Working in your Classroom with Google Classroom

If your school uses Google Apps For Education there is include a totally free tool that will allow you to change how you offer feedback to your students,

 Google Classroom. 

 Classroom has under one roof every tool the teacher will need to create a meaningful and engaging task, without having to learn multiple interfaces or do any complex shuffling around of files that only a school’s tech enthusiast usually battles through.  Teachers are able to easily communicate with classes by using Classroom to make announcements, without the need to email groups or individual messages.  Classroom is going to have an impact beyond what it does for the assessments because of the ease of access.  This is because it’s delivered through the Chrome browser rather than an app and is thus totally device-agnostic. Students can use it on their phones, the $50 Android tablet they got for Christmas, Chromebook, anything.  One of its greatest features is its usability. Google Classrooms offers every tool teachers need to create a task. Teachers can easily add links, or attach files.  Then every task goes to a student’s Classroom folder in Drive, their Calendar, and their Gmail. Students can see what they’ve been assigned and teachers can see what’s been submitted.  Both student and teacher can comment and improve in real time.

How to get started:

Easy! Go to Classroom.google.com and click sign up using your school’s Google Apps account. Only teachers and students whose school has Google Apps can get access to the classroom. Outsiders are not welcomed! After, create your first class, and either enlist students directly or give them the class code on the left-hand side box. After that, simply distribute your first assignment and teach!

There are two ways that Google Classroom makes your classroom more efficent

1) Distributing & Collecting Assignments

There is the problem of distribution of assignments, readings, and resources. I use Google Drive for all the files I use for teaching. I have come up with a couple different ways to distribute them to students. In the end, the result was always the same. Students would have to be logged into their school Google account and click “Make A Copy”. But that lent itself to a whole new host of problems.

By the end of the year, my inbox looked like it was getting spammed by Google Drive share emails from students. Every time a student completed an assignment and shared it with me, I would receive a notification email. This was a nightmare.  By June my inbox was so cluttered that I could not even find my other emails.

With Google Classroom, everything is in one centralized location. Students can view all of their assignments in a specific folder, teachers can store their  materials and activities for the school year on the cloud and all grades can be viewed within Classroom.

2) Revisions & Feedback

One of the best ways students can improve their writing is going through the process of revisions. Editing, feedback, peer editing, and revisions improves student writing. Assuming that you want to take student writing into the 21st century, there are many platforms that teachers can use to help improve student writing.

In the Google Classroom, assignments are distributed to students and when they are ready, they submit them back to the teacher. Students can not revise their document further until it has been seen by the teacher. This prevents students from trying to meet the deadline by submitting incomplete assignments.

Students can then submit the assignment again and again after each teacher revision. All of this is tracked with a student assignment “feed” that keeps things orderly. The assignment also has a space that teachers can message students privately and students can then respond.

Google Classroom provides enhanced feedback and communication.  It allow to easily manage and speed up the feedback process for teachers and student.  This allows the feedback to have a greater impact due to the rapidity of feedback turn-around.

Now Google Classroom is far from a perfect system and it is still missing some features that other Learning Management Systems have.  It is a young product being release publicly for about 13 months as of this writing.  Google has been proactive about release updates to Classroom, recently they have released some new features.  One of these new features is an ability to reuse old posts. Teachers can choose from announcements or questions that they have previously posted and simply tweak them, rather than creating each post from scratch.

Google is also working to make Classroom even more collaborative. Teachers can now post a question, video, or article and ask students to write a response; other students can then respond to their peers’ answers, making it a more conducive forum for discussion.  Google Classroom will create a Google Calendar for each class, which can be accessed from either Classroom or Calendar. Any assignment with a due date will automatically be added to the calendar, and teachers can manually add other relevant dates.  Other updates include the ability to bump an old post to the top of the stream, post an assignment without a due date, and attach a Google Form to a post, which many teachers utilize for surveys or tests.

Oogling Google Photos

Ok so this post is months (and I mean months) late, but that being said, if you do not already use Google Photos, stop reading, download it, then comeback and finish reading, you’ll be glad you did.  

