A Collection of FIT Tips shared in the Principals' Bulletins

iExit (Week of 6/10)

In preparation for some long summer drives, you may want to download iExit. It lets you know what you can expect to find at every exit along your route. Which gas stations, which restaurants, which hotels. Perfect for a family road trip, so you can time your restroom stops to coordinate with a prefered restaurant or gas station.

Revision History  (Week of 5/27)

This is the extension recently shared at a faculty meeting because of its ability to help you see the in progress revision history students have used. Its a helpful tool in potentially detecting work not their own as it allows you to see statistics such as active writing time, number of copy and pastes, and more. 

Top AI Tools   (Week of 5/20)

Ever wonder if there's an AI tool for that? Top AI Tools is a website directory with a compiled list of leading AI tools, helping AI enthusiasts and professionals make the best out of AI products and services, all on one place. Find the perfect AI tool for every task. Use the search feature to find an AI tool to meet your needs. The filter option can also help you find free AI tools, the most popular and recent AI tools, and so much more. . 

Save Inline Image   (Week of 5/13)

Has someone shared a Doc with you that has an image you would like to use elsewhere, or do you forget where you found an image you put into a doc? Use this add-on to quickly save an image that has been embedded in Docs to your Drive. 

Notification Settings in Google Docs and Sheets     (Week of 5/06)

Have you shared a Google Doc or Google Sheet with a colleague or student and don't want to keep checking back to see if any updates have been made? Now, you can set the document to notify you if any/certain changes are made! Find this option under Tools > Notifications! 

Iloveimg.com - AI Image Upscaler & Editor    (Week of 4/22)

iloveimg.com is a website that provides a ton of image editing tools online. With their new image upscaling feature, you can easily upgrade the overall quality and appearance of an image. This website allows you to enlarge your images with high resolution in seconds.You can also access tools that allow you to blur faces, create watermarks on your images, convert webpages in HTML to JPG or SVG, compress images, generate memes, and so much more! 

Insert Icons for Docs, Sheets, and Slides    (Week of 4/15)

Browse 1800+ icons from Font Awesome and Google Material Design, available in every colors and insert them in your document, slide, or sheet. There is a separate add-on for each. 

Hanging Indents in Google Docs    (Week of 4/8)

If you're like me and didn't know what a "hanging indent" was until someone asked you how to make one in Google Docs, a hanging indent is when the first line of text in a paragraph is not indented, but the second and following lines need to be indented inward. This style is often used for citing sources. 

Highlight the text in Google Docs you'd like to apply the formatting to. Click "Format" from the top menu, and navigate down to "Align and Indent." Then select "Indentation Options." Use the "Special Indent" dropdown in the pop-up window and select "Hanging." Then you are able to select the size of your indent. I like 0.2 personally, but you can play around with it! 

Record Slides in Google Slideshows   (Week of 3/18)

Google slides has added a new feature where you can record yourself and your slides directly in a Google slideshow. Recordings are automatically saved into a My Drive folder called "Slides recordings" and can be shared to collaborators immediately after creation. Click here for more indepth step by step instructions on how to use this new feature. 

Helperbird    (Week of 3/11)

Helps make your Docs, etc more accessible with features helpful for reading, writing, and translation like customizable fonts, zooming and magnification, immersive reader, translation, and color blindness tools. There is a free basic plan that includes the basic features. See which features are free HERE 

Use the Snipping Tool like a pro!    (Week of 3/4)

If you are using the "Snipping Tool" to take a screenshot on our school desktops, consider using the option to delay your screenshot by a certain number of seconds. This can be useful if you're trying to highlight a dropdown menu that needs to be clicked before showing up. Delaying your screenshot will allow you to click and have it open with the capture happening automatically on a delay. 

