IT Ideas

If you prefer to dictate your documents, you can now directly into Google Docs. Simply add the Voice Addon found here . You can pick your language - so speak in French, German, English - support a range of languages. Seem to work really well - the odd correction is needed but better and faster than most I've tried. Be interested to see how good the other languages are. Brief demo:

We have just started using  Ericom AccessNow and Secure Gateway to allow access to our remote desktop server on ChromeOS. Previously we had been using free rdp clients - but the time has come to bite the bullet and pay for something. AccessNow has some key advantages over free rdp clients: A configurable user interface. Accelerated rdp  Clipboard support between remote and local session Ability to send files to and from remote session Secure Gateway to allow off site access Brief video demo done on a Chromebook off site: Getting this working is not hard assuming you have an existing rdp server. You just need to read the Ericom manuals carefully. If you want to use the off site Secure Gateway, you will need a public IP address forwarded to the local server IP address with ports 80&443 open. In addition you will need a standard SSL certificate for the domain name you use for the secure gateway (otherwise your browser will warn you about untrusted sites all...

Youtube for Schools is a filtered version of YouTube where the emphasis is on educational content. I've played about with it for a while in test environments and over the last year or so it has become ever easier to enable. We use ClearOS for gateway services and the latest release allows it to be enabled without any complex command line stuff. However, there are some serious caveats surrounding using it which I've spelt out in the video below: The YouTube for Education  forum is worth a look and hints that something new may be coming. We shall see.

A while ago we started using our own homework site to make homeworks publically available, fire them into students calendars and email. You can see the original post here . I recently updated the site to allow users - particularly parents, to view homeworks for specific students. This is anonymised by using the students four digit admin number and uses a second Google Sheet to match the individual students to their homework. The video below is a brief demo of the site and explanation of how it work.

There has been quite a bit of talk about safesearch recently as its moved to https which has caused issues for some with filtering explicit content. Google provide online documentation of how to do this here . I thought it might be useful to illustrate what each approach involves. Via Chrome Management Policy If a user is signed into a device using their Google Apps account, you can force SafeSearch using policy. So this works on ChromeOS devices and where users are signed into Chrome on a PC. It also applies anywhere. So set this in Chrome User Settings in the management console: While this policy applies offsite - it does not apply if a user in not signed into Chrome on a PC or signed into their own device with a non-domain account. Which brings on the next option for PC's. Via Chrome Group Policy If you use Chrome on PC's, you should manage it with the Chrome Group Policy adm . Once added to your domain controller, you can control the behaviour of Chrome, includi...

You can now enable Smart Unlock for you Google Apps users in the management console. This feature is off by default and you will need to enable it if you want them to have the facility. The policy to enable is shown below: Once this is set a user can enter settings on the Chromebook and enable the feature (in advanced settings): Before you click on enable, make sure bluetooth is turned on on the Chromebook and the phone. In addition make sure bluetooth settings are open on the phone to make it discoverable.  Just follow the onscreen instructions to configure. Once done, if the phone is unlocked, you can unlock the Chromebook by pressing enter - no password required.  At the moment it seems to work on the latest beta (ChromeOS 40) and android 5. Not tried with other devices yet. Update: also works on ChromeOS 39 - so now any ChromeOS device I login to picks this setting up and turns it on automatically - so working on my Chromebox on Stable 39 in my classroo...

I've posted about how you access and edit MS Office files directly from Google Drive in the past. This is just a slight update to those posts. The two methods shown below work on ChromeOS and on a PC. Crucially you don't need to install the Google Drive app on a PC to use these methods. While the Google Drive PC app is convenient on a PC, its not well suited to a multiuser environment. Of course - the answer is to ditch Office and have an easy life. However, there are odd occasions you still need to work with these files - so these two approaches may be of help.