Tech Tip Tuesday: Screencast Video for Teachers

I’ve been meaning to write this tip for a while now. With the pandemic raging and schools closing – at least temporarily – it seems like a good time to get this posted.

Teachers will need ways to connect with students while leading remote learning. One quick and easy way to communicate is through the use of screencast videos.

My favorite free tool for this is the chrome extension Screencastify. it’s easy to use, saves automatically to your Google Drive and integrates with Google Classroom and YouTube. From now until April 30, they are offering their “Unlimited” plan for free to educators. The Unlimited plan has advanced editing, unlimited length recordings, and other cool features. To get the code and see how to upgrade, watch the video below.

How to Get Started

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Tech Tip Tuesday: Google for Education Teacher Center

Google for Education has a fabulous site for teachers that want to improve their skills using GSuite apps. You can find it here: Teacher Center. Chock full of training resources for not only improving your skill with every GSuite tool, but also for support in using those tools in your classroom with students.

There is an entire series on the “First Day” with Docs, Slides, Forms, Classroom, Expeditions, and Jamboard. It has tools, tips, and tricks written by teachers for teachers.

Already using GSuite tools with your students? Get Google Certified and get the training and support you need to do so right here: Google Teacher Center Certifications. There is support for Educator Level 1 and Level 2, Certified Trainer, Certified Innovator, even G Suite Certification for your students!

Looking for lesson ideas and inspiration? Take a look at the Resources section in the teacher center. Have a great lesson you want to share? You can submit it here, too! You can filter by Category, Author, Theme, Product, Audience, Subject Area, and Language to find exactly what you are looking for!

Take a look – I’m sure you’ll find something to use in your classroom!


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Tech Tip Tuesday: Using a Google Form for Collecting Work and Giving Quick & Easy Feedback

Google Forms are great for exit tickets, quick assessments, surveys, and even differentiation. It’s probably my favorite GSuite app because of its potential to help teachers and schools be more efficient.

The end of the semester is looming and teachers are looking for ways to collect student work done outside of their LMS – like student portfolios. Google Forms might very well be the answer!

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Tech Tip Tuesday: Annotate Easier by Moving Google Slides to Keynote on Your iPad

Today’s tip is for teachers who have an iPad and TV and want to recapture the annotation functionality they had with an interactive whiteboard.

More and more secondary schools are moving away from interactive whiteboards and to large-screen televisions and iPads. Overall, I’m in favor of the move, but it doesn’t come without some pain points.

One of the biggest pain points is the loss of the ability to write directly on the board. Specifically, the annotation of presentations has to be done differently. In the five minute video below, I walk you through going from a Google Slide presentation on your iPad to Keynote and then using Keynote’s drawing tools to annotate.

For this to look exactly as you see in the video, upgrade your iOS to 13.1.3 and be running the most recent version of Keynote on your iPad.


Want to keep up with new blog posts, tech tips, and other content? Subscribe below and receive an email when new content is posted here. As a thank you, we’ll send you a free Google Form + Google MyMaps activity you can use with your students tomorrow.

No spam, ever. No address selling either. Ever.

Tech Tip Tuesday: “Hidden” Tools in Google Docs

Google Docs has grown immensely in functionality since its debut in 2006. The app isn’t just a word processor anymore. In this post, we’ll take a look at three features of google docs that are hidden in plain sight: Voice Typing, the Dictionary, and the Explore tool.

Google Docs Student Writing Tech Tips

Voice Typing

Do you have students that have a hard time getting their words from their brains onto a google doc because the dexterity to type isn’t there? Or maybe you have a student that is staring at a blank page and “can’t think of what to write.” Or students that are dyslexic or dysgraphic and need support when it comes to writing?

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Tech Tip Tuesday: Grade Transferer

UPDATE: Sept 12, 2019: The huge response of teachers wanting to use this really cool extension to be more efficient and save their sanity has resulted in the need to update the extension. It is not currently available for download/install. The target date for the new and improved extension is Sept 20, 2019.

Ever since Google Classroom debuted, teachers have asked me if there is a way to import grades from Classroom to Infinite Campus. The answer has always been no. Until now. Enter Grade Transferer.

The Chrome extension Grade Transferer now makes it possible to transfer grades from Google Classroom to Infinite Campus, Genesis, Power Teacher Pro, and Aspen (MyFollett).

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