Instagram Template with Google Slides

*Update - See the new updated Instagram Template here.

For better or for worse, students are all over Social Media - so why not give them a little of what they love mixed in with the learning?  My friend Ryan O'Donnell, (@creativeedtech), is quite talented with creating templates and he made an Instagram post template in Google Slides that caught my eye and sparked my imagination.  There are so many fun ways to use this in the classroom!  You can get a copy of his template by clicking the link I provide at the end of this post.  You can also find my updated templates for 2019 and 2022. Here is a glance at what he created:

How could you use this in the classroom, you ask?  Here are a few examples:

Summarizing chapters or sections of a book:
It takes quite a bit of skill to boil a summary down to a few sentences that truly capture the main ideas of a chapter.  Students can create a Slides file from the template where each slide becomes the summary for each section of text you assign.  They will need to choose a screen handle and profile picture that are appropriate for the character they are impersonating.  They will also choose a picture and some text for their "post".  This is an example for Chapter 1 of Charlotte's Web.

Baby pig photo from Michael Kappel

Responding to a historical event:

Students will need to choose a screen handle and picture appropriate for the historical person they are impersonating.  They will find a profile picture and "post" some text. This can be used to summarize an event or show their understanding of an event and/or its importance. 

Animal Study:

Students will take on the perspective of the animal and make posts to show their knowledge of that animal's life, habits, habitat, and diet, etc.  Think of something like "If an iguana had Instagram".  I'll tell you what, I learned quite a bit about Iguanas while creating these "posts" for this example!

Wild Plum photo from Forest and Kim Starr

Some other ideas are:

• Highlight a scientific discovery or invention
• Make a post that a book character would make about a certain event from the story if they had an Instagram account and lived in our day and age
• Make a post to show their knowledge of why a noteworthy person is well known
• Assume the role of Social Media manager for a specific state and make multiple posts showing the important things about your state, including all the things you might include in a state report

There are so many ways to utilize this type of template.  I'd love to hear how you decide to use it, and so would Ryan!  Feel free to tweet it out and tag us both (@TeachingTechNix and @creativeedtech).

You can get a copy of Ryan's original Instagram template by clicking here and view my 2019 template here.  I've recently updated the template with a new 2022 version, which you can view here. On the page that opens up, click the blue "Use Template" button in the upper right corner.

Check out Ryan's website for more amazing templates for all sorts of fun things.

*If you liked this Instagram template, you might also like my Fake Tweet Template.

Force a Copy of a Google Doc

There are times when you need to give your students - or maybe even your colleagues - a copy of a Google Doc.  Perhaps it is a template they need to fill out or some other type of assignment or plan that they need their own copy of so they can edit it and make it their own.  Rather than asking them to go in and go to File-->Make a copy, you can edit your link so that it will prompt them to make a copy as soon as they click on the link.

All you need to do is change your sharing settings so that the person will be able to have "view" access to the file.  You can do this by clicking on the blue "Share" button on the top right corner of your document.

If you are doing this for just a few people, type their names in and their accounts will pop up for you.  Here is the difference - be sure to click on the "Advanced" link at the bottom of the sharing settings window.

Clicking on "Advanced" will add some new options to the window.  Be sure to uncheck the box that says to "Notify people" - you don't want them to get an email letting them know you shared the file with them.  You want them to click on the link you are going to send them separately.  Once you've unchecked the box, you can click on the blue "OK" button to save the changes.

​If you are sharing with a whole class or a large group of people - the easiest way to accomplish the correct sharing privileges is to click on the blue "Share" button and then click "Advanced" just like I showed above.  You'll notice it says the access is set to Private - Only you can access.  You'll see a blue "Change" link just to the right.  Click on that.

Change the link sharing to be "Anyone at [your organization] with the link" and be sure the access level is set to "Can view".  (This will only work if you are sharing with people who all have email addresses belonging to your organization.  If you are sharing outside your organization, choose "Anyone with the link" instead.) Then click the blue "Save" button.  Sharing this way won't notify anyone via email.  It will just allow anyone with an organization email address to have view only access to the file - but only if they have the link.

