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Google announced two updates to Google Classroom recently. Teachers can now add parent's / guardian's emails to their students in a class and those parents / guardians can receive daily or weekly emails showing them what has been posted to the stream. The other update effects items posted to the stream. Teachers can now add topics (or tags) to announcements, assignments, or question activities. Teachers and students can filter these activities by clicking on the topic on the left of the stream. Students can't search the stream but this will help them find activities when their stream gets full. Below are two videos I created showing you the new additions to Google Classroom 

At the ISTE conference in July 2016, Google announced a new tool that would allow students to wireless stream or cast their chromebook screen to a teacher computer. This new tool is called Google Cast for Education. I created two videos to show you how this works. The first video is from the teacher side of the tool, and the second video shows you how the students will use the too. Set-Up for Teachers: Teachers need to make sure the following are done before they can start using Google Cast for Education: Can be used with the Chrome browser on a PC, MAC or Chromebook. Must install the Google Cast for Education app from the Chrome Store. Chrome browser or OS must be updated to version 52 or higher. Teachers name their receiving device so students know which device to cast to. Teachers share access with individual students, groups or Google Classroom Classes. Set-Up for Students: Students need to make sure the following are done before they ...

I noticed something different when I shared a folder this afternoon. No longer is the words "can edit" listed as an option from the drop-down menu. Now you see the words "Can organize, add, & edit". This is nice because this tells you what the people can do to this folder once you share it with them. I've had teachers confused about what exactly other people can do if they give them edit rights to a folder. This helps in explaining, very briefly, what can be done.

Google announced at the ISTE 2016 conference an update to Google Forms. You can now create self grading quizzes for forms. I'm listing some links with more information, and I also created a Versal.com course highlighting the new Forms Quiz. Google Support article with information on how to make a quiz. Blog post showing the differences between Google Form Quiz and Flubaroo

A really cool feature of Google Docs is the ability to publish a Google Doc as a webpage. Also, when changes are made to the doc, those changes are reflected on the webpage. This is an easy way for teachers to have students create simple webpages with links and images, so they can share / present information. The video below show you how to publish a Google Doc as a webpage: >center>

Autocrat is a addon for Google Sheets . This addons allows you to take data from a Google Sheet and populate a Google Doc template. The template could be a form letter or a certificate. The video below shows you how to run Autocrat manually and how the Autocrat job will run automatically if you are using a Google Form to collect the data. I used this video to help me create my certificate, specifically add the boarder around the edge of the document.

In Google Drive you can add a single document / file to two different folders. To do this you select the document / file and hold down SHIFT+Z on your keyboard. This will change the Move To option to Add to. The button will also turn green instead of blue. Any changes made to the document / file will be reflected in both folders, because it is the same file. The video below shows you how to do this: