Working smarter not harder: Making your Chrome Browser work for you and Calendars

Chrome Web Store

Google for Education Training Centre

Chrome Browser

Setting up your environment with themes
Setting up multiple users

Organising your browser

Folders: create folders in your bookmark bar

Star the site>create a name for the site>create a folder

Linc Ed pages can be saved!

Chrome Apps: web-based applications.

Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook online
Hapara Teacher DashboardPicasa Web Albums

Chrome Extensions: smaller and extend the functionality of chrome and websites.

Cloud Tab: save any window session and restore it at a later date.
Sexy Undo Close Tab: easily open tabs that have been closed
OneFeed: bring all your social media and favourite news site to you when you open a new tab.

Tab Scissors: This extension splits a window into two at the selected tab.

Tab Paste: This extension glues windows together.

Draftback: Draftback lets you play back the revision history of any Google Doc you can edit.

Streak: added features to your inbox such as scheduled emails, check reader view, etc.

G Suite Training: already deployed across the school. Simple and interactive training lessons to get you up and running fast with G Suite for Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, Slides, and Docs.

Docs, spreadsheets and slides

Have their own 'add ons' e.g. more fonts

Find them by opening the doc/ sheet or slide and there is a menu option for Add Ons

Copy and paste

Copy and pasting from various places onto a doc and want the formatting to match the doc you are working in? Instead of pasting using command v, press command shift v.

Calendars

Manage your Calendar: including your subscriptions
Settings cog>settings>calendars
From here you can unsubscribe, control sharing and more.

Labs
Like with gmail, you can check out the Labs (experimental options to add to your calendar)
Try these options by clicking Enable:
Event Flair, Jump to date, event attachments, hide morning and night.


Add Calendars
Add calendar by URL or email address

Browse interesting calendars e.g. holidays, sports, domain-specific resources


Appointment Slots: Only for GAFE accounts

Using Appointment Slots

How to create appointment slots

Working smarter not harder: Organising your online life - Gmail and Drive

Filters and Labels for your mail

Labels are like folders, but you can add more than one label to a message. To add a label to an email, select the email, then click Labels Label. The label will be shown next to the email.

- In label list>show if unread

Filters Filtering emails in Gmail allows you to redirect emails as they arrive, thereby saving the trouble of having to sort and manage some messages manually. For instance, you might want to direct all emails from parents to a folder designated specifically for "parents", or staff emails to a folder for staff. Filtering in Gmail is also good for forwarding specific emails, applying the same filter to several senders, designate label colours for better organisation or mark certain emails with importance markers.

Check out the categories in your inbox

Your emails are automatically organised into tabs. For example, an email from a google doc can be found in the "updates" tab.

Learn more about inbox categories.

Contacts

Manage your contacts - create contacts lists

Undo sending a message

Turn on Undo Send to get extra time to look at an email before it gets delivered.

Learn more about sending & unsending emails.

Labs

Use Labs to turn on more features

e.g. Undo send

Searching within Gmail

Find unread messages:

Type "is:unread" (not including the quotation marks) in the Gmail search field. Click the search button (sporting a magnifying glass, 🔍). You can also press Enter, of course.

If you do this search repeatedly or generally appreciate brevity, you can use "l:unread" or even "l:^u" instead of "is:unread" (or "label:unread"). You can also combine the quest for unread messages with others: "l:^u from:tim" finds all unread messages from "tim", "l:^u l:^t" finds all unread starred mail, and "l:^u l:^k subject:hi" finds all unread messages with "hi" in the subject that are in the Trash.

Further search terms

Google Drive

Folders

- colour coded to easily categorise (right click>change colour)
- share whole folders
- move to
- add star

Team Drives

Google Team Drives are shared spaces where teams can easily store, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device.

Unlike files in My Drive, files in Team Drive belong to the team instead of an individual. Even if members leave, the files stay exactly where they are so your team can continue to share information and get work done.

