Tuesday Tech Tidbit

While geeking out on Twitter, I stumbled upon an amazing Apple Distinguished Educator who publishes slick videos on YouTube that quickly and easily demonstrate how to more effectively use the iPad in the classroom.   Jacob Woolcock is a computing and digital learning teacher in the U.K.  His iPad QuickTips YouTube channel provides viewers with easy-to-follow videos (often less than 2 minutes) that demonstrate an educational concept on the iPad.  His videos include tutorials on: iMovie Freeform Keynote Clips I appreciate how easy it is to follow these videos and then directly apply them to classroom usage.  If you are interested in brushing up your iPad skills or designing creative projects for your students, you should visit: https://www.youtube.com/@iPadQuickTips Have a wonderful summer! 🌞

Apple prides itself on including an impressive array of accessibility features that make the iPad user friendly to people of all abilities.  They are continually adding accessibility features, which can often be found under Settings > Accessibility but also in other places.   Accessibility settings allow users to adjust some of the following interfaces to make the iPad more universally usable: Vision VoiceOver Zoom Hover Text Display and text size Motion Spoken content Audio descriptions Physical and motor AssistiveTouch Touch accommodations Voice control Pointer control Hearing Live listen Sound recognition Background sounds Subtitles and captions Live captions General Guided Access Accessibility Shortcut I recently started to tinker with the Shortcuts app, which is included on all iPads and iPhones.  Shortcuts allow users to get tasks done quickly or through automating multi-step processes.  Apple offers an entire section of Accessibility shortcuts within...

Recently I stumbled upon a very handy website that contains step-by-step guides on how to use some of the most creative features of the iPad. Dr. Tolu Noah is an Apple Educator who creates iPad tutorials .  These help guides provide visual assistance on how to use some of the impressive multimedia features on the iPads.  Some of the guides include: Creating digital whiteboards using FreeForm Animating text and shapes in Keynote Using the Clips app to create engaging videos Using the Notes app for planning and preparation Personalizing lectures with Live Video in Keynote Screen recording Creating QR codes Although these iPad guides were created for higher education, they are definitely relevant for K-12 as well.  I hope you find some good pointers in here.  Please reach out to me if you get a burst of inspiration and wish to implement these features into a lesson or project.  Follow the link to view the iPad Guides: https://www.tolunoah.com/ipad-guides

Canva for Education has recently teamed up with OpenAI to introduce Magic Write , a writing assistant that uses artificial intelligence to help you generate ideas.  Magic Write is similar to ChatGPT in the sense that you can type a request and receive answers.   For example, you could type: " Write me a lesson plan about the Normandy invasion for 10th graders that aligns with Ohio's Learning Standards for Social Studies and includes a video project " OR " Compose a parent email that informs everyone that permission forms for the field trip to the McKinley Museum are due by May 20th. Discuss what students will learn at the McKinley Museum. " Follow the links above to see the results!  Pretty impressive. 🤓  You can easily tweak the text to customize it further.  But look at the time you saved because you didn't have to start completely from scratch. Magic Write is only available to teachers in the Canva for Education platform.  Don't worry; your stude...

Many teachers share slideshows with their students that demonstrate learning concepts.  These are particularly helpful when students want to access information from a past lecture or a tutorial.  Apple's amazing slideshow production app, Keynote, offers a simple way for you to add live video to a presentation. With Keynote's Live Video feature, teachers can insert themselves into a presentation so students can see and hear what they have to say about a presentation.  Instead of just reading text on a screen, students get to see and hear their teacher.  You can also use the rear camera on your iPad to record live footage of a concept you wish to demonstrate in your presentation.  This is a great way to bring students up to speed if they missed an important lab.   When used in conjunction with screen recording on your iPad, you can create movie presentations for your students or professional learning communities.  Quickly make tutorials that contai...

Today's tech tidbit comes from technology integration specialist (and edtech legend) Eric Curts from the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium (SPARCC). Curts publishes an edtech blog called Control Alt Achieve , in which he explores many creative ways to integrate technology into key curriculum areas.   Earlier this year Curts explored some of the best kept secrets of our ubiquitous web browser, Chrome.  There are actually a lot of tricks under the hood in Chrome that you can tap into to improve your efficiency.  In his blog post Chrome Can Do That?! Curts demonstrates some of the following tips and tricks that you can use right away to improve your web browsing experience: Pinning tabs Icons and emojis for bookmarks Bookmark folders Reading lists Making QR codes Google Lens image search (way cool!) Live captions Keyboard shortcuts To see tutorials on how to do these and other Chrome tricks, visit https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2023/02/google-chrome-can-do-that...

