Author: Kristie Hughes

Google Certified Trainer

In a previous Tech Tip, I wrote about Google AutoDraw, which is a Google A.I. experiment that can assist you with drawing things. You draw a little bit and it gives you suggestions of the item it thinks you are drawing. Once you find the item, you can click to change your drawing into the appropriate item.

This time I am going to write about another Google A.I. drawing tool, but it is more like Pictionary. It is called Google Quick Draw.

Go to Quick Draw

This website is so fun. With Google’s artificial intelligence, it tells you to draw an item, and you have 20 seconds to draw it. If Google’s A.I. guesses it, then you get credit for that item. If Google doesn’t guess it, then you get it wrong. You get to draw six items each round.  read more

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AutoDraw is one of Google’s A.I. experiments that allows you to start drawing, and then it guesses what you are drawing. It gives a list of images and you can just pick the one you want. Google AutoDraw is completely free.

To get started, visit: https://www.autodraw.com.

You can use the tools in the toolbar to get started with drawing a picture. Use the 2nd tool (outlined with the red box) to use the magic features of AutoDraw.

Draw your picture first, then check out the options at the top (outlined in red.) It guesses what you are drawing, and then gives options to choose from. read more

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If you use Google Slides, you probably already know that you can insert videos into your Slides from YouTube, by URL, and Google Drive. But did you know that with an extension, you can add your own video to any slide? This could include your face, voice, student’s work, etc. Consider using this for explaining directions, doing an experiment, showcasing examples, and more.

Here are the steps to get started: 

1. Visit the Chrome web store and download the Record to Slides extension.

2. You will see a video camera icon appear in the top corner of Slides. Note: If you are currently in a Slides presentation when you add this, you may need to refresh Slides if it doesn’t appear right away. Click on it when you are ready to start your recording. read more

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Google has recently rolled out the Watermark feature to Google Docs. You can use this feature to put your school’s logo, a fun picture, the words draft or confidential, or anything into the background of your document. 

Open a new Google Doc or even an existing Google Doc. Go to your Insert Menu and select Watermark.

This will bring up the Watermark menu off to the side of your Google Doc.

Click on the option to select your image. You can choose any image from Google Drive, Google Image Search, your Camera, or more. read more

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Wouldn’t it be nice to insert a video into your Google Doc and bypass the whole path to YouTube?  Google has recently made this much easier to do! Now you can insert videos right into your Google Doc and have them play while your students are still inside the document. 

First create your document, use tables, colors, whatever you need. Next copy the YouTube URL to the video. Paste it right into your document, and click on the tab key as prompted. This will make it look like a video link, instead of just the ugly link. (If you don’t click the tab key, it will still insert a link to the video, however the option of playing the video inside the document will not work.) read more

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