NEW! Google Slides Q&A

From the Google Docs Blog:

Check this out..."a new feature in Google Slides: Slides Q&A. This update—rolling out globally today—helps speakers connect with their audience and collect real-time feedback. With a simple link displayed on a Slides presentation, audience members can submit questions from their phones, laptops, and tablets—and vote on those they want answered the most.

Slides Q&A makes it easy to interact with your audience—without having to worry about mics or moderators. Slides also helps you get your big ideas and stories on screen—without having to worry about wires or set up stress. Starting today, we're improving this "Show up, don't setup" experience in two ways:

You can now present your slides to a Hangout from your iPhone or iPad. So with just your phone or tablet and the Slides app, you can present to any screen using Chromecast, AirPlay or Hangouts.

And for those of you who like presenting from a computer, we're introducing a new laser pointer on the web. Just in time for May the 4th (be with you)."

Google Apps for Education Privacy & Security Information

Updated information on Google for Education's trust page. Worth reading through again.

Google Forms Gets Templates, Add-on Support and More

From TechCrunch by Frederic Lardinois (@fredericl):

"With today’s release, you can now select from a number of templates for standard surveys like customer feedback, quizzes and event sign-up right from the Google Forms home screen. Until now, forms dropped you right into the editor when you started a new form, but you always had to start from scratch. These new templates should make it quite a bit easier to get started with the service."

Read more about the updates at the link above.

Educate & Engage 2016: The Parent-Teacher Conference

*Posters have been PONYed to all schools this week.*

EDUCATE & ENGAGE 2016: THE PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCESaturday, March 12, 2016, 9am-noon
Lewis Elementary School / 4401 SE Evergreen
Sponsors: PPS & Concordia University
Audience: Parents

Technology is changing how today’s students learn. The creativity and innovation of teachers is advancing educational opportunities – allowing students to connect with and learn from teachers, the world and each other more than ever before. On Saturday, March 12, 2016, local school districts are partnering to host Educate & Engage 2016: The Parent-Teacher Conference, offering parents an opportunity to hear from teachers about the roles and implications of technology both in and out of today's modern classroom. A device is not necessary, but you can bring your own (laptop, tablet, smartphone) if you want.

Space is limited to 150 participants. If you are pre-registering, supervision will be available for a limited number of children ages 5 and older.

Sessions Include:

• Social Media in Education
• Google Apps for Education (also in Spanish)
• Coding and Computer Science
• Parenting in the 21st Century (also in Spanish)
• How Technology is Changing Teaching and Learning
• What is STEM/STEAM?
• Cyberbullying

Registration is open Feb. 1-29. For more information and to register, visit http://bit.ly/educateengage2016. Questions? Contact Melissa Lim, mlim@pps.net.

New in Google Classroom: Saving Time While Grading

From Google for Education blog:
Posted by Anibal Chehayeb, Google Classroom Software Engineer

We built Classroom to save teachers time, and we know that grading is one of those tasks that can involve a lot of little time wasters. In fact, students have turned in more than 200 million assignments via Classroom to date, which adds up to a lot of grading hours. Today, we’re launching new features to help make grading a little faster and easier.

• Export Grades to Google Sheets: In addition to .csv files, you can now export your grades directly to Google Sheets. The Sheets template includes a class average and an average per student. If you have ideas about how we can make this export to Sheets even more useful, please leave us feedback by clicking the question mark at the bottom left of the Classroom page, then choosing “send feedback.”
• Easier to update grade point scale: We know not all assignments are out of 100 points. You've always been able to change the point value, but a lot of teachers had trouble finding this feature. So we’ve made it easier to change the grading scale to any number you need it to be.
• Keyboard navigation for entering grades: When you’re entering lots of grades, you need a fast way to navigate from student to student. We’ve added the ability to use the up and down arrows to move directly from the grade entry area for one student to another.
• Sort by name on grading page: In addition to sorting students by completion status (done, not done), you can now sort by first or last name.
• And in case you missed it last month, you can now add a private comment for a student when you’re returning their work.

In addition to these grading improvements, we’ve been hard at work on other updates. We’ve polished the look and feel of Classroom on the web with icons to help differentiate items in the stream and added a cleaner look for comments and replies. We’ve also recently updated our Android and iOS mobile apps, so they’ll now load even faster. You can post questions for students on the go, and Android teachers can reuse previous posts. Finally, you can now post a question from the Classroom Share Button, which you can find on some of your favorite educational websites.

We hope you’ll find these updates helpful, and you’ll get a chance to relax and refresh over the winter break (or summer, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere). Look for more Classroom updates next semester.

The new Certified Innovator Program is here (and better than ever!)

From Becky Evans, Program Manager, Google for Education:

It was over a decade ago when we held our first Google Teacher Academy with a goal of bringing together outstanding educators using technology in the classroom. With so many changes since then, we decided it was about time to make some changes to the program as well. So today we’re thrilled to announce that applications are now open for the new and improved Google for Education Certified Innovator program—an energizing 12 month professional development experience for creative leaders in education. Built from the same magic that was present in each Academy, but extended into much more than a onetime event.

Certified Innovators help their organizations, each other and Google push the boundaries of what’s possible in education. As ongoing participants in this community of educators, they transform the organizations they’re serving, advocate for change, and grow their own capacity as thought leaders. The new program focuses on helping Innovators launch a transformative project to help improve education in their schools, regions, or the world. Support includes mentorship, online learning activities, and an in-person Innovation Academy.

See full post at:
http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-new-certified-innovator-program-is.html

MS Office Plug-In for Google Drive

This plug-in is only available for Windows users right now, but will soon be available for Mac users too. Watch the video for more information.