A Collection of FIT Tips shared in the Principals' Bulletins

Make My Drive Fun (Week of 5/15)

If you are going for a drive this summer, use this site! Enter your starting and ending location, and it will plot interesting landmarks you could visit along the way to make the drive more interesting. Check it out here

Lecture/Presentation Mode in GoGuardian (Week of 5/8)

While GoGuardian has been a tool that many teachers have been using over the past few years, the district recently unlocked a new feature that allows teachers to cast their screens onto student devices that are active in the session. You can learn more information about this lecture more here. 

Practice Sets in Google Classroom (Week of 5/1)

You might have noticed a new feature in your Google Classroom called "Practice Sets." Through this, you are able to create autoscoring questions that are short answer, paragraph answer, multiple choice (single select), or multi-select. You also have the ability to insert questions from PDF files through a selection tool. Through entering skills, tips will be provided to students as they work through the questions. Teachers can share practice sets with other teachers to have their own copy. You can assign the practice set to students.  If a student answers a question wrong, it will tell them it is wrong and offer hints. They are unable to submit until they get the answer correct. 

Youtube Keyboard Shortcuts (Week of  4/24)

Youtube has keyboard shortcuts that help with common functions you may need when viewing. When you press K or spacebar while watching a video on YouTube, it will pause or play the video. And it works regardless of where you clicked last on the page.

Other YouTube shortcut keys:

• Press J to rewinds 10 seconds

• Press L to fast-forward 10 seconds

• F puts you into full-screen

• Home takes you to the start of the video

• M mutes the sound

• Up and down arrows turn the volume up and down 

IconsMania  (Week of 4/17)

This site has collections of free, editable icons and clip art. Click on a template of interest, and it will ask you if you are a Google or Microsoft user. Open the template, and you can use the icons as is, or you can change colors, etc. to customize them to your liking. 

Unblocked Games and Minecraft (Week of 4/3)

Build Your Own Bingo Cards (Week of 3/27)

Looking for a way to engage your students off their chromebook? Want to create a learning review with a Bingo challenge? The Bingo Baker can create a batch of bingo cards for you. Maybe try it with family and friends over Spring Break for fun then bring it into the classroom for educational uses. https://bingobaker.com/ 

Reopen a Closed Tab Accidentally (Week of 3/20)

If you just accidentally closed an important tab in your browser, you can easily re-open it by pressing command+shift+t on a Mac or control+shift+t on Windows PC. 

Force a Copy (Week of 3/13)

This is an old tip but easily forgotten! When you share in Google Classroom, it's simple to make a copy of docs, slides, etc. for each student, but if you want to force people to make a copy of Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc that you share outside of classroom, do the following: in the URL where it says edit, delete edit and anything after and change to the word copy. When you share the link, it will force the person opening it to make a copy. For example: www.google.com/edit=# would become www.google.com/copy (these are nonsense links) 

Capture to a GIF (Week of 3/06)

Capture to a Gif is a Chrome Extension that allows you to take recordings of your screen while you perform an action or task. Once you finish the task, the extension will convert the video into a gif that can be inserted into a presentation or somewhere else to give easy directions.  

Video Tutorials (Week of 2/27)

At the February 17 professional development day, FITs shared that there were video tutorials created for Nearpod, Formative, EdPuzzle and Screencastify. Feel free to check them out here at Northern Fit News Video Tutorials . Feel free to reach out to the FIT team as you have questions about these or other resources Northern provides. 

Extensity   (Week of 2/20)

If you have a lot of extensions, Extensity allows you to enable/disable them directly from this extension. For example, if your computer is running slowly, you can disable all extensions with one click. You can choose which to keep enabled at all times as well. It also allows you to organize to create profiles dependent on what you are currently doing. For example, a shopping profile may include coupon extensions, a research profile may include citation extensions, etc. 

Using Storyboards Creatively   (Week of 2/13)

Storyboards are a great way to plot out a story or movie, but you can also use them to set personal goals or brainstorm the steps needed to complete a project. Have students envision what they think a science lab will produce or summarize the results. It can be a way for them to visualize current or historic events or even plot out the steps of a math problem.  Use these templates, create your own in Canva or Google Drawings or Slides, or have students create their own to suit their needs. 

Scribe    (Week of 2/6)

Need to create step-by-step instructions for students or colleagues to follow? Don't want to make a screen recording that no one will watch start to finish anyway? Scribe allows you to screen record yourself doing a task and then captures screenshots and creates instructions for you in an easy to follow set of instructions!  

Picker Wheel   (Week of 1/30)

Need to randomly group students? Want to pick students at random? Maybe you are assigning students a random person, event, etc. to research? Picker wheel allows you to create lists and then use them for random selection. If you log in with Google, those lists can be saved for future use. You can also share out your random selector. 

Turn off the Lights    (Week of 1/23)

Turn Off the Lights is a lightweight and useful add-in designed for a more comfortable watching or reading experience. It works for all known video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Hulu, etc. Night Mode is one of the features which improves the night experience on all websites. This feature converts the white CSS background to black with one single click on the Night Mode switch that is positioned on the left bottom of your screen. Use the mouse scroll volume feature to control the volume of the current video player with a mouse scroll. With a single click on the gray lamp icon on the toolbar, it darkens the web page and highlights the video player. This can allow your page to have a dimming affect over flickering ads or other distracting features on the web page. Control the opacity level of the dimming feature in the extensions settings in order to have the feature shade things in a lighter or darker manner. For more control options and features visit: https://www.turnoffthelights.com/extension/chromeguide.html 

GoBoard    (Week of 1/16)

I would describe GoBoard as a Zoom with a Whiteboard. They offer 30 minutes per day freely. You can collaborate while jotting notes, etc on the shared space. There are tools you can insert onto the board (like Desmos for instance). You can create multiple pages or tabs as well. While you can't download, the link for your board remains active, so you can bookmark it to reference it in the future. 

