Here are two email tricks that I have recently learned about for gmail.
Tip 1: Time to Purge
I hate all the junk mail I get in my email. I swear if you give so much a $5 to any organization they will hound you to the gates of hell with emails. I just deleted 20 emails yesterday from not-for-profits. Now no more! With the smart filtering feature I can adopt the "I'll call you" policy and fee up my email box. Yea! Check the box next to the email from that annoying company or organization, then select the drop-down menu "More" and select the Filter Message like this. Then you can choose what you want to do with these. I sent them straight to trash. Also if you have to sign up using your email in the future your can do this tip I found here
"When the first email from the gym shows up, click on it, then click “More,” then “Filter messages like these.” A pop-up will appear, and enter the plus sign address into the “To” line. Click “Create filter with this search.”
Then you get to choose what you want to do with those emails. Want them all to go directly to trash? Just check “Delete it,” and hit “Create filter” to save your setting. And you’ll never see an email from your gym again! They’ll automatically all go straight into the garbage."
Tip 2: Prioritize
If you use gmail then one great feature you can use is the prioritize function. This is a bit of a hidden function but what it always you to do is sort though the emails that you constantly get that do not need you immediate attention, such as newsletters, status updates, twitter post, pleas from charities, friend requests etc. These are all things that you want to read, just not right now. The video below will show you how turn your gmail inbox into a to-do list (which I don't personally think is any better than actual todo list app or program, but maybe you will), but towards the end of the video it will also so you how to prioritize you emails.
As an Art teacher I often need to put together a presentation about famous artist. One of the beast tools I use for finding images for my presentations is Google Images with Search Tools. This tool is also great for finding historical images as well.
Once you are in the Google Image search engine select the search tools. Here you can set more parameters including size, type of image (i.e. face, landscape, line drawing, etc), color, and labeled for reuse. Because many of us are concerned about copyright issues and this tool can be a great tool. The only problem is that the “labeled for reuse” is not a default setting, so most image are not labeled as such. This can make the results very limited and not very reliable.
Notes about copyright: Any image that is over 70 years old is fair use. A photo of a painting belongs to the photographer, not the painter. Also any website that are overly concerned with copyright will have their images locked or watermarked.
Image Searches for Students
Here are some results for "Starry Night" I think the Bat-signal is my favorite
But what about when you want students to search for art images? There are couple of solutions for this. The first and easiest is to just switch on the SafeSearch filter on Google image search. This is fine for filtering out explicit images, but only if those image are labeled as such. Also, one problem that I have had, is that search results can yield unexpected results. One way to make sure that your students find the real art by the real artist is to create a custom search. With a custom search you can make sure that your students are only searching reliable websites. Another great feature is that you can embed this search engine into an existing site or use it as a stand along website. Here is the address to my custom search https://www.google.com:443/cse/publicurl?cx=001331390169538740020:x3vjvyhkf8c I have also embedded my custom search at the top of this post and on the sidebar of this blog. My custom search will only search through wikiart.org, artnet.org, artcyclopedia.com, and Google Art Project. This way when my students are looking up painting by Vincent Van Gogh they will find accual images produced by the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh and they won't find a 4th grade project of Starry Night posted on pintrest. To learn how to make your own custom search click here.
Google ChromeGet it Here IF you are not using Google Chrome you should check it out. It is the only browser that I use, whether I am using MacBook or PC iPad or Android. Chrome works best on desktops/laptops, although not all features are avalable on mobile devices I still prefer it over other browsers. The top reasons why I love Google Chrome 1. It won't crash (at least as much) when using Google and Google based stuff 2. Google and Google based stuff are awesome and prolific 3. Once you are signed into Google you are signed into YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and Google Classrooms 4. Google Chrome has great extensions and apps. (see below for examples) 5. I know where things are when they download. Other browsers seem to hide my files but with Chrome the download is right their at the bottom of the screen and in my downloads file. 6. I love the bookmark bar at the top. Right there under the address bar are my top 10 or so bookmarks. I can change and adjust these as needed. Today I want to tell you about my three favorite Google Apps/Extensions for Art Teacher.
The best thing about this site is the Art. Thousands of works of art have been digitally archived at 7,000 Megapixals! This means you can zoom in like never before. Discover details you've never noticed and enjoy it as if you were truly there. Click on the video to see how to use Google Art Project.
This is an extension that will sit at the top of your browser to the right of you address bar. What it allows you to do is, when you right-click on any website it makes an option to encode the website with a QR code. You can then save this as an image and have a QR code for any website. I have used QR codes is to encode every students
Artsonia page and then save the code as an image with the students name as the
file name. After I use
is the Google Chrome Extension "QuickMark QR Code Extension" I can
then print off a "contact sheet" of these jpeg files which includes
the file name. So essentially it is a
name tag and a QR code. Then these name
tags are used for the artwork displayed at Open House and for the District Art
Show. Friends and family viewing the
artwork can scan the QR code and see all the artwork the child has ever done in
art, leave a positive comment, and become an Fan Club member of that artist. For those of you whose student each have a device like a iPad this is a great quick way to direct them to any website (so much easier than trying to type in a URL). Click on the video to learn more about Artsonia.com
This is an extension will also will sit at the top of your browser to the right of you address bar. When you come across a great website that you want to pin onto your Pintrest account click the P extension and create a pop-up that allows you to Pin the webpage onto the Pintrest board of your choice.
What is Pintrest? Click on the video.