I just want to know, do you take photos? Do you take a lot of photos (I know I love the burst photo feature on my phone)? Do you have a hard time finding space on your phone for all of them?  Then, when you want to show them to someone, do you spend 95% of the time scrolling for that specific one?

Google Photo’s will show you a better way.

Google Photos wants to automatically backup, organize and enable you to share your photos with who you want, when you want.  It also offers unlimited, FREE storage for life.

You can download Google Photos for your phone or tablet, or even access on a desktop browser to have every photo (and video) on every device synced and available everywhere. 

If you’re on the home screen of the mobile app, you get a reverse chronological view of your photos. The most amazing part of the app is “hidden” though, until you tap the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner. Here’s where the magic happens.

Up top, you’ll see faces of people you know; tap on one of those, and Google will show you all the pictures in your library of just that person. Choose someone who’s grown from a child to an adult, and Google picks them all out and you’ll see the transformation before your eyes.

If you go back to the main search screen and scroll past the Places section, you’ll begin to understand the real power of Google Photos as an organizer. The third section is (vaguely) named Things, but it automatically categorizes your images by everything in them besides people.

If you haven’t fully grasped the gravity of what I’ve explained so far, think about it. After a bit of processing time, Google will have combed through your thousands of photos—from the one you took of yourself in the gym yesterday to the one you took of your dog when he was a puppy 10 years ago—and neatly organized them all with tons of keywords and metadata.

Google above all else is a search company. They’ve made search so easy you don’t have to think about it anymore, and the same can be true with your own pictures. After playing with some of the categories of People and Things, you can do an actual search of your photos and the results are surprisingly accurate.  

Basically, there’s no reason not to love Google Photos.

5 Tips for Making Gmail Work For You

We have spent more than a few posts talking about Google discussing how to make it work for you as well as some of the cool things that they are working on.   We thought that we might want to take a step back and look at some of the more basic features of Google.  Besides from using Google to search the Internet, (if you want to know more about using Google search you can check out our past posts Becoming a Google Ninja Search Sensei Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) Gmail is second most popular Google tool.  Gmail is a simple, easy to use, secure tool and best of all it is free, but there is  much more to Gmail than just email.  Here are ten tips that will make Gmail work even better for you.

Tip 1

Use labels to organize your email.  Most email programs use folders to organize your emails.  This is a similar system to what you use on your home computer.  You are use to it and it works alright, but Gmail want to improve the experience.  Instead of folders they will have you label your email messages.  Any message can be label with a variety of different label.  Unlike using folders where an email can only be put into one folder, you are able to put as many labels as you want on each email.  An email can be in several locations (Inbox, All Mail, Sent Mail, etc.) at once, making it easier to find later and you can search emails by label.  

To create a label that you can add to your Emails:

Click More under the label list on the left side of the page
Click Create new label.
Type the name of your new label and click Create.
You can also create a new label for a message in your Inbox by selecting the box next to the message, clicking the Label button above your message list, and then clicking Create new.
Add Labels to your Emails
Select the checkbox next to those messages, click the Labels button, and click the label(s) you want.
or
When viewing a message, click the Labels button to add a label to the message. You can also click and drag a label from the left side, and drop it on the message.
orWhen writing a new message, click  More options in the bottom right corner of the compose window, click Label, and then select one of your labels.

Tip 2

Use customized filter to help you organize your inbox
Using Gmail filters are a way for you to automate the handling of incoming messages.  You can set the criteria for each filter and what action you want Gmail to take with a message that meets your criteria.  If you get a ton of emails from a specific source you can tell Gmail to automatically archive any message that comes from that source so you never have to see them again if you don’t want to.

