Fun with Google A-Z: V for Voyager Stories

What: Curated voyages and experiences in Google Earth including Nature, Culture, Travel, Education and Streetview. There is also a Games section with games Animal Calls, Lakes of the World, Food Origins, Holiday Traditions, World War II, and “Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?”

Voyages include a collection of beautiful images and basic information with links to explore more. At any point, you can grab “peg man” and hop into StreetView to take a closer look. This is also where you can access Google Earth’s “Timelapse” images such as urbanization, deforestation and melting glaciers.

Audience:  The curation around topics makes Google Earth more manageable for younger learners. Many of the items in the Quizzes section are geared for students, such as “Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?” The “Education” tab includes geographic collections around cross-curricular topics such as geometry, poetry, “Fairy Tales from Around the World”, “Reading the ABCs from Space”, Math and Architecture in Circular Structures… so much to choose from!

Time to Play:  Consider this site a “rabbit hole”! You will need a minimum of 10 or 15 minutes to get a feel for what this area of Google Earth is capable of. The format is intuitive and consistent so that will help you determine how to best enjoy this site.

Equipment: Google Earth works best on a computer, but the Chromebook experience is quite similar. On a mobile device, users will be prompted to use the Google Earth App. The app works well and is especially good for navigating in Street View.

Click here for the Google A-Z Table of Contents Launch Pad.

Fun with Google A-Z YouTube Playlist.

Tips for New Coaches

These tips are for district employees, such as Instructional Coaches, who travel to many different schools. In addition, these tips are also for people who work primarily “in the field” and from “place to place” and are not often at the same desk.

1. Introduce yourself to the secretary (administrative assistant). When you enter the building, call her by name and make small talk.
2. You probably will struggle to remember all the names at first so put an icon link on your phone home screen to the district website so that you easily review the names of people before you get to a building.
3. As much as possible, arrive before school and stay after school. This is when teachers have time to talk. It will sound like this: …..”I’ve been meaning to email you about yyyy, but since you’re here….”.
4. Be prepared. As a travelling salesperson, you won’t be at your home base very often, so make sure you are prepared when you go to schools. Charging your laptop at the start of the day should be the exception, not the norm.
5. Label your things – your computer, your cords, your headphones. As a traveller, you are bound to forget something somewhere. Make it easy for your things to find their way back to you.
6. Earn a reputation for responding to messages (email, text, etc) in a timely fashion. Many days you will be in front of classes or people all day and won’t have time for correspondence as it comes in, but catch up as soon as you can, even if it is to say… “I don’t know yet, but I’m investigating for you.”
7. And conversely, when coaching one on one with a teacher, be present. Most correspondence can wait until later. Your undivided attention is golden.
8. Take notes – in a form that works for you. A notebook dedicated to the job is a great idea. Or perhaps you are more of a digital notetaker. I use a combination of a notebook + Google Keep. The advantage to a digital tool is that you can take collaborative notes with your coaching team and/or it is easy to move those digital notes into other formats.
9. About that “later” correspondence…. your message in-box will really fill up at the end of the school day when classes are over and teachers and administrators have time to catch up with their correspondence. If possible, save some time at this day’s end to respond to time-sensitive messages, especially if you know that you will be “in the field” the following day
10. Leave your ringer off when you are in classrooms and meetings. Unless you are waiting for an emergency call or a super time-sensitive message from your boss, turn off your notifications until you are working by yourself.
11. Put your engagements in your calendar right away. Add as much detail as you can in the “notes”; chances are good that you will forget some of the ideas you chat about with your teachers if you don’t record them right away.
12. If a teacher says, “I’d like to meet sometime about…”, pull out your calendar and set a date on the spot.
13. If you drive a lot from location to location, consider a box or plastic bin in your back seat that serves as a mini-file cabinet. If you are like me, you often don’t get back to your “main office” where most of your supplies/belongings are. Use this mini-file space to keep paper copies of documents that you often need to share with staff but don’t want to lug around in your bag. Sometimes printing can be reliable (or unavailable) in different buildings so having paper copies is important. In a pinch, I do send items to the administrative assistant to print, but I like to reserve that for the unexpected, not for documents that I know I will likely need (ie. PD Flyers; How to access your MAP test result; Chromebook Quick Tip guide; etc.)

So… these are some of the little things that can make a “travelling work-style easier” and help you to appear knowledgeable and professional when you work with several different sites.

What did I miss? Please share your best tips in the comments!!!

Fun with Google: G for Geoguessr

What: This site is not a Google site directly, but uses Google Streetview to bring the fun. You choose from a category of maps such as World, USA, Famous Places, Europe, Canada, etc. You then will get a series of 5 map locations that you examine via Google Street view; you take a guess by placing your pin on the map inset and pressing submit. The closer you get, the more points.

