Noel Erskine, Technology Coordinator Norris Schools

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Showing posts with label Tech Tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tech Tools. Show all posts

πŸ’₯ T𝗲𝗰𝗡 π—Άπ˜π—²π—Ίπ˜€ - SeeSaw & Canva tips. More templates! Free extensions. Video & Photo tools. New features and more in this weeks tech tips.

Friday, February 25, 2022

 

For those of us that are not Photoshop experts.... This is a simple to use and free tool to easily blur things in a pic.  Checkout cleanup.pictures
(We have added this resource to our collection of resources in our Photo Editing and drawing tools doc located here. that have many more simple free editing tools and sites.) 

VideoCandy.com has free tools for doing quick and simple edits to your video files. this one is worth adding to your bookmarks and tech tool list!




CLOSEit is a free add-on for Google Docs. Underlined or highlighted words are replaced with blanks and a word bank is added to the end of the document. https://clozeit.syedkhairi.com/ 



New Google Drive add-on (Marketplace app) added to all staff Google Drives - Folgo for Google Drive™ is great for bulk actions in Google Drive. Copy, transfer, inspect folders (with subfolders & files).  Our how-to doc can be found here.  Powerful tool!  Read the doc for more info! 



Miscellaneous tech resources. 
TEMPLATES! - A nice resource from Lynne Herr at ESU6  -  Ready to Use 2021-22 Slides by Quarter. Daily slides include Fact of the Day, Joke or Puzzle of the Day, Think About It (SEL) and Share Out.  These slide templates are ready for you to make a copy and start using. 

More Templates! - STUDENT PROJECT TEMPLATES - 
Need to rephrase a sentence?  Give WordTune a try. 

10 things you didn’t know you could do with Google Arts and Culture 

Yellowstone Distance Learning Opportunities and videos for your classroom. -Check them out here. 

GOOGLE WORKSPACE UPDATES - Manage Overdue Tasks in Google Calendar - 
If you have uncompleted tasks that were due in the past 30 days, you will have an all day entry that will tell you how many tasks are pending from that timeframe. More info here on this new upcoming feature. 

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (New Table Features in Google Docs) - Have you noticed the new features when you insert a table in Google Docs! You can now pin header rows, add unsplittable rows, quickly add and arrange columns and rows, and even sort tables to organize data! Thanks to Shake Up Learning for this great tip.  Watch this quick video to learn how!

15 Google Classroom Tips for Teachers - Kacy Bell, always has good stuff.  Check them out here. (Some great organizational tips for Classroom, including the resources topic to keep at the top of each class.)  


What is Sub-image Search? And Why You Would Use It? (Many students and teachers do not know you can easily search using images to find out what something is.  Great short walkthrough in this video.) 

Did I Plagiarize? - The Types and Severity of Plagiarism Violations.  A nice visual graphic for use with your kids. 

Free Webinar: Stop Motion Animation with Google Slides! View the recorded video & access resources here.

QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK (Google Drive Search Chips) - It's even easier now to search your Google Drive files. Try using the new enhance search chips to refine your search!  Watch this quick video to learn how!



A couple great free extensions. Made by Alice Keeler and sponsored by Schoolytics. 

Speaker Notes by Schoolytics - This free Chrome extension will send your Speaker Notes in Google Slides™ to a Google Doc™. 

Quiz Helper by Schoolytics - For teachers, make a quiz with Google Forms™ with confidence. Automatically sets defaults for a quiz. Collects edit link, so students can finish later. Creates Google Docs™  Short tutorial video here.   How-to article here. 


Emoji Tips and tricks: 

Emoji bullets  - Format ➡️ Bullets & Numbering ➡️ List Options➡️ More Options➡️ Emojis

πŸ‘‰ Simply enter a list into http://EmojiBulletList.com and it will do its best to pair a relevant emoji with each item.

πŸ–± Click an emoji to see more suggestions. Sometimes the results are disappointing, but you can paste the list anywhere and add your own emojis.

Chrome extensions:
Can Canva get any better?  Answer:  YES! 
Tables & Charts are in Canva for Education! Seamless integration with Google
 Sheets! So many possibilities & so easy to create! Yes, you can do charts inside of Sheets, but this adds even more possibilities as well.  Checkout the short 1-minute video here!  (Remember, Canva gives teachers and students free pro accounts!) 




ELL Teachers! - check this out!
A Self-Checking Translation Quiz in Google Sheets  Practice another language with your own words & sentences, with color-coded feedback & hints. Great for ELL & all language learners!




Google Classroom headers, newsletter templates, worksheets, and virtual backgrounds and more are found in this teacher's free Canva templates.  Check them out here!  AND remember, Canva is FREE for educators and students!!