Whether you shared with a few specific people, or anyone at your organization, once you click "Save" it will go back to the general sharing options window.  You will see that it now shows the access you just selected.  At the top of the window will be the URL link you need to copy and paste to give to whomever you wish to share the file.  Once you have copied the URL you can click the blue "Done" button.

Now is where we edit the link so that it will prompt people to make a copy instead of taking them into the file.  You'll want to make a hyperlink for your students or colleagues to click on so they can see a phrase of your choice as the link instead of the ugly URL - if you need instructions on making a hyperlink - click here to see how.

When you paste your URL into the hyperlink it will look something like this:

Near the end of the URL you will see "/edit" with some other text after it.

Delete everything after the / and change it to say "copy".

That's it!  Now when some one clicks on the link - it will take them to this screen - prompting them to make a copy of your document.  When they click "Make a copy", it will make a copy, save the file to their Google Drive, and allow them to begin editing their own copy of the document.

This can come in very handy to avoid any confusion when people need a copy of your Google Docs.

Google Drawings: More Useful Than You Think

You've probably heard of Google Drawings, but have you taken a few moments to play with it?  If you haven't taken the time to explore it, try it out.  I promise you'll be impressed.

To start a new drawing, open up your Google Drive and click on the red "New" button.  Then choose "More" and click on "Google Drawings" in the list.  You can also just browse to drawings.google.com.

When it first opens, you will be presented with a blank drawing canvas.  Here is what it looks like.  I've given you some notes about what you see.

A few tips:

• Resize your canvas - If you want to do a more specific resize of your canvas, click on "File" and choose "Page setup" from the menu.  It will pop up a box for you to choose your setting. 

• Make hyperlinks - When you insert shapes and text, you can hyperlink those items so that they become clickable links.  Simply select the item and you will see more options pop into the toolbar.  Click on the chain link icon and you can paste in the URL you wish to link to.  Keep in mind these items won't be hyperlinks if you download as an image, but they will if you download as a .pdf or leave it as a drawings file.

• Use the grey workspace - The whole grey area around your canvas is usable space.  You can put text, shapes, images, and lines in the grey space to clear out your canvas while you work.  Just drag items over and leave them there until you need them.  If you download your drawing as an image, only the items on the canvas will be shown.  When you save and share as a Google drawing file, everything in the grey space saves, too.  The neat thing about this is that you can create a drawing with items on the side and share it with your students.  Then they can use the items you provided to complete an assignment without cluttering up the canvas.  

• Download your image - You can download your creation for use in many different ways.  Click "File" and choose "Download as" from the menu.  You can choose to download as a .pdf, .svg, .png, or a .jpg.   

• Keep proportions - If you hold down the shift key while you are making a shape, it will keep the shape proportional.  A square will stay a square instead of stretching into a rectangle.  A circle will stay a circle and not change to an oval.  A line will snap to certain angles.  It is handy to use with lines when you want them to stay straight horizontal or vertical.  It will also take a shape you already made and keep it's proportions if you need to resize it.  Comes in very handy if you ask me.  

Go ahead, try it out.  You won't regret it.  Google Drawings is perfect for using in the classroom and the possibilities are endless.

Thank you for stopping by!

Google Drive Template Gallery

As busy educators, we have learn to work smarter.  When we can use something that is already made and tweak it to be what we need, it saves valuable time.  You probably know that Microsoft Office has pre-made templates for nearly anything you can imagine - calendars, flyers, newsletters, business letters, fax cover sheets, PowerPoint presentations, etc.  Did you know Google has a template gallery also?

To connect this handy gallery to your Google Drive, follow these easy steps: 

1. From your Drive, click on the red "New" button, go down to "More" and choose "Connect more apps".

2.  Search for "Drive Template Gallery" and you will see it come up in the results.  Click the blue "Connect" button.

3.  It will connect to your Drive and then give you a little confirmation window.  You can leave that checkbox marked and then click "ok". 

Done!  Now you can go back to your Drive and click the red "New" button, go to "More" and then choose "From template".  The first time you do this it will probably ask permission for the template gallery to know who you are on Google. 

