G Suite for Education 2-Day Workshop @ WCSD

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Jun 102020
 
Permalink: https://goo.gl/h7QGzm

In this two-day course, we’ll get you up to speed on the incredible array of services and applications that Google provides to teachers and students for free. If you have Chromebooks in your classroom, this workshop will open your eyes to the possibilities and realities of a paperless classroom, as well as having a place to showcase student work, collaborate with experts in the outside world, and managing your limited time in a more effective way.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the course, participants will:

  • Create a Google Site to provide information to students and parents, highlight classroom activities, and showcase exceptional student work.
  • Create a collaborative Google Slides presentation, and publish it to their Google Site.
  • Be able to effectively use Google Classroom for assigning and collecting student work digitally.
  • Create a lesson plan utilizing additional Chromebook apps where students will create a project, demonstrating strategic and/or extended thinking.
  • Continue working through the G Suite Fundamentals Training to prepare to take the Google Certified Educator Level 1 Exam.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Google Calendar Sync on iPad – Still Confusing, But Now With Fewer Steps!

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Dec 052012
 

Google has changed how you set up shared and subscribed calendars on the iPad. The process is less painful and fewer steps that used to be, but it’s still not obvious how to do it. You would think that you would need to make the changes in Settings –> Mail, Contacts & Calendars, but you need to head to Safari or another web browser on the iPad to make the changes once your account has been initiall set up in Mail, Contacts & Calendars.

The good news is that you no longer need to set up your school/hosted Google Apps address as an Exchange account to access multiple calendar synching, which had it’s own unique information and steps to follow that were also not common sense for most teachers.

Here’s a summary of the instructions from the Google Calendar Help pages.

  1. If you have not done so, you’ll need to set up your school email on your iPad
    1. Head to the Settings app
    2. Click ‘Mail, Contacts and Calendars’ in the list on the left.
    3. Select ‘Add account…’ and choose Gmail from the list
    4. Follow the steps from there, making sure that the ‘Calendars’ selector is on.
  2. Now, in Safari (or other browser on the iPad) head to the proper page for your district listed below:
    1. Beaver: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/beaver.k12.ut.us/iphoneselect
    2. Kane: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/kane.k12.ut.us/iphoneselect
    3. Garfield: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/garfk12.org/iphoneselect
    4. Iron: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/ironmail.org/iphoneselect
    5. Millard: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/millardk12.org/iphoneselect
    6. Any other hosted domain: https://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/your_domain/iphoneselect (replace your_domain with whatever trails the @ in your email address)
    7. Regular Gmail account: https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect
  3. Log in if necessary
  4. Check the boxes next to the calendar(s) that you would like to access on your device.
  5. Click the ‘Save’ button on the bottom right.

Now, after a short syncing time, you’ll be able to access the selected calendars in the ‘Calendar’ app on your iPad. If you don’t love the Apple Calendar app, you might want to take a look at Calvetica. It’s what I use and I love it – much faster to enter events on the iPad and much easier to view other months.

Set Up Your Apple Device for Google Sync : Mail, Calendar, & Contacts

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Aug 102012
 

I’ve needed this information a time or two trying to get my iPod Touch and recently my iPad to ‘play nice’ with all of my contacts, email, and calendars that are Google hosted. So, I thought that I’d post it here so that my many fans and I can reference it quickly with the Google tags.

Get all of the details on this page, or head straight to the source page that is complete with screen shots for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

If the above instructions still do not get your calendars working, here’s the Global Thermonuclear Setup to add your calendars (Guaranteed to work!).

  1. Head to the ‘Settings’ on your iPad.
  2. Tap the ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars’ tab under ‘Settings’ on the left.
  3. Under ‘Accounts’, tap ‘Add Account…’
  4. Tap ‘Other’ from the list – not Gmail or Exchange.
  5. Under ‘Calendars’, tap ‘Add CalDAV Account’
  6. Add the following for the requested settings (see the screenshot below):
    1. Server: www.google.com
    2. Username: FULL LONG email address – for me it’s ‘clint@sedc.k12.ut.us‘
    3. Password is your email password
    4. Description: Whatever you want to call these calendars for future reference
  7. Tap ‘Next’. Your default calendar will now be listed in the Calendar app on the iPad. Follow 1-8 above to add multiple calendars.

Googlecaldavsetupipad

Top Ten Uses for Google Apps for Education

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Jan 182012
 

Google Apps for Education has brought some amazing tools to Garfield School District, to the SEDC region, and to all that use this service around the US. I’m constantly finding new ways that these tools can and should be used in the classroom to make both teachers and students life easier. If I were to share them all with you, it would take much more than the time that we have allotted today, so I’ll try to highlight 10 of my favorite uses or applications that you have access to simply by logging into your school email account. 

