Checker Plus for Google Drive

Checker Plus for Google Drive is an incredibly useful Chrome extension for anyone sharing large numbers of Folders or Files in Google Drive (like Capstone Supervisors).

This only works with the Chrome browser.

Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Checker Plus. There are several extensions available for Google apps - Gmail, Google Calendar, and for our purposes, Google Drive.

Click the blue "+ FREE" button




Agree to the permissions. The extension will install.

To enable the extension, click on the icon that will now appear in the upper right corner of your Chrome browser. Agree to give the extension access.

 When you click on the icon now, you will get a small window view of your Google Drive. You can click on "Shared with Me" (That's the same as the new "Incoming")

If you click on "Recent," you can see the most recently shared or updated documents.







And if you click on the little gear in the upper right-hand corner, and open Options, you can choose to get pop up message that will appear in the lower right-hand corner of your computer screen, telling you that an item has been added or edited.

Group Contacts from Your iPad

Many of you may have noticed that you cannot call up Contact Groups in the iPad mail app, the GMail app or a browser window. Other contacts come up, but not groups.

Okay, I have no idea why this works but it does.

(I tried about 6 different things I found on line and this is the only one that does actually works.)

To e-mail from a group:

Click on this address:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2#inbox

It will open Safari; you may have to log in to your account. 

If you click Compose on this screen, your contacts groups appear.

(They do not if you try to go to a regular browser version of GMail.)

When you start typing your Contact Group's name, it should appear.

Make Your Own Inspirational (or otherwise) Classroom Posters

Quick Post on a very nice site. Recite This (Click here for the site) is a Web 2.0 site where you can type in any message you want (it even handles Hebrew) and choose from dozens of backgrounds to create a nice looking poster.

Here are two examples:

It's simple to use.

1. Type your quote into the blank space on the home page. (Note: Not every background can handle longer quotes. So if your quote is longer than 6-7 words, some of the backgrounds might be unavailable to you. But whichever ones will work will remain visible.)

2. Scroll through the backgrounds until you find one that looks good to you.

3. Click "Create." A new page will open and you can choose to download the picture, which is saved in a jpeg format.

Check it out and go nuts!

HOW Many Calendars Do I Have to Keep Track Of?!!

I don't know about you, but I have all of my classes on my Google Calendar. Plus I have test calendars for 9^th, 10^th, 11^th and 12^th grades. (Yes, I teach them all.) Plus meetings. Plus school events. Plus, as a parent, the Kindergarten calendar. And once in a blue moon, I even have a personal life.

But if I am looking at all those calendars I go into sensory overload. In truth, usually all I want to see are my classes and scheduled meetings.

I recently started using the calendar app Up To on my Android. (It's available for iPhone as well.) It allows me to have my primary calendars (classes and meetings and life events) as the default visible calendars (what they call the "front" calendars) and with a tap, the calendar expands, accordion-like, to show the secondary calendars (test schedules, etc.) It is rapidly becoming my "go-to" phone calendar app.

Here's their short video demonstration:



This is a link to their website, with links to the Google Play store (for Android) and Apple's App Store (for iPhones).

Don't Forget to Sign Out of the School's iPads!

In a perfect world, all the students would have their own personal devices (tablets, laptops, Chromebooks, iPhones) and they would remain logged into their personal Google Drive, Dropbox and Gmail accounts all day long.

But in the real world (specifically, in our school) our students are sharing iPads. Please remind them to sign out of any app that gives access to file (Google Drive, Dropbox) or e-mail. Otherwise, someone could delete needed material or send a malicious e-mail in another student's name.

Below is a tutorial with step-by-step directions to signing out of Google Drive when your class is done.

Please make this an established routine in your classrooms, and don't wait until the bell rings. Set a timer (on the iPad if you wish!) to remind students to wind down before the end of class and sign out.

Square One: Logging in to Google

Several students and teachers are having problems navigating through the new world of Google Apps for Education - Classroom, Docs, etc.

The cause of many frustrations is that they are not logged in to Google when they try to access these apps.

So let's start at the very beginning.

I strongly recommend that you use Chrome as your internet browser, regardless of whether you are using a PC, a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone or an Android. It has many features that put it head and shoulders above others. But that's a subject for a later post.

But regardless of which browser you are using (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.) head over to www.google.com.

Click on Sign In in the upper right-hand corner. (If you're already signed in under your school account, you'll see your school e-mail address where the blue "Sign In" box is; you're all set. But if you see either the blue box or another e-mail address (either yours or someone else's) continue with the directions)

Sign in to Google using your school e-mail address and password, and then click "Sign in."

You're now signed in. Proceed to use your e-mail, Google Classroom, or whatever you like.

If you have another Gmail account that you use regularly:

You can manage multiple Gmail accounts in Google, one at a time. (Remember that your school e-mail is technically a Gmail account even if it says @mjbha.org instead of @gmail.com.)

The way it works with Google is that whichever account you use to sign in to Google first becomes your default Google account. When you open a new tab in Chrome, that's the account you'll see. You can then switch between accounts as follows:

Click on your e-mail address in the upper right-hand corner.

Click on "Add account" and sign into Google with your second Gmail account as you did earlier.
Now when you wish to switch to your other Gmail account, you can just click on your e-mail address on Google, and choose your other account.

Customize Your Google Launcher

This is another must-have Chrome Extension.

App Launcher Customizer

If you have a personal Gmail account, you may be familiar with the Google Launcher (the 9 square boxes next to your e-mail address in the upper-right corner of your Google page).
You can add and remove all sorts of Google apps for instant links to the ones you use the most, and drag them into whichever order you like.
Go ahead. Open a page to Google and try it. (If I were you, I'd set my Chrome browser to always open new tabs to Google. It's just more a more convenient way to jump into the Google-sphere.)

Did it work? I know, that was cruel of me. It doesn't work on corporate accounts, including, it seems, school accounts through GAFE (Google Apps for Education). Don't go screamin' to Gabi; she can't fix it.

So click on the link above, head on over to the Chrome Store and install this extension. Then click on your launcher and customize away to your heart's content.

The Most Important Chrome Extension

Office Editing for Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Get it here: Edit Microsoft Word documents in Google Docs

Up until recently, if you had a Microsoft Word file (extension .doc or .docx) in your Google Drive, the best you do if you wanted to edit it is either open as a Google Doc (converting it into a Google Doc) and work on it in Google Docs, or download it to a computer that has MS Word and open it in Word.

However, with this extension you can open a Word document in Google Docs, edit it, and it will save to your Google Drive as a Word document (extension .doc or .docx), without having been "changed" into a Google Doc.

The only downside is that since you will be working in Google Docs, you will not have all of the advanced features of Word, but you can always open it later in Word if there's something you need to do that Google Docs can't do.

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For the uninitiated:

1. Extensions are small software programs that can modify and enhance the functionality of the Chrome browser. Extensions have little to no user interface.

Meaning - you go to the Chrome store, click on install, and the extensions do their thing without any input from you. Once they're installed, they'll follow you around as long as you're logged in to Google¹ with your school's Google Log-in.

There are some incredible extensions that will allow your Chrome browser to do many useful things, including running programs from your browser² - very important if you are using a Chromebook.³ 

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1. Although I strongly recommend using the Chrome browser, in any browser, go to Google.com, and in the upper right-hand corner, click Sign In. Use your mjbha.org e-mail and password. You are now "signed in" to Google.

2. A browser is what you use to get on the internet - Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc. 

3. A Chromebook is like a laptop, only you can't install programs on it; everything runs in the Chrome browser window.