Highlights from the February Google for Education newsletter

Google Edu Feb 2023
Check out Google for Edu’s latest monthly newsletter HERE. Some highlights are noted below.
Teach Black History with Applied Digital Skills
Looking for an engaging lesson to teach during Black History Month? Our Explore a Topic: Celebrate Black History collection helps students research a topic of their choosing related to Black history and create a project in Docs, Slides, or Sites to demonstrate what they learned.
Safer Internet Day tips from the CEO of ConnectSafely
This Safer Internet Day, we’re sharing tips and best practices for online safety from Larry Magid, CEO of ConnectSafely. He recommends keeping mental health in mind, having conversations with students around the apps they use, and to always keep privacy in mind.
Celebrate Digital Learning Day with Applied Digital Skills
Save the date, Digital Learning Day is March 15, 2023! Join in the fun and encourage students to try new digital tools in their classroom with a lesson from Applied Digital Skills. To get ready for the big day, check out this collection of our most popular lessons amongst educators.
Arts & Culture: Artificial Intelligence
AI More than Human, explains, explores and examines the history, creativity and potential future of artificial intelligence. Discover art works, see videos of experts, take part in AI experiments and learn how AI is trying to save the planet.
Arts & Culture: Beethoven Fun and Games
Two new experiments, Beethoven Beats and Blob Beats, challenge you to play with and discover the work of Beethoven. Tap a rhythm to conjure one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, or play the Blobs arcade game and score points with musical notes.

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2023 Newsletters

2022 Newsletters

Reminder: Students must now Install Grammarly

What is Grammarly? 
Grammarly is a Chrome browser extension that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes in English texts. It detects plagiarism and suggests replacements for the identified errors. It also allows users to customize their style, tone, and context-specific language.
Why do students now have to install it Manually? 
Previously the district was able to force install this extension for students to allow ease of access. However, it was interfering with spell check in Google docs causing issues for staff and students. Now, when students install Grammarly manually they can toggle the extension on or off so it will no longer interfere with Google docs’ internal spell check features.
How to Download the Grammarly Browser Extension

Below is a direct link to where the Grammarly extension can be installed.

Grammarly Chrome Extension from Chrome Webstore

How to Turn off the Grammarly browser extension
  1. Right-click the Grammarly icon in your browser’s toolbar.
  2. Select Manage Extensions from the dropdown menu:
  3. To turn off the extension, toggle off the blue switch next to Grammarly.

 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the technology department by submitting a service ticket.

Highlights from the December Google for Education newsletter

Google for Edu December

Check out Google for Edu’s latest monthly newsletter HERE. Some highlights are noted below.

Introducing the Future of Education
What might the future of education look like? Check out Future of Education, our new global research report featuring insights from 94 education experts across 24 countries, conducted in partnership with Canvas8 and advised by American Institutes for Research.

Safer Internet Day Grants from ConnectSafely
Our partners at ConnectSafely are offering grants to help teachers purchase supplies or resources for student programs and activities for Safer Internet Day. Applications are due on December 31, 2022, so be sure to apply today!

Choose Your Own Adventure with Applied Digital Skills
Our most popular Applied Digital Skills lesson just got an update!: In Write an If-Then Adventure Story, students can collaborate with each other to create an interactive story using Google Slides. Check it out today.

Arts & Culture: Ukraine is Here
Explore the arts and culture of Ukraine, from architecture to traditional crafts and food. Discover music, art, design, heritage and nature conservation through stories, videos, virtual tours, and 3D models to understand the history and creativity of the Ukranian people.

Arts & Culture: La Baguette
Discover the “staff of life” in France and around the world, the French bread stick, la baguette. Explore the science, the history, what makes a good loaf, regional bread, the language, a fun game, career ideas or bake your own loaf.

New Google Sheets Tutorial for Beginners
We recently published a new video covering How to use Google Sheets for Beginners. This video covers basic functionality all the way up through VLOOKUP and pivot tables – check it out on YouTube!

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2022 Newsletters

Odds n’ Ends

Odds n Ends
  • This week, Google announced Chrome users can now search their tabs, bookmarks and history in the Chrome address bar. These new shortcuts let you quickly search your tabs, bookmarks, and history. To do this you simply type “@tabs” or “@bookmarks” or “@history” followed by your search term to search within your tabs, bookmarks, or Chrome browser history.
  • The Florida Center for Instructional Technology hosts two great resources for teachers and students in search of free clipart and pictures for classroom projects. One of those is ClipArt ETC and the other is Clippix ETC. Their catalogs are arranged in thematic collections and sub-collections. Simply pick a collection then a sub-collection to find the resource that you want to use. The resources are available in three file sizes to meet most needs.
  • This video reviews three helpful features within YouTube including adjusting the size and color scheme of subtitles, accessing and saving a transcript of videos, and clipping sections of YouTube videos.  A reminder that inserting a dash between the “t” and the “u” in a video provides a video that is playable without ads, comments, and is in full screen mode. https://www.yout–ube.com/….

Highlights from the November Google for Education newsletter

Google for Edu November 2022

Check out Google for Edu’s latest monthly newsletter HERE. Some highlights are noted below.

 

National Disability Awareness Month
October is National Disability Awareness Month, a time for us to highlight helpful innovation for and with people with disabilities. We’re highlighting updates to features that are built into ChromeOS and Workspace to help students learn in the way that works for them, and helpful apps and extensions from Texthelp and SnapType.

More accessible

Give Thanks with Applied Digital Skills
Teachers – celebrate Thanksgiving with the Applied Digital Skills lesson Show Appreciation with Google Slides. In this lesson, students express appreciation for someone by creating a digital card using Google Slides.

