#EduDuctTape Twitter Chat – 8/28/19

Well, the first #EduDuctTape Chat is in the books and it was a 🌪  of awesomeness! Wow! People shared some really, really cool stuff and now I want to share it all with you.

So, the questions all came from Episode 25 of the Educational Duct Tape Podcast which featured Stacey Roshan as the guest.

There were sooooo many amazing responses, but I tried to curate some of my favorites for you.  It was difficult to narrow down the list!

Below, you’ll find those selected responses in this order Q2, Q3, Q4 and then Q1.  Since Q1 was silly & fun, I’ve chosen to end with that one.  Check it all out below!

Continue reading #EduDuctTape Twitter Chat – 8/28/19

Quickly Assigning Due Dates for Google Tasks in Google Calendar

Not too long ago, us Google-fans celebrated the arrival of the sidebar that we see alongside most gSuite apps.  That sidebar, which features access to Google Calendar, Keep & Tasks, made things much more convenient for users.  But, one thing that wasn’t convenient was how we assigned due dates & times to items in Google Tasks.  click.  click.  click.  click.  click.  Count ’em… 5 clicks for each task!

And this frustrated me, because I had just recently adopted Google Tasks as my to-do list management strategy.  I love how I can see them across all of my devices.  But, what to do about all of those clicks?  Well, I’ve got ya…

Open up the Tasks sidebar while in Google Calendar and navigate to the date and/or time that you want a task to be due on.  Then, just drag the task onto the date and/or time that you’d like to it to be due and… BAM! How many clicks was that?  1 click.  1 drag.  Done.

Assign Dates to Tasks in Calendar Animation

BTW – don’t see tasks?  I’ve seen 2 possible reasons for that.  Here they are:
1. You have Reminders enabled instead of Tasks.  Click the small menu to the right of Reminders (should be in the LEFT sidebar) and then choose Switch to Tasks.
2. You have multiple Google Accounts logged in within the same Chrome window.  Check this post from Kasey Bell or this post from Eric Curts to resolve that.

#EduDuctTape Season 2 Coming Soon!

The Educational Duct Tape Podcast will return to your favorite podcast app in August 2019. I’ve missed this connection with other educators and can’t wait to get back at it!

The first 2 episodes will focus on Back2School topics. I’d love to hear what topics you’d like us to discuss in those episodes! Vote here!

A Google Slides Hack to Replace ChatterPix or Blabberize

This idea–a true moment of educational duct tape (using technology to solve a classroom problem or goal)–actually came to me while recording an episode of my Educational Duct Tape Podcast!

In Episode 5, I played a question that Linda Hummer shared to the Educational Duct Tape Community FlipGrid along with Abbey Thomas’ answer.  Linda’s question was, essentially, what is an alternative to Chatterpix that works on Chromebooks?  Abbey’s answer was Blabberize. And the question was answered!  Or, so I thought…

After the episode aired, Dan Gallagher shared on that same grid some words of caution: Blabberize’s Terms of Service indicate that it’s not appropriate for all ages.  So, in Episode 6, I shared this and then, on the spot, found a hack for a solution:

I’ve posted about #StopMotionSlides a number of times (here are my tips for making them) and they make a pretty good solution for this.  Put a picture into a slide, use some careful cropping and then leverage a stop motion technique.  Not only can you make the mouth move up and down, but you can then publish the animation (#13 in these tips) and then record them with Screencastify (or your screencasting tool of choice) with a voiceover (#14 in these tips)!

Voila!  Not as easy as Chatterpix, but at least it eliminates the need of adding another tool and another set of terms of service to what you use with your students: you likely already use Google Slides & Screencastify!

Plus, unlike ChatterPix or Blabberize, you can have multiple characters, your characters can move, the scene change…  You–and your students–can get super creative!

Here’s an animated GIF of the process, followed by a step-by-step breakdown.

Google Slides ChatterPix Blabberize Hack Animation

Continue reading A Google Slides Hack to Replace ChatterPix or Blabberize

Add your Google Drawings into your Google Docs!

