Kami - Fill out pdfs online

Several teachers have asked me about making the switch to Google Docs. They are concerned about converting their documents from Word or other text editors (especially some of the Judaics teachers who cling tenaciously to Davka Writer).
 They are also concerned with the problem of formatting - when you start typing on a Google doc, it pushes the blank space between questions forward.

Kami is a Chrome app and extension that opens in your browser and allows you (or the students) to write in blank space in a pdf. (And remember, you can use Share to Classroom to shoot Kami out to your students on the first day of class!)

So if you have a worksheet that in the past was printed out and filled in by hand in class, you can convert them to pdfs (just 'Save As... pdf' in most word processors) and then you can upload them to Google Classroom as Assignments (not Announcements) and have the students fill them out on the Chromebooks. Imagine - no more reading difficult handwriting! Reminder: Make sure to choose 'Make a copy for each student' before assigning.

Installing Kami

Just have the students install the Kami app as well as the extension (which allows for offline work) and when they open the assigned document in Chrome, they should select Open ... Kami.

The first time you (or your students) open a document in Kami, it will ask for access to your Google Drive. 

IT IS CRUCIAL THAT YOU ALLOW THIS ACCESS! Otherwise it will not work with Google Classroom properly, and work will get messed up or lost. (I know, I have a few "tinfoil hat" kids who are paranoid about granting access online, but trust Google and Kami. I've met the designer. He's cool.)

Using Kami

Most features of Kami work without paying for the Pro account. (There's one important exception, as we shall see.) Click on the T to add text anywhere within the blank space.  Kami gives a pretty bright choice of colors for text, but you can click the Settings gear and choose a more subdued, darker, legible color for text.

Begin typing

You just click on the Text button (the T in the circle) and then you can then begin typing normally in whichever language you choose. 

(English has spell-check; Hebrew does not.) And you can go back to your answer later and edit it, which is a feature missing from similar programs.

Saving and Google Classroom

Assuming you have signed in to Kami, the program will automatically save your work as you type.  However, it will not automatically save back to Google Drive unless you are running the Pro version. (Currently $99/teacher/year.)

  This is very important, because if you are assigning the document through Google Classroom the work needs to be saved there as well.

When you click the Sync button on the top right, you can MANUALLY save the file in Google Drive as well. (I say 'as well' because Kami will also keep a copy of it. Which is all the good, because things sometimes get lost.)

 

However, for this to work properly, the student will have to re-direct Kami to save the document in its Google Classroom folder. (They could move it after they're done and before they're ready to submit their assignment, but I think in the long run it's easier to train them to do it from the start every time.) 

In each student's Google Drive, there is a folder called "Classroom." Within that folder are folders for each of their classes. Within those folders are the files (Google Docs, pdfs, etc.) for each GC Assignment.

The student must first click >→ Move, and then maneuver to the appropriate folder.

 This only needs to be done once per document. But it is crucial for submitting the finished work to the teacher in Google Classroom. If they do not, they will end up returning the original blank document instead of the copy with all their answers in it.

When the student is finished working in the pdf document, they should save it one more time, and then they can head back to Google Classroom. The document in their folder is now the filled-in pdf. Like any other Google Classroom assignment, when they're ready, they can just click TURN IN.

That's it. The teacher gets the completed pdf the same way s/he gets any document through Google Classroom.  And if the teacher uses Kami, s/he can grade and comment on the pdf as well. Postscript: Just in case you were worried, once the pdf is submitted to the teacher, Kami will not allow it to be edited directly by the student.

Add a custom character in Chrome

One of the strange things about the world of Chromebooks is that certain shortcuts don't work anymore, or work the way they used to. 
For example, if you're on a PC in Word, and you type alt+10003, you'll insert a check mark. √

If you're in Chrome and on a PC, you can do that by typing alt+251. See? √.

But if you're on a Chromebook, gornisht helfen as my people say. (Nothing helps.)

If you're in Google Docs, you can go to Insert > Special Characters > and then search for Check Mark. Click it and it will insert a check mark into your doc. If you need one elsewhere (like if you're correcting a pdf in Google Classroom on Kami), you can do that in Google Docs first and copy and paste it. Every. Single. Time. You. Need. One.

OR
You can add the Special Characters extension to Chrome. Highlight and copy a check mark (Here - take mine √ ).
Right click the extension in the upper-right hand corner  

and choose Options. 


Click Add Character, paste the check into the empty box. Name it and save it. (And, while you're at it, you can delete the standard characters in the English set if you don't need them.)

Now, whenever you need a check mark (or whatever it is you need to insert not infrequently into text - a winky face or a skull and crossbones) click on the extension and select the mark, and it will now be copied to your clipboard, ready for you to hit ctrl+v, which, happily, still works on Chromebooks. 
(Or right-click, Paste, if you can't give up your mouse.) 
Et voila - √  😉 or ☠ or whatever.

Why'd they take the Delete key away on Chromebooks? And other useful shortcuts

True, they took away the Delete key (and the Home/End keys, and the PrtScr key, et cetera) but all these functions are still available on the Chromebook with the built-in keyboard shortcuts.