Now you can browse the template gallery using the navigation on the left.  If you are part of an organization, you will land in your organization's template gallery, which may be blank.  To access all the templates, click on "Public Templates".

When you find one you like, you click "Use this template" and it will make a copy of the document that you can rename and edit to your heart's content.  If you need a closer look before you make a choice, you can click "Preview" and the document will open larger.  

Have fun browsing templates!

Stop in again soon for more handy tech tips!

Google Keep

Are you one of those people who have sticky notes and lists littering your desk?  I was - until I found Google Keep.  Access to my sticky notes whenever, where ever, no matter what device I'm using.  You can make to do lists, set reminders, add pictures, and change the color of your notes.

To get started, be sure you are logged in with the Google Account you want to use, and browse to keep.google.com.  There will be some notes already there giving you some information about what you can do with Keep.  You can delete them when you are ready and replace them with your own notes.  Here is a picture of what my Keep looks like at the moment:

To add a new note, simply click on "Add note" in the white bar near the top.  If you know you want a list, you can click on the little list icon on the right side of the bar.  If you know you want a picture note, click the picture icon.  

Once you begin editing your note - you will have several different options.  

You can get reminders about your note, share it with others, change the background color, add an image to your note, or archive it (not delete it, but get it off the screen until you need it again).  

If you click on the three little dots to see more options, you can delete the note, add a label (for tracking your notes easier), make a copy of the note, choose to have checkboxes for a little list, or even copy to a Google Doc (the copy to Doc option will only show up once you have typed in some text). 

I love the "Copy to a Google Doc" option because if I start a list or some brainstorming on a note, I can click that and it will create a Google Doc with the text and/or photo that was in my note and it gives the document the same title as the note.  Pretty handy!

On the upper left hand side of your screen, you can click on the little menu to see a few more options. 

You are already on the "Notes" page.  You can click to see your reminders, filter notes by labels, see what you have Archived or even what you have deleted.  Under settings you can enable sharing of notes.  

Take a moment and check it out.  If you like it, you just might be able to get rid of the crazy sticky note parade.

Assignment Dropbox using Google Forms

Once student assignments started going digital, I was thrilled.  I no longer had to carry 25 writer's notebooks, book reports, essays, or poster projects home and back again for grading.  It seemed I would be much more organized without much effort.  That was mostly true.  Having many of our assignments go digital was great.  I could access the files from home or wherever else I wanted without carrying large amounts of paper around.  However, there did seem to be a bit of a hassle in finding all the flies.  I had to set up a plethora of folders in Google Drive and set up all the sharing rights.  Maybe I chose to just have students share files with me instead, so I had to dig through copious amounts of shared files to find the ones I needed.  While both of those ways can work, and can work well, I was looking for something a little different.  Tools like Google Classroom can make this process easier, but not every assignment is something that can be saved in a Google Drive.  What if it is just a link?  Do I have the students email me each link?  What if your students don’t have email?  That can be a hassle at times also.  I was still mulling this all over when a presenter I had at a Google Summit event solved my problem.  Sergio Villegas introduced me to the assignment dropbox using Google Forms.

I'm very excited to let you know that Sergio is co-authoring this blog post about his assignment dropbox.  The form that Sergio uses is geared more toward older students, so I made some modifications to it before I used it with my third graders.  I'll tell you a bit about the form I created and how I use it in my classroom, and then I'll turn it over to Sergio who will speak about it from a high school perspective.

I created a very simple Google Form to use as my dropbox.  If you aren't familiar with creating a Google Form, you may want to check out my Google Forms 101 post.  I have only 4 questions on the form.  Student name, assignment title, what action they want me to take regarding their assignment, and a place for them to paste a link for an assignment that is not a Google Doc.

You may want to have them paste in links for all assignments, but I chose not to.  We use Hapara Teacher Dashboard, which allows me full access to my students' Google Drives from one screen.  I can go in and easily view student work and it is automatically shared with me when I click on it through this system.  Instead of having my students share the documents and then paste in the links, I just go and grab their file from my Teacher Dashboard.  You'll have to decide what works best for you when you make your assignment dropbox.