Wordwall is an amazing website that allows teachers to create custom interactive activities for students.  In the free account, Wordwall includes 18 types of interactives.  These activities include: Match Up Quiz Group sort Random cards Random wheel Matching pairs Find the match Open the box Gameshow quiz Anagram flash cards Missing word Rearrange words Word search Maze chase Labelled diagram Crossword True & false Wordwall includes over 54 million activities already created and shared by other educators.  Activities can be shared with students as an assignment for the entire class to complete live. The free account allows you to create 5 resources.  Of course, subscription plans are offered that allow you to create even more resources.   To check out Wordwall, visit https://wordwall.net

This week I am presenting you with a challenge.  For many years we have been using Google Docs for all of our word processing needs.  Since moving to the iPad, though, we have discovered that the Google Docs mobile app is severely lacking in formatting options and advanced word processing features.   Hiding in plain site is an app called Pages.  This app, made by Apple, is installed on all of our iPads.  Pages is a robust word processor with an intuitive interface and all the advanced word processing features we miss.  Since Pages is designed specifically for the iPad by the same company that made the iPad, it is a seamless experience. Some folks are afraid to use Pages because they feel it doesn't offer features such as collaborative editing, footnotes, and version history.  These features are absolutely included in Pages!  Plus, Pages offers a lot of multimedia options.  Inserting images on Pages is a smooth experience compared to Goog...

Artificial Intelligence resources are being developed at break-neck speed.  My head spins as I try to keep up with AI.  Dan Niessen, a technology integration specialist at NEOnet, recently released these AI resources to help teachers understand and evaluate classroom applications for AI.  While the reputations of resources like ChatGPT have been tarnished due to the capability of students to use AI for academic dishonesty, there are actually a lot of practical and useful applications of AI in the classroom.  It's definitely worth a look. Futurepedia is a collection of AI tools that is updated daily.  Within Futurepedia you can browse 700+ AI tools in 40+ categories like copywriting, image generation and video editing.  Prepare to have your mind blown!  I bet if you take a few minutes to browse through categories that interest you, you will stumble upon a new tool that will improve your workflow significantly. Futurepedia offers both paid and free re...

Classroomscreen is a website that allows teachers to project a home screen with a variety of widgets that help to organize and manage the flow of their classrooms. Classroomscreen provides 19 widgets that you can customize.  These widgets include: Random name generator (for choosing a name of a student in your class) Timer Poll Text box Drawing box Sound level meter QR code generator Dice Stop watch Clock Group maker You can use Classroomscreen.com for free with no need to register.  You won't be able to save your screens or your widget orientations with the free account, but that's not much of a burden if you ask me.  This resource is extremely easy to use.  To check it out, visit  https://classroomscreen.com .

Gmail has a nifty feature called templates, which allows you to compose and save an email message that you anticipate sending to various recipients over a span of time.  If you find yourself composing similar email messages and sending them to various people, this feature might save you some time. I use Gmail templates to send acknowledgements to students who complete an interest form for the Makerspace club.  I never know when a student will fill out the form.  Nonetheless, I have a template email ready to go so I can send them information about the club. You need to activate Templates in your Gmail settings before this feature shows up. To do this, select the gear icon at the top of Gmail. Then select See All Settings > Advanced > Enable Templates . To save a template, you should first type a draft email message.  Then select the More button at the bottom of a new composition window (the "snowman" button).  You can then open the Templates menu and sav...

Students often ask us in the media center how to print slide show presentations.  Often we discover that the slides have been formatted in a way that makes them look wonky when printing full page.  This is easy to fix ... if the presentation is formatted correctly at the very beginning.   By default, Google presentations are formatted to play in a widescreen format (16:9 ratio).  This size does not correspond to the size of a piece of paper.  Printing a widescreen presentation will squash the slides and will not fill the page.  If you want to make your presentation print-friendly, you must change the page margins before designing your slide show.  Here's how: Changing slide size on desktop computer: Select File > Page setup . Change the page size from widescreen to Custom . Type 11" x 8.5" Changing slide size on iPad: Open Safari. Type the address slides.google.com Start a new presentation. Select  File  >  Page setup . Cha...

Puzzlemaker is a free puzzle generation tool for teachers and students.  It is provided by Discovery Education.  It is a completely web-based and super easy to use.   With Puzzlemaker you (or students) can generate a wide variety of puzzles, including word search, cross-cross, math squares, number blocks, mazes, and more.  Simply provide the requested information about building the puzzle parameters.  Then supply the words, letters or numbers. Voila!   Puzzlemaker will churn out a puzzle that can be printed easily.  You can also create PDFs of the puzzles that can be shared in Google Classroom.  Students can use their styluses to complete PDF puzzles on their iPads.  Puzzlemaker is a great vocabulary builder and math resource.  (And it’s fun to use!) https://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/

For your next presentation project, I encourage you to consider having your students create their very own ebook.  Creating ebooks is very easy on the iPad.  Students use the Pages app to create the book.  E-books can contain all kinds of multimedia, including videos and voice-overs.  The resulting ebooks are easy to share with others.  They open in the Books app on your iPad.  Students feel like accomplished authors, and the results are stunning. Please reach out to me if you would plan an ebook project with your students.  I would love to demonstrate to your students how to create an ebook, and I can lend technical support throughout the project.   This video demonstrates how to create and share an ebook.