SeeSaw tips: You can now access select standards-aligned collections and lessons right in Seesaw.

Start exploring these multimodal collections today!


What's new in SeeSaw? This slide deck walks through each month's updates along the way. (Good bookmark to check once in a while.)
CANVA TIP! 

You can download your Canva designs into your Google Drive, which allows you to manipulate the items within your design?!! This changes the game for accessibility with cute designs! (Remember, It's easy to convert the PowerPoint file (PPTX) into Google Slides!) More tips and free EDU account info is located in our Canva doc.




Experiments with Google - Experiments with Google is a place for people to share ideas and coders for Google experiment with the ideas. This one is a fun experiment that would be great for any musical class.  Blob Opera allows you to take a look at how interacting with the different cartoon character blobs changes the singing voice assigned to each blob.  It's just cool! (You can search other experiments here.) 




Let's protect and inform our kids! 
I know many of you have gotten similar emails saying they charged you X number of dollars for a subscription and then call this 800 number if you have issues.  These guys are after your money and your computer/info.  This one even runs a call center and matches up the name with the Transaction number.  They then send you to a website that installs a program on your computer. 

This was sent to one of our 6th grade students: 




The only way to protect yourself and our kids is... being informed and always being cautious.  Please remind students about these kinds of things and never call or give out information. 


Posted by Noel Erskine at 1:21 PM 0 comments
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πŸ’₯ T𝗲𝗰𝗡 π—Άπ˜π—²π—Ίπ˜€ - Templates, Chromebook resources, watermarks, game buzzer and more in this weeks tech tips.

Thursday, February 3, 2022

 WOW - This one is a winner!  A ton of resources on the Chromebooks in the Classroom resource page. 



Miscellaneous tech tools:

GAME CHANGER TIP FOR ME! - WOW - Yes, I just learned this one and should have known it all along!  In short, when in chrome you can highlight text on a website, right-click and select copy link to highlight.  That link you send will take them to the website with the text highlighted that you selected. Pretty useful!  (30-second Video here if you want to see it in action.) 

ReadWriteThink Interactives Now Work Without Flash! - ReadWriteThink offers a great collection of free interactive templates for students to use to create all kinds of things including poems, story plots, timelines, compare & contrast maps, and much more. More info here! 

Mergo add-on installed for doing email merges and campaigns. -  We have added the Mergo add-on into Google Sheets to easily do email campaigns and merges.  (I sent out an announcement several weeks ago about this.)  We have put together a tutorial doc about how to use this new tool. 

An A-Z of Creativity" digital book is collection of over 100 free tools and sites. It  includes ideas for possible classroom uses for each. Check it out here.  (Great example of a book created with BookCreator, which is another great tool for the classroom.) 

4,000+ Maps of Military Battles and Campaigns - The vast majority of the maps are from the 18th and 19th centuries, although there are about 600 maps covering World War I and II.  Check them out here. 

ClassTools.net - an oldie, but still a goodie! - If you have not checked out classtools.net it's worth a look.  Badge Maker, Random Name Picker, Image Annotator and more! 

Another oldie but a goodie - Have you checked out Flippity lately? If not, it's worth a look.  Create games, timelines, flashcards and more from a spreadsheet list. 

20 Canva templates to use in class tomorrow - Check them out here. 

Google Slides - It's one of the best. - Slides lets you and your students create interactive, visual, engaging learning activities that are anything but ordinary and boring. You need to check out the ULTIMATE Google Slides teacher resource, it is stuffed full of great resources.

Easy Ways to Create Voice Recordings - No Account Required -  Check it out here. 

Create or import text watermarks in Google Docs - You can now add watermarks to docs. Text watermarks will repeat on every page on your document, making it useful for indicating file status, such as “Confidential” or “Draft” before sharing more broadly, no matter the application you use. In addition to text watermarks, you can insert an image watermark or images above or behind text. Go to: Insert > Watermark >

Your Gmail will look a bit different in a few weeks: Gmail’s ‘new integrated view’ web redesign starts rolling out in the coming weeks.  (Google's article can be found here: integrated view.)  

What is good digital citizenship?  -This poster will tell you and your students! 

CrowdBuzzer - It's a great tool for classroom review games.  Check it out! 
Playing a classroom game? - Use the student's Chromebooks as their own buzzers for your review game!  (Works great for remote learning as well.) 
(This tip and other great tips can be found here: https://www.notanotheremailpd.com ) 





Jazz Up Your Docs!  - Do you like to print your docs on colored paper?  You can make your Google Doc colored too! In Docs--> Go to File --> Page Setup and choose the color of your choice!