I only have one class and this year I don’t have any students with the same first name, so I only have them type in their first name for the “Name” prompt.  You can require last name or last initial if your situation requires that.  Sergio also mentioned to me that a great option for younger students is to create a drop down menu with all the student's names so they can just pick their name instead of typing it.  This can also help save time typing if your students are working on iPads or other tablet devices.

You'll also notice that I used a drop down menu for assignment name.  Some like to use multiple choice for this instead.  I just like the way that the drop down looks.  You can pick whichever you like best.

My students know that when they finish their assignment, they need to "turn it in" by going to this form.  The link never changes, even when I go in to change the assignment titles as we move through the year.  I post the link on my class website and they know exactly where to go, every time.

By requiring the students to use this form, I now have a spreadsheet in my Google Drive that tells me who is finished with which assignment and what they need me to do with it.  It also helps me to respect their time, because I grade them in the order they were turned in.  I color code my rows once I look at them, so I know if they are working on corrections, needed to start over, need a face to face conference, etc.  You can also use conditional formatting on your Google spreadsheet to have it color code some things for you.  I'll have instructions coming for that in a later blog post.  For instance, all assignments that are marked final draft, get colored red automatically.

The blank column you see is where their names go.  I hid them before I took the screenshot for privacy reasons.  The column all the way to the right would be where the links would show up when they paste them in, but I hid those for privacy reasons as well.  

Even my young students got the hang of this very easily at the beginning of the year.  It has been a really great tool to help me streamline the process of grading digital work.  I can only imagine how much easier it makes things when you have older students turning in a variety of digital assignments.  Sergio can speak to that from his perspective.

Hi all, Sergio here, since Cynthia did a solid job building up the background knowledge, I’m gonna add a few things to consider for my secondary peeps out there, as well as sharing one purpose comment.

I love the Form Dropbox, I have been incorporating it in my classroom since my old days before my students had GoogleEDU accounts, and although I now have access to Hapara Teacher Dashboard, Google Classroom, and Haiku Learning LMS, I still find a place for an assignment dropbox because of the ability to:

1.  Collect anything from the web that my students find, create, or add to.
2.  Everything collected lives on one, easily sortable, automatically hyperlinked, spreadsheet*.

*note:  number two is where the magic happens in my book.



With this in mind, here is a list of secondary tips, followed by 3 assignment suggestions that are worth giving a shot if you are new to the digital assignment game.

Tips:

• I like multiple choice, I only keep about 3 assignment topics up there at a time.  If the assignment name no longer appears on the form, the student cannot turn it in.  When I add a new assignment (say a longer creation task) I’ll add it to the form and that means the window of time to turn it in is now open.
• Sort by last name (say during parent meetings, back to school night, IEPs etc.) to see all of a single student’s work quickly (note this works better if each period has their own form).
• Option for Multiple Sections: Make a form for each period.  
• Want to be really organized?  Start a new Form each unit, this way you have a spreadsheet collecting content.  After a while I don’t need to be able to quickly retrieve some of that older content.  In general the spreadsheets can get pretty big so starting a new one is a good idea anyway.  May as well be organized about it.
• I add another column on the spreadsheet that I add to for whatever purpose the instructor may have in taking notes about the work.  I use this for scoring assignments so I have a record right there, but it can just as easily be used for feedback.
• Want to start using high end spreadsheet stuff?  Start collecting emails also so that you can use stuff like formemailer to send information back to students and it will all be automated at the push of a button!
• Google Classroom does some of this, but there are still deficiencies, so with this in mind, consider the following:
• It is much faster for me the instructor to see all links for all students on one page.  
• I still use classroom for Google Doc stuff because it’s awesome, I use the assignment dropbox for collecting most other things that involve web links of some sort, and anything informal.
• I really like having students curate content (find me a bunch of images related to _____, or find me videos less than 4 min on specific content ideas, etc.) so that I now have a vast library of cool stuff I didn’t have to search for.
• Once things are on a spreadsheet, there are a million cool things that you can do with the information collected, and automate workflow.  So this is a good way to get familiar with spreadsheets before you move to the advanced stuff.

