Skip to main content

Category: Google

Instagram Template for … anyone, really

nancy

At the request of a teacher who wanted her 4th graders to create Instagram-style posts without actually going on Instagram, I created a Google Slides template for her to share with them so they could edit it. I was inspired by Ryan O’Donnell‘s post on Fictional Twitter Profiles to share it here.

Instagram Template coffeenancy.com

This template could have many classroom applications. The teacher who asked me for it wanted to have her students post as Levi Strauss after reading each chapter of Mr. Blue Jeans, the novel by M. Weidt about his life. She was originally going to use photos found online for each post, but instead decided to have the students draw their own images, photograph them, and upload them into Google Drive for use in the template. At the end of the novel, each student would have an Instagram type summary of the events of the book, hence the decision to make the template in Slides instead of Drawing, so the slides created by each student could be shown as slideshow.

Other possible classroom uses:

  • Post to show the same event from the point of view of different characters in a novel
  • “Historical” posts: Francis Scott Key posting a picture of a tattered flag with the first lines of The Star Spangled Banner
  • Animals posting pictures of places along their migratory paths
  • Mathematical formulas or theories posting pictures of ways to apply them

Having students use this template will help them think critically about their topic so they can demonstrate their understanding by sharing an image with just a few words. Allowing them to create usernames for themselves and those who liked the photo makes it engaging. They will also learn about the photo manipulation tools, which are the same in Slides as they are in Drawing, and how to use the view menu or magnifying glass to zoom in on the image, since some of the items they need to edit are a bit on the small side.

If you would like to use this template, click here to view it, then choose File > Make a copy.

find advanced search options

Updated Search in Google Drive

nancy

Google is so good at helping us search that its name has become a verb meaning “to search the internet for information.” Yet, until recently, it was often difficult to find things inside Google Drive unless you knew the exact title of the item or you were much better at putting your items into folders than I am.

Enter the updated search options in Google Drive to the rescue. They make it a snap to find any file or folder you need, whether you created it yesterday or a student shared it with you last year.

To search in Drive, begin by clicking in the Search box. You are immediately presented with a dropdown menu showing different types of files. You can click on one of these to restrict your search to that type of file before you begin typing the name of the file you are searching for.

Search options
Click on any of the options to restrict your search to that file type.

However, if you can’t find what you need, you can use more advanced options. Click on More search tools at the bottom of the dropdown or the little triangle at the top.

find advanced search options

This brings up a box where you can input as much information as you have to help you find what you are looking for. You can search by file type (with more choices than you have in the initial dropdown), date modified, owner (including a specific person), who the item has been shared with, and more. You can also combine information, so if you are looking for a Google Presentation on the French Revolution that was shared with you by a student last year, you can enter all those terms. Keep in mind that the item will have to match everything you include, so if you are not sure of something, for example, who the owner of the item is, leave it out. Happy searching!

 

advanced search options
Click any of the dropdowns to select an item
Example of search terms
Example of search terms you can use
screenshot

Alternative to the Subscribe to Post Button

nancy

Google Sites are a great tool for teachers and students. They can be student e-portfolios, collaborative writing sites, and much more. On the teacher side, they are a wonderful way to communicate information about your class to students and their families. If you create a page using the Announcements template, you communicate current news and information or homework assignments and keep the newest posts at the top. Families can subscribe to the page and get an email message whenever you update it.

The problem, though, is that the default “Subscribe to posts” button that appears on the page doesn’t work for all browsers and can’t be removed. The good news is that there is another Google tool, Feedburner, that gives people a way to subscribe to your updates. There are several steps, but it’s actually very easy to do.

  1. Log into your Google account. Create or go to the page on your website that visitors will subscribe to. Make sure you the page uses the Announcements page format. If you need to change the page format, click the gear menu in the upper right and go to Page Settings.
    screenshot
  2. Scroll down the page until you locate the orange “Subscribe to posts” button. This may not be visible until your site is public.
    screenshot
  3. Right click on the subscribe button (control + click on a Mac) and copy the subscription link. Depending on your browser, you might see different wording (Copy link location in Firefox, Copy link address in Google Chrome, Copy link in Safari).
    screenshot
  4. Open a new tab (File > New Tab or Command + t). Go to Feedburner. Because it is a Google service, you should already be signed in and see your email address in the upper right corner. Locate the box marked “Burn a feed right this instant.”
    screenshot
  5. Paste the URL you copied in step 3 into the box. DO NOT CLICK NEXT!
    screenshot
  6. Edit the URL. Change https to http. Now you can click Next.
    screenshot
  7. Give your feed a name. This is the title people will see in their email when they subscribe. Make it short but descriptive. Do not worry about changing the feed address. Click Next.
    screenshot
  8. At the bottom, click the tiny “Skip directly to feed management” link.
    screenshot
  9. On the screen that appears, click Publicize, then Email Subscriptions, then Activate.
    screenshot
  10. Scroll down the page and copy the email subscription code. Be sure to highlight all the code before copying.
    screenshot
  11. Return to the tab with your website. Click on the pencil icon to edit the page, then click on the HTML link at the upper right.
    screenshot
  12. Paste the code you copied in step 10 into the box, then click Update.
    screenshot
  13. Add any extra text you want to the page, then save your changes. For example, you may want to add something along the lines of: “Please be aware the Subscribe to posts link below does not work correctly for all browsers. To receive an email message when this page is updated, click the Subscribe to Class Announcements by Email link here:”
    screenshot
  14. Pat yourself on the back. You did it!

