turns parts on and off.
Something’s coming … “West Side Story” on Google Arts & Culture – Google Arts & Culture is launching a new collection honoring “West Side Story,” bringing together artifacts and mementos from the making of the musical and movie, behind-the-scenes photographs, and a peek into the modern-day representation of the musical, this collection explores the history, artistic value and social relevance of “West Side Story.”
Teachers keep their lesson plans fresh with Expeditions – Per Karlsson provides a summary of some of the updates involving Expeditions, including incorporating aspects of Earth VR and running your own expeditions.

KEEP

Use Google Keep like digital sticky notes to save your thoughts – Ian O’Byrne provides an overview of how he uses Google Keep to save notes and ideas across multiple devices.
Google Keep in Slides, Yes Please! – Alice Keeler discusses the integration of Keep within Slides and provides some suggested benefits.

YOUTUBE

How to Share a Portion of a YouTube Video – Richard Byrne shares three ways to share a part of a video, rather than the whole thing.
YouTube vs Vimeo – Which One is Better for WordPress Videos? – WPBeginner unpacks many of the differences between YouTube and Vimeo.
5 Simple Things That Can Improve Your Videos – Richard Byrne provides some suggestions when working with video, including making it short, recording mobile content in landscape and filtering the audio.
How to Collaborate to Create YouTube Playlists – Richard Byrne unpacks how to collaborate using playlists.
Reminder – YouTube Is Removing Its Photo Slideshow Tool – Richard Byrne provides a number of alternatives for creating a video with still images.
What’s New With Youtube? – GTT022 – Matt Miller and Kasey Bell explore all the updates associated with YouTube, including new embed code and darker theme option.
Instagram and Facebook Live – Redefining living in the moment – Silje Andersen-Cooke from eSafety Commission provides some guidance around live streaming content. This includes YouTube Live.
Advertising and What YouTube Knows About You – Richard Byrne explores what YouTube knows about you and how this impacts on the suggestions provided.
Identity crisis: Using the YouTube Data API with Google Apps Script and Scheduling Live Broadcasts from Google Sheets – Martin Hawksey unpacks steps to authenticating the use of YouTube within Google Sheets to schedule live broadcasts.

BLOGGER

How to Make a Blogger Blog Private – Richard Byrne provides a quick guide to making a Blogger blog private.
A Blogger Privacy Setting You Might Want to Use – Richard Byrne discusses some privacy settings to consider when using Blogger, such as the request that your blog doesn’t appear in Blogger’s list of published blogs, restrict viewing to those who have been invited by email and turn on moderation for comments.

GENERAL

7 ways admins can help secure accounts against phishing in G Suite – Nicolas Kardas and Sam Lugani provide a list of considerations to protect users against phishing attacks.
8 Ways to Support Digital Citizenship Skills with Google – Kasey Bell provides a list of applications to support teaching digital citizenship.
Creating a Culture of Innovation – Tips from Google for transforming school and district culture, this includes a downloadable Doc.
Google Extends Digital Literacy Training to Teachers – Google’s Be Internet Awesome campaign now includes a free course for teachers.
Google Apps: New Toolbar Icons – Alice Keeler summarises the new toolbar icons associated with GSuite.
Drag Downloaded Images to Google – Alice Keeler explains how images that are listed as downloaded at the bottom of the screen can simply be dragged into a document or presentation

eLearn Updates (August 2017)

