Google 2019 Year in Review

What were all the new additions to Google in 2019

Created by Scott Aten, December 20, 2019

With the end of 2019 at hand, I thought it would be a good idea to show all the new features that have been introduced in G Suite during this year. I have listed them by product.

Google Facts

• Chromebooks are the #1 selling device in the US K-12 schools
• 90 million students and teachers use G Suite for Education
• 30 million students worldwide use Chromebooks
• 40 million students and teachers use Google Classroom

Google Forms

• June - question import in Google forms (see image to the right)
• August - locked mode for quizzes finally arrives
• October - fresh new look to Google Forms

Google Slides

• April - Add audio files from Drive into Google Slides (they had a little trouble with this and I don't think it made the April deadline, but is there now)
• October - new accessibility options for closed captions

Google Docs

• April - comparison in Docs allows you to compare two Google Docs and review the differences as suggested edits.
• May - grammar suggestions added (underlined in blue)
• July - new grammar tools in Docs to help students with spelling and grammar
• September - you can now see the word count while you type
• September - new fonts introduced to improve reading speed (see Lexend)

Google Classroom

• February - move posts to the top added in Classroom's Stream
• April - topic filters on the Classwork page is added
• April - new items will post to the top of the Classwork page
• April - thumbnails for the way that attachments appear in assignments
• June - rubrics added in Google Classroom
• June - grades section added to get a holistic view of students grades over time
• June - ability to sync grades to ProgressBook (Biggest new add of the year!!)
• June - rubrics now embedded in the student view of Classroom
• June - teacher can now archive a Google Classroom on iOS devices
• August - originality reports introduced to reduce plagiarism
• September - classroom celebrated its fifth birthday
• September - rubrics on mobile devices (beta)

Google Drive

• April - you can now edit Office files from Docs, Slides, and sheets without converting file types.
• April - you can now edit the metadata in Drive to better organize and search by tagging files

Google Sheets

• April - connected sheets will let you collaborate on up to 10 billion rows of BigQuery data - FINALLY :-)

Gmail

• April - added the ability to schedule send email

Hangouts Chat an Meet

• April - classic Hangouts in Gmail is replaced with new Hangout Chat
• April - live captions now available in Hangouts Meet

I am sure we can expect more great features to come in 2020!

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Google Classroom Rubrics

Now you have the ability to reuse rubrics from other assignments.

Created by Scott Aten, December 17, 2019

When you create an assignment in Google Classroom, it is possible to add a rubric for the students to see as a part of the assignment. This feature was added this past summer. When it was first introduced, you would spend a lot of time making a rubric and it was only available in that assignment. This has now been changed! Now you can reuse a rubric that has been created in a previous assignment.
Another new enhancement is the ability to use other teacher's rubrics. When you add a teacher to your
classroom, any rubrics they have created become available to you as well.

Creating rubrics is a lesson I made available in our training center - "Creating a rubric for an assignment"
- Google Classroom Level 2.

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team

Create a Custom Google Search

Keep your students on track with their research using a custom Google search.

Created by Scott Aten, December 13, 2019

The internet can be an overwhelming place, especially for students trying to use it for research. All too often students rely on the Wikipedia's of the world wide web and look no further. For our younger students a simple Google search can lead to websites with information too technical for them to understand. The solution to all of these issues is to create your own custom Google search.

Here is how it works:

• Go to the Google Custom Search Engine website
• Click the "Create a custom search engine" button
• In the "Sites to search" box, add the websites you want your students to use. Only these sites will be used when a student does a search.
• In the "Name of the search engine" box, give your creation a name. I usually name it something similar to the assignment - "Animal Research", "Biography Reports", etc.
• Click the "Create" button
• On the "Congratulations!" page, click the "Public URL" button
• The site that opens is the URL you need to copy
• Include the copied URL in the directions for your assignment or post it in your Google Classroom.
• Instruct students this is what they should use to do their research NOT the Google homepage.

If you want make any changes to your newly created search engine, simply click the "Control Panel" button or go back to the website above and click "Edit search engine" in the left menu. You are able to go back and add more sites to your list of searchable site. In the Edit section you can also play with the "Look and feel" of your search engine with layouts, themes, and font and color customization.

Here is an example I made to limit choices on a biography report assignment. - try searching for "George Washington" and you will see that there are fewer websites being found as a result of your search.

These are very easy to create and will help make the internet a little bit smaller for your students.

[Green Google Training Center]

[Click here to go to the YouTube Channel]

For more helpful information and the archive of previous posts, look for items in the menu to the left.

Green Local Schools

Tech Integration Team