Change the Size of Your Google Drawing

nancy

Google Drawing is a wonderful tool that has many classroom implementations. Students can use it to develop advertising posters for invented products during an economics unit, build custom headers for a website, make infographics to show information on any number of topics, and much more. Sometimes, though, when you are working on a Drawing, you discover that you need to change its size. There are two main ways to do this.

Option 1: Click and drag the diagonal lines in the lower left corner.

diagonal lines   

This is easy if you want to make your drawing smaller or wider, but if you want to make it taller, you need to adjust the view first so you have room to drag it down. Simply go to View and choose a small percentage or Zoom Out. This will give you room on your screen outside the canvas to drag the corner down.

view options         empty space below image

Option 2: Use File>Page setup.

You c an choose one of the standard sizes (these will match the size of the slides in Google Slides exactly) or a custom size. When opting for a custom size, you have the option of measuring your drawing in inches, centimeters, points, or pixels. If you will be printing your drawing, you will want to use inches, centimeters, or points, but pixels are useful when creating website headers or other drawings that will be shared online and need to have specific dimensions. Whether you choose a standard or custom size, don’t forget to click OK when you are done.

page setup options2015-05-13_20-41-39

Send form and share buttons

Share a Google Form as “View Only”

nancy 2 Comments

Google has changed the way Forms can be shared as “View Only.” Please see this post for current information.

At a recent training, I was asked how to share a Google Form as “View Only” so collaborators could make a copy of the form and adapt it for their own needs without the original form being changed in any way.

Forms are a different kind of Google app. Where other apps have a big blue Share button in the corner, Forms have a Send Form button.

Send form and share buttonsIf you want to share your form with others, you can go to the File menu and choose “Add collaborators.” The problem for some is that your only option is to give people editing access to the form. If you don’t want those with whom you have shared your form to be able to edit it, you need to find another way to give them access.

form sharing settings

Of course, you could send them the link to the live form, but that doesn’t give them the ability to copy the form so they can edit the questions on it. The key is in the warning note Google has added. warning note

For Google, Forms are merely a way to get data into a spreadsheet. If you want to give people view only access to a form so they can make and edit their own copies of it, all you need to do is give them access to the spreadsheet that contains the responses, even if there are no responses yet.

At the top of your form, click the View responses button.

view responses

When the spreadsheet opens, click the blue Share button and add your collaborators, giving them view only access. Instruct them to make their own copy of the spreadsheet.

Once they have opened their copy of your spreadsheet, all they have to do is go to the Form menu and select Edit form. This will give them access to their copy of your original form, which they can edit and change to meet their own needs.

Edit form

Important: If your form responses contain sensitive data, you should not share the response spreadsheet. In this case, I would recommend that you make your own copy of your form. The questions will be the same, but the spreadsheet with the responses will be empty, so you can share it without worrying about revealing information that should be kept private.

Crop your images into different shapes

nancy 7 Comments

A colleague asked me today about cropping a square image into a circle using Google Drawing. This process is called “masking,” and it can be done quickly and easily not only in Drawing, but also in Slides. In fact, you are not limited to masking your image with a circle; you can crop it into a number of different shapes. The illustrations below show the process in a drawing, but it works the same for images on slides.

Click on the image you want mask, then click the dropdown arrow next to the crop icon.screenshot

You can choose from any of the four categories of masks. Select a category, then click on the shape you want.

screenshot

The mask is applied to show as much as possible of the original image. You can resize and adjust it by dragging on the blue handles.
screenshot
Resulting image:

circular image

 

To add a frame, adjust the width and color of the line while the image is selected.screenshot

 

You can reset your image and start over with the click of a button.

screenshot

 

Express your creativity by using different shapes to mask your images.

StarburstSunset
quadarrowsunset

Original image used in this post:
Burning Yellow Sunset
By Jessie Eastland (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Embed PDF in Google Sites

nancy

One of the things I have been struggling with lately is how to embed a PDF in a Google Site. It turns out if you have the PDF saved in your Google Drive, it’s not that difficult. All you have to do is click on the PDF in your Drive, pop it out into a new window, and copy the embed code. Then you head over to your site, click to edit, choose HTML, and paste in the code. Update and save, then sit back and congratulate yourself on a job well done!

See the step by step instructions and animated GIFs of the process below.

Step 1: Open PDF in your Drive and click on the Pop Out window icon. This step is the key; you can’t get the embed code unless you pop out the window.

Pop-out window location

Step 2: In the new window, click the 3 vertical dots (more options) and choose Embed item…

Get embed code

Step 3: Copy the embed code.

Copy embed code

Step 4: Go to the page on your Google Site where you want to embed the PDF. Click the pencil icon to edit, then click HTML.

Open HTML editor

Step 5: Paste the embed code into the HTML editor. Click Update at the bottom.

Paste code and update

Step 6: Don’t forget to save!

Don't forget to save!

 

Animated GIFs of the process:

Getting the embed code
animated GIF of part 1 of embed process

Pasting the embed code
animated GIF of part 2 of embed process