Give Thanks

Arts & Culture: South African Creativity
“I Am Because You Are” is a celebration of South African creativity, community and craft. Learn about customs and rituals, take virtual tours of museums, discover early art and explore decorative crafts.

I am because you are

Learn with Google Arts & Culture
The learning pages on Google Arts & Culture have had a refresh, with new content, menus for each subject page and a new lesson plans / resources page. For inspiration and some cool, expert content check out Learn with GA&C now.

Arts and Culture

Looking for past issues of the Google for Education newsletter? Find them below, and sign up to hear from Google for Education.

2022 Newsletters

2021 Newsletters

Google Assignments 1.3–A Closer Look

new canvas speedgrader option in google assignments

At the beginning of the year, we updated to the Google Assignment LTI 1.3 in Canvas (blog post). This provided important security updates and the new option to grade a Google Assignment using the Google Feedback Tool (that has been in place) or the Canvas Speedgrader. As you might have noticed, it has caused some subtle changes in the workflows for students and teachers. We have done our best to summarize the differences in the presentation below. Click the option to see a side-by-side comparison between the Google Feedback Tool and Canvas Speedgrader.

If you have not used Google Assignments before, it allows each student to get a copy of a Google file that is automatically organized in their Drive and shared with the teacher. Additionally, the teacher can view students progress on the assignment as they work. Here’s a tutorial to set up a Google Assignment.

If you still have questions about the workflows, please submit a tech ticket, we have done our best to test it extensively.

Google LTI Feedback compared by Kaelyn Bullock

ACTION REQUIRED: Turn on Google 2-Factor Authentication by this FRIDAY

2FA

ALL P-CCS Staff must turn on two-factor authentication by this Friday, September 30, 2022 for their district Google account.
If you do not turn on two-factor authentication by Friday September 30, you will no longer be able to log in to your P-CCS’s Google workspace (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, etc.) beginning October 1, 2022.

Directions on how to manually turn on two factor authentication

[If you aren’t sure if it is set up, log out of your district Google account and log back in. If you don’t see the notice to enroll, you’re all set. Alternatively, go to your profile and click on manage google account. From there, on the left hand side click on security. Scroll down to where it says signing into google and it will tell you whether 2-FA is either on or off.]

Staff don’t need to use their cell phones and personal phone numbers, although that’s certainly a choice. A telephone alternative, backup codes, can be used if someone prefers to not use a phone, or when one might not be available. Backup codes come in sets of ten you can generate at any time when you are already logged in to your account, which can then be printed or saved in a secure place. For how to obtain and use backup codes check out this support article.

You can establish multiple verification methods (for example, set up two or more phone numbers that can be called back as well as have the option to use backup codes). Staff can choose to use one or more district telephone numbers they have access to at work AND backup codes so that when they are in their classrooms and offices, they can opt to be called on those district lines (instead of a text, they’d click to have a phone call provide their code) and when they’re not able to answer their district phone, such as when they are away, they can opt to use a backup code (you need to have downloaded them ahead of time) if they are asked to authenticate.

Please refer to this previous blog post for even more information regarding two factor authentication.

Google Assignments Update: Option to Use Canvas Speedgrader

new canvas speedgrader option in google assignments

Google has announced a much-welcome update for Google Assignments in Canvas. Teachers will now have the option to use the Canvas SpeedGrader for submitted Google Assignments. Take a look at the chart to see the potential features of each option.

image of text table of feature options

The use of Google Assignments in Canvas is highly encouraged because you can assign personalized files to students, instead of forcing students to make their own copy (which can lead to students having multiple copies in their Drive and losing track of the correct version). Teachers can also see students’ in-progress work and use originality reports (5 per course). With all of these perks, some teachers did not use Google Assignments because they wanted to be able to use the Canvas Speedgrader and now you can! This feature should  be visible by August 19, 2022. Have a quick look below:

gif of Canvas speedgrader option

Resources:

Looking for the Google Waffle?

image showing where to find apps launcher

Google is often updating and changing their platform and many people have noticed that when they are at www.google.com, the “waffle” doesn’t display all the P-CCS apps. Rest assured, there are still 2 easy ways to access it.

  1. Go to https://workspace.google.com/dashboard and bookmark the page.
  2. If you are in a Google app like Gmail, Drive, or Calendar the waffle is in the upper-right corner and will contain all of our P-CCS apps.

We are working on a good solution for students to access the dashboard in September, in addition to the methods listed above.

​Google Doc edit notifications

Google doc notifications
In Google Docs, starting later this month, you will be able to choose to receive email notifications for document changes (comments and/or edits) on a per file basis. Edit notification emails will detail what changes were made, when the changes were made, and who made them. (Google Sheets already has this notification feature.)
You will be able to configure these notifications in multiple places:
  • Gmail
  • In Docs via the Notification settings drop down (bell icon) or Tools > Notification settings.

 

Why you’d use it
Staying on top of relevant changes and comments across multiple documents can be difficult. By giving you the option to specify which comments and changes to be notified about, you can more easily stay on top of what needs your attention most and keep track of collaboration. You will be able to configure these settings from Gmail using the new “Notification settings” drop down:
Google doc notification
They will also be accessible within Docs in the “Notification settings” drop down (bell icon). This will open a dialogue box with the notification settings options, which you can adjust as needed. Please note that edit notifications will be off by default and can be enabled on a per-document basis. When enabled, you will be notified when anyone adds or removes content from the document.
notification
You can also access these settings in Tools > Notification settings.
Edit notifications will be OFF by default and can be enabled on a per document basis. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning edit notifications on or off for your account.