Visit Slides Carnival to find beautiful Google Slides presentation templates for your own use. They even have a festive Halloween template available right now.
Use Google Slides to communicate your ideas with different presentation themes, fonts, embedded video, animations and more. Google Slides is great for students who are working on Science Projects or IB Exhibition projects. Google Slides can be accessed and edited from your browser or your mobile phone/tablet with the app. Plus, it's free!
Let me know if you find the templates useful and share in the comments below how your students are using Google Slides for your classroom.
How many times have you needed to edit a PDF, but couldn't do it as easily as you had hoped? Today I want to share how you can use Google Drive to help convert that PDF document into an editable MS Word document.
The first thing you need to do is simply click and drag your PDF document into your Drive Window to upload it to Drive.
Then, select your document in Drive and click the More Actions button (it's the one with the three vertical dots). Select Open With Google Docs.
Your PDF will open with Google's word processing program, Docs. It will convert your document page by page. You will see the first page as an image followed by the conversion of that image into editable text on the following page. At this point, you can choose to keep the image or remove it altogether.
Once you have removed any images you don't need, then you should be left with editable text. You can certainly edit within Google Docs, but if you specifically need to work in MS Word, then you have one easy step left. Go to the File menu and select Download As...Microsoft Word (.docx). That's all there is to it. Now, you have a MS Word file that you can you edit as you please.
If you're a visual learner like myself, you can watch this short screencast to view the process from beginning to end.
Feel free to leave me comments if you have any questions or leave me a suggestion for a future post.
Getting your students all on the same webpage has never been easier. If your working with Google Classroom and your students are working on any laptop, including a PC, Mac or Chromebook, or using desktops in a lab setting you can quickly get all students on the same web page by pushing it out with the Share To Classroom Chrome extension.
As educators, we all know how challenging it can be to get a classroom full of elementary students on the same web page in a timely manner. As long as you and your students have the extension installed and enabled for each of them, you can find a web page and then push it out to them. It will instantly open on all of their devices.
Get your students on the same (web)page, instantly. 'Get Your Students On The Same (Web)Page, Instantly'.Google for Education. N. p., 2015. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
This is a great tool to use when you want all of your students to begin research on the same page. An added benefit is that students aren't locked into that page, so if they find a better resource they can simply push it back to you. Once you review it, you can choose to push the new web page out to all students.
What better way to keep your students engaged, start them on the same level, allow them to share their discoveries with you and save a few minutes of instructional time? Want to learn how to install the extension? Go here. It includes a link with easy instructions to share with your students via Google Classroom. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Starting a new year is exciting and always a busy time of year. It's also the best time to make sure you have all your online instructional tools ready to go. I've recently created a simple step sheet for McAllen ISD teachers to help get your students set up with Google Apps For Education. Starting now will help you have everything in place to support your students' online learning this year. Good luck and have a great year!
~Rosie
Beginning the 2015-2016 school year, every US 4th grader and their family will be entitled to free admission to America's parks, federal lands and waters. How amazing is that? It is part of the "Every Kid In A Park" initiative made possible by the National Park Service and National Park Foundation. You can learn more on their site and beginning on September 1st passes and more information will become available. This is a great opportunity for families to explore and discover our country's best natural treasures.
Recently, I have had several trainings covering Google Apps For Education. Google Chrome is always a big hit with teachers. I was asked several times if I had a cheat sheet of all the handy keyboard shortcuts available for Google Chrome. So, I finally took a few minutes to create a simple list of my favorite keyboard shortcuts. If you would like to see similar lists for other apps, then let me know. I'll be happy to post similar infographics in the future based on your feedback.
I know it's such a joykill when we walk into a major retail store and see back to school supplies on sale in bulk. Wait, didn't I just start my vacation? Then, reality hits and we realize that schools will be back in session quicker than we think. Many of us have been busy with workshops, conferences, online study groups, etc, so time flies by even faster. Let's just be real, ok? An educator never truly takes a break. We are constantly learning. So, with a little time left before you are back into your full steam ahead mode, take a minute to consider your back to school planning. Recent news about Pluto has brought out the true nerd in me. I've found some great resources from NASA that may get you excited about the upcoming school year.
Visit NASA's Education Express blog to find some great teaching resources. Some of my favorites resources from their recent post are:
Top 10 NASA Education Downloads for June 2015
Space Shuttle Thermal Protective Tiles Available for Educational Use
Free Education Webinars From NASA Educator Professional Development
Have fun exploring and enjoy the rest of your summer break. I hope to see many of you at McAllen ISD's upcoming iPadPalooza South Texas event on August 1st.
