between feature updates hidden tips and
tricks and entire programs you've almost
certainly never even heard of google has
all kinds of hidden useful features for
teachers now i knew i was going to need
a google expert to help me make this
video so i invited john sowash author of
the chromebook classroom and also host
of his own youtube channel to come on
and share his very best tips and tricks
this tip john's about to share with you
actually blew my mind when he first
shared it with me hi friends great to be
here on the new ed tech classroom
youtube channel my name is john silwash
and i want to show you my favorite new
feature of
google docs all you have to do to access
this new feature is type the at symbol
this is a brand new menu that gives you
quick access to your favorite editing
elements of google docs i want to
highlight three new features that are
also included in this new menu the first
is the ability to tag people if you want
to assign a task to someone or indicate
who's in charge of something you can tag
them right within a document they'll
make sure they have access to the
document and get a notification that
there's something they need to take a
look at the second cool thing you can do
type the at symbol and start typing the
first few letters of a google drive file
that you own for example
sam tom and i created a planning
document to plan this video and i can
tag that document from this document the
third feature i want to show you is
pretty cool it's called building blocks
so again i'm going to type the at symbol
and you'll see the building blocks
currently there are two building blocks
available i expect there'll be more in
the future
essentially building blocks are
templates for action items that you're
going to need to use on a regular basis
a very simple
example is meeting notes you have a
meeting you need a spot to take notes
and action items when i click the
building block it prompts me to look at
my calendar and say is this meeting on
your calendar it doesn't have to be but
mine is i've got a department meeting
tomorrow i click on that department
meeting and it's going to automatically
build a meeting note section in my
document now the other building block is
brand new and that is the ability to add
an email draft template you can actually
draft the email right here in google
docs other people can look at it give
input add comments and suggestions to it
and then when you're ready
simply click the gmail logo off in the
left margin it will take what you have
here put it into an email and all you
have to do is click the send button and
you're ready to go
speaking of gmail let's head over to tom
and learn about a cool gmail trick roger
here is wanting to get a custom image
for his gmail background because he
feels it's a little uninspired right now
but he realized when he went over to the
gear and went down to settings that
these pictures didn't really jive with
what really motivates him even when he
went down to my photos it only gave him
the option of pulling one of his
previous profile photos and
some featured uninspired images so i
asked roger what he had in mind and he
shared this image with me so let's see
how we can make this image as roger's
gmail background and i'm gonna right
click on the image and i'm gonna save
the image as and i can just put that in
the downloads folder for now and now i'm
gonna open up a new tab and i'm gonna go
to photos.google.com
so gmail will not pull photos from your
google drive it will only pull photos
from your photos.google.com
account and you first have to make an
album for it to be able to find those
photos and pull them so i'm going to go
over to albums over here on the left i'm
going to create a new album and i will
just call this album inspiration
and i'm going to add some photos to this
album i can just click and drag the
photo into this album and there it is
i've got this inspiring photo in my
inspiration albums hop back over to
gmail refresh the page click on the gear
settings go down to theme and click on
view all go down to my photos and now
i've got this inspiration folder with my
inspiring photo in there click select
and so before we're done there's a few
things we can customize about our image
and our interface the first is if you
want a light or a dark text background
you can kind of see here at the top
where it says no new mail right now it's
light if i change it to dark it looks
like that so you can decide which one
goes best with your photo i think i'm
going to go with dark mode right there
you can also add a vignette which makes
the corners a little bit darker i do
like that look as well
and then you can also add a blur to make
sure that your photo doesn't compete too
much uh with the text that you're
reading and having a bit of a blur makes
the text a little easier to read so i
always add a little blur and i'm gonna
click save and now roger has an inspired
gmail background and so that is not a
very fast process of getting the image
that you want as your gmail background
but there is a super fast process if you
would like to digitize any paper
assignments that your students may have
simplicity is a key factor when you're
using technology with students which is
why i love this next hidden trick i'm in
a google slide presentation right now
this happens to be a journal template
i'm going to go to the insert menu down
to image and that's where you'll see the
ability to add a photo from your webcam
this is a wonderful trick for any class
has a physical object that you want to
quickly digitize
artwork for an elementary classroom math
homework for math once you've got your
image into google slides you can do some
simple editing to it you can double
click to crop it you can right click and
go to format options to add drop shadow
and adjust the contrast it's a really
great feature not only does this work in
google slides it also does the exact
same thing in google docs and in google
drawing this would be a great way for
example for a student to snap a photo of
the cover of the book that they just
read so they can attach it right next to
their book report speaking of book
reports one of my very favorite google
features is a tool i'm almost certain
you've never heard about it's called
talk to books and it's an artificial
intelligence powered search engine that
works quite differently from a regular
google search and it searches within
over 100 000 published books so there's
quite a bit of data to pull from and
then even the way it works is different
from a traditional google search too so
whereas within google you can search for
single words or phrases with talk to
books you want to search using a
sentence that would be as natural
sounding as possible so for example
whereas edward might normally search for
friendly monsters here on google if he's
on talk to books he's going to want to
use a more natural phrase like can a
monster ever be friendly the reason is
that talk to books uses ai to find
responses that would most likely come
within the context of the question that
you're asking you can see here that
after you enter your search query it's
going to pull up several different
passages and then highlight and bold
what it believes to be the most accurate
answer to your question from lots of
different books and the general
consensus doesn't look all that good
sorry buddy since it works differently
from a traditional google search talk to
books can take a little while to get the
hang of both you and your students could
use it to look for books that correspond
to a topic that you're researching or it
could be used to find relevant
quotations from sources that you pretty
much already know are reliable and it's
also just really interesting to see what
lots of different books have to say
about a question that you ask sam that
was a good find talk to books sounds
pretty cool sam has a lot of great ideas
right now i'm on his blog and i would
love to read this article but i don't
have time right now i want to show you a
brand new feature for the chrome browser
called reading list all you need to do
is open the chrome browser and look up
in the top right corner where you should
see this funky looking square
this is the reading list now it's kind
of a variation on bookmarks but it
allows you to quickly save videos blog
posts and really any website that you
want to come back to and look at later
so i don't have time to read this blog
post right now i'm making this video so
i'm going to go ahead and add that to my
reading list and i'll come back to it
later i also saw this cool article by
tom i'm really interested in his
experience teaching middle school
remotely so i'll add that to my reading
list and i'm also doing a little bit of
home improvement and i need to watch
this video on insulating an attic so
i'll add that to my reading list as well
later tonight when i'm sitting on the
couch and want to catch up on things
i'll open up the reading list take a
look at it when i'm done reading or
watching i can click the check mark and
then i'll add it to the completed list
if you don't want it there you can also
just remove it entirely the reading list
is a really cool aspect of chrome that
that'll help you access your articles
and things you want to read later if you
would like to learn about five more
useful google features for teachers
check out the other video that we did
with john over on his channel where we
all share a few more tips to make your
life a little bit better we'll see you
over there