To set up a Gmail filter, follow these steps:

Click the tiny “Create a filter” link beside the large button that says “Search the Web” at the top of the Gmail window
Specify the criteria that you want to use to sort your incoming messages
Click “Test Search” to see the messages that meet your criteria.  If you’re satisfied, click “Next Step.”  If not, change your criteria and click “Test Search” again
Choose the action that you want Gmail to take when you receive a message that matches your criteria
If you want to apply this filter to messages that you’ve already received (which I generally do), be sure to check the “Also apply filter to X conversations below”
Click the “Create Filter” button

Tip 3

Archive your emails to clean your inbox without deleting an email.
Archiving removes messages from your inbox, but keeps them in your account so that you can always find them later. Archiving is like moving messages into a filing cabinet for safekeeping, rather than putting them in the trash can.
Archiving your messages will let you clean up your inbox by getting messages out of your way.  Archived messages stay in your account in case you need to find a phone number in someone’s signature or you become famous and write a memoir.  When you delete a message (instead of archiving), it will be automatically and permanently deleted after about 30 days.

Tip 4

Use Google Labs to add cool new features to your gmail
Gmail labs allow you try out some experimental new functionality to your current Gmail account.  You can add the ability to undo a sent message, move the Gchat box to the right side of the screen, and a ton of other cool features.

Here are the simple steps to enable Gmail Labs features.

Sign into your Gmail account.
In the top right click “Settings”
Click the “Labs” tab
Click “Enable” on any feature you want
Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page

We will have another post soon about our favorite Gmail Labs.
Please remember though If you're going to brave the Labs world, it's important to keep the following things in mind about these features: They may break at any time.  They may disappear temporarily or permanently.  They may work so well that they graduate and become regular features.

Tip 5

Using Google Tasks you are able to keep track of the things that you need to do. You can create lists of items, set due dates and notes, and even add Gmail messages directly to Tasks. Create a task about a Gmail message using the keyboard shortcut Shift + T, or by choosing Add to Tasks from theMore menu above your Gmail conversation.

Bonus tip  

Have other emails delivered to your gmail inbox
If you’re like us Tech Ninjas you’ve got more than one email address.    You don’t want to spend all day logging in and out of different email addresses.  Gmail allows you to set it up so your other email accounts show up in the From: field of your emails.  For example, you can send an email from your work email address using Gmail and have the work address shows up in the From: line.

Here are the steps you need to take to add another account:

Sign into your Gmail account.
In the top right click “Settings”
Click the “Accounts and Import” tab
Under “Send mail as:” click “Send mail from another address”
Enter your name and the email address you wish to send from
Choose “Send through Gmail” if you don’t mind people occasionally knowing you are sending your email through Gmail.  Use “Send through *** SMTP servers” if people must always think you are not using Gmail
For the Gmail setup, they will send you a verification email with a link to click

Google Drive Tips: The Research Tool

CC imaged use from wikipedia.com

Today I wanted to talk to you about an under utilized feature of Google Drive, the built in research tool.  The built in research tool makes it so easy to add information from the web to your documents and presentations that you will be able to call yourself a tech ninja.  To access the research tool  choose Tools > Research. You can also select a word, right-click on it and select to Research it.

The Research panel opens on the right side of your document with information on the item you selected to research. The panel includes a search box where you can type the topic to research. Results appear in this pane, and you can choose Preview to look at a result. Click any found item to insert it into a document or presentation.Use the Research tool's dictionary to search for definitions, synonyms, and usage examples. You can use the tool for:

• Websites, which can be linked and cited in the footnotes with the click of a button
• Images, which can be dragged into documents and are automatically cited in the footnotes
• Quotations, which can be dragged into documents, linked to the original source and cited in the footnotes
• Articles from Google Scholar, which can be opened as PDFs or on the web, linked within the document and cited in the footnotes
• Map images, which can be dragged into documents

Now all of that is great, but the best part of the research tool is the ability to site your sources automatically.  I know this is especially helpful in the elementary school setting.  The first thing though is to select a default format for citations added to your document or presentation, click the drop-down arrow below the search bar. Use the drop-down menus to choose from MLA, APA, or Chicago citation formatting.  Your selected citation format is applicable to citations for web results, images, quotations and article citations.

So if you haven't check out this Google Drive feature, take a look and you might just be impressed with what you find.  

ChromeBooks in HCS

Hello Tech Ninjas! I was asked to do a short post on ChromeBooks in the district. I definitely see ChromeBooks as the device of the future for Harnett County Schools. We have purposely not made the foray into the ChromeBook world yet for two main reasons: 1) we were waiting for a more robust machine to come out that would work better in our environment; and 2) we were not sure that our staff as a whole was ready to go "all-in" with Google Apps.

