G Suite for Education Update

Google updates their products and releases these updates frequently. Attend this webinar to learn about all the recent updates to G Suite for Education, certifications, and how to stay abreast of future updates and innovations.

Drive

Team Drives - This space is to share files within your organization in which no one person is the owner. You can determine who can edit, comment, and view the file. You can create specific team drives and invite others to be members.

Quick Access - These files appear at the top of your drive and are the most recently edited files. You may also notice that new Google Sites also appears in Drive!

Doc, Sheet, Slide, and form Updates

Named Versions - you can now name specific versions within your Version History (previously called Revision History). This helps you identify a specific version in a the evolution of a document as a historical record of your team's progress.

To declutter the version history list, choose to only show named versions. If you delete a name, it reverts back to the date as the name.

Templates - You can now create and save documents as a template for your domain. You'll need to go to docs.google.com, sheets.google.com, slides.google.com or forms.google.com to view the file type you are wanting to convert to a template. Click the Templates Gallery link and then your domain. Click Submit Template and choose a file to submit.

Add feedback in question-by-question grading in Quizzes: More than test grades, meaningful feedback can improve learning. At ISTE this year, Google launched question-by-question grading in Quizzes in Google Forms to help teachers save time by batch grading assessments. In addition, teachers will have the option to add feedback as well.

Developers Busy Updating Forms

Google Forms has seen a lot of updates this summer. Richard Byrne recounts the following updates since June 1st of this year!

Add written feedback on every question on a quiz.
New form response format (checkbox grid) allows students to select multiple answers for a single item. (See demo)
Intelligent response validation allows Google to anticipate what type of answer type you need based on the question.
You can now accept file uploads if your domain and the user's domain accept cross-domain sharing. This question type requires the user to sign in. Uploaded files are stored on the form-owner's Drive. Total size of file uploads for a single form can be set to 1GB, 10GB, 100GB or 1T.
You can now rearrange whole sections just by dragging/dropping the entire section...no more dragging each piece to reassemble it another location.
Set preferences for your forms for things you always do (or avoid) such as collecting email address of the user, make questions required, and set a default value for quiz questions (which can be changed for each question if/when needed).

Classroom

Import Google Forms Quiz scores into Classroom: Using Quizzes in Google Forms allows educators to take real-time assessments of students’ understanding of a topic.

New app integrations added - Quizizz, Edcite, Kami and Code.org (coming soon).

Watch video tutorials

See a single view of a student’s work - Teachers can now get a list of all work by a student in a class. Students can see a list of all their work for a class in one place. Teachers and students can filter the list by assignment status or grade.

Reorder class cards - Teachers and students can reorder their classes on the Classroom home page.

Decimal grades—Teachers can use decimal grades for grading.

Display the class code - When inviting students to a class, teachers can display the class code in full screen.

Transfer class ownership - Administrators and teachers can transfer ownership of classes to another teacher.

Use the Google bar - Users can easily switch between Classroom and other G Suite tools, and access Classroom directly from the App launcher.

Sites

Duplicate Sections in Google Sites - You can now duplicate sections in new Google Sites on the same page and copy and paste sections across different pages.

Custom URLs

While previously only available to the Classic Google Sites, creating custom URLs is now possible on the new Google Sites...assuming you are not using a trial domain.

When making updates, you may need to wait up to 24 hours before you can see your changes.

Go to the Help Center for more information on how to set up address mapping in the Admin Console. NOTE: You do have to have admin privileges to make these changes.

Other Google Stuff

Eclipse Megamovie 2017 - Even if you were able to enjoy the solar eclipse, you may be interested in seeing a montage of photos taken by volunteers across the US during the eclipse. As the photos came in, Google used their geo tag and datestamp to sequence them. After doing a few image formatting tricks to center the eclipse in each photo and resize it, Google then stitched the images together to make this video. Also, notice the icon in the bottom right tracking where the sun was at the time when the photo was taken. You can find an interesting backstory, named Chasing Totality, to the making of this video as well.

Keep - Google continues to update and enhance Keep as it becomes more popular. Though it launched on March 20, 2013, it hasn't had much traction as a serious tool until recently. Mario Anima offers 8 tips to get more from Keep. Here are a few:

Record voice notes (on Android & iOS devices)
Capture text from pictures using its built-in OCR capability
Search handwritten notes
Easily copy info from/to Docs and Keep

Android Oreo - Yep, the next release of Android is now here. Version 8 for Android is sweetly named Oreo. Here are just a few features that you can anticipate if you upgrade to a device with Oreo:

Twice as fast when powering up
Picture-in-Picture allows you to see two apps at once
Google Play Protect keeps your device and data safe
Improved battery life
Even MORE emoji!

User Experience Research - If you would like to give input into the features and development of Google tools, consider signing up for their research study. The initial survey to collect your interests may take about 15 minutes. Later, they'll contact you regarding areas in which you would be a good candidate to give feedback and offer suggestions. Go to https://userresearch.google.com for more details.

Be Internet Awesome - Google has introduced its newest digital citizenship curriculum, Be Internet Awesome. Students explore Interland and learn the fundamentals of digital citizenship and safety. For more general information from Google, consider reviewing their teacher training center and learning more about the value of teaching digital citizenship.

Google Earth - As of July 5, 2017, you can watch the live “Bear Cams” in Google Earth. In collaboration with Explore.org, you can journey into Katmai National Park — watch the hungry bears dine out at Brooks Falls or salmon darting towards the underwater livecam.

YouTube - YouTube is shutting down its video editor and photo slideshow tools on September 20th.

Various Gmail Labs Retiring Soon

We've known that labs in any Google tool are experimental and may break at any time or just disappear. So, with condolences, Google regrets to inform us that several of its Gmail labs are being retired due to low use. They include: Authentication Icon, Google Voice Player, Picasa previews, Pictures in chat, Quick Links, Quote Selected Text, Smartlabels, and Yelp previews. No specific date has been cited.

Users can expect Gmail Add-ons to start appearing soon. Add-ons will allow developers to write the enhanced feature once and have it work in Gmail on the web, on Android AND on iOS.

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