Google – Jake Miller

Import and Edit Google Slides in Quizizz

Quizizz has made a ton of updates in the last few months—Time for us to catch up on them!

First up, if you’ve done lessons in Quizizz, you know that you can import Google Slides into your lesson. They typically come in as a static, uneditable image of that slide. They’re now rolling out the ability to edit those slides in Quizizz. So, it breaks the slide apart into separate elements that can then be edited.

This is not perfect because some images and fonts come in a little wonky – think about what happens when you bring a Word Document into Google Docs or a Google Slides into Powerpoint – yah, same kind of situation. So, you might find that your slides don’t look quite right or that you can’t edit what you want. For example, this was a minor one, but I kept finding that it inserted a big white rectangle for the background from my slide.

That’s no big deal, but if you have a complex slide with crazy fonts, you may have more issues. If you know that your slides are perfect and you want to avoid anything getting messed up, choose the Uneditable Slides option, and they’ll come in as static images just like they used to. But, if you want to edit them within Quizizz, choose the editable option.

This, by the way, is available on all accounts.

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Edit PDFs in the Chromebook Gallery App

Starting in ChromeOS version 104, users can now edit PDF documents using the built-in Gallery app.

For us adults, that’s great for adding a signature to a document and then sending it in. In the classroom, though, it lets students complete activities or digital worksheets and then submit them in their LMS.

So, if you open the document from the Chromebook Files app, you’ll see a text annotation option, for typing into the PDF, and a drawing option for, obviously, drawing on the PDF. It’s also got a highlighter and eraser in there too. Then you can save the completed document and submit it, send it, or whatever. This provides an additional option for those of you who haven’t found a satisfactory alternative for using fillable PDFs in the Classroom.

Sure, we could use Kami, or use the Google Classroom mobile app or put screenshot the PDF and put it in Google Slides or use Pear Deck or Nearpod or a number of other options, but if none of those work or are ideal for you: here’s another option.

This is available for all Chromebook users.

[Image(s) Source: https://blog.google/products/chromebooks/video-editing-and-other-new-features/ ]

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Live stream Google Meet events via YouTube

Nowadays we have plenty of good ways to livestream events—

including Streamyard and built-in solutions on multiple tools, but I wanted to share this one with you because I think it may be handy for school events.

If it’s enabled by your admin, Google users can now livestream Google meetings publicly via YouTube.

This provides an easy way to get your holiday choir concert or your Board meeting on YouTube. Just please don’t make me watch the board meeting, kay? Anyhow, within Google Meet on a computer, you can click the 3 dots, then Manage Streaming. On phones, just go to the Activities panel and select Live Streaming. You can then give the livestream a title, set its privacy and the caption language and start the stream.

Easy peasy!

[More info: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/07/live-stream-google-meet-events-via-youtube.html ]

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Split Cells in Google Docs Tables

If you’re like me, you can hack Google Docs to do almost everything that it should do, but doesn’t do.

That includes – or, did include – making a table that has a variable number of cells in each row.

Let’s say you have a rubric where most rows require just 2 options – 0 points or 1 point – and then you have a row where you need three options – 2, 1, or 0 points. Well, in the past, the hack was to make each row have 3 columns for those options, but in all of the 1 point rows, merge them together. It worked, but it certainly wasn’t elegant.

Well, now we don’t need that hack – You can now split table cells into any number of rows and columns.

1 cell in a table can have multiple rows and columns. This works for the example that I gave, but you can likely find a ton of other reasons you might use this! Maybe you need subheadings underneath your headings… you need to add units into a table… or you need to add some information with an asterisk. Now you can. Just right-click the cell > click Split cell > enter the number of rows and columns you want > and click Split. Voila!

This is available in all Google accounts, even free ones.

[GIF Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/10/split-table-cells-in-google-docs.html ]

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Google Workspace Updates

Gmail has been the most widely used email client for some time, but it’s been missing some features…

One thing that I’ve long wished it had was the ability to create newsletter-like emails. Another is the ability to send 1 email to many people, but to have it appear to each one as an individual email. Of course, there are workarounds for both of these things: formatting the email elsewhere and bringing it into gmail… using mail merges to send 1 email to many people… using BCC… but now, you can do some of that stuff natively in gmail.

They’ve added new marketing tools.