Thank you so much, Sergio, for speaking to this from the high school perspective.  I appreciate you sharing the idea with me in the first place, and then being willing to be a guest on the TeachingTechNix blog!  You can click here to see a video Sergio made about the assignment dropbox he uses with his older students.

Sergio and I hope that this information was helpful to you.  Using Google Forms this way is a really great way to stay organized.  Try it...you’ll wonder how you ever did without it!

Google Drive Search Tips

If you are like me, you have quite a few files in your Google Drive.  Eventually, it can become challenging to quickly find files you need.  I've got folders, and I've got color coding, all that is wonderful, but sometimes I need a file quickly and I just don't remember where I stored it.  If you'd like to learn how to create folders and use color coding in your Google Drive, see my post about Google Drive Organization Tips.

The little search bar in your Google Drive can be pretty awesome when you know how to harness its power.  You can just type in a word and hit search, and most times you will find what you are looking for, but I want to share some tips to help you search more effectively.

The first tip is to use the drop down menu.  Many people don't even know it is there.  Type in what you are looking for and then click the little arrow at the very right side of the search bar.

*Update: There are now even more options in this drop down menu!  Try it on your Google Drive to see all the new additions.  This post will be updated in the near future to reflect the changes.

You then have three search options - File type, Opens with, and Ownership.  You don't have to use all three, but you can if you need to.  When you click on the "File type" drop down, it will give you several options for what type of file you are searching for.

When you choose the "Opens with" drop down, it gives you options depending on what apps you have installed in your Chrome browser.  Yours will be different than mine, but all the basic Google Apps will be there.

When you choose the "Ownership" drop down, you get three choices.  Owned by anyone means you don't care who created the document.  Owned by me means you created the document.  Not owned by me means you did not create the document.  This last option is helpful if you are searching for something you know you didn't create. 

Once you make your choices, you can click the blue magnifying glass button to start the search.  Let's say I wanted to search for a document, that opens in Google Sheets, that is owned by me.  This is what it would look like:

Once I click the blue button, I'll have my results!

You might notice that as you choose from the drop down menus, it changes the text in your search bar.  This is because you can also tell Drive what you are looking for by using specific typed commands.  Here are some of the advanced search options you might find helpful:

Option	Purpose	Example
Quotes	Put quotes around something to search for that exact phrase.	“right angles”
OR	You can use the word OR to find a document that has at least one of those words. This is helpful if you can’t remember the exact verbiage you used in your file.	drawing OR illustration
Minus sign	If you want a file that has a certain word but not another word.	geometry -triangle
owner:	You can use this to specify the owner of a document.	owner:bob@teachingtechnix.com
from:	You can use this to specify who shared a document with you.	from:bob@teachingtechnix.com
to:	You can use this to specify who you shared an item with.	to:bob@teachingtechnix.com
type	You can use this to specify the type of file you are searching for: document, folder, spreadsheet, presentation, PDF, image, video, drawing, form, script, or table.	type:PDF
after: before:	You can use these to specify a date range. You can use them together, or individually (use the date format yyyy/mm/dd).	after:2014/12/15 before:2015/01/03
title:	You can use this if you know the exact title.  Use it in combination with quotes if your title is more than one word.	title:“Right Angles”
app:	You can use this if you are searching for an item that can be opened by a specific app.  Use it in combination with quotes if your app is more than one word.	app:“Google Docs”
All of this information came from the Google Support site.  You can see the page I used by clicking here.

I know these search options have been extremely helpful to me when I need to find a file quickly, especially if I'm not exactly sure where I stored it in my Drive.  I hope you find them just as helpful.

Thank you for stopping by the TeachingTechNix blog.  Stop by again soon for more handy tech tips!

Log Out Remotely

Did you log into your Google account somewhere other than normal and realize you forgot to log out?  Have you noticed anything suspicious going on with your account?  Click here to see a blog post by EdTechTeam with some great security tips for you!  Thank you, EdTechTeam!

I want to highlight one of their tips.  Tip number 3 - Log Out Remotely.  If you have logged into your Google account somewhere and you realize you may have left it logged in, there is a quick and easy solution.  Log into your Gmail account and scroll all the way to the bottom.  On the bottom right, you will see some small text that says "Last account activity: 27 minutes ago" or however long ago you had some activity on your account.  Underneath that is a little link that says "Details".