Gimkit Kit Creator for Test Review    (Week of 2/26)

Create Test Reviews with Student Help with GimKit KitCollab - With our school subscription to Gimkit, you might have explored the gamified learning that it offers. However, have you experienced KitCollab yet? KitCollab allows you to take a set of questions or generate new questions in a community setting. You as the teacher then can approve or reject the submitted questions. This is a way to help students study for tests by generating questions on their own and then review using the game they created. To avoid having the same questions get repeated, you might want to assign certain broad themes or topics to specific groups of students. This video clip provides an overview of how to use KitCollab 

MyBib – A New FREE APA, Harvard, & MLA Citation Generator   (Week of 2/19)

MyBib is an extension available with Chrome that will provide you with the citation for any website you visit. It also has a rating scale that judges whether the source is credible. Simply add the extension to Chrome and pin it to your toolbar. You can even select the specific style for the citation (MLA, APA etc.) Check out https://www.mybib.com/ for more information! 

Tango  (Week of 2/12)

Turn your workflow into an interactive How To doc in minutes. Complete a series of steps on your computer while "capturing" in Tango. It will document your steps with screenshots and allow you to edit them. Then you can share it as a PDF or HTML. It really does the work for you! The free version allows you to save up to 15 workflows. See the link for a short video demonstration. 

New Way to Go Pageless in Google Docs (Week of 2/5)

Although the pageless feature in Google Docs is not new, there is a new way to easily enable or disable this feature. Simply click on the "Format" tab of the toolbar, and you will see the options to switch to pageless or even switch the orientation of your page, without needing to go to File > Page Options which was previously the only option. 

MagicSchool.AI   (Week of 1/29)

The free version of MagicSchool AI provides a variety of tools to help you plan and create. Want to kick off class with a joke? Choose your grade level and topic for joke generator. Wanting to get inspiration for project ideas? Have MagicSchool create a choice board based on a topic or standard. Need a rubric created? Enter the topic and a few key areas you are looking for. 

Interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom   (Week of 1/22)

You can now create and add interactive activities to Youtube Videos right from your Google classroom dashboard! Simply go to make a new assignment and click the attachment icon for Youtube. Once your video is added you can select “My Video Activities” to add content and questions to your video/assignment. This feature can save time with the autograde tool, identify concepts that need more instruction time, identify students who need extra support, and shape future lesson plans with performance insights. Student submissions will sync with your Google classroom once they have completed the assignment. For more information click here. 

Captions in Google Slides    (Week of 1/15)

If you are in presentation mode in Google Slides and have a microphone on, you can turn on Captions and have live captions appear. This is great if you have a student who may have difficulty hearing or if you want students to have multiple ways to process what you are presenting. Caveat: like on television, the captions will not have punctuation, and some words may be misunderstood. Also captions are not saved. 

To turn it on, go into presentation mode, click the 3 dots on the bottom left and select your captions preferences. 

HelloHistory      (Week of 1/8)

HelloHistory is only available as an app for now, so this is more a tool for teachers or to recommend to students. This app allows you to have AI generated conversations with a variety of historic figures, celebrities, etc. The free version gives you a very limited amount of messages, but still a very cool platform to play around with! 

AI in Education Prompt Library     (Week of 1/1)

There has been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence (AI) in education. If you want to explore AI and creating prompts for different tasks, this website suggests phrases you can use to generate the content you are interested in. From Rubrics to Gamified Learning and Reference Letters to Google Slide creation, there are prompts here to give you a start on how to use AI to your advantage for instruction. 

EZ GIF File Converter     (Week of 12/18)

Have you ever found a GIF, photo, etc that you’ve wanted to use in your Google presentations, only to receive a message that the file type was unsupported by Google? Ezgif.com is a file converting platform that allows you to convert and edit WEBP files, amongst many other file types, to a more common, versatile, file format. Check out ezgif.com for more information on its useful features. 

Remove background from iPhone photos    (Week of 12/11)

This website allows you to pose a short answer question to students and give them time to answer, using specific guidelines. Students join using a code, similar to Kahoot or GimKit. After responding, students will get to view each others responses and give rankings based on your feedback restrictions. Afterwards, students will be able to view their feedback and you as the teacher can see and download their feedback as well. 

MyShortAnswer.com   (Week of 12/4)

This website allows you to pose a short answer question to students and give them time to answer, using specific guidelines. Students join using a code, similar to Kahoot or GimKit. After responding, students will get to view each others responses and give rankings based on your feedback restrictions. Afterwards, students will be able to view their feedback and you as the teacher can see and download their feedback as well. 