Updates

Find exactly what you want in Google+ with new search options and filters – From an updated look of the search interface to search suggestions and domain-only filters, these new experiences can make users confident that the content they see is the content they want.
10 ways we’re making Classroom and Forms easier for teachers this school year – There is a range of updates, include single student view, ability to reorder classes, decimal grading, transfer class ownership, import Forms quiz scores into classroom and add feedback by question in Quizzes
Introducing a new way to share YouTube videos – You can now share videos directly on YouTube. Not only can you share and receive videos in the mobile app, you can also chat about them right on YouTube, reply with another video, invite others to the conversation, and more.
Better manage large events in Google Calendar – Starting today, event organizers working on large events (200 or more guests) can use Google Sheets to more easily see who is attending and invite large group mailing lists reliably.
Data Loss Prevention now available in Team Drives – In January of this year, Google announced Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Google Drive, giving G Suite Enterprise edition customers more control over how data is shared beyond their company. They are now bringing DLP to content stored in Team Drives.
Introducing the Slides API Codelab – The codelab is a great exercise for learning the Slides API, especially if you have an interest in big data, automating the creation of presentations or open source.
Anti-phishing security checks in the Gmail app for iOS – There are new security features for iOS Gmail customers, including click-time warnings for malicious links and unintended external reply warnings
Get on the same page: new Google Docs features power team collaboration – Better “version control” to customize tools for your workflows and to help teams locate information when they need it.
Google Adds Chrome Sync to gSuite for Education Core Services – Recently Google quietly made a change to include “Chrome Sync” in the list of “Core” tools in gSuite for Education. Chrome Sync provides the ability (when you sign in to Chrome or by default on a Chromebook), to sync Chrome data to your Google Account and to any other supported ChromeOS/browser that is signed in.
Map your site to a custom URL in the new Google Sites – As a professional organization, it’s often important that you host both internal and external info at a well-known URL. Already supported in the classic Google Sites, this is now available in the new Google Sites as well.
A new YouTube look that works for you – The new look applies material design to YouTube and delivers a fresh, simple and intuitive user experience that lets content shine

Posts & Resources

DRIVE

Google Document URL Tricks – Tony Vincent demonstrates that by replacing /edit in the URL, you can transform a shareable link into a Preview, Copy, Template, or PDF link.
Google Drive – Sort the Files – Alice Keeler unpacks the different ways of sorting files in Google Drive.
Google Apps Version History: Stop Making Copies – Alice Keeler shows how to name versions in Docs, Sheets and Slides.
Using Named Versions in Docs to Track Writing Drafts – Eric Curts explains how ‘Version History’ makes it even easier to see student progress and provide better feedback and assessment.

CHROME & BOOKS

Chromebook Keyboard Shortcuts – Karly Moura has created a simple graphic collecting some of the more useful shortcuts associated with Chromebooks.
An ancient Chrome tab trick just blew my mind – Peter Bright explains how you can use the standard selection modifiers—ctrl-click for multiple non-continuous tabs, shift-click for multiple continuous tabs – to tear off entire groups of related tabs in a single action.
Chromebook Tips – Wanda Terral collects together a number of tips associated with using Chromebooks in the form of sketches.
Kinders Log Into Acer Chromebooks 2nd Day of School – Christine Pinto outlines her steps to getting students in the early years onto devices.
10 Ways to Google-fy Your Open House and BTS Night – Stephen Mosley provides some suggestions for showing off GSuite and Chromebooks during events such as open nights.

RESEARCH

What Happened to Google’s Effort to Scan Millions of University Library Books? – Jennifer Howard discusses the impact that Google’s scanning has had on scholarship and the ability to engage in textual analysis.
Making Visible Watermarks More Effective – Tali Dekel and Michael Rubinstein discuss how Google has shown how it can remove watermarks and what needs to change in order to make them stronger.
9 Alternatives to Google Image Search – Richard Byrne created a chart to give students some options besides Google Images for finding images that are either in the Public Domain or are labeled with a Creative Commons license

DOCS

How to Add a QR Code to a Google Document – Richard Bryne demonstrates how to use QR Droid to generate a QR code for a Google Doc.

CALENDAR

How to Print a Guest List From a Google Calendar Event – Richard Byrne steps through the new feature in Calendar to print out a guest list.
5 Tips for New Google Calendar Users – Richard Byrne provides a range of simple tips, including how to create an event, how to set calendar reminders, how to color code icons/events, how to use the agenda view and how to print your calendar.

SLIDES

Versatility of Google Slides – Emma Cottier collates a number of uses for Slides, including examples for each.
Google Slides: Add Your Webcam – Alice Keeler shows how to use the Webcam Record Extension to add commentary to Slides.

