Kevin Brookhouser

Sorry, that was a click-bait headline, wasn't it? At least I won't make you click 17 times to get to the point. It's the "Add a note" feature that pops up when sharing a Google Doc. Is it useful,? Of course. Does it have a fatal flaw? I think so. When I provide comments, context, or instructions using this feature, I get no record that I sent it. So when I need to follow up to make sure a colleague has taken on a task, I can't tell for sure what I've sent using this method. Maybe I wrote poor instructions or failed to write the instructions at all. If I provide instructions here, I'll never be sure what I sent because there is no way to track these down. I guess I could share it with another account of mine, but that seems too clumsy. Instead, I just share and use the comments feature in the doc itself. I'm sure to tag the person in the comment to be sure they get a notification using the @ or + symbol before the email address. Google Docs ...

Now that the Google black bar is gone (or going away), many of us are upset because it now takes two clicks to go from Gmail to Google Calendar, when it used to take only one. There are Chrome extensions that allow users to modify the app launcher, but they're still not as fast as using the old black bar. My solution is to use the "Startup on" settings in Chrome. First I open up all the tabs I want to access quickly every day. Then I click the settings hamburger in Chrome > Settings. In the "On startup" menu, I select, "Open a specific set of pages" > "Set pages" > "Use current pages." Then I pin those tabs so they're permanent and out of the way. This works great for me. No more crying. Here's a video.

On Tuesday Apple had a little product announcement that made the bloggosphere ‘ splode with excitement. The most interesting part for me as fully committed Google Drive fan-middle-aged-man is the iWork for iCloud beta announcement. Like Google Drive, the iWork suite is now free, and like Google Drive, it offers real-time collaboration. Sorry Microsoft SkyDrive 365 Office Sharepoint. If you don’t give your software away now, you’re in even bigger trouble. Last night on The Google Educast , Sean, Fred, and I put iWork collaboration to the test, and it actually kind of works. Here Sean is trying to get a rise out of me. Here are five reasons I think iWork for iCloud is not a Google Drive iKiller . 1. No collaborator cursor. I can't tell who is typing what. Without the cursor, words appear out of nowhere and I can't tell where my colleagues are working. Confusing. 2. No authentication. All of these docs are shared essentially as "anyone with the link can...

Carl Hooker is right. Email should die . He’s also correct in his assessment that it’s not going anywhere any time soon. I celebrated the future demise of email the moment Google announced Wave. We know which platform triumphed there. So, as long as our hate relationship love/hate relationship with email continues to survive, may I propose one little recommendation? Whenever possible, link, don’t attach. Every time you attach a file to an email and then send it off multiple people, you’re actually making many different copies of that file. For example, when someone sends an image via attachment to our faculty and staff, they’re actually creating over 60 copies of that image and hosting them all on our email servers … not to mention each machine that downloads the image. If that user, instead, were to upload that image to a photo sharing site and then link to that image in the email, hundreds or thousands of megabits would be spared from servers and hard drives. Images Rather th...

Last week one of our math teachers asked me about a tool that could graph an equation and then superimpose that graph over an image. I didn't know of one, but I did a little research using my newly minted Advanced Power Searching credential. Several searches and video tutorials later, I think I found a solution. Here's the video.

Graphic designer, Maya Eilam posted an incredible infographic on Kurt Vonnegut's theories of archetypal stories. I'm using it in my classroom to teach students how to structure the one-act play they're writing. First, we discuss the different forms. Then, I ask students to think of their favorite stories and consider where they fit in this model. Finally, I have them fill out a form like this. Give it a try yourself, and see what submissions other readers have submitted  here . Loading...

I have at least seven Google accounts. I have a personal account, a school account, an old school account, an official Brookhouser trainer account, an account I use for the school's YouTube channel, an account I use when I volunteer for the SPCA for Monterey County, and a few that were created for me when I was training others in their own domains. I only use three of them on a daily basis: personal, school, and school's YouTube channel, but I do use them daily. My workflow had been Chrome for personal, Firefox for school, and Safari for YouTube. That way I could stay signed in without logging in and logging out over and over again. Yes, Google does allow multiple sign-ins in a single browser, but I don't recommend it. Then on the Google Educast, Sean Williams, Chris Betcher, and Diane Main taught me to create "multiple instances" in Chrome. See the clip here . Since I followed their instructions, the entire way I interact with Google has changed and becom...

Shared folders (which used to be called collections) in Google Drive (which used to be called Docs) rocks. I preferred the term collections  over folders  because the metaphor worked better. In the real world you cannot put one document into two separate folders, but in Drive you can. I'll get over it. I'm more concerned with how destructive collaborators could be in shared folders. Last year I had all of my students submit their work to me in a shared folder. One folder for each assignment. It was great. They had the responsibility of "turning it in," and I could see all of the docs in one place. This is SO much better than having students email you their work, and it keeps everything organized. When I tell people I do this, their first comment is, "don't all students have access to other student work?" My answer is, "Yes, and that's great." Their concern is (A) they might steal other student writing and (B) they might vandalize other...