On 1/7/19, Google announced that you could now embed previously created Google Drawings into Google Docs.  Before this announcement, you could create new Drawings from within a Doc, but you could not pull in Drawings created in the regular Drawings platform.

This was limiting, because the Drawings tool within Docs was only provided a small workspace and had less tools.  It was also frustrating that a Drawing couldn’t be in both places – a Drawing and Doc – without copying and pasting or using the following workaround.

Up to this point, the best workaround was to download the Drawing as an image and then insert that image into the Doc.  This was frustrating for a few reasons: it involved inconvenient extra steps and it meant that the Drawing in the Doc would not update if the actual Drawing was updated.

Well, now Google has made good on fixing this.  In the Google Docs Insert menu, go to Drawing and now you can select New to create a new one or From Drive to select one that you created in the Google Drawings platform.  When the drawing is changed in Drawings, you’ll see an Update option in the Doc to show the changes (unless you selected Unlink when you added the Drawing).  Check it out in the animated GIF below:

Embed Drawings into Docs GIF

Keyboard Shortcuts for Bullets & Numbering

Sometimes, I think a trick, hack or shortcut that I do with technology is unimpressive and something that everyone either knows or doesn’t care about.  But then, when I mention it to someone, and they’re like “Whoa!” I think “Welp, this should be an EduGIF.”

Recently, I had the good fortune to be recording a guest appearance on the Shukes & Giff Podcast (er, maybe it’s the Shukes & Jake Podcast, now!? Kidding!).  When I was chatting about Emoji Bullets with Kim Pollishuke (a.k.a. “Shukes”), I mentioned, “So, I’ll just click Shift+Command+8 and then…” and she said “Wait, What!?”  And then I knew it, EduGIF time.  So here it is . . .

in most Google Tools:

  • Click CTRL (Command on Mac) + Shift + 7 for Numbering
  • Click it again to undo numbering
  • Click CTRL (Command on Mac) + Shift + 8 for Bullets
  • Click it again to undo bullets

Here’s the EduGIF!

Shortcuts for Bullets and Numbering GIF

Emoji Bullets

Want to add a little flair to your HyperDocs and some fun to your lesson plans? Ditch those boring bullets for some emoji bullets!

In many cases, this can obviously lead to a less-professional looking document or slideshow, but in the classroom . . . why not add a little fun? Our learners l-o-v-e emoji and it may just make schoolwork look a little more inviting.  So, here’s how to use them as bullets in Google Docs & Slides.  First up: a GIF animation, followed by the step-by-step.

Emoji Bullets Animation

  1. Click the appropriate button to add bullets.
  2. Add any of the default bullet styles.
  3. Right-Click (or two-finger click) on the first bullet and select More bullets.
  4. In the first dropdown menu, select Emoji.
  5. Now select your emoji!
  6. Right-click (or two-finger click) on the first emoji bullet if you’d like to change the size of the bullets.

Font Formatting in Google Comments

Did you ever really, really, really want a student (or colleague) to understand your feedback on a portion of a Google Doc?  Well, my friend, I have got news for you.  Surround a word (or group of words) in a Google Docs (or Slides, Sheets, Drawings…) Comment with asterisks (*) and you’ve got bold text. 💥Boom💥 Surround them with underscores ( _ ) and you’ve got italicized text. 💥Boom💥

🤔❓Why does using the underscore lead to italicized text instead of underlined text!?  I have no idea.  Ask the Googs.❓🤔

Even more puzzling, there’s no option to create underlined text.  But hey, 3 minutes ago, you didn’t know about how to do bold or italics, so calm it down, buddy.

Here’s the real head-scratcher: some people seem to want strikethrough text in a comment.  🤷🏻‍♂️  Why?  I dunno.  But it’s possible.  Just surround your text with hyphens (-) and you’ve got strikethrough.  Medium-half-excited-don’t-know-why-anyone-wants-this-feature-💥Boom💥.  But again, 4 minutes ago, you were clueless that this was even within the realm of possibility, so turn your snark dial down, Francis.  Anyhow, here’s a GIF.  Please enjoy.

Formatting Font in Comments GIF