I believe that Dell's release of a ChromeBook with 4GB of RAM and an 11-hour battery life helped to address the first concern. I have been using a Dell ChromeBook 11 since they were released and have been extremely impressed with the performance of the machine. Going from Off to On, logged in, and working in less than 20 seconds is definitely a strength of the device and one that our students and staff will, I am sure, appreciate. The battery life definitely sets the ChromeBook apart from any other laptop.

The second issue of staff readiness is a little more difficult to quantify, but I am confident that our planned staff development will adequately address it. ChromeBooks have been purchased for each Curriculum Director, Literacy Coach, Instructional Coach, Technology Facilitator, and Media Coordinator to allow these integral staff members to begin preparing for the transition to the new devices. Also, several 1:1 ChromeBook classrooms have been funded across the district and at each grade configuration so that some of our early adopters can put the devices through the paces in the classroom. It is also planned that the new Highland Middle School will open as a 1:1 ChromeBook school.

Like any device, there are certainly strengths and weaknesses of ChromeBooks. I feel confident that the strengths of the Dell ChromeBook 11 greatly outweigh its limitations - especially considering we can purchase between three and four of them for every Mac and/or PC laptop that we typically purchase. It will certainly be interesting to see how the deployment of large numbers of ChromeBooks go in the future, but I strongly believe that the devices can be used in an instructionally appropriate manner to engage our students and further their education.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at jpittman@harnett.k12.nc.us.

Thanks!
Jeff Pittman
Chief Technology Officer
Harnett County Schools

Heart Bleed: What is it and How to Avoid a Broken Heart

Millions of passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information may be at risk as a result of a major breakdown in Internet security revealed earlier this week.  The damage caused by the “Heartbleed” bug (note this is not a virus and normal security software will not catch it) is currently unknown. There isn’t much that people can do to protect themselves until the affected websites implement a fix.

What is the Heartbleed bug?

Heartbleed is a flaw in OpenSSL, the open-source encryption standard used by the majority of websites that need to transmit the data that users want to keep secure. It basically gives you a secure line when you're sending an email or chatting on IM.

Encryption works by making it so that data being sent looks like nonsense to anyone but the intended recipient.  Occasionally, one computer might want to check that there's still a computer at the end of its secure connection, and it will send out what's known as a heartbeat, a small packet of data that asks for a response. 

Because of a programming error in the implementation of OpenSSL, the researchers found that it was possible to send a well-disguised packet of data that looked like one of these heartbeats to trick the computer at the other end into sending data stored in its memory.

According to the researchers who discovered the flaw, the security hole exists on a vast number of the Internet’s Web servers and went undetected for more than two years. While it’s conceivable that the flaw was never discovered by hackers, it’s nearly impossible to tell.

Q: Am I safe now that it's been identified?

A: It depends on the website. A fixed version of OpenSSL has been released, but it’s up to the individual website administrators to put it into place.  Yahoo Inc., which has more than 800 million users around the world, said Tuesday that most of its popular services — including sports, finance and Tumblr — had been fixed, but work was still being done on other products that it didn’t identify.

Q: So what can I do to protect myself?

A: Ultimately, you’ll need to change your passwords, but that won’t do any good until the sites you use adopt the fix. It’s also up to the Internet services affected by the bug to let users know of the potential risks and encourage them to change their passwords.  Mashable has list some of the most popular websites and tells if they were affected and if they have patched their site yet.

Now you are able to check to see if the websites that you use that have been patched.  You can go to https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ and paste in the link for the website you want to test.  I wouldn't test the homepage of the site, but rather the login in page.

Tips for changing passwords

(from ConnectSafely.org)

Don’t fall for “phishing” attacks: Be very careful before clicking on a link (even if it appears to be from a legitimate site) asking you to log in, change your password or provide any other personal information. It might be legit or it might be a “phishing” scam where the information you enter goes to a hacker. When in doubt, log on manually by typing what you know to be the site’s URL into your browser window.