Default Font Style Google Docs   (Week of 1/9)

Annoyed that Google Docs always defaults to Arial? You can easily change your default text style. Open a new Google Doc and type something in the font and size you would like to have as your default. To the left of the font name, click the dropdown menu that says "Normal Text." Hover over this and select "Update 'Normal Text' to Match". Then go back into this menu and move your cursor to the bottom of the list and select "Options". Select "Save as my default styles." 

Ditch Textbook Templates - Google Slides, Drawings, Jamboard and More  (Week of 1/2)

Looking for some variety in your Exit Tickets? Want to provide students with templates to design review games so they can learn as they create? Need some graphic organizers? Challenging students to share a concept using some mock social media posts? Ditch that Textbook has a series of educational templates you can download and use. Check them out at https://ditchthattextbook.com/resources/templates/ 

Classroomscreen (Week of 12/19)

Support your class activities, stimulate engagement and help your students get to work by using the intuitive tools of Classroomscreen. Choose from over 19 widgets to support your lesson in a visually appealing way. One useful feature provided on this platform is a noise meter that reads the decibles in the room and alerts the class if they are over the specified limit. Additional features include a QR code generator, class poll options, group generators, timers, stopwatches, and so much more!  Please note that we do not subscribe to the paid version, however the free version includes the features listed above in addition to many others. 

Arts and Culture Experiments with Google  (Week of 11/28)

As we head into a short break, some "play time" resources seemed like a good FIT Tip share. The Arts & Culture Experiments by Google have a variety of resources to "play" with. There are wellness activities such as "In Rhythm with Nature," geography based learning with "Geo Artwork" or "Where is Hopper", the "Blob Opera" for a creative break, "Art Coloring Book," author exploration with "An Ocean of Books" and so much more. These experiments, as they are called, could be used for a variety of instructional connections or SEL activities. 

New features added to Screencastify   (Week of 11/21)

Screencastify offers drawing tools, fireworks, stickers, and emojis that can be added to videos to increase student engagement and watchability. If you want to use emoji stickers and fireworks in your videos, you will need to start by enabling your drawing tools. Before you begin recording your screen, choose “show more options” in the extension and make sure the drawing toolbar is toggled on. A detailed list of instructions and step by step videos can be viewed on their website! 

Quiz helper (Week of 11/14)

This Form add on is very useful! It will allow you to optimize your Google Forms for printing should you need a printed copy. It also gives the ability to number questions or set a timer for a quiz. Setup your Forms to have many common settings automatically completed for you. After leaving students feedback in a Form, Quiz Helper will send your feedback to a Google Doc for each student if you choose. There are many helpful features in this add on! 

Copy Link to Highlight  (Week of 11/7)

When using Google Chrome, you can send a link to a specific part of a webpage or article. Highlight the section you'd like your link to skip to, right-click and select “copy link to highlight.” This link can then be used to skip directly to that section of the text. 

Google Meet Background Blur (Week of 10/31)

With parent conferences coming up, you might want to blur the background in your Google Meet video. Here is a quick video how to or you can check the step by step guide 

BONUS TIP - PowerTeacher Report Update

Available here

Mote (Week of 10/24)

This is a reminder about and oldie, but a goodie! Mote is a Google extension for leaving voice comments for student feedback. It helps save time as it is 3-5x faster than typing - this means you'll have the time to give thoughtful feedback that can really make a difference for learners. Have a common comment or feedback that you give frequently? Mote allows you to copy and paste your voice clips, just like you can with text! 

Forms History (Week of 10/17)

Did you know Google Forms doesn't keep track of your version history? This add on does! See if changes have been made to a Google Form, create back-up versions of the form, and view copies you have made from the add on. Forms History 

Groovy Grader (Week of 10/10) 

If you loved the old EZ Graders but are looking for a techie upgrade, download the Groovy Grader app. This allows you to enter in the number of questions on your assessment/assignment and see the grades based on either how many correct answers or how many incorrect answers. Currently available for iOS devices. Groovy Grader 

Open Routine Tabs with Ease (Week of 10/3)

Do you find yourself starting your day navigating to the same sites over and over? Here’s a shortcut that will save you time. Open all of the sites you use daily. Then employ SHIFT + CTRL + D to save all of your open windows to a new folder. The next day, just right-click on the folder, choose to open all the tabs, and your routine sites will deploy. 

Find My Device via Google (Week of 9/26)

If you lose a Chromebook, phone, tablet, or certain smart watches, you can find, lock, or erase it via a Web browser from another device. If you've added a Google Account to your device, Find My Device is automatically turned on. Here are the Step by Step Directions 

Originality Report Update (Week of 9/19)

Originality reports are now available to check for plagiarism in Google Slides which allows more opportunities to assign different formats for research projects. 

Google Docs Updates (Week of 9/12)

Google Docs recently added two new features. First, you can now add dropdown menus to your Google Docs. Click Insert > Dropdown. You can choose from premade dropdown menus or create your own template that can be reused in the future. Second, you can now change the page orientation of specific pages within a Google Doc. Highlight the information on the page you'd like to change. Select Format > Page Orientation > Selected Content. You can then toggle between Lanscape and Portrait. 

NB Subscription Tech Tools (Week of 9/5)

Just a reminder that the district pays for many subscriptions to great Tech Tools like Screencastify, Edpuzzle, and Formative. Flocabulary has seen a change in the login, so if you plan to use that, be sure to check the spreadsheet. To see the current status of the school's subscriptions or to see how to sign in/log in, check out this spreadsheet.