If I can get my students to leave my class knowing how to write predictable, formulaic five-paragraph essays, I feel like I've done my job. I believe that before young writers can learn how to dance, they need to learn to be pedestrian, and I find that my students still have a hard time walking. I've offered handouts, lectures, activities, and group discussions about how to structure a five-paragraph essay, and when they turn in their work, still too many of their essays are disorganized messes. Then I created The Essay Machine. The Essay Machine is simply a Google Docs template using a table in a text document. The table has two columns with my instructions on the left column and a place for students to write their sentences in the right column. I have the rows divided into six different sections. One for each paragraph and a separate section for the title. Within each paragraph section, I have rows that explicitly instruct what kind of sentence goes where. Writing becom...

Watch this screencast that shows you how to create forms that will help you grade essays faster while removing some of the mystery students feel about subjective assessments. Also see how I use the iPad while I grade. Here is a link to the Google Docs Template . You must be signed in with your Google account to view this.  

Last night I joined Fred Delventhal, Diane Main, and Sean Williams for the Google Educast. 

On Wednesday with over 40 other educators I hosted a Google Education On Air Conference Session.

This afternoon a few fellow Google Certified Teachers who teach English hung out on air with me in a Google Hangout On Air. We thought it might be fun to share some of the things we were doing in the classroom, and it turned out to be a ton of fun. We held a conversation across California, New York, and London with  Jen Roberts , Catlin Tucker , Carol LaRow , and David Read . I am completely energized with new ideas for using Docs in the English classroom. Here is the video of the Hangout. Then tonight Diane Main mentioned our Hangout on the Google Educast . Also see Jen's blogpost about the event here . I have to say, Hangouts are amazing! This is exactly the tool we needed a year ago with the SchoolsAndTech podcast. We'll definitely need to have more of these in the future.

A small group of Google Certified Teachers (the English variety) are going to participate in a Google Hangout On Air on Thursday, April 19 at 3:00 pm Pacific Time. We are going to talk about how we're using Google products in the English classroom. This is going to be a bit of a practice run for the Google Hosted event on May 2 . If any of you are interested in watching us talk about some of the things we're doing in the classroom, just find the live Hangout on my Google+ page at that time. If you can't make it and you still want to view the event, I will post it on YouTube later. More details here.  #engchat

On May 2 at 11 am Pacific Time, I am going to host a Google Education On Air Session using Google Hangouts. I can invite nine people to join me for the conversation, and an unlimited number of folks can watch live and / or view the archived session on YouTube. Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested. If you'd like to be a participant rather than just a viewer, leave a comment on my Google+ post about the event. Session description Google Docs  can completely transform the entire process of teaching writing. Eliminate stacks of papers and unmanageable email attachments by having your students submit their writing through a shared collection. This session will explain best practices including naming conventions, controlled sharing, and streamlined rubrics using Google Forms. Grading papers is a pain. Google Docs makes the process much easier. More details here. 

We're currently reading Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God  in my 10th grade English class. Whenever we read complex novels, I like to collect a list of vocabulary words from the novel to study. I used to collect those words myself. Now I have my students create the collection. First I create a Google Form. If you're not using Forms,  you should . You can embed this form in your class site. I use Google Sites, but Moodle or other CMS will work. I always have my students submit their section number and last name in all the forms I use. It's much easier to track who has submitted the forms when I do. Then I have them submit a word they discovered while reading the book. They also include the definition of the word. Below the form I embed the spreadsheet associated with the form. Remember to make that spreadsheet viewable by anyone with the link or your students will just see a blank screen. I called this crowd-sourcing in the title. Maybe we shou...

At our small school we all cover each other's classes when we need substitutes. The process usually involves a mass email to all the faculty followed by tedious collation and replies. Google Spreadsheets makes this process so much easier. See how.

Google Docs and I had a great thing going. I have been a user since its beta release in 2006. Later I began to experiment with its use in the classroom. Then I attended the Google Teacher Academy and was convinced that I would go completely paperless with all future papers I would assign. It didn't go well. See why Google Docs and I briefly broke up and why we're back together. [Update]  Aaron Slutsky  commented on Google+   I've had some teacher screencast their comments to the students. Think it could be done as efficiently as making comments? Screencasting paper comments may be even faster. I'll have to think about that.

A Google hosted webinar some of my students and I produced in November.

Here is a webinar I hosted with another Google Apps for EDU Certified Trainer, Tim Lee.