First, on your Chromebook type Ctrl + Shift +? (meaning hold down the ctrl and shift keys and then hit the question mark key.) You will get an interactive keyboard map. Proceed to hit each modifier key, one by one (ctrl, shift, alt) and then in combinations. The map will show you what each key or combo does with the various keyboard keys.

Besides your old favorites like ctrl + c (Copy) and ctrl+v (Paste) there are dozens more.

ctrl+shift+up/down arrow will emulate the Home and End keys.

alt+backspace = delete


ctrl +   (that's the show all windows .key) = Print Screen

Here's a list of the shortcuts, for easy reference.

Here's an even longer one, including a lot of foreign language accents. 

Explore and discover the possibilities!

Create a Sitemap of a Talmud page (or Chumash, or a Frog) Using Thinglink

Building a Clickable Sitemap of an Image

You can do what I am about to demonstrate with a picture of anything, like the Periodic Table, a political cartoon, or the internal organs of a frog, but since some on the Jewish Studies staff seem to be at a loss for using tech in the classroom, I thought I'd offer some ideas. :-)

Let's obtain a picture of a page of Talmud (or a page from a Mikra'ot Gedolot). To make it harder, let's look for a page that we're actually going to be teaching this year.

Quick & Dirty Method of Getting a Picture File

Life is always better if you can avoid unnecessary steps. If you can find a picture file (.jpg, .gif, .png) of what you want, you're hafway home. Skip to the section title Now we have an image file.

There are picture files (jpegs) of every page of Talmud on e-daf.com. Find your page and right-click and select Save image as...  
They aren't the clearest in the world, but they will do the job for this exercise.

Fancy-Shmancy Method for the Best Copy Possible

If you can't find an image file, you may be forced to convert a .pdf. Without doubt, the clearest .pdf copy of a Talmud page can be found at the Daf Yomi Portal. Seriously. Download a page and enlarge it to 300% in Adobe Reader and compare for yourself.

(To download, put the cursor over the picture of the daf and then click on צורת הדף.) 

This method I am describing will also work for any pdf you want to use, like grabbing a page of Chumash from Hebrewbooks.org. 

Once you have your .pdf, you can convert it to an image file.

The best conversion of .pdf to .jpg I've found is online at this multi-faceted site. (I've blogged in praise of it previously.) Upload your .pdf and turn it into a .jpg.

Now we have an image file

Go to Thinglink, register or sign in, and upload your picture.

Here is a quick tutorial (not mine) on using Thinglink.

I decided to mix it up and linked to web pages (do your students know that Ein Mishpat and Masoret HaShas were written by the same guy? They will after they finish their research!), pictures, videos, a gematria calculator (for the daf number) and an old encyclopedia page. You can also encourage (or demand) that your students create their own sources to link to.

Here is what I came up with.

Personalizing Google Classroom

Google Classroom comes with many stock photographs and designs to use as your background header, but with a little bit of Googling, you can find a much more appropriate image to use. I think it's nice to make the class home page unique. And it's super-easy, too.

Use Google Images Search (or just plain Google and then click on Images) to find a picture that would make an appropriate background for your class heading. Save it by right-clicking and choosing "Save image as..."

Go to Google Classroom and choose the class.

On the bottom right-hand corner of the header picture, click Upload photo

Click Select a photo from your computer.

Select the picture you downloaded.

Use the little super-imposed window to choose the slice of the picture you want to display. 

You can drag the corners of the window to take a bigger or smaller slice. 
Click "Select class theme."

It may take a little practice to position the window so you get exactly the section of the picture you wish. If it doesn't look good, just try again!

Here are a few samples that I found for my own pages this year.

Google Classroom Reminder - Setting up

Remember: Google Classroom will arrange your classes in the reverse order of how you enter them originally.  (That is, the first class you enter will be all the way on the right on the main page.)

Now you may not care, but it drives me insane, because I like my classes to appear in the order I teach them - the first one is my first period class, etc. (Online, I'm very neat and bordering on OCD; in RL (Real Life) I'm, shall we say, somewhat organizationally challenged.)

The solution is just to set up your classes in reverse order - enter the information for your last class first, then your penultimate class, then your ante penultimate class, etc.

Keyboard shortcut for switching languages the NEW way on Chromebooks

I started computing in the late 80s, and since the Days of DOS, Alt+Shift has been the keyboard shortcut for switching between language inputs. For me, it's been the way I switch between Hebrew and English. And up until recently, that was the way you still switched languages on a Chromebook in the 21^st century..

I do not know why Chromebooks have abandoned that, but abandon it they have. The new keyboard shortcut for switching between languages is (drumroll, please)...

Control+Spacebar 

That is all.

Enabling Right-to-Left editing in Google Docs

I forgot how to do this, so the refresher serves me as well. I am sure we are going to have to be giving these directions a lot as we transition to one-to-one Chrome devices.

Pre-Steps: Make sure you are logged into Google, and that you have enabled Hebrew as an input language.

Step One: Go to Google Docs 

Step Two: Click on the Menu (next to the word Docs; look like three stacked lines)

Step Three: Click on Settings (looks like a gear)

Step Four: Check "Always show right-to-left controls"