Reeve EdTech Tips

1. Fonts When you first used Google Docs, you may have been disappointed by the small number of available fonts. You may not realize that Google has  added a lot more  (a  lot  more) fonts to the available list: you just have to go get them. Click the Fonts button, scroll to the bottom, and click  More Fonts . 2. Clear formatting When you copy/paste text into a document, sometimes it brings its own font style and size, which looks mi-matched in your document. When this happens, highlight the text and choose  Format > Clear formatting . This  removes any hidden font "junk"  and lets you start with clean text. 3. Strike-through This one is genius brilliant complicated suprisingling useful. To create “strike-through” text like this , go to Format > Strike-through 4. Columns You can make  two- or three-column text  by highlighting the text and choosing " Format > Columns ." 5. Style Headings In the...

Just a quick one today: a  new trick for an old technique: making note cards. Sometimes it is appropriate for your students to make  a set of note cards .The classic "old-school" example is teaching students to write  research papers : they would put  sources, quotes, and other important info  on index cards, and could then  sort the cards  afterward to organize the sections of their paper. Even for writing without research source, some teachers would have students make note cards to help  organize content paragraphs  of a longer piece of writing. Note cards are great for encouraging thoughtful planning before you start "just writing stuff down" in your document. ​"Is this enough note cards for my 3 paragraph essay?" The  biggest advantage  of note cards, of course, is their  ease of re-ordering . You can just flip through the cards around and keep re-arranging until you are happy with their sequence. ...

Google Keep  is an interesting but handy little Google feature that lets you make reminders and virtual sticky notes.  I'm sure you are totally super-organized and never forget stuff, but I definitely need a little help.  Plus, I'm sure that even if  you  don't need a note-taking app, you might know a student or two who could benefit. There are lots of note-taking apps out there, but Google Keep has a few  sweet features : It  syncs anywhere  I use Google, so I can see my notes on my laptop, my phone, my tablet, my Chromebook, or wherever. I can  type notes in the laptop , and then use my  phone to check off to-do lists . It can send me a  reminder   at a  time  or  location   of my choosing. My phone will "bing" at the right time or place.  For examples, it can remind me... when I get home, call the bank next time I'm at the grocery store, buy milk 3 months from now, cancel tha...

Google has recently added the ability to format columns in Google Docs! This was one of the biggest missing features for people who are migrating from MS Word, and it's very easy to use! What are columns? In a word processor app, columns (aka flow columns) are equally spaced columns of text of equal height. Text that runs off the bottom of the first column continues onto the top of the next, like on an printed newspaper. Flow columns are different from table columns: each flow column is just an extension of the previous columns. How to make columns The easiest way to work with columns is to ignore them until you are done typing of all your text. (Remember: content first, fancy formatting later.) Once your draft is done, then set up your columns:  Type your document text as a normal document, without columns. Select the text that you want to set up into columns (or select nothing if you want the entire document in columns). In the menu, go to Format...Colum...

One of the biggest hurdles for teachers in using Google Drive and Google Docs is making the transition from MS Office. Google Docs are great for sharing and collaborating, but not so great at complex formatting. If you have years of worksheets, quizzes, memos, and other documents (all carefully formatted), you are rightfully reluctant to lose all of that work. However, the big secret is that you don't need to transition from one to the other. You can use the best of both worlds , together , choosing to use Google Docs for sharing and collaboration, and MS Office for more complex documents. This tutorial is designed to show you how to use Google Drive with MS Office together, and keep using Office whenever you want. It will cover these topics: Getting your files into your Google Drive. Installing Awesome Drive to to launch MS Office files from Google Drive. Installing the Google Drive Plugin for MS Office to open/save files into your Google Drive from within Office ...

12   Days  of Techmas,  Day  10: Winter Break Backup As part of a tech person's traditional "sales pitch" to get people to  backup their files , we usually describe horror stories of how you could lose all your stuff. Because this is the festive holiday season, I'm going to  skip the doom and gloom , and assume  you know all the reasons  to back up your files.  OK? Are we agreed? You know why it's important to backup your files? OK, let's move on to the "how." As a Google for Education district, each teacher gets  unlimited storage space  in the  Google Drive for storing files. It's not really designed to serve only as a backup, but why not use it if you got it? Winter break is a great time to do a backup. Copying all of your files takes a long time (hours or  days ) and temporarily slows your computer, so it's most practical to do it when you don't need to use the computer for a  day  or two, ...

In Gmail, you can  organize your inbox so that your most important stuff is near the top. There are a few different ways to set up it, but I'll show how I set up my Inbox and let you experiment from there. ​My Inbox shows email in this order of priority: 1. Starred Emails, both read and unread 2. Important and Unread 3. Everything else "Importance" is determined automatically by Google, and it does a really good job. Stars are marked by me. If I read a message that I know I need to come back to I click the Star icon on the message (as shown in the two images below). By starring emails, I know I won't lose forget about important messages as new email comes in.  ​  To set this up for your Inbox, click the Settings Gear and choose "Settings." Then, click the Inbox tab, and adjust the settings until 1-4 look like mine. ​ As you set yours up, you will notice that there are other options that you may pref...

12 Days of Techmas, Day 4: Generic Entrance/Exit Tickets Part 1 Entrance and Exit Tickets  have grown significantly in popularity because of their  wide range of utility . They are great for  formatively assessing student learning, they are a good  classroom routine  for the first or last 5 minutes of class when the teacher is otherwise busy, and they are easy to set up. Google Forms is a digital tool that works great for entrance/exit tickets. Used  incorrectly , they are fussy and time consuming. Teachers feel like they spent more time creating and checking the tickets than they would have if they had just used paper. But what if you only had to  set up the digital ticket once , and used the same one all term long? Generic Entrance/Exit Tickets to the rescue! [Lazy teacher's tip : click  here  and make your own copy of the form without having to follow the steps below. The form and results spreadsheet will both copy into...

Thanks to the add-on system in   Google Docs , students (and teachers) can create mathematical formulas to insert into their math and science documents. It's using a Google add-on called   gMath , and it lets students click to build complex formulas, equations, and mathematical graphs.  When you install and turn on the add-on, a sidebar pops up giving students  clickable buttons , much like the old  formula editor  in MS Word. After you create the formula, just click "Insert" and it pops the formula right into the Google Doc. Another option is to create  graphs  of mathematical formulas. The Builder Sidebar Some examples I created using gMath: ​ [ For math nerds:  it actually teaches as well as helps. The click-button system is really a  Latex expression builder , and students will learn the basics of Latex while making and editing equations.] OK, so I wouldn't recommend this for nightly math homework, but if ...

Children and adults all over the country love this time of the year, because it's time for Mr. Reeve's 12 Days of Techmas!  :)   Throughout December, I'll be posting little tech tips and hints to make your season bright! Day 1:   "Insert Comment" Google Docs Keyboard Shortcut Many frequently used functions in Google Docs have  keyboard shortcuts . They allow you to quickly edit/comment/format a document with a few handy keystrokes, cutting down on the (relatively) slower process of moving and clicking the mouse. As an example, my favorite keyboard shortcut within a Google Doc is the  "Insert Comment"  shortcut . As you read through student work, simply click where you want the comment to go, hit  Ctrl+Alt+M    ( ⌘+Option+M  on a Mac)  on your keyboard and start typing! The "mouse way" to do this requires 3 clicks, which adds up to a lot of time when done for 5 comments each in 50 student writing samples. ...

Taking Your Google Data With You Before You Graduate:   Google Takeout Students who use Google Apps in school can amass a large number of docs, presentations, etc, representing a huge amount of academic work. Because these docs are stored in the cloud, you could lose them when your school deactivates your account after you graduate.  Fear not! Google Takeout lets you download and save all of the Google Drive and Gmail data that your created when you were in school. Go to https://www.google.com/settings/takeout . If prompted, sign in with your school Google Account. . Scroll down and turn OFF the data that you do NOT need to save. This is up to you. You know best which services you used and need to archive. NOTE: There are limits to the number of times you can archive your data, so choose wisely the first time. Click Next . Leave “File type” and “Delivery method” unchanged and click “ Create archive .” When archiving is done, you will see a screen like...

To celebrate the holiday season, I'll be sending out  12   Days  of easy classroom tech ideas you can use right away!  Day  11: Google Slides Not everyone knows that Google has its own version of PowerPoint called Slides. You access it through your Google Drive just like a Google Doc, but it lets you make and develop presentations. It also has all of the collaboration tools and sharing of a normal Google Doc. Students' "presentation  day " with Google Slides is easier. All the student has to do is share the Slides presentation with you and you can project it normally. No fussy USB drives or emailing large files that don't have the videos properly embedded. Slides is also really good at converting existing PowerPoint files into Google Slides format. This means you can upload your existing PowerPoint lessons and easily share them with your students. If you already knew about Slides but haven't looked at it in a while, look again. Google has...