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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Exploring Culture with Google + Schoology Course Pictures Hack



Google Cultural Institute


The Google Cultural Institute has a huge number of engaging resources for teachers and students to explore. Think of it like an online museum. Their content is arranged into collections within three different categories, art projects, historic moments and world wonders. Tools such as gigapixel photos, street views, and videos are used to tell different stories throughout history. 


Gigapixel Photos
These are extremely high resolution images that let you zoom in and see all of the miniscule details of famous paintings and artifacts.

          
 

One of the best features of the Cultural Institute is that you can organize items from the public collections into your own galleries. Annotations can be added to the items that you save. Creating a personal gallery would be a great feature to have students use during a project as they interact with content and add their own reflections or explanations. 

Get started with this intro video (1:49) and then head over to the site



Schoology Course Pictures Hack

I've had a few people ask me if it is possible to change the section name of each Schoology course so it is easier to figure out which hour it corresponds to. Unfortunately, you are unable to change that because it will revert back to the original every time it syncs with Skyward. The work around for that is to change the Schoology course picture for each class to include the hour which you teach that class. See the example below.



Follow these steps to make that happen:

  1. Create a new Google Drawing in your Drive by click New then More and Google Drawing.
  2. To resize the drawing to a profile picture size click File --> Page Setup and then select Custom. Enter the dimensions 170 x 170 pixels.
  3. Add a picture by using the Insert menu and then clicking Image. You can upload an image that your already have or search for one. 
  4. Crop the picture to fit in the square
  5. To add the number to your picture click Insert and then Word Art. Type the number that you want on the picture and then hit enter. Change the font, size and color settings to your liking.
  6. After it looks good, click File --> Download As and then select JPEG image. Choose the location where the file will download to your computer. 
  7. Open Schoology and navigate to the course that you wish to change the picture for. 
  8. Hover your mouse over the current course picture and you will see the Edit Picture button pop up in the top right corner of the square. Click that.
  9. Select Attach File and then find the picture that you just downloaded. 
  10. Repeat for any course that you wish to change. 












Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Chrome Extensions

Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions are small software programs that can modify and enhance the functionality of the Chrome browser. You can find Chrome Extensions in the Chrome Web Store. There are many extensions available to improve your workflow. Here are some of our favorites:
  • Save to Google Drive: The Save to Google Drive Chrome extension helps you save web content or browser screenshots to your Google Drive. - Imagine you find a great lesson plan - you can click the save to drive extension to send a screenshot of the webpage to your Google Drive.
  • Clipboard History 2: The Clipboard History Chrome extension helps you to retrieve previously copied content. Imagine you are giving students digital feedback and you find that you find that you are repeating the same feedback - you can copy the content and then access any copied content in the clipboard history to use again. 
  • Awesome Screenshot Capture and Annotate: The Awesome Screenshot Chrome extension helps you take screenshots and annotate them. You can save the annotated screenshots to your Google Drive. You can screenshot selected regions of your screen with this extension.
  • Google Calendar: The Google Calendar Chrome extension is a button on your browser toolbar that you can click to see upcoming events from your Google Calendar and add events to your Google Calendar, without ever leaving your page. Imagine you need to check what time your next meeting begins or you need to quickly add a meeting with a student to your schedule - you can quickly add this event to your calendar without leaving your current page. 
  • Google Tasks: The Google Tasks Chrome extension helps you easily add and manage your tasks from Chrome in one of three ways: 1) Simply type "t Your new task" into the Chrome Omnibar to add a task from whatever web page you're on. 2) Click the Tasks icon to add a task, see your tasks and task lists and mark a task as completed 3) Highlight text on any web page, right click and add that text to a new task.
  • Bookmark Manager: The Bookmark Manager Chrome extension makes bookmarking easier with the smarts of Google Search and a new modern interface. With this extension you can utilize a one-click save feature and add images and notes to your bookmarks to make them more helpful. Also, Google will suggest a folder if it seems like it could be a fit. You can share bookmarks with your friends and family. This extension provides an improved search and your bookmarks will automatically be organized by topic, like “Tokyo” and “Photography,” but you can still organize them into folders yourself.