New look in Google Calendar

Google Calendar is unveiling a sleek new look.  You will soon have the option to switch to it (you may already be seeing it if you have a personal Google account).

(and then switch back for now if you don't like it).  

One thing I like about it is that when you create an event or  click on an existing event in the calendar, you edit/see all the details without leaving the calendar page (see screenshot below).

Social Media for Educators Course

Wondering how you can use social media effectively as an educator?  Check out this course, presented by Michael Berry from the Mt. Mansfield Modified Union School District (and you thought CVSD was a mouthful!).  

Mike has done great work using social media and I'm sure this course will be helpful.  According to the video below, you'll learn how go use social media for your own professional development and  growth, in the classroom, and for your school.   

Printing all docs in a Google Drive folder

Several classes recently did a project where they needed to print posters that were saved in Google Drive.  The teacher created a shared folder for the posters.  The question now was how to print all the docs without individually opening each one.

Here are instructions for doing this with Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Making maps

I've posted before about map-making tools.  These are excellent learning tools for students, whether it's mapping out the places in a novel they're reading, or planning a wildlife refuge, or examining the historical development of their town. 

Two new things to share on this:

Google Earth, which used to be an installed app, is now web-based.  However, you'll notice that there seems to be no way to create your own "tour" in the web-based version.  There is now a tool called TourBuilder that solve this problem.  It's in beta, but seems to stable.  Here's a tour I made of CVSD schools:

In TourBuilder
In Google Earth

If you want to use a powerful app to create maps with lots of geospatial data, take a look at ArcGIS.  I got to know this software at a recent conference.  We have free accounts for all students at CVU.  Here's the kind of map you can produce with ArcGIS.