Tiny Sketchbook is a free extension that lets you create digital sketches with just a click of a button.  This one may not be for everyone, but some may find it useful.  There are a lot of canvas type drawing tools out there, and each fit a niche depending on what you use it for.  (Google Drawings, Canva, many whiteboarding tools, etc...)  This one would be good if you just want to do a quick doodle/drawing and send it in an email or paste it into a doc.  (You can send a link to someone, so they can edit that simple drawing/scribble too.)  If it's something you may use, check it out here.  (The developer/company is solid. They have some good products.) 
Checkout Emoji Copy -   All you need to do is click, hit copy, and BAM... it's ready to paste into your text! It's even searchable!!  Check it out here.  We have added this to our clip art and sound resources doc. 



Did you know, you can access the built-in emoji keyboards by doing this:




Virtual Field Trips~ 
EBOOK: 25 instant virtual field trips -- This ebook contains 25 of our favorite on-demand virtual field trips. 
TEMPLATE: Postcards from around the world -- This template lets students write about their experience in the virtual field trip. It's a great way for them to summarize and reflect what they've just seen! 
PDF Candy - A free online PDF Editor with a lot of bells and whistles you would expect from something that cost big bucks.  PDF Candy allows you to change, edit,
or transform any PDF into another form. Imagine taking the PDFs and editing them, download them to Microsoft Word (Convert to Googel Doc), merge two PDFs so
that they print together, or SPLIT a PDF into two different pages. PDF Candy allows you to do this and so much more. It even features an "Extract Text" option that eliminates ads and pictures prior to printing a larger file.  CHECK IT OUT. 



The only thing better than a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet with Wordle in it.  
You can grab the sheet here, but better yet, learn how this was recreated in Google Sheets 



Looking for ways of using Wordle in your class for engagement? Check out these ideas. 

Speaking of Google Sheets - You can even make an Etch A Sketch with sheets! 
The power of sheets never fails to surprise me.  Here is how this was made.  (You can make a copy of this sheet here.) 




30 sites for students with free time on their hands - Check them out here. 








Rainbow "Scratch-Off" Drawing Templates for Jamboard - COOL  Check them out.  (We have added this to our JamBoard doc, where more links to templates can be found.)

Jamboard: Add a Background from Canva - How-to here.  

The templates below have been added to our Jamboard doc that contains many more great ones!

More Jamboard Templates: 
CANVA TEMPLATES FOR SEESAW 


SeeSaw templates for:
  • Announcements
  • Newsletters
  • Activities
  • And more!
If you do not have a Canva account:
Canva for Education - A great free online graphics program. Available to K-12 teachers and their students. 100% free - now and forever. More info here. You will need to create an account in Canva.  Educators may request a free premium account, and they are usually approved in about a week.


Posted by Noel Erskine at 8:20 AM 0 comments
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πŸ’₯ Tech items - Some great tech tips, new Meet features, Draftback is back!, smishing on the rise... and more in this Tuesday tech tips email

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

How are you coming with your Norris Required Tech & Remote Learning Teacher Tools and Skills For the 2020-21 School year???

Hope to see you at the Tech Book camp tomorrow and Thursday... and the new staff have their tech day on Friday!  Wow summer is gone.  Hope everyone is ready for an exciting year.  (Yes, there will be challenges and new procedures... but what a great opportunity for us to lead as educators.)  Don't forget your mask!  -A fun little Goggle Mask video. 

Draftback - ITS BACK! 

This is one of our favorite extensions and it stopped working a few months ago and the developer has updated it and ITS BACK! 
Adds a button into your Google Docs to playback the history like a movie.  Great for seeing how students made that doc/report.  


Connect Google Classroom with Applied Digital Skills
Connect it here. Applied Digital Skills is now better integrated with Google Classroom. Connect your Google Classroom account with your Applied Digital Skills dashboard to import your student roster, co-teachers, and assign lessons seamlessly. If you have not checked out Applied Digital Skills now may be the time especially if you incorporate digital skills within your curriculum. More info here. 

πŸ’» How to Use Khan Academy for Distance Learning

Learn how to:
•Set clear expectations for how students will use Khan Academy and receive feedback
•Use our new Skills report to identify the most challenging topics and work through them live
•Tap into Khan’s collection of five-minute Refresh activities to keep your students energized

A couple great add-ons and extensions for the Math teachers!
Hypatia is an add-on that allows you to easily insert equations into Google Docs, Slides, and Forms. 