Audience: Adults, especially those who have travelled, will find this quite addicting! I would play this game WITH students to start to help model and build their geographical thinking and reasoning skills (I do a bit of that in the YouTube video). This would be a good link to have on hand for those 5-10 minutes of class when you are “waiting” or need a quick class activity that will still build students’ knowledge and thinking skills.

Middle school and high school students will have enough geographic knowledge to enjoy this game. Younger students might have enough knowledge to play “Famous Places”; the first levels are very identifiable such as the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal.

Time to Play:  The free version of the game gives you 5 minutes at a time to play and then imposes a 10-minute wait time. If you don’t complete a 5-location challenge within 5 minutes, it saves your progress and you pick up where you left off the next time you play.

Equipment: Geoguessr is played in a web browser – it is not an app. It can be played on a Chromebook, but is also nice on a touch screen device, like an iPad. You can play on your phone browser – the touch screen makes it easy to navigate, but the small screen is a bit crowded.

There is a single-player mode and “party”/play-with-friends mode. Unfortunately, to “play with friends” at least one friend needs a pro account. There are lots of other perks behind the paywall, but you can certainly have fun with this app on the free version – and because it is somewhat addicting, the 5-minute-at-a-time limit isn’t such a bad thing!

Click here for the Google A-Z Table of Contents Launch Pad.

Fun with Google A-Z YouTube Playlist.

Fun with Google A-Z: D for Doodles

What: If you have ever “googled” something, you have likely encountered a Google Doodle. They are the creative ways that Google arranges the letters on the Google search engine page to commemorate national and world events. Interestingly, Google customizes its doodles for various regions and even countries – there is a map that shows where each Google Doodle is available. Be sure to check out the About page for a brief Google Doodle history. The Google Doodles below will remind you how far the Doodle has come since they first began to appear in about 2000.

Audience:  All ages will enjoy this site. For older viewers, it will be a bit of a trip down memory lane!

For history buffs and digital media specialists, the choice of topics and their depiction over the years will make for a great conversation.

Time to Play:  You will want to spend a few minutes clicking through this site. If you are heading here with students, you might want to send them to the “interactive” doodles tile where they can try out some of the simple digital games that have also been incorporated into Google Doodles over the years.

If you are a teacher who likes to open up the world for your students, I suggest heading over to the Google Doodle homepage on typical celebration days like Valentines, Christmas, summer Olympics, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. Check to see if there is a new Doodle, and then spend some time comparing to past versions that commemorate the same day.

Bonus: If you want to create your own version of a Google Doodle, there is a great activity on Google’s student block-based coding site, CS First, that takes coding beginners step-by-step on how to code a Google Doodle. Check it out here. It is a great place to start a student coding journey and can be differentiated for those with more coding experience.

Equipment: Works on any browser when you go to the Google homepage. Mobile devices tend to want to send you to the app, so stick to a non-mobile device.

Click here for the Google A-Z Table of Contents Launch Pad.

Fun with Google A-Z YouTube Playlist.

Fun with Google: Z for Zoom in/out

What: Another keyboard shortcut that you should share with everyone you know. Click here for a list of conventional shortcuts that work similarly across platforms.

Audience:  All computer users need to have a few more keyboard shortcuts up their sleeve! Here are some times when I find it especially handy:

• This shortcut is useful for teachers and others who do presentations – sometimes that little Control + “+” = Zoom in makes a big difference in a presentation.
• In Google Drive when I am moving items or right-click to see a menu, sometimes the “blue button” or the place I need to click to continue seems to be missing. Usually, it is just “off-screen” which can be easily fixed with a Control + “-” = Zoom out

Time to Play:  It takes just seconds to practice with the Zoom in/out keyboard shortcuts. Like everything else in life, the shortcut will stick better the more you use it, so practice it often. (Once I learned Control + 0 = return to normal, I used it continually to solve all sorts of issue!)

Equipment: Use the Control key on a Windows machine or a Chromebook. On a Mac, substitute the Command key for the Control key. (This general rule works for most short cuts).

Click here for the Google A-Z Table of Contents Launch Pad.

Fun with Google A-Z YouTube Playlist.

Time-Saving Chrome Tips

bit.ly/kanntips for editable infographic

Need some quick tips to share with your staff or students? Have to deliver a mini-tech session? Teachers love getting these summary sheets as printables – and you can pick and choose which items to live demo in a session (either in person or virtual!).

https://bit.ly/kanntips

Thanks to @EmmaCottier for the always brilliant base slide design!