First off, you can now access a variety of templates that include buttons, images, and text elements. Then, you can customize and personalize those layouts with new colors, images, and more. So, that covers that first issue I was talking about. Fancy formatted emails built right in gmail.

The other update is the ability to multi-send emails.

Now, no need to send a BCC to all recipients! By using Multi-Send mode, each recipient gets a separate copy of the email AND it includes an unsubscribe link. These are both great news. The not-so-great news is the availability. Google Workspace for Education Standard and Plus users HAVE these features, while Education Fundamentals and Teaching & Learning Upgrade users do NOT have these features.

Once again though, I’m puzzled by this availability. Education Fundamentals is the free version, so I get why those accounts don’t have it.

Education Standard and Plus accounts are pretty pricy – $3 per student per year for Standard, and $5 per student per year for Plus. So I get why they DO get this feature. What I don’t like though: why don’t Education Teaching & Learning accounts get these features? They are per-staff member accounts that cost $4 per staff member per month. At $48 a year, why would they not get this feature? I know that’s less money than paying $3 of $5 per student per year… but it sure would be nice to give that feature to those Teaching and Learning Upgrade teachers.

A few months after rolling out the Multi-Send feature, Google then kicked it up a notch with personalization Merge tags.

In big email service providers like MailChimp, Constant Contact, BirdSend, and others you can add merge tags to fill in peoples’ first names in your greetings and such. Now you can do that in the Gmail multi-send option IF you are on Google Workspace for Education Plus. So, Education Fundamentals and Education Teaching and Learning Upgrade teachers, you can’t send multi-send emails, so this is no surprise. Education Standard users, though, you can send multi-send emails, but you cannot add this personalization is.

Those of you on Plus, you can now add @firstname, @lastname, @fullname, and @email into your multi-send emails so they look a little less like they were part of a multi-send campaign. You’ll also be able to have a preview email sent to you to make sure the tags are functioning correctly. To fill in those it’ll use the information from in your Google contacts to determine what to fill in there, so you may want to double-check what you’ve got in there.

Here’s a weird part – if you don’t have the recipients in your contacts or if you just don’t have their first name and last name filled in, Gmail will try to guess what to put in there! For the most part, this should work, because gmail will know the info for other gmail addresses. But can you imagine emailing JakeMillerTech@gmail.com and having it guess my last name was Tech or my first name was Jack? Embarrassing.

So, make sure you have accurate contacts for any multi-send recipients if you plan to use this new feature. Just head to contacts.google.com to do that.

And, a reminder, while Plus and Standard users can send multi-send emails, only Plus emails can use these merge tags.

[Image(s) Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/07/new-integrated-marketing-tools-for-gmail.html ]

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Auto-Generated Summaries in Google Docs!

Auto-generated summaries in Google Docs!? Let’s talk about it…

Several blog posts ago, I shared about adding summaries to your Google Docs—you do that in the left-side menu where the document outline is. Those summaries also show up in other locations, like in Google Drive.

What I did not share (or realize) at that point, was for some of you those summaries will be auto-generated, at least if the document is long enough. Yup, you did all of the work on the doc itself, why should you have to do all of the work on the summary as well? You’ll find what Google calls a “suggested summary” in that same location and you can then edit them if you’d like!

Here’s an example of what that looks like in your Google Docs workspace:

The announcement says that these are available to Education Plus users but not Education Fundamentals users.

Now, you might be thinking, “Jake, aren’t there 4 education account types!? What about Education Standard and Education Teaching & Learning users?” Well, dear reader, I have no stinking idea. Because does Google make their communication about their accounts clear? NOPE. There are now more than a dozen account types, when you count non-eduation ones, and some updates clearly list whether they apply to all of them or not, while this one only lists some of the account types.

So, help me out, if you know what kind of Google Workspace for Education account you have – Plus, Fundamentals, Standard, or Teaching & Learning Upgrade – I’d love to hear if you get summary suggestions. And if you work for Google, I’d love for you to tell someone to make your account level and feature availability messaging clearer.

Seriously, just add a chart, the same chart every time, with checkmarks or X’s to each announcement. This account type has it, this one does not. Sheesh. Is it really that difficult?

[Image Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/02/new-smart-canvas-features-in-google-docs.html ]

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Insert emojis inline with text in Google Docs!

