Power Up Your Hyperdocs with YouTube Preview

The Hyperdoc Handbook by Lisa Highfill, Sarah Landis and Kelly Hilton took the EDU world by storm, and for good reason. Since this book was published, educators have been designing empowering lessons with Google Docs and more. A popular Hyperdoc feature is to include links to YouTube videos. Until recently, these links existed in the Doc as a hyperlink. These hyperlinks opened the video in a new tab for students to watch. 

An issue I've seen with students is that when they tab hop, they can often be tempted to veer off task. When working through an activity such as a Hyperdoc, keeping students focused on the task is imperative. Recently, Google Docs has been updated to give you the option to add a YouTube link in the form of a "pretty little Smart Chip-like button." See below.

 

When a student hovers over the "YouTube Chip", a small preview will appear below. This preview gives them more information, at a glance, about the video.

If student hovers over the actual image of the video in the preview, they will see a button appear that says Open preview. 

When they Open preview, in the bottom right corner of the tab, the video will open up and play. This allows them to type on the Doc, take notes and more while watching the video. They can do this from the convenience of the same tab. No tab hopping necessary.

The screenshots shown above are from a Mini Report Eduprotocol. It was this past school year where I saw students using this feature completely on their own. I learned of this cool trick from students. What cool things will your students teach you this upcoming school year?

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Chat at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com.

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is now available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. It is published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.

Easily Customize Your Google Classroom Banner with Google Drawings

Since the advent of the COVID-19 shift to distance learning, creating a cool looking Google Classroom banner has been all the rage. When creating a custom banner, many people have been aggravated by the height and width requirements for the banner and cropping it to make it fit. Canva has some social media templates for banners that can be used, but in Google Drawings, you can set the area to be the exact size, 800 W x 200 H pixels.

Below is what a default banner looks like when you create a Classroom. To add your own design, click the Customize button in the top right corner. (Hint: This process is something to know for the Google Certified Educator Level 1 Exam).

In the menu that pops up, click Upload photo to add your own custom design. If you click Select photo, you will be able to choose from Google's preset image options and themes.

To create your own design in Google Drawings, first click the File button on the top toolbar. Near the bottom, click Page setup.

In the menu that pops up, it will be defaulted to Standard 4:3. Click that and select Custom.

The default measurement unit is inches. Click Inches and switch it Pixels. The first number on the left is the width. Set it 800. The second number is the height. Switch it to 200. Click Apply.

Immediately you will see the dimensions of the canvas in Google Drawings switch to a wider look. 

Be as creative as you like in setting up your Classroom banner.

When done creating, click File, hover your cursor over Download and click JPEG. This will download the image to your computer for easy upload to Google Classroom.

When you return to Google Classroom, click Customize and then click Upload photo. Your computer's files will pop up. More than likely, your JPEG will be in the Downloads folder. 

When you select the JPEG file, it will be uploaded to the Classroom at the perfect size and ratio.

I want to give a big shout out to my friends at Covina Valley USD in Covina, CA who helped me with the process and ideas for this blogpost. During our Google Certification Bootcamp in June 2022, questions arose about this process and we were able to figure out this hack. 

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Chat at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com.

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is now available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. It is published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.