Google | innovative schools

Pivot tables in Google Sheets

Thursday 5th March 2015 Pivot tables help you summarise and analyse large amounts of data by displaying the information in more digestible formats. While pivot tables have always been available in Microsoft Excel, they are now even easier to make using Google Sheets. Check out this Google Gooru video on how to create a Pivot Table in Sheets…

Google Drive updated

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Not too long ago Google altered the Drive interface, so that any documents that others shared with you were found in a folder called ‘Incoming‘ – I always expected to hear the sound of choppers and see Radar O’Reilly scurrying around the corner! Thankfully, Google has renamed this folder ‘Shared with me‘. How sensible! Who would … Read More

Google Classroom – New features

Monday 2nd March 2015 Google have announced some more updates to Classroom… Teachers can now upload their own images to use as themes. Classroom will now help you crop your favourite image to the correct dimensions, and automatically pick a matching class colour. And in case you don’t have a great photo to use, there are now 18 new images and 30 pattern themes … Read More

First page headers in Google Docs

Thursday 26th February 2015 Google is continually rolling out minor updates and new features to Google Apps…. This most recent feature update has been eagerly awaited – adding different headers (and footers) on the first page of a document to subsequent pages in the document. No need to download or install anything – the update is available now in your Docs. http://youtu.be/GAh2sZLCg84

Google Science Fair – 2015

Thursday 19th February 2015 From now, through to May 18, students around the world ages 13-18 can participate in the Google Science Fair by submitting projects online across all scientific fields, from biology to computer science to anthropology and everything in between. Prizes include $100,000 in scholarships and classroom grants from Scientific American and Google, a National Geographic Expedition to the Galapagos, … Read More

Google Classroom Quickstart

Wednesday 17th February 2015 Have you begun exploring the possibilities offered by Google Classroom? Released in 2014, the Classroom platform continues to improve and regularly sees new features and updates. Classroom provides an ideal online classroom environment for schools using Google Apps for Education. Here is a getting-started guide for teachers new to Classroom (pdf) >>>

KidRex – Google for younger students

Thursday 5th February 2015 KidRex is a fun and safe search tool for younger students. KidRex searches emphasise kid-related webpages from across the entire web, and is powered by Google. Google’s filters check keywords, phrases, and URLs to eliminate most inappropriate material. Check out KidRex >>>

Google signs student data privacy pledge

Friday 23rd January 2015 Google has joined Apple, Microsoft, and 90 other education-technology companies to sign the Student Data Privacy Pledge, according to an announcement on Monday from the Future of Privacy Forum, a non-profit group which created the pledge last year. Read more about this story at WSJ >>> Visit the Student Data Privacy Pledge site >>> More info about … Read More

Google Apps v Office 365 – For your school

The expectation by teachers and students of ‘anytime, anywhere, any device’ access to online services has resulted a rethink of software and file-server provisioning in schools. Many schools are now enabling student and teacher access to collaborative cloud apps and file storage services, which are accessible from school and home, on shared school computers and personal laptops and tablet devices. Which cloud service is … Read More

Google Classroom v Moodle

For many years schools have explored various options for providing an online component to regular classes. This need for an online environment has recently become more focussed with the move to BYO technologies in schools. Over the years Moodle has become a popular, though clunky option as an LMS (Learning Management System) platform in schools. Now Google has entered the market with the release of … Read More

Google Classroom – Mobile App

Thursday 15th January 2015 Google has released native Classroom mobile apps for both Android and iOS to support it’s new Classroom platform. Also announced are two new Classroom features: a teacher assignments page and the ability to archive classes. Check out the intro video below….. Read more at the Google Education Blog >>>

Free – 1TB of Drive storage for new Chromebooks

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Thinking of exploring the Chromebook option this Christmas? Google is offering 1TB of free Drive storage for owners of new Chromebooks (for 2 years – redeem before Jan 31st 2015). Considering that 1TB of storage is valued at around AU $120, that’s great value on a $350 Chromebook – and it is a big storage bump … Read More

Implementing Chromebooks in a K-6 school

Monday 15th December 2014 At the beginning of the year, Matt’s public school in Sydney purchased thirty-two Chromebooks to be used as shared devices in their school library. The Chromebooks were purchased to replace ageing desktops that used to make computer time in the library a challenging experience. When embarking on this journey, Matt was able to read plenty of case studies about schools in the USA … Read More

Grade quizzes with Flubaroo

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Flubaroo is a free tool that helps you quickly grade multiple-choice or fill-in-blank assignments created in Google Forms. More than just a grading tool, Flubaroo also: Computes average assignment score. Computes average score per question, and flags low-scoring questions. Shows you a grade distribution graph. Gives you the option to email each student their grade, and … Read More