Collaborate Boards in Nearpod   (Week of 11/27)

Looking for a way to have students virtually share ideas in a collaborative fashion? Want to do a "Do Now" or "Close" where all the responses can be visible to the whole class? Have an idea to build SEL in by sharing successes (even anonymously if desired)? One of the school based subscriptions we have, Nearpod, has a collaborate board feature that can easily be used. Check out the blog post for some ideas. 

GimKit Creative  (Week of 11/20)

Gimkit Creative is a new feature on GimKit where you can build your very own game modes, maps, & worlds. You can choose backgrounds and props to enhance the setting of your game, and various items & gagets! Basically, GimKit creative lets you design your own Game from scratch with a few simple clicks. 

Add Tasks in Google Docs  (Week of 11/13)

If you would like to collaborate on tasks listed in a Google Doc, simply type @task in a Google Doc. It will give you the option to assign a task. Give the task a name, assign it to a person in our organization, and give a due date. A checkbox will appear with the task and person assigned. You can also share the doc with the person while creating the task. Use this to collaborate with colleagues or to assign group projects with your students. 

Twee (Week of 11/06)

Twee is a new website that has many different AI tools for teachers that are unique to others I've seen. Some of my favorites are the video/Youtube tools. Copy and paste a link to your desired video and Twee will create a transcript of the video, generate different questions (and answers!) for the video, and more. There are also many language-based tools, perfect for ELLs or lower-level readers. 

Quizziz AI Extension (Week of 10/30)

Quizizz (which we have a school subscription to) has an AI Chrome extension. It allows you to take a webpage you are on and automatically generate questions from it. It also creates questions for YouTube videos. You can then edit the questions if you choose before sharing it with students. If you are curious about some of the additiona AI potential of Quizizz, check out https://quizizz.com/home/quizizz-ai?lng=en 

Disable submissions after a due date in Google Classroom  (Week of 10/23)

In Google Classroom, you can now use customizable grading scales for assessments such as letter grades or proficiency assessments (satisfactory, outstanding). When creating an assignment, go to the gearshift in the "Grading" section. Then you can add a Grading Scale. 

Grading Changes in Google Classroom (Week of 10/16)

In Google Classroom, you can now use customizable grading scales for assessments such as letter grades or proficiency assessments (satisfactory, outstanding). When creating an assignment, go to the gearshift in the "Grading" section. Then you can add a Grading Scale. 

Brisk Teaching (Week of 10/9)

Brisk Teaching is an AI Chrome Extension with many great features. It integrates with Google Docs and Google Classroom. Some of the features include changing the level of a text to meet your students' needs, generating lesson plans or quiz questions based on a text, generating feedback for completed assignments, detecting if a student's assignment was completed using AI tools, and even sharing the amount of time a student spent on the assignment. 

Print Friendly (Week of 10/2)

PrintFriendly is a free Google Extension that allows you to take a website and either print it or convert to a PDF file while removing the advertisements, unneccesary images or other content that might distract from the focus of the desired website information. Before the PDF file saves, you can control what will stay or be removed from the file. 

Mute a Tab (Week of 9/25)

Google Chrome allows you to mute a single tab without having to mute all of the sounds on your device. This can be useful if you are receiving a ton of email notifications while trying to show an instructional video, Edpuzzle, etc. Simply right click on the tab in Chrome that you would like to mute and select "mute site". When you are ready to unmute the tab, simply right click the tab again and select "unmute site". 

AI in the classroom (Week of 9/18)

With ChatGPT and other AI easily accessible, many of us are wondering what to do. How do we prevent cheating? Ditch That Textbook has a guide that explains AI tools, discusses how to formulate assignments that may prevent them from being used for cheating, discusses how we can use them in assignments and more. 

Annotate on Google Slides (Week of 9/11)

Google Slides has finally answered the call to add an annotation feature to their presentation mode. This feature is slowly rolling out to users, so it is unclear whether you will be able to save the slides with your annotations, but you will be able to move ahead in your presentation and annotations will stay on the slide you previously wrote on. 

NB Subscription Tech Tools (Week of 9/4)

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.