Before I begin, however, I’d like to direct you to an amazing resource that will help guide our time today, and will be a valuable resource after – the Google Apps Education Training Center. Whatever you’d like to learn how to do in Google Apps: Gmail, Calendar, Docs Sites, or some of their other tools, this site has easy to follow instructions and training modules that will help you learn how in just a few minutes. 

Now, let’s go to the Top Ten List!

  1. Gmail: Creating contact groups for parents, classes, teachers, & organizations
  2. Gmail: Built in Chat using text, voice – even video!
  3. Calendar: Creating different calendars for classes, projects and school activities
  4. Calendar: Sharing your calendars as a web page
  5. Docs: Manage documents with multiple editors, up to 50 simultaneous editors/collaborators, adding and replying to comments
  6. Docs: Improving the writing process with feedback and revision, tracking progress, and publishing work
  7. Presentations: Collaborative presentations that student groups create from your template
  8. Spreadsheets: Collaborative editing of spreadsheets – up to 50 at once
  9. Forms: Collecting student/parent contact information, and then creating contact groups in Gmail
  10. Forms: Check and submit assignments, or delivering quizzes and assessment – even automatic grading and score notification!
If you’ve never seen or experienced a collaboration session in a Google Doc, feel free to join me here or type in http://goo.gl/s5aXd to take a look! Also, if you have any questions about what I’ve presented today, or anything else about Google Docs, let me know here.

Schedule Resources via Google Calendar – No More Paper Computer Lab Calendars!

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Aug 242011
 

Got a conference room, office hours, or a basketball court that you want to make available to others? Google Calendar makes it easy for you to share your available resources with the “Auto-accept invitations” feature. To learn more about this feature and the different acceptance levels, please visit What’s “Auto-accept invitations”?

For assistance enabling this feature, we’ve provided sample instructions to create a resource calendar for “Conference Room B.”

To enable the “Auto-accept invitations that do not conflict” level, please refer to the following steps:

  1. Create a secondary calendar named “Conference Room B.”
  2. In the calendar list on the left, click on the down-arrow button next to “Conference Room B,” select “Calendar settings,” then select the “Calendar Details” tab.
  3. Enable the “Auto-accept invitations” feature by selecting “Auto-accept invitations that do not conflict.”
  4. Click “Save.”
  5. Click on the down-arrow next to the calendar you created and select “Share this calendar.”
  6. Enter the email addresses of the users with whom you wish to grant access to your resource.
  7. Select the desired shared permission level (Must be “See all event details” or higher.)
  8. Click “Save.”

To enable the “Automatically add all invitations to this calendar” level, please follow the instructions below:

  1. Create a secondary calendar named “Conference Room B.”
  2. In the calendar list on the left, click on the down-arrow button next to “Conference Room B,” select “Calendar settings,” then select the “Calendar Details” tab.
  3. Enable the “Auto-accept invitations” feature by selecting “Automatically add all invitations to this calendar.”
  4. Click “Save.”
  5. Share the calendar’s email address with those who don’t have access to the calendar. (You can find the calendar’s email address in the “Calendar Address” section of the individual Calendar Settings page.)
  6. If you’d also like to allow others to view events on this calendar, click on the down-arrow next to the calendar you created and select “Share this calendar.”
  7. Enter the email addresses of the users with whom you wish to grant access to your resource.
  8. Select the desired shared permission level (Must be “See all event details” or higher.)
  9. Click “Save.”

Please note that the “Auto-accept invitations” feature only works on secondary calendars at this time.

Learn how to schedule events on your resource calendar.

Find instructions on how to set available hours on your resource calendar.

via google.com

The Google Apps help pages are a great resource. Here’s one that describes how to create calendars for ‘resources’ such as meeting rooms, computer labs, sports courts – even shared equipment. We’ve been using this method for our Board Room for a few years now, and it works really well.

Beyond Gmail: Docs, Calendar & Sites

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Aug 112011
 

You can find this information later by heading to the Google Apps tag on my blog.

First, let’s REALLY go beyond Gmail. Google keeps a page of tips that will take you from a Gmail White Belt to a certified Ninja Master!  Here is a friendly, downloadable document version in PDF that you can save and print.

How is Google Docs different than Word or whatever else you have used before?

If the above video space is blank, you can view it here.

 

or you can view the presentation here.

DEMO: Using Google Forms and Flubaroo to create and grade a quiz – complete with auto-emailing results. Take the quiz now!

