Google Photos - Maybe the best photo app of all.

What is Google Photos?
A quick and easy way to backup and share your photos and videos.
This app allows you to edit your images and add effects similar to what you see in many of the popular photo sharing apps available today.

Why should I use Google Photos?
Digital asset management is hard! Think about your Google Drive or Shared With Me, are those easy to keep organized? We gather more digital files today than every before making some type of organizational strategy super important.
Google Photos is a free and unlimited way to back up every single photo and video you have. Free and unlimited, need I say anymore?

First Steps

Download the app to your iOS or Android device.
Select how you want your photos to be backed up.

The default is to backup over wifi. Be mindful if you pick cellular data as it will use your data plan. Videos tend to be massive files and will quickly eat up your monthly data allotment. (Unless your have an "unlimited" data plan.)

You will also be presented with two different backup options.

High Quality - Free but the file size is reduced. This may cause issues down the road if you want to print images larger than 12X14. It has little impact if you never print and just share what you upload online.
Original - The file size is not compromised in anyway. Your district account has an unlimited storage quota. (I take a billion pictures. I opted to use my personal account and buy additional storage.)

Using Google Photos
You can access Google Photos through the web or the app on your mobile device.

App - Navigation

Top of App

1. Search for locations, items, dates and people.

2. Click the ice cream cone (three little dots) to select images or use the help feature.

3. Scroll down and see this date change. It makes it super easy to locate holiday and vacation images.

Bottom of App

1. Assistant - Pulls up photos taken on this day, create collages, animations and movies from your images.

2. Photos - a continuous stream of all the images and videos in Google Photos.

3. Albums - created by you and Google.

App - Editing

Click on the image you want to edit.

Click the little pencil that will appear near the bottom.

1. Use these presets for quickly adjusting your image. This is a lot like Instagram, etc filters.

2. Click this icon for additional editing tools.

Masterpiece! Aidan was super happy about accompanying me to the Alpine Shop in search for the perfect vest.

When you are editing your image you will notice a little letter i. Click that to see the meta data. I love the location information, helpful for remembering where I took certain pictures.

Like your ELMO but with an iPad (elementary classroom teachers)

I used AirServer to create the infinity mirror effect. We were in a meeting today and Dominic told us about this fantastic idea. As we discussed all things technology he explained one method of using the iPad as a portable ELMO. It was too cool not to share. Step 1 Make sure you have AirServer running on your laptop. 1. Click the Windows key on your keyboard or click the icon in the lower left of your screen. 2. Just start typing AirServer. 3. Click AirServer. Don't see it? Contact technology or your building tech person. Step 2 Connect your teacher iPad to your laptop. 1. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Start by swiping in the bezel, the black plastic part surrounding the screen. 2. Click AirPlay Mirroring. 3. Click your name. Step 3 Open the camera app and instant portable ELMO! Anything you see in the camera's len will be broadcast to the big screen. I just used this method to take a picture of my notebook as a demonstration of how co

Who is emailing me? The Blue Man Group??? (Add an image to your Google account.)

WHY It is always nice to put a face with a name. Sometimes we need a tiny little reminder of what someone looks like because we don't see them very often. Follow these steps to add/change the image associated with your Google account. HOW Open your email. Click your image. It might just be a blue circle if you have not added something already. Click Change . Find an image you like. Your amazing new image will appear. From now on everyone can put a name to a face!

Annotate PDF? How might I do that?

So I have a PDF and I need to edit it. Here is one method that works pretty well for me. Open Word. Click File . 1. Click Open . 2. Click Browse . 3. Find the PDF you want to annotate. 4. Click Open . Click OK when you see this box. Bam! Your PDF now opens in Word. Note: you maybe have to click Enable Editing at the top of the screen. Finished editing and want to turn it back into a PDF? Click File . 1. Click Save As . 2. Click This PC . 3. Pick a location. I usually save things to my desktop. 4. Click Save as type - and choose PDF. 5. Click Save .

Learning in the Lou

Search This Blog