Here is another one to try:
EquatIO for google - easily create mathematical equations, formulas, quizzes and more in g suite apps 
EquatIO is totally free for teachers. Other individual users can buy direct from our online store above. A single annual subscription costs $100, with discounted pricing for group and unlimited licenses. 

Casting your Chromebook to your projector
The Cast EDU extension may be gone - but after looking at their new way of doing it... Jason and myself actually think this may be better.  (And more reliable!)  Jason has updated our  casting doc.  Feel free to reach out to us if you need help or have questions. 

A few new Google Meet features:
Google will be rolling these out soon: 

  • Only meeting creators and calendar owners can mute or remove other participants. This ensures that instructors can't be removed or muted by student participants.

  • Only meeting creators and calendar owners can approve requests to join made by external participants. This means that students can’t allow external participants to join via video and that external participants can’t join before the instructor.

Meeting participants can’t rejoin nicknamed meetings once the final participant has left, unless they have meeting creation privileges to start a new meeting. This means if the instructor is the last person to leave a nicknamed meeting, students can’t join again until an instructor restarts the nicknamed meeting.  

We have added a few new tools, tips, and extensions to our Video Conferencing document (Zoom and Meet).  A Google Meet extension to record attendance and more... Check them out! 

Miscellaneous tech tips & items:

Khan Academy and the Features You Might Have Missed - There are a lot of subjects. It's not just videos. 



Here’s a fun idea for back to school - A get to know you activity. 
 Make a copy of the template here.  I have added this template into our Google Slides template gallery. 

Text Message Phishing — or “Smishing” is on the rise.  Be Careful!
I am sure some of you have seen these and if not... they will be coming to your phone.  Be smart - just like phishing emails they want you to click on a link or maybe call a number.  (Notice the example below that was sent to me a while back.  It's a shortened URL link to click on.  It does not match any of my card numbers and the senders looks kind of strange as well.) 
 
Would you click on this one?  NOT! 

A great resource and local contact from the National Archives:
Dave is a retired Nebraska teacher who also spent several years with the National Archives teaching and working with K-12 students across the Nation.   You can reach out to him for more information at: 55dlrose@gmail.com 
Side note - I was in the same school district as Dave (Tri County) for 10 years.  Dave was a legendary teacher at TC for many years.  Students all knew him as an amazing teacher but when you were in classes you had to work hard and keep your nose to the grindstone. He was often the teacher that kids stopped back to see after graduation.  I guess it's all what we strive for as educators.  He has a passion for teaching, government and history.  (Yes he was a government and history teacher. lol)    

Hi Educators,

It should not take a Pandemic to introduce you or for some re-introduce a wonderful tool from the National Archives called DocsTeach. I am very proud to have been on the education staff at NARRA when it was launched in 2009 and helped create pieces of this amazing site. It has continued to grow and flourish providing over 11,000 primary sources along with over 1300 activities using these documents created by educators and Archives staff. Or you or your students can select documents and create your own fun and historic activities!

With hands-on access to primary sources and analysis techniques, students will form a connection to historical evidence and deepen their understanding of the past. Involve your whole class in an activity, or assign students to complete activities individually or in small groups – and turn their work in to you – on DocsTeach.org or the DocsTeach App for iPad. Activities align with Bloom’s Taxonomy and National History Standards.  

With a DocsTeach account, you can save and share the primary sources you discover. You can also create, save and share activities. And you gain access to hundreds of additional activities created by fellow educators. You can even copy and modify these activities to fit your needs.  

Like anything worthwhile, it takes time to explore and play to get comfortable with all that DocsTeach has to offer. You will see alignment with Bloom's and our National History Standards. Maybe start out using DocsTeach for a favorite unit---- mine is World War II and access primary sources like — letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos, and other document types.

If you find this site and the tools of value- share with colleagues. If you have questions about the National Archives or DocsTeach please contact me. If I cannot answer them I will tap my colleague Stephanie Greenhut who is the administrator of this site.  Good luck this year & please send some feedback on your experience with DocsTeach.

Your Colleague & Friend,

Dave Rosenbaum

*As you will discover, there are resources that would fit the comprehension level of K-12...

Favorites-   You can type in the id # in the search to pull these documents up

United States check to Russia for Alaska ID 301667
FDR First Inaugural Speech- "Nothing to Fear"  197333
Map of Louisiana Purchase 594889
Patent Light Bulb 595450
Cartoon- Passing the Buck 6012161
Poster- Army Recruiting 513533
Photo Pres Lincoln 527825
Photo Covered Wagon -Nebraska 518267
Apollo 11 Flight Plan 6734365

HAVE FUN!
Posted by Noel Erskine at 10:17 AM 0 comments
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