Months ago Google announced that they were finally going to include the capacity to natively add sound/audio files to a slide presentation. It didn't happen as soon as Google expected, but it is available now.

Many of you have asked over the past few years why slides can't play music in the background like powerpoint. Well, now it can. You can insert an audio file that you have in your Google Drive. Files should probably be .mp3 or .wav files, but others may be acceptable. 

The audio can be played across one, some, or all the slides in a presentation.

Google Forms has undergone an appearance update which will be rolling out to all users over the coming weeks. Right now I don't have it on my work account but it is available on my personal drive account. I have seen that some teachers already have new the Forms look. I think it looks much better, especially if you like to put a custom header at the top of the Form.

Google also realized that many users like to be notified when someone fills out the Form. They have created their own Form Notification Add-on so that you can easily accomplish this. Users can set it so that any number of people are notified, and you can send thanks yous to those who fill it out. 

I used the site this month to pick my coffee winner and got some teachers who thought I should tell you about it. 

All you have to do is paste or type student names into the provided box and click the spinner to generate a random name. 

'Winners' can have their name removed from the wheel or you can keep them. It's a pretty quick and easy way to randomly pick just about anything from your list of things.

Want to choose between lunch detention or recess? Spin it.

Choice of buying a class fish or tarantula? Spin it. 

Deciding to read the next newsletter or not? Spin it:)

Vallivue School District does many things to support its staff. 

My job is to help you implement technology in your classroom to be effective and impactful for your students. 

Please contact me with your tech questions or help requests. If I don't know the answer I can always find one, or point you in the direction of someone who can.

One educator that I follow online has often stated that the answer to your "How should I do that?" question is Google Slides. In case you don't know some of the things Slides can do I've gathered a few short tutorials that explain:

• web search w/o leaving Slides

• letting Slides create your presentation for you

• inserting YouTube videos into slides

• adding charts (from a Sheet with your data)

• hyperlinks within your slide presentation 

Carol Griggs from Birch was the winner for November. She, and dozens of others, correctly replied with Veterans Day (no apostrophe) to the question I asked. 

Thanks to all who read the newsletter and responded.