 

Additional Resources for Google Docs:

Google Calendar & Sites:

 

Additional Resources for Google Calendar and Sites:

Sync & import Google Gmail Contacts on iPad

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Jan 272011
 

1. Connect iPad to your computer (Windows or MAC system). iTunes should open automatically on the computer, otherwise you can open it manually.

2. Click your iPad listing under ‘devices’ on the left side of iTunes window.

3. Then click ‘Info’ tab and click to tick option ‘Sync address book contacts’.

4. At the bottom of the same screen, click to tick ‘Sync Google Contacts’ option and then click ‘Configure’ button next to it.

5. A new window will pop-up showing Google Contacts Terms, click Agree button on it. Then enter login details of your Gmail / Google account to start the sync process.

via tothepc.com

I found out the hard way yesterday that Contacts do not automatically sync to the iPad with the rest of my Google Mail, Calendars and Notes do. I’ll give this a shot to see if it is this easy to get going.

Hey! I have an iPad! Now what?

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Nov 012010
 

I received this message from a teacher that I work with today:

I have an iPad and want to get it to work with my Google stuff – do I need an app???Do you have any tips or good apps for it?

Excellent! I just got one about a month ago, and I am still figuring out good apps and the rest.

Now, when you say 'Google stuff', do you mean email, calendars, contacts? Or your Google Docs? You can get the first stuff to work with what comes from Apple, but Docs (as of now) needs an app to work well.

For Google Docs, the best app that I've found that works well for them is??Office2??HD. It was $10, but is now $8, but it's great for not only viewing but editing all of your Google Docs on the iPad.

As far as other apps, I don't know if I could live without DropBox – both on my computers, iPad, iPod Touch, and my Android phone. Almost all of the mobile apps work with it, and there is no easier or faster way to get a document or any file from the desktop to a mobile device. Here's an??invite for a free 2 GB DropBox account??if you don't have one already, and here's??how DropBox works.

I've been researching what apps are 'best' or being used in schools. Sadly, I have not been able to go through the entire 300,000+ app library, but I have some resources for finding the good stuff. First, there is a school in Scotland that has gone 100% iPad, and the man behind the project, Fraser Speirs, is writing about the experiment in his blog under 'The iPad Project". There is a lot of interesting information there, but he as included posts on the apps they are using for both Secondary and Elementary classes.??

Also, I listen to 'Netcasts I love, from people I trust' from TWiT all the time during my excursions around my territory, and they have a new show called 'iPad Today' where they highlight a different app 'theme' each week, as well as giving their 'App Cap' awards each week for their favorite finds. It's an entertaining show, but if you don't have time, you can check out the wiki site with all of the recommendations.

Thanks for the question. Keep 'em coming!

Synching iPod Touch Calendar with Google Calendars

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Aug 132009
 

I was asked today how in the world I could get an iPod Touch to sync to a Google Calendar. I had another setup working by adding my Google Calendar to my iCal and then anytime I synched my iPod, those events would be synched to iCal and in turn my Google Calendar. Well, our schedules change quickly and often, and this was not working as well as I had liked. I felt like I could miss some events that I have added on my iPod (since we CAN’T have an iPhone – we are stuck with Verizon).

I knew that it could be done, I just hadn’t had the excuse to sit down and spend some time to figure it out. The good news is, it IS possible and not too hard to set up – I just got it working for myself. You’ll need to follow two sets of instructions – one to select which calendars you want to sync (if it’s more than your default calendar – the first one on the calendar list), and one to set up the synching.

Your Gmail Administrator needs to check one box in the Mobile section of the Domain Management for your educational domain to allow calendar and contact synching. Here’s the instructions on what setting needs to be altered.

Alright. Here are the instructions on how to set this up on the iPod. I did the below in the reverse order, and had to repeat my first step. So, give this a try in this order and hopefully it will work the first time.
– Follow these instructions to choose which calendars to sync – Note: follow the second set of instructions under “Google Apps alternate instructions”
– Follow these instructions to set up synching on the iPod Touch.

Now, on Calendar on the iPod, I have a new section of calendars called “Exchange” where I can view my synchronized Google calendar events. If I add an event on that calendar, it will automatically sync to Google calendar (and iCal for me because I’ve set it up that way) and vice versa. Adding an event on your synched Google calendar will “push” that event to your iPod over the wireless network without having to plug in and sync to iTunes.

Very slick. I am glad that the problem was brought up so that I could have an excuse to take the time to figure out how to do it for myself. I’m VERY happy to get this working!