Push a website out to your students with Share to Classroom extension!

"Share to Classroom" is such a great extension for any teacher who is using Google Classroom with their students.

One extra feature that this extension can do that I wanted to share requires that students are in class - logged into their chrome on a desktop or on a chromebook AND the students have this same extension installed.

The PUSH option in the "Share to Classroom" extension allows the teacher to instantly push a website to the students on their computer or chromebook.  It instantly opens a new tab and the website appears in front of the students.  This is an easy way to get students to a site without having to post a link, or worse, have the students type the address in the browser.

It took less than 5 minutes to walk a classroom of 3rd graders through adding this extension to all the chromebooks.  If your chromebooks are set up through a management system the extension can be added that way as well.  Once the extension is added it will stay with that student's log in on both the chromebook and in the chrome browser when on a desktop computer.

Must have Extension for Google Classroom!

Using Google Classroom with your students?  There is a must have extension to help streamline the process for creating assignments and announcements.  

The “Share to Classroom” extension allows for teachers instantly link a website that they are visiting to their Google Classroom wall as either an assignment or an announcement.  

You can post directly from inside the extension or ‘save as draft’ to post later or add additional resources.  

Another use is if you have a google document open that you are creating to use in an assignment, using the “Share to Classroom” you can instantly attach the document in the extension and create your assignment.  This saves you from needing to log into classroom and find the document in your drive.  

This productivity tool is essential for any teacher that is using Google Classroom!  There's another cool use for this extension coming in the next blog post!

Not sure how to add an extension? Or what is an extension? Here's a older Youtube video to help explain.

Snagit - Screenshots and Screencasting on Chrome

TechSmith Snagit for Google Chrome is a handy free extension and app that allows nice integration between taking screenshots or screencasting and your Google Drive account.  This is great for those that utilize the Chrome browser or have Chromebooks.

For screenshots, the extension allows you to choose the section of the screen you would like a image of. Once the image is taken there is then the option of using a variety of annotation tools and a variety of color options.  The image then saves into the Snagit App library as well as into a folder labeled "TechSmith" in the Google Drive account.

The screencasting tool is in the Snagit App.  By pressing the + symbol, a new recording will begin, giving you the option of recording the screen or a specific tab.  Adjustments to audio can be made in the settings of the app.  When finished, the recording can be uploaded to youtube and saved into the Google Drive account in the TechSmith folder.  

To make Snagit work, you must install both the extension and the app from the Google Chrome Store. There are a few settings in your chrome browser that may need to be adjusted, which TechSmith does a great job explaining in the two video chops below.  Original Hang Out from TechSmith announcing the new screen recording feature can be found HERE (15 minutes total viewing time). 

Granted, if I am using my Windows 7 computer, I do have access to the snipping tool in the accessories folder for quick screenshots.  The benefits of using the snagit extension over the snipping tool are the extra annotation tools to mark on the image with and the fact that it is automatically saved into a folder in my Google Drive. I use my Google Drive for a lot and this makes pulling in images easy.