Pirate Tips

Happy New Year! Welcome back. I hope you all had time to relax and to enjoy the holidays. As we move into the new year, Pinckney is moving closer to our switch to Chromebooks. To better prepare for the switch, I am adding a simple tip about Chromebooks each week. Lately, I have had people ask me about what the absolutely NEED to know in order to use a Chromebook. Grab a pencil and get ready for the secret. Here are the two things you need to know:

This week - a little help with help ... I found this app and added it to Chrome and thought you might like it. :-) I'd like to give credit to who pointed me toward it, but I can't remember, so, generically, thank you to everyone who already knows about this and may have written something about it.

This week I am focused on a little-known but powerful and handy tool called Google Keep. It is available as a web site and as an app for Android phones and tablets. AND IT IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR iOS This is a simple tool for keeping notes and lists. I like the fact that I can customize the look and share the lists/notes with anyone I need to. Additionally, I love the reminders. Let's take a closer look...

An Encore? Why? As part of my summer, I took some time to learn a little more. Part of my learning involved a "critique" of my tip of the week. One of the VERY valid concerns was the frequency of the tips. Hearing that people were feeling overwhelmed by the frequency, I decided to cut back a bit. So, expect to a see a "new" tip every other week and a "reminder/encore" on the opposite weeks. Last week was new so this week is a reminder. Many teachers have created documents and files in programs like Pages, Keynote, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc.  I was recently asked if there is a way to "convert" these files to use with Google. YES! In this post I will walk you through turning your non-google file into a Document, Presentation, or Spreadsheet. I'll also show you how to turn on (or off) the new Drive and set your uploads to convert automatically. If you are working with Pages, Keynote, or Numbers '09 you will start by converting to

Did you know you can convert a "picture" of text to text? It's true. Here's the process**: Upload an image into Drive Click on the three dots in the top right corner Select “Open With…” and choose Google Drive The image will pop up with a transcription below ** From the Google Gooru (that's really how it is spelled - not my interpretation):

We've added an additional productivity tool to the PCS toolbox. :-) Office 365 is an online version of the Microsoft Office suite of tools - very much like a Microsoft version of Google Docs. First, a disclaimer...