FORMS

How to Collect Files Through Google Forms – Richard Byrne demonstrates how to collect files through Google Forms.
How to Add a Google Form to Google Classroom – Alice Keeler provides a step-by-step guide to incorporating Forms within Google Classroom.

SHEETS & SCRIPTS

Show data from the GitHub API in Google Sheets, using Apps Script and Oauth – Ben Collins demonstrates how to retrieve data from GitHub using Google Sheets.
My Google Apps Script app isn’t verified: Understanding why and how to fix – Martin Hawksey explains how users can take steps to dismiss the warning and authorize Google App Scripts, alternatively developers can submit their app to Google to become verified.
Filtering with dates in the QUERY function – Ben Collins provides a guide to a few extra steps involved in using dates with the query function.

CLASSROOM

Welcome to your first day of Classroom – There’s been such an outpouring of instructional videos, blogs and resources associated with Classroom since it was released, Google have curated some of their favorites into a new collection called #FirstDayofClassroom
NEW! Google Classroom: Rearrange the Class Tiles – Alice Keeler shows how you can now rearrange the tiles on the Google Classroom home screen by simply dragging and rearranging.
NEW! Google Classroom: Individual Student View – Alice Keeler demonstrates how the new single student view in Classroom works.
NEW! Google Classroom: Display the Class Code – Alice Keeler shows how the new whole screen display of the class code works.
Impact Learning with Google Classroom – Alice Keeler explains how Classroom allows teachers and students to engage more with each other. Whether it be collaborating in a Doc, sharing a video with students or engaging with questions, Classroom provides a number of ways to interact.
Google Classroom: Make Learning Better with Conversations – Alice Keeler explains how Private Comments in Google Classroom allow for fast specific feedback and builds relationships with students since the student has the opportunity to reply back, thus having a conversation
Google Classroom: Reply Notifications for a Question – Alice Keeler unpacks the question function in Classroom and how notifications work.
3 Chrome Extensions that Make Google Classroom Even More Awesome! – Kasey Bell highlights three Chrome extensions which can help make Classroom even easier to use.
Google Classroom: Invisible Feedback – Alice Keeler explains how feedback disappears in a document when a student turns it in and shares how she gets around this by turning it back to students as quick as possible.
Google Classroom Mobile App – Alice Keeler highlights some of the benefits of the Classroom Mobile App.
Google Classroom: Returning Optional Work – Alice Keeler explains how to manage and return optional tasks and challenges in Google Classroom.

DRAWINGS

Add Google Drawing to Google Slides – Alice Keeler demonstrates how to insert a Google Drawing into Slides by publishing to the web and then inserting by URL.

GEO GOOGLE

2 Truths/1 Lie: Other Grades – Lisa Nowakowski explains how Maps can be used to collaborative plot out information.
Simple Virtual Reality In The Classroom With Google Streetview And Google Cardboard With Donnie Piercey – Vicki Davis and Donnie Piercey discuss using Google Streetview to create your own 360 degree images.
Top 10 Google Expeditions & Cardboard Tips – A range of tips collected by Monica Martinez.

CONNECTING CLASSROOMS

Virtual Reality Showcase at the Young Creators Conference – Lee Hewes discusses the potential of creating virtual reality content with applications like Minecraft for facilitating community and conversation.

KEEP

Ten Things Students Can Do With Google Keep – Richard Byrne lists ten uses of Google Keep for students.
Google Keep – Narrative Feedback for Students – Tom Mullaney shows how to use Google Keep to facilitate and organise feedback adding in such elements as audio and images.

YOUTUBE

Alternatives to YouTube’s Video Editor – It’s Going Away – Richard Byrne provides a list of options for creating video slideshows and editing video.

GENERAL

Exploring and Visualizing an Open Global Dataset – Reena Jana explains that by releasing the Quick Draw! dataset, and tools like Facets, Google hope to facilitate the exploration of more inclusive approaches to machine learning, and to turn those observations into opportunities for innovation.
Introducing Android 8.0 Oreo – An overview of the new Android operating system.
EDU in 90 – A new video series from Google for Education for educators, administrators, and school leaders on things like product updates, new programs, and helpful resources for the classroom.

Originally posted on the eLearn Update blog.