Google Ups Commitment to #CreateWithChrome

As more and more educators call on colleagues to find more ways for their students to use Chromebooks for creative purposes, the Google Mothership is taking steps to make that easier.

Recently Google posted on its Chromebooks in Education page, that a creative bundle will soon be available in the administrative console that features six apps aimed at students producing content and not just consuming it.

The recent additions are:

• Infinite Painter for sketching and drawing
• Squid for charts and diagrams
• Book Creator for storytelling
• WeVideo for video creation
• Soundtrap for music production
• Explain Everything for creating screencasts

While there are tons of sites that foster creativity with Chromebooks, these six are a great start to add to the console. Check out my special page The Chromebook Creativity Project for even resources. 

Six apps that allow kids to #CreateWithChrome will soon be available for installation via the admin console. 

Tip #3 Using the readability feature in Microsoft Word for Mac

Thanks to Ellen Berens for sharing this tip with the Blue Star staff today.

Microsoft Word will gauge the reading level of any document. It is one of those features that isn't turned on by default but easily added to the Spelling and Grammar tools.

This feature is especially useful when insuring that your students of varying reading ability are able to understand the selections you give them to read. It is also important to insure that the materials you are sending home aren't written at too high of a reading level. This isn't to assume our students' parents don't read well. This just helps you keep your newsletter from being too wordy...and nerdy.

Here are Ellen's instructions. I also created a screencast showing visually how to use the feature.

1. Open a word document, scan some text, etc.

2. Click on “Word” at the top of your screen.

3. Click “preferences.”

4. Click “spelling and grammar.”

5. Check the box next to “readability statistics.”

6. When you want to check the reading level, run spelling
and grammar check. Once you are done, your reading level
will be displayed.

For the YouTube video below be sure to watch full screen so you can see the menus clearly enough.

Tip #1: Compressing Files with a Mac

Consulting time is open to all staff who wish to learn something new. Yesterday, Blue Star Principal Teisha Kothe and I completed the first one-on-one learning session. We talked about bookmarks in Firefox, Google Calendar, and especially about how to compress a number of files into a .Zip file. By compressing a file, you greatly reduce the size of the item or items and it makes it easier to email.

Here is a screencast of the basic steps with a Mac.