Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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Free Apps, some great tools, tech tips and more! All in this Thanksgiving list.

Monday, November 21, 2016


WOW these are amazing! - Easily turn a Google™ Spreadsheet into a Set of Online Flashcards, spelling word lists - with audio!, certificates, and other cool stuff: Check it out at flippity.net


Gmail and Google Calendar Get a Whole Lot Better on iOS - In its biggest update in four years, Gmail for iOS now offers "Undo Send."

Self-Check Quiz Templates -- Want to give your students a quiz and then have the computer grade it for you? Then check out these templates! Students can take the quizzes on any online device – a computer, an iPad, a tablet, a smart phone, etc!

Color Code Your Email Labels In Gmail This short 3 minute video will show you how. You can easily locate any email by topic with this little trick we use for organizing all our incoming emails. It all comes down to custom coloration. (Note - I like color coding my Google Drive folders as well!) 

New & Improved Voice Typing Commands in Google Docs -  You can now specify text color, highlight text, add links, insert comments, and switch to a column layout in Google Docs–just by using your voice.

Edit, send & sign PDFs online for free - Checkout DocHub.  They offer a premium plan too, but for many of us the free plan will suffice.  

Online plagiarism checker - Free to copy and paste up to 500 words... or other plans available. 

New file upload question added to Google forms!  Make's it simple to have students or parents upload a file directly to your Google Drive. 





Remember in August Google Added the ability to add images to questions and answers in Google Forms.   Awesome feature for teachers! 


The National Parks just celebrated their 100th birthday. Recently Google announced that now anyone can take a virtual tour of some of our most breathtaking National Parks, no matter where you are, with Google's The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks

Doing a research project with students? - Turn Google Sheets into an Automatic Citation ToolWhen you’re doing research online, you don’t have to manually collect and save information. Try Citable, a helpful Chrome extension that simplifies how you gather research.


How to Create a Pivot Table in Google Sheets  Via BetterCloud Monitor --  Pivot tables help you summarize and analyze large data sets by displaying the information in more digestible formats. They make it much easier to take out small pieces of information and conclusions from a large set of information.

Elementary or middle school teachers - Check out Wonderopolis. (Created by the National Center for Families Learning.)  Find out more about this resource here.  

Remember a few of the fall updates to classroom...
Google Classroom rolled out a new feature this fall that will allow teachers to automatically share summaries of student work with parents, as well as the ability for students and teachers to annotate documents in the Google Classroom mobile app.

Did you know Google Classroom allows you to personalize your feedback with your own handwriting? Here's how.


Free Apps:

Reg. $5.99 ... Now free:


TIMEMAPS U.S. History - Historical Atlas by EMSE EDAPP, S.L.
Price: $FREE
TIMEMAPS have been highlighted as: 
* Educational app for Middle School in the USA and Canada
* 'New and noteworthy' and 'What’s hot' in the Education category in 14 countries
Get their other apps that are still Free here.  (There are a ton of apps, including a lot of other History quiz apps. Some may have in app purchases.)