If you haven't used Google Keep , then get ready to have your life changed. Google Keep is a simple note-taking app included in the Google Workplace suite. You can jot down virtual sticky notes that can then be categorized and labelled. I use Google Keep to store my thousands of passwords.  Every time I create a new account with something online, I add the login information into my note called Passwords .  You can also generate checklists in Google Keep.  As you complete tasks, you can check them off your list. Notes in Google Keep can be color coded.  They can also be tagged with labels that you create. For example, I have a label called Professional Development.  Anytime I add a related note to my collection, I tag it so it can easily be located in the future. Google Keep also offers collaboration. You can share a note with someone and give them editing privileges.  All contributors can add content to the note, check things off the list, add images, etc. ...

We've all wanted to play a specific section of a YouTube video to our class.  Time is wasted while you navigate to the section.  Wouldn't it be great if you could automatically jump to a predetermined starting or ending point when playing a YouTube video?  Spoiler alert.  You can. I will demonstrate here how generated custom starting and ending points when inserting a YouTube video into a Google slide.  This technique is useful when playing slides to your classes, but it will also help with  resource sharing in Google Classroom.  The video below demonstrates how to start and end videos at fixed points in Google slides.  

With a recent iPad system update (iPadOS 16.2), Apple released a new collaborative whiteboard app called Freeform .  According to Apple: Freeform helps users organize and visually lay out content on a flexible canvas, giving them the ability to see, share, and collaborate all in one place without worrying about layouts or page sizes. Freeform offers an unlimited canvas.  Users can continually add content and never worry about running out of space.  Within a Freeform board, users can add sticky notes, photos, videos, audio, shapes, charts, PDFs, and a wide variety of document types. You can use your iPad's camera to add photos and videos to a board.  Freeform magically appears as an app on all iPads that are updated to system 16.2.  Our school iPads are eligible to receive this update.  Please encourage your students to update their iPads so they can engage with Freeform. If an iPad's storage capacity is too tight to allow for a system update, please view my...

Artificial Intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed and is dominating many headlines in today’s news. The implications for AI’s influence on education are profound. Chatbots, such as ChatGPT , allow users to generate a wide variety of texts, including school essays.  The results are pretty impressive.  Images can be conjured using DALL-E by merely suggesting them to your computer. Again, the results are pretty impressive.  I am on a committee that is investigating the implications of AI.  We are learning about the capabilities of AI, how to prepare for it in schools, how to harness its power for good, and everything else that comes with such a transformative technology.  The AI committee is compiling resources for teachers, which include news articles and podcasts.  We will continue to add resources to this document.  If you are interested in keeping up with the latest in AI, here is a link to the live Google Doc: AI Resources for teachers If you ...

We are currently operating in two technology ecosystems:  Google and Apple.  Most of our word processing continues to occur in Google Docs, even though our students are working on iPad hardware.  As you might imagine, Google has made no effort to design a brilliant Google Docs app for the iPad.  The Google Docs app on the iPad is Captain Crappy.  I would rate it a solid D.   Why do we continue to use it then?  Apple makes a full-featured word processor called Pages, which lives on everyone's iPads.  Pages has all the document, text, and multimedia formatting of the major PC word processors.   Fun facts about Apple Pages: Pages allows for collaborative document editing.   Documents are automatically saved in iCloud.   Documents can be viewed and edited on any PC web browser using icloud.com . Documents can easily be submitted to Google Classroom.   Pages takes advantage of Apple's multimedia ecosystem, m...

Does your Gmail inbox look like a tornado touched down? I have some easy suggestions to help you gain control over your inbox and employ a system of organization that will make your digital life much more manageable.   Don't delete emails. Archive them. When you delete emails, they are gone forever. With some messages, you might regret this down the road. The Archive button removes an email from your inbox but does not delete it. Use labels .  Labels allow you to assign a name to your messages.  This makes them easy to locate. Use filters .  Filters allow you to automatically perform certain functions to emails as they arrive in your inbox.  You can mark certain messages as read.  You can automatically archive certain messages so they never appear in your inbox.  In the video below I demonstrate these Gmail features.  Let me know if you have any questions about organizing your Gmail messages.