Google Gifts: Research Tool in Google Docs, Drawings, & Slides

During the weekdays of December, we're sharing one tool per day.  We're calling it our Google Gifts series.  Some of these come directly from Google, and others are tools that enhance Google Apps or Chrome.  Today, we're sharing the Research Tool that you can find inside of Google Docs, Google Drawings, and Google Slides.

The Research Tool is one of your options when you use the "Tools" pull-down in Docs, Drawings, and Slides.  Once selected, it opens a window on the right side with different research options.  If you have a word highlighted or have your cursor in a word, it automatically enters that as your search term.

Why would I use it?  What does it do?

Research & information fluency is not only one of our ISTE standards (ISTE-S.3), but it's addressed in Common Core as well (CCRA.W.8).   For students, having external information (or images) that can be pulled into a document from within the document can be a time-saver. For sources, you can specify which citation format you want to use (MLA, APA, or Chicago), and it will insert it for you.   

Instructionally, this won't replace an online database for formal research, but if you want students to reinforce their ideas with images, incorporate famous quotations, and/or if you would like them to start learning about citations, this could be a good entry point.  

Google Search	Image Search	Quotes Search

When doing an image search, you can limit your results to only display those that are free to use.  You can then just drag the picture you like into your document.

Where can I learn more?

Google has a support article on using the Research tool.  And, in addition to finding this option on the web version of Google Docs, Android users can use this on their mobile devices.

Technology in K-1

What can K-1 students do with technology? That's a question we get often. The answer is, A LOT! 

Students at Independence Elementary showed us that they love learning using Chromebooks and Dell laptops- or whatever devices they can get their hands on! 

Do they just play games? No way! These students created Google presentations using information they found on Encyclopedia Britannica. Check out the video below to see how the projects went and what the students learned! 

If you would like help implementing technology projects with your students next year, please contact your Technology and Learning Coaches by filling out this form.  We love co-planning and co-teaching and want to help you be successful with your students using technology!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Using Symbaloo to Collect & Share Resources

Symbaloo is a free personal startpage that allows you to easily navigate the web and compile your favorite sites all in to one visual interface. It allows you to save and share your bookmarks in the cloud and access them from anywhere with any device.

Start by setting up your free account at Symbaloo. Once you're logged in (after verifying your account by clicking on the link in the email they send...), you'll see the generic homepage with tiles. Each tab across the top is a "webmix" that can be modified and customized to fit your needs. 

This is a great place to house any links that need to be shared with students, colleagues, or even parents. The tiles can be edited or modified at any time  Once a webmix has been shared, you can stop sharing at any time, or make the sharing private only to specific people. The webmix cannot be edited by anyone other than the creator/sharer. 

Some schools in CCSD have started using a Symbaloo page as their homepage on their Chromebooks with links for students to anything they might need. Also, Symbaloo can easily be embedded into a page on Schoology/COLE 3.0 as another way to share links with students or parents. 

There are lots of options to choose from when thinking about customizing your webmixes, including uploading images for tiles, organizing and color coding tiles, changing the wallpaper/titles/descriptions, and more!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Reading (and Annotating) Web Pages in Your Browser

Our last Tuesday tech tip was about reading & annotating library books in your browser, and this week's tip is about reading & annotating web pages in your browser.  Since we're using Chromebooks, we'll be focusing on the Chrome extension for Scrible (a free tool currently in beta).  However, you can use Scrible on other browsers (and you can also use its bookmarklet on Safari on iOS).

Once you have the Scrible toolbar extension added to Chrome (and in CCSD, we can push that out to all students in a grade level or school if we wish), a toolbar like the one below will appear at the bottom of web pages (you can drag it around the page after it appears).

This tool bar lets you annotate a web page in 32 different colors, add sticky notes in 32 different colors, change font colors, or change formatting.  You can also create a "legend" for the different annotations on the web page (useful if you would like students to label their color schemes).  If you don't want to annotate or highlight a page, you can click the "x" to close the tool bar (you can also change the options for the extension to not automatically load on every web page).

Once you've highlighted something on a page, you can hover over it to get more options (Delete, Change Color, Attach Note, or Share).  

Students don't need accounts to do highlighting or annotation, but if they need to save it for later access (and for sharing with teachers or peers), students can log in using their CCSD Google accounts.  A student account gives you access to a citation generating tool (which exports to EasyBib), free storage, and the ability to email annotated pages, and share your entire bookmark library.   More information about the student version features can be found on their blog.  Teachers can create a free account and then request an upgrade to the educator version.

Currently, they are working on adding a web-based PDF annotation feature, but this free tool has a lot of potential for our students as they do more and more online reading.  It's definitely worth a look!