Link to Text Fragment extension

Google has a great new extension.

Did you ever have to direct students to a specific place within a long web document?

Link to Text Fragment is simple to use.

Highlight some text (more than a couple of words) and right-click. The extension will appear as one of your choices.

Click and it will copy a link to your clipboard that will direct students to the specific spot on the site.

Get Link to Text Fragment at the Chrome store 

Hebrew Vowels (Niqud) for Microsoft Windows and Word

This is very old news, but a few people asked me about it, so maybe it's worth a post.

To enter niqud in Word, for example:

1. Make sure you are in HEBREW language mode (Alt+Shift).
2. Engage Caps Lock
3. Place your cursor after the letter over/under/in which you want to inset niqud.
4. Hold down the Shift key and click the following:

If you need to use multiple nequdot on the same letter (Let's say, a Shin with a dagesh in it and a patach under it) the order is Dagesh, shin/Sin dot, vowel.

[The above chart is originally from the website http://www.qsm.co.il/Hebrew/wniqud.htm, which no longer exists.]

Hebrew Vowels (Niqud) for Google Docs on Chromebooks

I have figured out how to insert vowels into Google Docs on a Chromebook. If this is documented fully anywhere, I haven't found it. Wikipedia is blank on this.

This is for Chromebooks and some newer PCs. It does not work on older PCs. (For Niqud in Windows, see this post.)

If you need a refresher on setting up Hebrew in Google Docs / on a Chromebook, see my post here.

The key (pun fully intended) to doing this is the Alt Graph key, often abbreviated AltGr. Don't panic. You do so have one. It's the Alt Key to the right of the spacebar.

When you are in Hebrew on a Chromebook (Ctrl + Spacebar to switch back and forth), position the cursor after the letter under/over which you wish to insert a vowel. Hold the AltGr (again, the Alt Key to the right of the spacebar) plus the following keys to insert niqqud.

(There's kind of a mnemonic to it - for many of the basic vowels, the key is the Hebrew letter that begins the name of the vowel. So [AltGR +] the ח'‏ key (J) for חירק; the צ'‏ (M) for צירה, the ד'‏ for דגש; the ש'‏ for שוא. The תנועות חטופות are immediately to the right of their counterparts. So פ'‏ (P) for פתח and the [ key for חטף פתח; the ק'‏ (E) for קמץ and the ר'‏ (R) for חטף קמץ; and the ס'‏ (X) for סגול and the ב'‏ (C) for חטף סגול.  The ו'‏‏ (U) is also the dot for the חולם. The backslash \ looks like a קבוץ, I guess.
Since the A is the ש'‏ key, the key to its upper right (W) puts the dot for the shin, and the  key to its upper left (Q) puts the dot for the sin.)

Key Combo	Vowel / Symbol
AltGr + E (ק)	קמץ
AltGr + R (רׂׂ)	חטף קמץ
AltGr + P (פ)	פתח
AltGr + [	חטף פתח
AltGr + X (ס)	סגול
AltGr + C (ב)	חטף סגול
AltGr + U (ו)	חולם dot
AltGr + J (ח)	חירק
AltGr + M (צ)	צירה
AltGr + S (ד)	דגש (also the dot for שורק)
AltGr + A (ש)	שוא
AltGr + \	קבוץ
AltGr + W	dot for שִׁין
AltGr + Q	dot for שִׂין
AltGr + 7	מתג
AltGr + -	מקף
AltGr + ‘/”	גרשים a/k/a tzupchik -  רש״י
AltGr + `/~	ר׳ - גרש
AltGr + ;	Bottom of the line quote mark - „
AltGr +	Quote mark proper direction - ”
AltGr + 4	₪ New Israeli Shekel NIS
AltGr + ]	רפה mark - רֿ
Niqqud for Chromebooks  © Jeff Kuperman 2020

Downloadable copy can  be accessed here.

For Students: How to upload work to Classroom

Since there are still students who do not know how to do this (How is this possible?!), here is a tutorial.

Click on the assignment in your Due list

Under Your work, click on Add or Create

Attach your Google Doc and submit.

PDFs vs the Color Yellow (and Light Blue)

I don't understand why, but whenever I convert a Google Slide, Power Point, Word file with graphics, Mind Map etc. to pdf, anything with a yellow or light blue background comes out with no color. If the text is colored, then that too disappears.

This is the original Mind Map on mindmup.com

But this is what happened when I downloaded it as a pdf. Notice the light blue squares are now without color.

The solution is to download the file as a jpeg or png and then upload the graphic into Adobe Acrobat (best professional purchase of my career) or an online graphic-to-pdf converter like smallpdf, and convert it to a pdf. This way, the original colors are preserved.

The same thing happened when I tried downloading a Google Slide as a pdf, and it was crucial that the colors be preserved. I tried downloading it as a PowerPoint, but regardless of what I did (I even tried changing the shades slightly, using gradients, etc.) the pdf was missing the yellow on the yellow slide. I had to download the problematic slide as a jpeg and convert it to a pdf and delete the problematic page from the pdf presentation and insert the jpeg to pdf slide in its place.

YouTube "Videos Not Aproved"

You may have noticed lately that if you access YouTube on your school account, you will now see a blue bar with a message that reads "Video not approved for mjbha.org" and a white "Approve" button.

What's going on?

A teacher tried to leave an educational video for students to watch in her absence, but the students could not access it.

It turns out that the newly reconfigured blocking software is keeping an awful lot of useful videos out of our students' hands.

IT has now set it up so that if you wish to share a video on, say, Google Classroom, you can approve the video for school use. When you share the link with the students now, they will be able to open the video in school.

How to share videos

If you need a refresher on how to share videos, I'll run through the easiest method.

Once you've clicked "Approved," click on the curved arrow that says Share under the video. Copy the URL (https://youtu.be/etc.) that appears in the box beneath.

Go into Classroom and set up a post.  Click the Add Link symbol  (orange arrow in the picture) and paste that into the Add Link pop-up box in Classroom and click Add Link (yellow arrow) and then hit Post.

Uploading files from computer to Google Drive

A quick tutorial on how to upload files from a computer to your Google Drive.

Open Chrome and go to Google Drive (drive.google.com). Make sure you are signed in to your Google account. (Reminder - your school Google Drives are virtually (ha!) bottomless, so you'll probably never run out of room.)

Click on the "New" button in the upper left.

The click on either "File Upload" (if you just wish to upload a file, or a few select files) or "Folder Upload" (if you want to upload an entire folder, or several folders).

Then a Windows Explorer window (the thing that looks like a manila file folder) will open. Navigate to the folder(s) you want, and then click "Open."

QUICK REMINDER: You can choose multiple files by holding the Ctrl key as you click each one with your mouse. If you want to choose a group of files, you can hold the Shift key, click the first file, and while still holding the Shift key, click the last file in the group; all the files in between will now be highlighted / chosen.