“@:mind blown”🤯! “@:thinking face”🤔!

Am I speaking a new top secret language? No, I’m talking about the new capability to insert emojis in your Google Docs without clicking around in any menus or using any Chrome Extensions.

Built into the Smart Chip menu (that they released a year ago) is the ability to add emojis now! If you type, for example, the “@” symbol and brain you’ll be able to get to the brain emoji from within that smart chip menu and then you’ll be able to select the brain emoji. 🧠

How to add emojis inline in Google Docs

Unfortunately, you’ll have to sift through some other results like Google Drive files and Google Maps locations that also involve the word brain. To make it quicker, follow that @ symbol up with a colon :.

That tells the Smart Chips menu to just look at emojis. When you do that you’ll see matching emoji results, and you can click “enter” to accept the one at the top of the list. If you type a word in that has multiple results, like smile or heart, you may have to use the arrow keys or mouse to get to the one you want. You can also click on the right arrow in the top right of the smart chips pane to see the full menu of emojis to search or scroll through.

It won’t enhance your pedagogy but it might make you a little more efficient, or make your docs—and your students’ docs, a little more fun. I’m here for each of those things!

This update is available to ALL Google users and is out now.

[GIF Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/08/inline-emoji-insertion-Docs.html ]

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Adding Summaries to your Google Docs…

Wait, what’s this Google Doc for?

Earlier this year, Google added the ability to type up your own Summary for your doc in the left sidebar where the doc outline appears.

The outline is autogenerated by your use of headings, titles, subtitles, and other items in your doc, but the summary is something that you type in manually.

There doesn’t appear to be a limit to how long it can be, but you’re unable to do any formatting within it. You can use Shift+Enter to add line breaks though.

This summary will appear in that left sidebar for all viewers and it also shows up in other places, like the details pane that you can see in Google Docs. That’s a nice way to tell people what the doc is before they open it.

[Image Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/789838/how-to-add-a-document-summary-in-google-docs/ ]

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Get Notified of Edits to a Google Doc

Need to know as soon as someone adds something to the meeting agenda? Eagerly awaiting a student starting their first draft of an overdue paper? Want to keep a watchful eye on a super important doc? Well, Google has a new feature that can help you!

You can now choose to be notified via email if a file is edited.

And it’s on a per-file basis, meaning you can have this setting on for your staff luncheon list, but off for your assessment schedule doc.

The email that you receive will tell you the what, when, and who, of any changes that were made. You can set them from within the doc by clicking Tools, then Notification Settings. Or you can access it by clicking the comments button in the top right and then the bell. Once you’re in there you can choose to be notified of all comments, no comments, or just comments that tag you.

And, the major new feature, you can choose to be notified about added or removed content. You’ll also see these same options in your Gmail when you receive a notification about a doc, including the ones that we’ve been receiving for years about comments. Now there’s a notification dropdown with these additional settings.

This is available on ALL Google accounts now!

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Formatting Improvements in Google Forms!

Google Forms has looked pretty much the same for a long time. But, they won’t look quite the same now because Google has rolled out a handful of updates to Forms!

📺 Check this out in video form on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. 📺

First, you can now adjust the fonts and font sizes of any part of your form. You can use any of your Google Docs fonts. They do limit your font sizes – Big Brother Google doesn’t want us making our fonts too big or too small – but at least we can change them. And, you can make them different in the header, sub-header, and body text. ⬇️

I imagine Google cringing about the possible graphic design laws that you’ll all be breaking with your Google Forms, so try to keep it looking nice, all right? I think that’s why Google held off on this and the next update for such a long time – they wanted to make sure the Forms looked pretty in terms of Graphic design principles . . . but now they’re giving us some freedom.

The other part of this freedom is letting us use some basic formatting within the text. We can now make our text bold, italicized, or underlined and we can even add clickable links! We used to have to add what are called naked links, which is not inappropriate, I promise, it means you’re including the full URL for a link. Now, you can make a hyperlink.

To recap, we now have fonts, font sizes, bold, italics, underline, and hyperlinks, plus we can also make lists—numbered or bulleted—in descriptions. Nice!

These features are for all Google accounts and should already be active for you!📺 Check this out in video form on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. 📺

[Image Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2022/06/new-font-options-google-forms.html] Continue reading Formatting Improvements in Google Forms!