Never give out your password to anyone (except your parents). Never give it to friends, even if they’re really good friends. A friend can – accidentally, we hope – pass your password along to others or even become an ex-friend and abuse it.

Don’t just use one password. It’s possible that someone working at a site where you use that password could pass it on or use it to break into your accounts at other sites.

Create passwords that are easy to remember but hard for others to guess. When possible, use a phrase such as “I started 7th grade at Lincoln Middle School in 2004” and use the initial of each word like this: “Is7gaLMSi2004.”

Make the password at least 8 characters long. The longer the better. Longer passwords are harder for thieves to crack.

Include numbers, capital letters and symbols. Consider using a $ instead of an S or a 1 instead of an L, or including an & or % – but note that $1ngle is NOT a good password. Password thieves are onto this. But Mf$1avng (short for “My friend Sam is a very nice guy) is an excellent password.

Don’t use dictionary words:  If it’s in the dictionary, there is a chance someone will guess it. There’s even software that criminals use that can guess words used in dictionaries.

Don’t post it in plain sight: This might seem obvious but studies have found that a lot of people post their password on their monitor with a sticky note. Bad idea.  If you must write it down, hide the note somewhere where no one can find it.

Consider using a password manager: Programs or Web services like RoboForm (Windows only) or Lastpass (Windows and Mac) let you create a different very strong password for each of your sites. But you only have to remember the one password to access the program or secure site that stores your passwords for you.

Make sure your computer is secure: The best password in the world might not do you any good if someone is looking over your shoulder while you type or if you forget to log out on a cybercafe computer. Malicious software, including “keyboard loggers” that record all of your keystrokes, has been used to steal passwords and other information. To increase security, make sure you’re using up-to-date anti-malware software and that your operating system is up-to-date.

So what do the Tech Ninja's recommend?

1. First follow the Tech Ninja Blog 
2. Make a list of the websites that you use that use a password (and group them together if you use the same password)
3. Do a Google search to see if the websites have been patched from Heart Bleed
4. Check https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/ and see if any websites were you store personal or financial information is safe.
5. Change your passwords to a secure, unique password.  Check out our post on Last Pass to see why this would be such a great resource to use.  LastPass will not only alert you to which sites are vulnerable, but also tell you the last time you updated your password for the site, when that site last updated their certificates and what action we recommend taking at this time.

Google Fun for Google Ninjas

Image by Simon

www.flickr.com

            We have spend a lot of time helping you get ready to become a Google Ninja, you are now ready and its time to really have some fun and impress your less Ninjaish friends.  Now with many of these you have to Google the phrase and then click I’m Feeling Lucky Button (or just click the first link, it does the same thing)

Google “do a barrel roll” and go back to those days playing Starfox

Google “Zerg Rush” –Now  I was never a big Starcraft fan, but still fun.

Google “gravity” and click I’m feeling Lucky-  I just hope you don’t break Google.

Google “tilt” and click I’m feeling Lucky-  is my chair lopsided?

Google “the Loneliest Number” and the calculator indicates that the result is 1. Ok, slightly corny.

Google “Elmer Fudd” and click I’m feeling. Also works with Klingon and Pig Latin.

 Google “elgoog” and click I’m feeling.

I know the biggest worry of you day has to do with the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.  To make your day less stressful just Google the name of the celebrity you are interested followed by “bacon number”

Go to Google translate at http://translate.google.com/ and copy and paste in pv zk bschk zk kkkkkkk  (you can paste it in as many times as you want).  The live your dreams of rocking the beatbox.

http://translate.google.com/

pv zk bschk zk kkkkkkk  beatbox

Don’t forget that besides from just following the blog you can like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thetechninjablog/111528315703424, follow us on Twitter @Tech_Ninja_Blog  and now subscribe to our YouTube channel  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYzFJ-VbCBBNKqu5sWH8KDg. 

