The Never-Ending-Open-Tabs Dilemma (Chrome Users)

Do you ever find yourself with many, many, tabs open?

Do you sometimes ask yourself, "Hmmm, which tab is it?"

Have you ever had to peer closely to try and figure out which tab is which because there are so many open and they just keep getting tinier?!

Did you know that each tab in Chrome is essentially another instance of Chrome open? The more tabs you have open, the harder your browser is working...the slower your connection might be!

You're not alone and there might be a solution for you :

Try OneTab. It condenses all of your tabs into a single tab. All of your tabs will sit in a list in the one tab . You can click to open the ones you need when you need them or restore/delete them all at once.

If the thought of your tabs "disappearing" freaks you out a little, you might prefer The Great Suspender. You can choose to suspend specific tabs or all except the one you're on. The tabs remain up, but they're "paused" (not slowing you down) until you reload them or choose to un-suspend all.

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Don't forget, Tab Cloud was shared a while back too. Pretty nifty extension that will save tab lists for you. I have saved tab lists for Start of Day, "morning" announcements, and others for specific lessons that I teach.

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Keyboard shortcuts?

Move across tabs on your Mac by holding "Control" and pressing the "tab" key

Move backwards through your tabs by holding "Control" and "Shift" while tapping the "tab" key

Command "w" will close a tab

Command Shift "t" will reopen a closed tab

Writing Tool ~ Creative Conversations via Fake iMessages

Morning! 

Came across a conversation about Fake Text Messages in the classroom. This has been around for a few years, so may just be a lil reminder. Students can create conversations between characters, historians, scientists, mathematicians or use it to strengthen vocabulary or grammar, and so more. You could also use it to display a class message via the projector or to blast out in Google Classroom.

Nothing transformational ~Just another tool to incorporate into a lesson or writing activity for students to use as an option to show their understanding/content mastery. User-friendly and simple to create/share.

Take or Toss.

BookSnaps & MathSnaps

Hi Teachers! BookSnaps have been around for a bit, but I've been seeing a lot more of "MathSnaps" too. There are a variety tools that your students can use on chromebooks or iPads to create theirs. Google Draw is one option that would work seamlessly with Classroom. 

There are many ways to implement this concept across the curriculum for students to reflect, express, question, explain thinking and reasoning, share...

Consider incorporating video and having students explain their booksnaps or math snaps too. 😃

Opening Multiple Assignments at Once

If you've ever tired of opening each student Google Classroom assignment one-by-one, you may be interested in the tips in this post! Alice Keeler offers some great shortcuts, as well as her Drive20 extension in which you can blast open 20 files at once in your Classroom Drive folder. ~Makes assessing & providing feedback much smoother.

Be sure to read the first post with those awesome shortcuts, such as Command W (on your Mac) to close a tab at a time and move to the next. Command, Shift T will reopen a closed tab too in case you go too far.

Knowing shortcuts will help save you precious time!

Take or Toss

Pear Deck Giveaway & Google Slides Updates

1. Just wanted to pass this Pear Deck post along. There is a chance to win premium access to Pear Deck for one year. You have to sign-up by tomorrow though. I signed up too, so if I "win", I'll pass it on to one of you to use with your kiddos. The post itself is also a great overview of how Pear Deck works with Slides.

2. Google Slides also has some awesome features being released tomorrow. An overview of what will be new :

• Add-ons - Yessss! Looking forward to exploring these further.
• Grid-View - see all your slides in one shot and rearrange them
• Skip Slide -Instead of deleting a slide so it is not seen when presenting, you can now skip it to keep it in your original presentation.
• Link Slides from multiple presentations
• Insert Diagrams - Nice!!
• Google Keep integration - if you or your students are not using Google Keep, you might want to check it out! Awesome note-taking, organizational and collaboration tool. Users will be able to pull content straight from their notes to their slide.
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As always, give us a shout if you want to collaborate on any teaching & learning explorations.

Writing Project ~ Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides

Eric Curts has another great adventure for your students : Build a Jack-O-Lantern writing activity. This link goes straight to the slides to make a copy of.

• Use with a descriptive writing lesson, a focus on adjectives, verbs, figurative language, etc.
• Have students screenshot their pumpkins and share them with you to post on an online gallery to share your class "pumpkin patch".
• Take it a step further and have students record their slide with Screencastify to bring their jack-o-lantern to life. QR code their video or use the Aurasma iPad app to link their jack-o-lantern to their video.
• Invite another class to partner up with your students. Students walk their partners through a How-To create their jack-o-lantern. Each shares the original jack-o-lantern, along with the recreated one and reflect/discuss the process together.

Take or Toss!

If you're still reading, the background template is from SlidesCarnival. They have awesome Google Slides templates to use.