Add Background Music to Slides

Finally Sound in Slides

Play music in the background of Google Slides

Created by Scott Aten, March 12, 2019

Getting music to play in the background of Google Slides has been something that has been difficult to do like we used to be able to do in PowerPoint. In the past I have recommended teachers and students use the "Audio Player for Slides" add-on. This add-on was a little clunky and did not really do what we wanted it to do, but was the best option. Recently Pam Mattiazzo discovered that the add-on was no longer being supported, BUT they had an extension that did replace it. I have taken a look at this extension and found it to be exactly what we have been wanting for Slides.

• You can play sound files (mp3) on one or more slides
• You can play sound files (mp3) as background music

The MP3 file needs to be already saved in your Google Drive, but other than that the extension runs really well.

Here is a video of me

Here is a [short video] demonstrating it in action.

If you would like to schedule a time for me to come and help you setup this extension or assist your class in getting started, please use my scheduler to pick a time.

[Schedule me to come and help]

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

Avoid and report phishing emails

A phishing attack happens when someone tries to trick you into sharing personal information online.

What phishing is

Phishing is usually done through email, ads, or by sites that look similar to sites you already use. For example, someone who is phishing might send you an email that looks like it's from your bank so that you'll give them information about your bank account.

Phishing emails or sites might ask for:

• Usernames and passwords, including password changes
• Social Security numbers
• Bank account numbers
• PINs (Personal Identification Numbers)
• Credit card numbers
• Your mother’s maiden name
• Your birthday

Important: Green Local Schools, Google, or Gmail will never ask you to provide this type of information in an email.

Report phishing emails

When we identify that an email may be phishing or suspicious, we might show a warning or move the email to Spam. If an email wasn't marked correctly, follow the steps below to mark or unmark it as phishing.

Note: When you manually move an email into your Spam folder, Google will receive a copy of the email and may analyze it to help protect our users from spam and abuse.

Report a phishing email - 

1. On a computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open the message.
3. Next to Reply , click More.
4. Click Report phishing.

An email was incorrectly marked as phishing

1. On a computer, go to Gmail.
2. Open the message.
3. Next to Reply , click More.
4. Click Report not phishing.
5. Avoid phishing attacks

Be careful anytime you get an email from a site asking for personal information. If you get this type of email:

1. Don’t click any links or provide personal information until you've confirmed the email is real.
2. If the sender has a Gmail address, report the Gmail abuse to Google.

Note: Green Local Schools won't ever ask you for personal information, like your password, over email.

When you get an email that looks suspicious, here are a few things to check for:

• Check that the email address and the sender name match.
• Check if the email is authenticated.
• Hover over any links before you click on them. If the URL of the link doesn't match the description of the link, it might be leading you to a phishing site.
• Check the message headers to make sure the "from" header isn't showing an incorrect name.

Important: If you think your school Gmail has been taken over, notify the technology department immediately.

Cool Stuff from OETC 2019 Part 3

Cool Stuff from OETC

Students Create Interactive Stories with Story Speaker

Created by Scott Aten, February 22, 2019

One of the big themes for this year's OETC was artificial intelligence. This cool idea fits in that category. "Story Speaker" is an add-on for Google Docs that lets you and your students make interactive, talking stories, with NO CODING required. If you are unfamiliar with add-ons, they are little programs that run from within Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc. They increase the capabilities of the app - in this case they allow you to create an interactive story.

Here is a [short video] describing "Story Speaker".

Here are [directions] on how to install the "Story Speaker" add-on

As you can see from the video, students are able to type in story segments that include various "forks" that create different paths where decisions have to be made by the person listening to the story. This opportunity will provide a lot of creative thinking, as well as critical thinking, when students have to plan out the various details and decision points of their story.

The finished story is read aloud through a Google Home Base OR Google Home Mini. The Google Home Mini is MUCH cheaper than the Home Base. I got mine during Black Friday for only $25. The main difference between the two is the Google Home Base has a better "base" sound than the Mini, so for our purposes here at school, that is no big deal.

By the way if you do happen to bring a Google Home into your classroom, there are a lot of other cool things you can do with it and your class.

• Set timers and alarms
• Play trivia games
• Play music
• Answer questions
• Read the news/weather

If you would like to schedule a time for me to come and help you setup one of these or assist your class in getting started, please use my scheduler to pick a time.

[Schedule me to come and help]

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

Cool Stuff from OETC 2019 Part 2

Cool Stuff from OETC

Color By Numbers Sheets Activity

Created by Scott Aten, February 21, 2019

Google Sheets is always the app that students (and really teachers too) have the least amount of experience using.This activity can be used in one of two ways:
1) Teacher creates the activity for students to do as a review of material
2) Students create the activity for their classmates to do as a way to review material.

This Google Sheets activity uses the "Conditional Formatting" feature of Google Sheets to build a pixel image within the Google Sheet. Once you have the general idea of how to make a basic formula in Sheets the activity comes together fairly quickly.

[Try my demo] - when prompted "make a copy" Answers: 5 - amount - carnivore - 13 - nitrogen - 3 (I tried to demo questions in many content areas)

What your students will learn if they make their own?

• Your content - simple review questions of your unit of study
• How conditional formatting works in Google Sheets
• How to setup a formula in Google Sheets
• Creative thinking in designing a pixel image
• Not to be afraid of Google Sheets

For younger elementary students, they will begin to be exposed to Google Sheets and have fun seeing the image begin to appear as they answer your questions. The activity can serve to provide immediate feedback to their responses.

If you would like to schedule a time for me to come and help you setup one of these or assist your class in making one as a review for a unit, please use my scheduler to pick a time.

[Schedule me to come and help]

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

Cool Stuff from OETC 2019 Part 1

Cool Stuff from OETC

Quick Feedback Using Google Keep with Docs and Slides

Created by Scott Aten, February 20, 2019

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Ohio Educational Technology Conference (OETC). I wanted share some of the really cool things I saw at the conference, so I am going to post a few of the highlights in the next few blog posts.

Google Keep is one of the seldom used Google tools, so when I saw this suggestion, I knew I wanted to share it with you. The idea here is that you can setup your feedback that you want to give students in Google Keep and then have quick access to them in Google Docs or Google Slides.

If you would like an easy and quick way to add feedback to student's work, setting them up in Google Keep could be a real time saver.  [Watch an Example]

Using Google Keep in this way will work in Docs as well as Slides.

NOTE - I have created several videos on how to create things with Google Keep.  These are a couple years old, but are great places to start in understanding how to use Keep.

• Google Keep Basics 
• Using Google Google Keep to Make Vocabulary Cards
• Create a reminder Note in Google Keep
• Using Google Keep to Create a List

It should also be noted that when grading papers in Google Classroom, there is a built in feature to
add comments from a created bank of comments.

Google Classroom has a built in "Comment Bank" that works a lot like what I have shown you with Google Keep, so if you are 100% using Google Classroom this might be an even better option. [See Demonstration]

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