Linc-Ed and Team Drives

Linc-Ed are working on the API (a set of functions and procedures that allow the creation of applications which access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other services) to be able to talk to each other.  Currently, we have a shared folder for any documents we want to embed on Linc-Ed (e.g. intervention docs, writing progressions).

Have a play around...

Organising your drive...& other useful tips

Folders
- colour coded to easily categorise (right click>change colour)
- share whole folders
- move to
- add star

Save documents you use regularly to your desktop:

- open document

- drag URL onto desktop

- right-click on file name to change e.g. change URL to visual planner

To change the icon:

- find an image (try Icon Search) or use google images

- right click to copy image

- right click on the icon and select 'Get Info'

- click on the current image and paste the new image (paste = command P)

Need a desktop organiser?

Desktop Organiser

Organiser 2 Organiser 3 There's an app for that: SimpleUndoClose: easily open tabs that have been closed Black Menu for Google: quickly search and access all your googleness Cloud Tab: save any window session and restore it at a later date Draftback: Draftback lets you play back the revision history of any Google Doc you can edit

Building your PLN

Twitter

Beginners guide to Twitter
NZ 'Twits' to follow

Apps to help with Twitter:
Tweetdeck:
Social media dashboard where you can manage Twitter and Facebook
- You choose what you manage
- You can follow #
Buffer App
Buffer Extension
Manage sharing info on Twitter
- Schedule when content goes out
- Good for when you find readings you want to share
- Analysis your followers and how effective your tweets are
- Add to your browser

VLN

Virtual Learning Network for NZ Educators. 

Follow groups and people.

Google +

Getting to know Google +
GEG NZ Community

Apps to help you with Google+:
Favourite Posts: Keep track of the posts you like directly on Google+!

Blogger

Think about the purpose for your blog - check out this document we wrote last year regarding the purpose for different tools: Our Digital Toolbox.

Basics of Blogger

Embedding albums, images and slideshows

Embed a video

Customising your Blog

Backgrounds, Templates & Banners:

Blogger Candy (uses HTML code)
Cutest Blog on the Block (uses HTML code)
Blogger Templates (uses XML download file)
Shabby Blogs

Widgets:

Feedjit - see where your blog visitors are located and what pages they are going to
Map Loco - see where you blog visitors are located
Twitter Feed - live twitter feed
Social Network Feed - get a feed from various social media sites (e.g. facebook, twitter)
Text Giraffe - Create logo's, etc

Photo Sharing
Picassa Web
Picture Trail
Photo Bucket - create photo slideshows

LC2 Blog

Google Sites

Access Google Sites by finding the apps control panel:

Examples of Google Sites:

eLearning at HPPS Site

Learning Common 2 Learning Site

Teacher Dashboard

Teacher Dashboard provides an instructional management layer on top of Google Apps, giving educators a snap-shot view of student activity across Docs, Sites, Blogger and Calendars.

Getting Started 

To access Teacher Dashboard, first log into your Google Apps account.
In a new tab, open the following: Hobsonville Point Teacher Dashboard
Save this to your chrome browser: Bookmarks>bookmark this page
You'll be asked for approval to link your Google Apps account with Teacher Dashboard.
Once you OK this approval, you'll see your classes on the home screen.

Organising your Dashboard
When you open a class in Teacher Dashboard, you see all of your students along with any items they have shared with you through the class folder.
There are a few additional options that allow for grouping and sorting on this screen.

Sorting 

Allows you to sort the way you see students on your dashboard (e.g. first name, last name, group).


Class Group Setting

Allows you to set up colours and names for groups in your class. Click on the colour to the left of each student to organise your groups.

View Docs & Filter

The drop down menu allows for you to view more than 3 docs (up to 25) on your home screen. The Filter search box allows you to quickly call up items that may have a specific title.

Smart Copy Wizard - How to use it

Share docs with the whole class, or a group of students, with just a few clicks.

Teacher Dashboard Tools & Features: Hapara's how to's tutorials