Click on the "Details" link and it will pop up an account activity window.  This window will tell you if your account is actively open in another location.  It also lists the type of access, location and IP address of the computer that accessed your account, as well as the date and time.  All mine just said United States of America, so it isn't super specific, but it is still good information.  I blanked out all the IP addresses in this picture for my own security purposes.  You can see the button near the top that says "Sign out all other web sessions".  Probably not a bad idea to do this every once in a while.  

I hope you will take a second to check out the EdTechTeam blog post I mentioned.  You can never be too safe online.  

Thank you for stopping by the TeachingTechNix blog!  Stop in again soon for more helpful tech tips!

Google Classroom

A few of my colleagues have asked me to do a post about Google Classroom.  I've played with it a little bit, but I do have to admit I haven't really used it yet.  We use Hapara Teacher Dashboard at our school and I thought I didn't need Google Classroom because of that.  I'm finding now that while I don't NEED it, they can be very powerful when used together and I'll be exploring that next year.  Regardless of whether or not you use Hapara...cough cough...if you have Google Apps you really should...cough cough...Google Classroom can be a really effective tool.

Instead of making a post about Google Classroom, I'm going to send you directly to the master.  Alice Keeler is one of my Ed Tech Heroes.  She is a Google Certified Teacher and a Google Classroom rockstar.  If Google Classroom can do it, she knows how.  If you are on Twitter, follow her - @AliceKeeler.  Even if you aren't on Twitter, you can check out her blog, Teacher Tech.  She even has a book that she co-authored, 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom.

She has an entire section of her blog focused just on Google Classroom, which you can access by clicking here.  Check it out, look around, and be inspired!

Thank you, Alice, for sharing your knowledge!

Save Slides as Image Files

This is one of those tips that you may not use all the time, but it can come in really handy when the need arises.  A colleague shared this tip with me and I've already thought of a few ways I might use it!

There are a variety of reasons you might want to save some, or all, of the slides from a PowerPoint or Google Slides Presentation as image files.  You can create a video with a song or with narration using iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or Adobe Premiere Pro using your slide images.  You can easily email out single slides that students have created for parents to see.  Maybe you need to post pictures of single slides on a website or as work examples, etc.

Now that we know it is a handy trick, let's talk about how it's done.

First - using Microsoft PowerPoint:

Open your slide show, and then click the Office Button (menu button).  Choose "Save As", and then "Other Formats".

A box will pop up asking where you'd like to save.  Chose the location where you'd like to save your files and then change the "Save as type" option to be the image file of your choice - JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, etc.  If you have no idea what the differences are - just choose JPEG.  

Once you click "Save", it will prompt you to see if you would like to save just the current slide or all of the slides as images.  You can make your choice. 

 If you choose "Every Slide" it will save all of the files in a folder and confirm the location of that folder.

If you open up the folder, you will see all of your slides saved as individual image files.  

You can now do whatever you wish with your files like import them into a video creation app or email out individual slides to specific people.  

This process is a little different in Google Slides.

At the time of this post, Google Slides only allows you to save one slide at a time.  You can't save the whole show all at once like you can in PowerPoint.  If you want to save every slide, I suggest you download the file as a PowerPoint document, open it in PowerPoint, and complete the process I shared with you above.  If you just need a few of the slides, or you don't have access to the PowerPoint program, you can follow the directions below.  

Open up your Google Slides Presentation.  Click on "File" and choose "Download as".  You can then pick PNG, JPEG, or SVG.  Again, if you aren't sure what those all are, just choose JPEG.  

Once you click on the file type you want, it will automatically download your file.  Chances are downloads will automatically go into your "Downloads" folder unless you have changed the default location for downloads.

I had my students create a slide in a shared Google Slides Presentation for their parents that I set in a revolving slideshow on our Open House night.  I will be converting that slideshow into a PowerPoint, saving all the slides as JPEG images, and emailing them out individually to parents in case they missed it at the event.  This process will make that very easy.  

I hope this tip was helpful for you!  Stop in again soon for more handy tech tips!