UPDATE 3/24/18: Get New Sign in Screens – Google has updated the Chromebook sign in screens with a new look. The style used in the old screens are still used for signing in to the Chrome browser, so I made a few adjustments to them so they can be used to create custom Chrome sign in documents.I have created new Chromebook sign in screens and you can find them here.
I can never get good pictures of the Chromebook sign in screens so I decided to recreate them.
Let’s say you need a long series of numbers in your spreadsheet and you are trapped on a Chromebook. Yes, I could drag down to fill but this takes way too long if you have a long list of numbers.
I hate that Google Sheets cannot do what Excel can do below:
Excel wins at Autofill
Fortunately, there is Text Mechanic– a website that provides a collection of text manipulation tools that work in your browser. I used the Generate List of Sequential Numbers tool get the series of numbers I needed.
Use Text Mechanic to Generate List of Sequential Numbers
From here, I can copy and paste my list into Google Sheets and start calculating.
UPDATE (2/1/2017): See the note at the bottom of this post.
Here is a bookmarklet that will add QR codes to the student login cards for your code.org class.
Below is a video explaining how to use this bookmarklet.
UPDATE:
I was recently informed by a couple teachers that the bookmarklet doesn’t work. After some investigation, I figured out why. As a security measure, new browser standards have been set that prevent many bookmarklets from working. This security measure is called a Content Security Policy or CSP. The bookmarklet will only work if you disable CSP for the page before running it.
In May, my nine-year-old daughter suffered a stroke. The stroke weakened the left side of her body severely. However, with therapy she has managed to improve each week. Because of the stroke, she has a lot of tone in her arm. This causes her arm to pull up close to her body instead of naturally resting down and at her side. She has to make a conscience effort to put her arm down and we are frequently reminding her.
One day I got an idea. Could we use sensors to measure when her arm is up and use a vibration to remind her to put her arm down? After a little digging online, I quickly learned that the Pebble smartwatch has an accelerometer that could be used to detect orientation.
As a physics teacher, I understand accelerometers and I have a little bit of programing experience but I had zero experience with the Pebble watch. So I reached out to the community of Pebble enthusiasts and developers in the Pebble Forums. I explained my situation and asked if my idea was even possible.
What happened next was truly remarkable. Within a day, I had a response explaining that my idea was possible. By the next day, another user made me a working prototype app. I learned how to install the app on a Pebble watch that my good friend loaned me. I made adjustments to the code using an online development tool called CloudPebble.
Watch app triggers a vibration in this position
Another user offered to merge the app into a watch face “so the watch doesn’t have to look like it’s only there for the stroke.” From here, things really took off. With my feedback, we added several other features such as a learning mode so the app could be used by others in similar situations.
Info screen gives us feedback
This experience has shown my daughter the true power of the Internet. She saw that it is so much more than a place to consume media. The Internet allows total strangers from all over the world to work together. She learned that people will volunteer their time and skill to create new things and help others.
It is the best lesson about the Internet I could ever hope for her to learn.
Watch this clip from Sesame Street where young students from 1980s describe a computer and what can be done with one.
I love their answers:
a computer is something you write on
[with a computer you can] make designs
you can make pictures with it and it helps you read
it’s not human
[a computer doesn’t have] feelings
It can think but you have to tell it what to do, we are [doing the thinking]
By now, the kids in the video are about forty years old. They are my age. We grew up working with a computer. The focus was on what we could do with a computer. What could we write, design or create with a computer.
I wonder if today’s students have the same focus? Are we shifting from a ‘what we can do with a computer’ toward ‘what can a computer do for us’ mindset?
Right-click on the map to add your starting point. Continue clicking to add new points. Now your students can explore and measure places (and even some larger objects) in their neighborhood.
What is the perimeter and area of a local park?How big is the city pool?How many semi trailers could fit inside the city pool?
I can never get good pictures of the Chrome
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