This Weeks Tech Rumors- Ninja Style April 28th- May 4th

Image by Hector Gomez

openclipart.org

The UK’s New Copyright law

http://newrisingmedia.com/all/2013/5/1/new-uk-image-copyright-law-allows-anyone-to-use-uploaded-ima.html

           The Enterprise Regulatory and Reform Act was enacted on May 2, 2013 which allows photos that are published to the Internet can be used by anyone if the owner of the photo cannot be found after a “diligent” search or explicitly stated in the photo’s metadata.  Why is this important for a Tech Ninja, first it looses copyright laws in that will allow more works to be used in projects for schools and education, second it harms artists and photographers who post their work to the internet.  I believe the real test will be the definition of what a diligent search is.

Xbox TV or Xbox Mini

http://everydaydigitals.com/heres-what-i-think/1/yi772fdl0lkgo56zpeydqp0sjf0jdp

This article is just what the author thinks Microsoft might do with the Xbox going forward.  It makes logical sense with his points, but I don’t think that Microsoft wants to cannibalize themselves.   Why is this important to a Tech Ninja, because with increased completion for turning living rooms smart will lead to better products and options.

Facebook Loses Millions of Users

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/28/facebook-loses-users-biggest-markets

             I am over Facebook as a social network (but not a social news site) and it turns out I am not the only one.  In the last 6 months 9 million Facebook users in the US and

2 million Facebook users in UK left.  Why is this important for Tech Ninja?  Its important because it shows how fickle consumers can be with technology and how companies have to be careful with how they monetize their product.  When I log onto Facebook all I see is pictures of random with funny sayings.  I get very few updates of what friends and family are doing anymore and that’s why I signed up in the first place, not to see recipes or what game you are playing. 

Google Fiber Increase Completion

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514176/google-fibers-ripple-effect/

            In Kansas City very few people have signed up for Google Fiber’s offering one-gigabit Internet connections—nearly 100 times faster than the U.S. average—for $70 per month, or $120 with television service, a Nexus 7 tablet remote, two terabytes of DVR storage, plus another a terabyte of cloud storage.  Yet their overall Internet speed increased because the companies already established increased their offerings to consumers.  Why is this important to a Tech Ninja?  Increased completion brings more choices as I stated earlier.  The US is far behind in internet speed compared to other developed countries with no real reason why we are so slow compared to other parts of the world.

Free Home Phone Service with Google Voice + Obihai

            I will be the first to say that I do not do much with Google Voice, I mainly just give out that number if I don’t want to give out my main number when signing up for services.  I also cut the cord on my home phone about two years ago, but haven’t found an option that I want to use to replace it, with this I just might.  Why is this important for a Tech Ninja?  With Obihai ($40) and a Google Voice you have free home phone.  Only caveat if Google decides to charge for Google Voice, they haven’t yet, but always could.

http://technutz.com/?p=1424

Force Electric Feedback – Getting shocked while playing games, the next big thing?

http://www.vyralize.com/1677/force-electric-feedback-getting-shocked-while-playing-games-the-next-thing/

What’s going to be the next new thing with gaming?  First it was playing at home, then playing on the go, then moving while playing.  Next getting shock?  I don’t know how appealing that sounds, but it will bring a new intensity to games.  They are developing 4DX movies that use smells and water vapor to immerse you into the movie, why not physical feedback.  Why is this important for a tech ninja?  This is important because this is just showing another way for you interact with your tech.

Don’t forget that besides from just following the blog you can like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thetechninjablog/111528315703424, follow us on Twitter @Tech_Ninja_Blog  and now subscribe to our YouTube channel  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYzFJ-VbCBBNKqu5sWH8KDg. 

Step Twelve to Becoming a GOOGLE Ninja- Everyday living

Image By Simon

www.flickr.com

            If you can master Google, you are well on your way to becoming a tech ninja or at least impressing your friends.  You have made it through twelve lessons so far and todays lesson is the easiest one yet.  What’s the weather by you?  You don’t need a separate website, just Google “(your place) weather”.  The same thing if you need to find the time in another place, Google (location) time”.  Just a quicker way to get the information that you need. 

Don’t forget that besides from just following the blog you can like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thetechninjablog/111528315703424, follow us on Twitter @Tech_Ninja_Blog  and now subscribe to our YouTube channel  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYzFJ-VbCBBNKqu5sWH8KDg.