FYI from Google if you create your own Google Templates

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

Google logo
Hello Administrators,

Your organization has custom templates in the woisd.net Google Drive Template Gallery. We’ve phased out this gallery. To help make your templates easier to organize, you can now create custom templates individually in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. The old Template Gallery will be removed on or after February 15, 2017.

What you need to do

Before February 15:

You and your users should review the templates stored individually in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. For details, see Use your work or school template gallery.
If any templates that you need are missing, submit the templates. Any administrator can update template categories in the Google Admin console. Organizations with G Suite Business (formerly Google Apps Unlimited) can control who can submit and approve templates.
If I do nothing, what will happen?

Any users who try to access the old Template Gallery in Drive will be redirected to Docs and only see the templates that have been submitted.

If users bookmarked specific templates, will those stop working?

Bookmarked templates will continue to work, but we strongly encourage you to submit the templates so others can use them.

Can I control who submits templates for my organization?

Organizations with G Suite Business (formerly Google Apps Unlimited) can control who can submit and approve templates.

If you have additional questions or need assistance, please contact Google Support.

Sincerely,

The G Suite Team

Using Google Drive Offline

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

It’s been a few years since I posted the steps on how to setup student Chromebooks to utilize Google Drive offline without the Internet. Below is a video that shows the steps with the latest menu updates from Google.

Google Drive as a Backup Option

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

Saving/Backing up to Google Drive

This is the quick way to do a one time backup of your files to Google Drive. It is not going to back up your programs. This will just store a copy of your files that you want to have a copy of saved elsewhere. (NOTE: If you prefer to constantly have your files backed up to Google Drive automatically, install Google Drive on your computer and start saving all of your content into the folder it adds to your computer. This will give you a copy on your computer and an exact duplicate on Drive.)

Easiest Method:

Go to http://drive.google.com

If you are not logged in already, log into your school account.

Click on New

Click on Folder Upload

Select the folder you want uploaded (Documents, Pictures, Music)

You can only upload one folder at a time. Whatever is in that folder will upload.

Click Upload (progress meter is in bottom right corner)

Repeat for additional files/folders.

If you want to upload everything at once:

Create a new folder on your desktop with an easy to remember name like the current date (Control click on the desktop and select New Folder)

Put all of the folders and files you want to save into that folder (Documents, Photos, Music, etc)

Go to http://drive.google.com

If you are not logged in already, log into your school account.

Click on New

Click on Folder Upload

Select the folder you want uploaded

Click Upload (progress meter is in bottom right corner)

Converting Typed & Handwritten Notes into a Google Doc

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

You have those times where you have lots of notes that were typed or handwritten and handed off to you. You wished they were in an electronic format so you can personalize them or edit them for other use. Google now has a way to help you out with that. Obviously, the handwriting portion depends on the quality of handwriting, but it will handle the typed text very well. Just use your phone, iPad, or computer to grab a photo and follow the directions below.

Thanks to the good folks over at the Google Gooru for this great tutorial video.

Revision History in Google

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

Doing collaborative work in Google is simple and very efficient. Say you are working with colleagues building PBL units or common planning documents and someone remembers they deleted a big section two days ago that they really wish was still there. Or, you are just monitoring Documents/Slides/Sheets being built collaboratively between students and one student says they have been adding content but somehow it is magically disappearing. Besides, it is great to know who is doing what work. What do you do? You use Revision History to see the living history of that item. This great video below will walk you through how it works and advanced options.

Budget Lesson in Google Sheets

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

Do you have a unit or lesson where students have to present a budget? They should give Google Sheets a try for that process. This short video gives you an idea as to how easy it is and what options they have with the data.

Undo Send in Email

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

Have you ever hit the Send button on an email just to realize that you either misspelled something or forgot to mention something else? Well, you can add a nice little feature in your email that lets you Undo the Send if you choose to within 10 seconds. Here’s another short video from the Google Gooru on how to do just that.

Keeping Students Informed

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

We all know the feeling. The students show up to class, you tell them to put away everything but a pencil because it’s test time, and they groan and announce they knew nothing about the test. Right.

Your students have Google accounts. Why not add those major events to your Google Calendar and “invite” the students. This gives you two more points of documentation of the event: it sends them an email telling them it’s been added, and it adds it to their school Google Calendar. Add to the fact it’s probably on your blog in lesson plans and has been announced repeatedly in class, and you’ve covered more ground than anyone would expect.

If you create Groups in your mail Contact list ahead of time (learn how HERE), this process is made even more simple than it already is. You’d just type the name of the Group and the entire list is populated automatically.

Let the Google Gooru walk you through how easy it is to keep your students informed of major events using Google Calendar.

Common Planning Time Assistance

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

There always seems to be the need to meet with your team, and you end up standing in the hall between classes trying to find who is available when. Well, let Google Calendar do the work for you with the Find Available Time option. If your team keeps their calendars up to date, this will save you loads of time. Let the Google Gooru walk you through the steps.

Creating Appointment Slots on Your Google Calendar

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Scott S. Floyd, M.Ed.

This is a great, short tutorial from the Google Gooru on creating appointment time slots on your Google Calendar. Keep in mind, you have to be in either Week or Day view so you can select the time slots you want in order for Appointments option to be available. Also, Those picking slots have to have Google accounts themselves since it will automatically collect their name for you.

This would be excellent for any number of classroom or school based functions:

reserving a time slot for writer’s conference with teacher
reserving device cart
reserving computer lab
reserving ThinkLab (our innovative learning space)
tutoring or extra help
PBL presentation sign-up
and more!

Tech Tutorials

Category Archives: Google