Soft Technology

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So, we hope everyone who reads the friEdTechnology OR Brenham ISD blog is ready to have their minds blown!  By Guest Blogger Tom Spall, find him on Twitter  @Tommyspall I would like to thank two incredibly smart, Google- tastic friends: Jessica Powell and Amy Mayer from FriEdTechnology for this blog post! It's awesome what happens when folks put their minds together! #PLN In a recent Brenham Tech Daily blog post we discussed the new G-Suite update to Google Slides where you can now upload a video straight from your Google Drive into your Slide Presentation. Jessica Powell has taken this a step forward and decided to turn her presentations into voice-navigated (self-paced) presentations. The practical use for this in education and/or self-paced training is enormous. Just think of educators conducting training sessions online using this method. Or students taking a self-paced, voice-navigated test at their own speed. Every day Google is allowing for us to change the game in e...

Thank you guys for asking what sessions I was offering at this year's TCEA conference! Here's my schedule below. I hope to see you at all of the friEdTechnology Team sessions!

Until I started researching for this infographic, I didn't even know some of these handy URLs existed. Did you? Do you have one to add? Let me know in the comments! Thanks, Amy Version 4... Download various versions of this file here

Google Streeview, as explained here The Cardboard app itself ( Android , iPhone ) which includes the following . . .  Earth: Fly where your fancy takes you on Google Earth Tour Guide: Visit Versailles with a local guide My Videos: Watch your videos on a massive screen Exhibit: Examine cultural artifacts from every angle Photo Sphere: Look around the photo spheres you've captured Watch YouTube videos in 360, here are some videos to try out The New York Times VR stories located here Titans of Space Guide to the Planets ( Android ) Orbulous, which the makers describe as “just looking at things.” What things? Greenbot reports “You’ll see vivid, 360-degree photos from around the world, whether it’s mingling amidst tourists on aging architecture, looking out over a city surrounded by sparkling blue water, or even taking in the sights within a museum. A small bit of background noise adds to the immersion.” ( Android ) Polar Sea 360° is a 10 part television series and interactive journe...

If you've been curious about the Google Expeditions Pioneer program but your school hasn't been chosen for a visit, you can check out a little known feature right now that is very much like Expeditions! All you need is Google Cardboard  (literally a viewmaster made of cardboard), which you can buy here or lots of other places, and an app on your smartphone called Google Streetview, Android / iOS . Next, open the Streetview App on your phone and tap the Explore area: Want to make sure your Cardboard viewer works optimally with your smartphone? Tap this settings button from within any panorama . . . Then click "Setup." Hope you enjoyed this, if you did, please share it or let me know in the comments!

Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here . Try it out! Click this link to take a copy of the file . This technique also works on other Google filetypes (Sheets and Slides). Original URL: https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/edit?usp=sharing Edited URL (the Force Copy URL): https://docs.google.com/a/friedtechnology.com/document/d/1CqUbWOHedWr9WiLO7M4aM9IIDPple1HhDGSx23tzerA/copy

More Add-Ons for Edu can be found at http://goo.gl/0YJ8Og and http://goo.gl/Yj8WoM Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here . How to get Add-Ons: Open a Google file Click Add-Ons Search for or Choose the Add-On you Want Click the Blue Button that says +FREE  Use the Add-On by clicking "Add-ons" from the menu bar in your file

More Add-Ons for Edu can be found at http://goo.gl/0YJ8Og and http://goo.gl/Yj8WoM Can't see the image via email? Visit the blog here .

If you're headed to #TCEA15 this year, I look forward to seeing you there! Please check out my schedule below and let's catch up if we get a chance.

Autocrat is a ROBOT that does your work for you. You heard me right. It's like Rosie from the Jetsons. If you don't take a few minutes to learn this, you're literally working HARDER not SMARTER, so come on y'all, who wants to do this? Stay late today, watch, then save TONS of time later when Autocrat is working for you. Watch the Video Here   if you don't see it below Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and get Videos Delivered to your Inbox As you can see, learning Autocrat is just like hiring the gal below without all the interpersonal drama. Do it. 

If you've been wondering what Google Classroom is (or is NOT), this video from moi is for you! Should you get ready for implementation? Can you replace your current system with Classroom? This video will help you answer those burning questions. Then, join the discussion below this post on Google+ to share how your school is using Classroom to improve instruction. Also, don’t forget to install the free Synergyse training for Classroom by visiting https://www.synergyse.com/ and clicking the large green Install button!

TabCloud is my FAVORITE Google Chrome Extension. It allows me to upload a set of tabs then open them on a different computer, at a different time, or just after restarting my computer. INDISPENSABLE! If you enjoy it, please share this post or like and share the YouTube video.  Click here to install TabCloud

As you may have heard, Google Apps for Education recently released Google Classroom. While it is NOT a Learning Management System (LMS), it does simplify procedures for teachers sharing files with students. Most notably, it automatically creates a copy of a specified file from Google Drive for each student within an organizational structure then allows students to "turn in" those files virtually, which changes the permissions of the file from student-owned back to teacher-owned. Students retain view rights. If you're looking for a tool to simplify and save time when using Google Apps for Education with your students, it's arrived! Hope you enjoy this hastily made video. Please leave comments if you have questions, and I'll do my best to get back to you.

You may have noticed some pretty significant changes to Google Drive lately, but if you haven't, no doubt you will as you begin the 2014-15 school year. Here's a great overview from Alice Keeler's blog and here's one in video form from me. Hope these help you get started on the right foot!

Themes may not be essential to using Chrome, but they sure are fun! Learn how to get and change your theme then see how to install extremely useful utilities into your Chrome browser. For email subscribers, see the video here . 

by Brian McLane Twitter: @brian_mclane Website: techmantraining.com Secondary Educator - 32 years, Ed-Tech Junkie, MA Teaching & Learning with Technology, “Head in the Cloud; Caught in the Web” Chromebooks for Graphic Design? I teach a high school desktop publishing class which includes graphic design, page layout, image editing, and more. We can use Chromebooks for almost everything we do. And we use completely free cloud software to do it. No Adobe Creative Suite, no Microsoft Office, no expensive, high-learning-curve software. Should I be teaching industry-standard software? Why ? I teach the concepts; the tools don't really matter. My students can learn the basics in the numerous free Google Apps and Web-based applications that are available for graphic design. Let's take a look! Image Editing One of the first things my students need to learn is image editing. Google Apps offers more image editors than we will ever need! Our go-to app is Pixlr . We use the Pixlr Editor,...

The Techs4Tex team spent a fast-paced and exciting day today in Brenham, TX preparing for the upcoming Texas Google Summit coming up May 17, 2104. We began by laying out the schedule (about 20 concurrent sessions). Below is Brenham ISD Tech Director Kim Strauss breaking rules by drawing on the table with a dry erase marker, which amazed us all . . . Also pictured Shepherd ISD's Tech Diva Pam Cadwalder, Brenham ISD Instructional Technology Specialist Troy Kuhn,  Coldspring-Oakhurst Consolidated ISD's awesome ELA specialist Laura Kile. There were also a bunch of other awesome people present, just so you know. We emailed with our keynote speaker Kyle Pace (so excited to have him visit us in TX), and more of our big stars including Shelly Terrell and Tim Chase . We also added a few of these guys who are kind of a big deal to our Lead Learners page, but there are so many amazing presenters sharing their knowledge it was hard to know where to stop. One of the sessions I'm mo...

Above is an embedded Google Presentation with full view access shared via Google Drive. If you don't see it, try this link . Please feel free to use it with your staff. I'd love to hear from you in the comments if you do.