Help your students become better searchers

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Web search can be a useful tool for students, and some in-depth discussion about how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners. Using the materials on this site, students can become skilled searchers – whether they’re just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training. Lesson plans and activities, … Read More

Cloud Provider Policies

Wednesday 26th November 2014 How private is your data (and your students’ data) when it is stored with a commercial cloud provider? Will you and your students be targeted with advertising, based on the content of their emails and documents stored in the cloud? Who owns ‘your’ data, once it is stored on a remote server, possibly in another country? … Read More

eLearning Summit (Illawarra)

Friday 21st November 2014 The Five Islands e-Learning Summit is a full day event, providing primary and secondary teachers the opportunity to develop their skills and understanding of current technology and how it is best used to support learning. The day will consist of three sessions, broken up by morning tea and lunch (both provided) allowing for practical hands-on activities … Read More

NYC approves Chromebooks in public schools

Tuesday 18th November 2014 The New York City Department of Education (DoE) announced Monday that it has approved Google’s Chromebooks for use in the city’s public classrooms – representing approximately 1 million students and 1,800 schools. The DOE also authorised the use of Google Apps for Education (GAFE), and put together a guide to implementing Chromebooks and Google utilities into the classroom. … Read More

BYOT – The very first step

Friday 7th November 2014 When schools move down the BYOT path – leveraging students’ own technologies to support the curriculum – much planning time is often focussed on which device (or devices) will be acceptable, how these devices will connect to the school network, how apps will be controlled, and other ‘technical’ hardware and software support issues. While all of this discussion and planning … Read More

Using iPads with Google Classroom

Wednesday 29th October 2014 While there are currently a number of workflow solutions and Learning Management Systems that work well with iPads, Google Classroom will likely become popular in iPad classrooms because of the integration with both the Google Drive and Google Doc’s iPad apps as well as any number of iPad creativity apps. Although there is not a dedicated app for Google Classroom, … Read More

Google Classroom – New Features

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 With Classroom released just last month, Google has already responded to the many feature requests. (I have no doubts that this will be an ongoing process). The first improvements include… Invite students more easily using Groups Mark assignments as “done” Improved teacher controls Export assessment grades to other gradebooks Sort students by first or last name Learn more about the … Read More

EasyBib – create a bibliography in Google Docs

Monday 20th October, 2014 Are your students are creating research papers in Google Docs? If so, there is a great (free) add-on they can use to build a list of their references. Using the EasyBib Add-on for Google Docs, students can easily create a bibliography and add it directly to their research paper, as shown in the video below….

There is more to GAFE than Drive

Tuesday 7th October 2014 Google announced last week that all 30+ million Google Apps for Education accounts around the world will have their Drive capacity increased from 30 Gb to ‘unlimited’ capacity. This is great news, and will make GAFE even more attractive for schools. There have been similar announcements recently from other providers of online file storage services. However, when considering the options for cloud-based … Read More

Drive for Education – unlimited storage

Thursday 2nd October 2014 Google have announced that all Google Apps for Education accounts will be upgraded to unlimited Drive storage. Read the Drive announcement, plus more info about other GAFE updates >>>

Intel Chromebook resources

Monday 22nd September 2014 Intel have gathered some useful information, case studies and resources for teachers who are implementing Chromebooks in K-12 schools. Visit the Intel Chromebook site >>>

New connectors in Google Drawings & Slides

Friday 19th September 2014 Google continues to quietly rollout updates and new features for Google Apps. The most recent addition, shown in the Gooru video below, brings elbow connectors and curved connectors to Drawings and Slides, and can be used to build flowchart displays, organisational diagrams, etc, in either app….

Google Apps – Arthur Phillip HS Case Study

Tuesday 16th September 2014 Arthur Phillip High School is a public secondary school in Parramatta, Australia serving 1,500 students in grades 7-12. Students at Arthur Phillip hail from 65 different countries and 90% speak a language other than English at home. Five years ago, Arthur Phillip began exploring options to embrace digital education. At the time, the Australian Government’s Digital Education … Read More

ASTD 2014

Monday 8th September 2014 It’s on a again – bigger and better than ever! One of the most practical, classroom-oriented technology conferences in Australia, the annual All Schools Technology Day will be held on Tuesday 28th October 2014, at Kiama Pavilion. The 2014 conference theme is ‘Learning in the Mobile Era’. Choose from a variety of hands-on workshops to explore … Read More

Google Forms Updated

Friday 5th September 2014 Google Forms has received a major makeover. Google has added a brand new collection of themes from which to choose, and these themes can be customised to fit your specific needs. Alternatively, you can start from scratch and create your own Form theme using your own images. Ad well as adding custom images, you can also change the … Read More

Page 2 of 3
←
1
2
3
→