Soft Technology

Hi there, educators! I hope you enjoy this tutorial showing how to make certificates using Autocrat 3.0, which is quite different, and I think much easier, than the previous version. If you like it, please share it with others on social media, subscribe to you YouTube channel or leave a comment. Thanks in advance!

In this guide, Mike Wallace and Amy Mayer seek to provide you with all the knowledge you need as a PARENT, TEACHER or GAFE SYS ADMIN to get the most out of Google Classroom Guardian Summaries. We sure hope it helps! If it does, please share this post and encourage your colleagues to get on our email list here . All materials referred to in this post can be found here . PARENTS: If your child's school is using Google Classroom and has enabled Guardian Summaries, your job is easy. All you have to do is click "Accept" when you receive the email from ...@classroom.google.com. It will look something like the screenshot you see below: After you click the blue ACCEPT button, you'll get an option to choose the frequency of the emails you receive (daily or weekly) and your time zone. Presumably, this will keep the summaries from coming to you at 3 a.m. and waking you up.  If you don't get the invite, check your email's SPAM folder. The email should come from a "no...

Part 2 of the series "Get your Computer Ready For Summer" explores the best way to upload ALL your files (or a whole bunch of files) over a longer period of time without having to drag and drop or babysit the process. We'll do this using the downloaded version of Google Drive which you'll install on your computer. This video is for educators who need to back up their files so that their computers can be refreshed for the summer. Don't lose your valuable files, back up now to the cloud! This technique will also let you access your files from any computer or from your phone. Links you'll need: https://www.google.com/drive/download/ http://bit.ly/FileStorageGoogle

This is not going to be popular. Administrators are going to contact me in protest. My own husband might not approve of this post. But I'm going to say it anyway: stop the teacher dress code war. If a teacher wants to wear jeans to work, make it okay in your policies. Don't force her to "earn it" as a "prize" or wear a "spirit shirt." If a teacher can't earn the respect of parents, students, and community, it's not because of her wardrobe. Also, khakis can look just as sloppy as jeans, so stop saying it's about jeans. Also, why is polyester the only acceptable administrative fabric? Teachers, I dare you, give out "poly passes" to the admins in your life. If they do a good job, let them wear their polyester pants on Fridays . . . but only if they wear a spirit shirt.

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 .

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.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately in preparation for the first upcoming Engage Me Academy. Here's one thing I learned . . .

Since my first year as a teacher in 1997 I've been deeply interested in how to get students interested in learning what I wanted and needed them to learn. Lately I learned what I was striving for had a name that has become quite the buzz word in education; I wanted students to become ENGAGED. Eventually I developed a knack for understanding what choices left to my students would most likely lead to this state. Each educational book I read, and really each terrible staff development session I attended, helped me refine my understanding of exactly how to design engaging lessons and staff development events.  I want to help you learn to do the same, and to that end, I'm developing a new 3 1/2 day academy to help teachers learn how to get human nature working with them instead of against them. If you want to know more or sign up to get information, please visit http://www.EngageMeAcademy.org   Feel free to download this image, print it out, and use it however you want. There will ...

Last week I visited a school district and saw the most intriguing device. It looked something like the thing on the right. Until I got back home and Googled it, I didn't know what it was called, and so in discussion, it quickly became dubbed the "Teacher Evaluatron 5000." (Nice one, Matthew.) The district had purchased one of these panoramic camera devices per campus so that teachers' classrooms could be recorded and they could then be evaluated from offices far away. My immediate, gut reaction to this was, "How horrible and depersonalizing." I asked a couple of district employees what teachers thought of the device. One of them replied something like, "Well, they should like it, but nobody likes to be evaluated, so they don't like it because it's an evaluation tool." The other employee said something like, "Teachers hate it. They're leaving the district because the way this system is used is dehumanizing." I wonder what you ...

Doctopus lets teachers automatically create copies of shared documents and distribute them to students in Google Docs. If you are struggling with managing Google Docs in your classes, here you go! I always thought Doctopus was sorta technical and nerdy, but guys, it's NOT, it's awesome! It's as easy as Flubaroo. Check out Katie Grassel 's great tutorial below and see for yourself. Thanks so much Katie! Also, check out these Doctopus Updates  and learn about other helpful scripts (like Goobric--distributes copies of your rubric) from youpd.