IHMS Tech Tips

Explore is an under-used feature within Google Suite that is great for students to use when they are writing a paper, doing research, or working on a project in Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets.  The Explore feature: Pulls topics from your writing Uses those topics to curate suggestions of websites, images, and other files from your Google Drive Cites as a footnote any source that you use  To use the Explore feature, first open up a Google Doc or Slides that has text.  Open Explore by clicking the icon in the lower right corner of the window or by choosing Tools- Explore. Select which topic you'd like for Explore to...explore.  If you don't like what it pulls automatically based on your writing, you can type a different keyword. Explore will pull websites, images, and anything in your personal Google Drive that relates to your topic/keyword. To cite the source you've selected, choose the three dots and choose your citation format. Then...

Many of you are still using Scantrons for summative assessment, but did you know that you can save yourself some mileage to the Scantron machine (and paper!) by using Flubaroo or other Google add-ons?  I previously mentioned how to use Skyward to test and grade your students, but there are also add-ons for Google Forms that can simplify your grading.  One such example is Flubaroo.  With this add-on you can: Grade assignments and assessments in under a minute! Get reporting and analysis on student performance. Quickly send scores to students. It's really simple to use.  To get an add-on for your Google spreadsheet, first make sure that your Google form has created a spreadsheet.   Next, from the Google Sheets Add-ons menu, choose "Get add-ons."  Search for Flubaroo from the Add-ons store.  You will only have to do this once. Now that Flubaroo has been added, you can follow the prompts as shown in the below video to grade your assess...

Flippity is a site that allows you to create a variety of classroom items from your Google Sheets. Some examples of templates are: Flash cards Quiz show Spelling words Random name picker Mix & match Certificate Badge tracker Progress indicator MadLibs How does it work?  It's really easy! Think about using Flippity for forming groups, calling on students, tracking progress (pages/minutes read, words per minute, fluency, etc.)