The Friday Tech Tip

Voki has been one of my favorite digital tools for a while now.  Voki is a way for students to orally share their ideas.  They record their voice and it makes an avatar that repeats what they say.    Here is an example of a Voki I made  : Students will need to create accounts to make Vokis. If you have questions please let me know. Take Care, Clint

Happy Friday! (Actually Sunday Night) Are you and your students getting the most out of using their Google calendar?  Some of the features of Google Calendar that may be of interest to you and your students Students can get an automatic daily e-mail of their calendar agenda Students can set and get reminders (Ex: remind me at 12:15 to get my homework for Mr. Winter's class Set reoccurring appointments (12:30 everyday I get a reminder to go to the office to take my medicine)  Copy calendar entries from Google Classroom to the student's personal calander If you are interested in these features or would like for me  to work with you 1:1 or with  your students let me know and I will be glad to help.   Here is a good place to start  https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/2465776?hl=en   . Also, you can learn more in the Google Apps for Education Training Center  https://www.google.com/edu/training/ .  If you have que...

Happy FRIDAY!! Are you looking for an alternative way for your students to write a story?  This week I read about a great Comics site called makebeliefscomix  .  Students are able to create their own comics using this site. The site is available in many different languages.   Below is a tutorial that walks you though oof this digital tool. I think that this is a very valuable tool  that all students can access. If you have questions about this please let me know. Have a great weekend, Clint

Happy New Year!  One of my New Years Resolutions (One of the same ones I keep every year) is to be more organized.  I am going to be using Google Keep to keep up with my lists, tasks, and notes. With Google Keep Students and teachers can easily create, access, and organize  notes and lists. Students can even insert pictures, graphs, charts, and leave notes about them.  Students can also share notes and lists just like Google Docs. What I really like about the program is that once students make a note they have the option to set a reminder so that they will get an e-mail about the note. This could be beneficial for students to be able to quickly access notes or lists to review material.  If you have questions about Google Keep please let me know. Happy Friday, Clint

Happy Friday and Happy Holidays, This will be the last Friday Tech Tip of 2015. Congratulations on making it through the first semester. Last week I blogged about Star Wars Text. Alicia Coughlin at Coile used this for a  Digital Opener. You can check it out HERE . Great job Alicia! As we start the new year Google Classroom has launched a few new features that you may be interested in. You can find out more on their blog HERE. Below is a run down on the new features from the Google For Education Blog : Export Grades to Google Sheets : In addition to .csv files, you can now export your grades directly to Google Sheets. The Sheets template includes a class average and an average per student Easier to update grade point scale : We know not all assignments are out of 100 points. You've always been able to change the point value, but a lot of teachers had trouble finding this feature. So we’ve made it easier to change the grading scale to any number you need it to be.  ...

I am not going to lie I'm a huge Star Wars Fan. Next weekend cannot get here soon enough to be reunited with my 1980s buddies Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.  My goal from ages 6-12 was to make the Kessle run in under 12 parcecs That's my level of Star Wars Geekiness.      Your students may be excited as well (maybe not) but Classtools.net  has a great tool where students can insert text  to make  the Star Wars opening title complete with theme music!  Students can go back and edit the scripts at a later time. This might be a good activating or closing strategy in your classroom. If you have questions about how to use this let me know.Have a great weekend! Take Care, Clint And if you ever wondered how you can make the Kessle Run in under 12 parcecs

Happy Friday! This week Google Read and Write has announced some  new features that may be beneficial to you and your students. ScreenReader - Students can highlight text in a google slide OR webpage and the screen reader will read aloud ONLY what is in the box. Previously, it would read until you pressed stop (See directions below Speech Input is now integrated with Google Voice Typing Spanish has been added as a language tool.  It’s still in Beta, but it’s an option to try out. Steve Piazza has put together the following tutorial (see below). Please let me know if you have questions. Google Read and Write is a tool that all students in Clarke County can access. Please let me know if you have questions. Take Care, Clint Read&Write for Google just added three new features: 1. Screenshot Reader (highlight text on a webpage and it reads the words aloud). In the above clip, where you see the moving highlight, the text is being read aloud. To get ...