Cool Google Stuff to Check Out!

One thing I really love about using G Suite is that Google is really good at listening to ideas we share with them and then finding ways to make those wishes a reality! Here are two new things you can do that might be really great for you to use!

Schedule Send in Gmail

After composing an email, you will see an arrow next to the Send button. Clicking on that brings up the option to schedule when you'd like that email sent. This can be a real workflow time saver! Do you have emails that you send out regularly? Draft them ahead of time and schedule them to send when you want them to send! Here are two examples of how I have used it recently:

1. I needed to send an email to the 8th graders giving them information about how to save the items they have in the Google Drive before they leave CSD for high school. I composed the email about a week in advance and scheduled it to send on the day it was needed. It turned out to be a good idea because I ended up calling in sick the day it was scheduled to send so I likely would have forgotten to send the email had I not already scheduled it!
2. I just completed an online class and the email I received about it told me I can't request my transcript for 2 weeks, so I forwarded the email to myself, but I scheduled it to send to me on the day I request transcripts. Easy reminder!

Add Audio Files to Google Slides

Have you ever wanted to add narration to a Google Slides presentation? Now you can! You just need to create the audio files first and save them to your Drive. There are a number of easy ways to create audio files (need help? just ask!), and they need to be saved as .mp3 or .wav files (no worries -- these are very common audio file types). Then it's just as simple as clicking Insert>Audio in Slides! You can then place the sound icon where you want it on the slide as well as set it to play when clicked or play automatically! This is a great feature of you want to flip a lesson or have kids go through a slide deck on their own. You can also have kids create their own narrated slide decks -- imagine having kids do a unit on poetry then write their own poems. Each student can then have one slide in a slide deck where they type their poem, add graphics to enhance their slide, then you can insert an audio file of each student reading their poem. Share with parents and voila! You just created a fun poetry presentation! Want the scoop on how to accomplish the whole process? Check out this nice, detailed blog post!