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Top Take-Aways from the TCEA 2019 Convention, Part 2

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

If you weren’t able to be at the TCEA 2019 Convention & Exposition last week, you can still participate in the great learning that happened there. In this blog, I’ll be sharing some more of the fabulous strategies, ideas, and tools that attendees found particularly useful. You can also find more of them in Part 1 of this blog series here.

New Tools to Try

  • Want to create exciting infographics? You can use the TCEA Infographics Made Simple website. Or try this site a session participant shared with me.
  • Learning Ally is a collection of free audio books for students in Texas public schools who have reading disabilities or vision impairment. If teachers have struggling readers, this would be a great place to start to try to engage them in reading.
  • Take a look at the many accessibility tools that Microsoft offers, including Immersive Reader and Learning Tools.
  • Prompts are a great way to hook your students on writing. You can find lots of them here, here, and here.
  • To set a default font in Google Docs, open a new Google Doc and type any text. Then highlight that text. Select Format – Paragraph styles – Update normal text to match. Select Format again – Paragraph styles – Options and save as My default style. (Thanks to Suzette Ross for this tip!)
  • The Novel Effect app uses invisible technology to follow along as you read a book. Music and sounds play while you are reading. Smart voice recognition stays in sync with your reading style, if you skip ahead or read a favorite part again and again.
  • Experience Real History: Alamo Edition – Travel back in time and visit the Alamo with these augmented reality products. Students can engage in historically accurate adventure scenes with Personalized Reality Boards, Reality Books and Trading Reality Cards. Download the IOS and Google Play apps here.
  • If you’re looking for some fun greenscreen projects for Valentine’s Day, you’ll discover some excellent ones here.
  • NewseumED provides free educational programs, primary sources, and standards-aligned (national) resources that focus on history, media literacy, civics, and the First Amendment. Check out the resources that are available in Spanish.
  • Anchor.fm is a powerful and free way to make a podcast and it works well with students. (Thanks to Dr. Roland Rios for this tip.)

I hope that you found these shared resources useful. Consider attending the 2020 Convention & Exposition in Austin next year February 3-7 and gather even more amazing strategies, new ideas, and tech tools yourself!

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ChromebooksMicrosoft Tips and Tricks

Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“A high percentage of learners with Dyslexia are complaining about the white background in the new look Google Classroom – is there any way this can be changed?” asks United Kingdom educator, Scott H. There are several ways to “dim” the brightness of a screen and to protect your eyes. How do you accomplish this? You use a Chrome extension.

An example of “Care Your Eyes” extension effects applied to your Chrome browser

Why Adjust the White Background?

“Dyslexia is a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or accuracy in being able to read, write, and spell,” says Anthony (Source).  Anthony points out that putting black text on a white background, or white text on a black background can result in a “blur” effect.  He puts it this way:

Another kind of visual distortion effect that can occur among dyslexic users is the blur effect [1]. This is when dyslexic readers see their text blurring or swirling or together [5]. This can significantly affect a dyslexic user’s reading ability, and make reading tiring for them [7]. You can lessen this effect by avoiding a couple of bad practices.

Contrast sensitivity comes into play, as you can see in the image below:

Read more about contrast sensitivity

To avoid the blur effect that comes from a white background on a website like Google Classroom, you have several options to minimize the impact on dyslexic students. Let’s review them.

Option #1 – Use Care Your Eyes

The Care Your Eyes Chrome browser extension, available for free,  allows for several options.  You can see them in the screenshot below:

You have the choice to “Disable at this site,” which turns it off for certain websites. That means, that you could enable Care Your Eyes for Google Classroom but leave Care Your Eyes extension off for others.

Option #2 – Visor

Visor describes itself as a “screen dimmer and reading aid.” It suggests that the extension may help with fluency and eye-strain. What’s more, during reading, Visor improves concentration and comprehension. Per its website:

Visor’s overlays and point of focus feature may be assistive to users with visual perceptual difficulties such as Dyslexia, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and Visual Stress. Whilst research shows results vary from person to person, some users may find that the use of overlays can help with fluency, eye-strain, concentration and comprehension whilst reading.

The options it has appear as a simple slider color scale:

The focus feature reminds me of OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which has a similar feature. You can see Visor’s in action below, focusing the reader on a line of content:

As you can see, a line of content appears in normal colors while the rest of the visible screen is dimmed. You can see OneNote’s Immersive Reader, which works just fine in the Chrome browser with content in a OneNote notebook, below:

The only reason I share OneNote’s Immersive Reader is that it is the gold standard for accessibility right now. Watch this video to learn more.Read this blog entry for updates announced January, 2019.

Option #3 – Eye Protection

Boasting similar features as Care Your Eyes and Visor, Eye Protection makes it a simple affair to replace the white background that leads to blur effect. You can see the options available via its Chrome extension drop-down:

And this is what a web page looks like. The light green color fills the white space of the background.

Option #4 – High Contrast

Like the other solutions, the High Contrast Chrome extension makes it a simple matter to “invert the color scheme to make web pages easier to read.” All that is black becomes white, and white becomes black. Only photos are not inverted. You can see the options available:

Here’s what a web page looks like with High Contrast enabled:

 

Protect Your Eyes with Chrome Extensions

You don’t have to be dyslexic to seek to minimize brightness and improve readability on websites. These Chrome extensions should provide you with some options.

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ESL/ELLGood TeachingMicrosoft Tips and TricksReadingSpecial NeedsWriting

Supporting Bilingual Students with Reading and Writing

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

In the United States, over thirteen million children speak a language other than English at home. After English, Spanish is the most common language spoken (Source: Data Center). In 2016, there were 456,000 Texas students who had difficulty speaking English. What are some of the ways that schools can use technology to assist students who are learning English? In this blog entry, let’s review research, approaches, and tools for teaching reading and writing to English language learners.

Enhancing Reading

Microsoft’s Learning Tools and other digital text tools can enhance reading. Students’ experiences with digital texts include pictionaries, read alouds, and parts of speech. Each can help extend students’ vocabulary and support them in learning more about sentences structure.

One incredible Office 365 tool is the Immersive Reader. It offers various features such as:

  • Adjustable font size, text spacing, and background color
  • Splitting up words into syllables
  • Line focus
  • Highlighting verbs, nouns, adjectives, and sub-clauses
  • Choosing between several fonts optimized to help with reading
  • Reading text aloud with adjustable speed
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) from print and pictures

These tools can help English Language Learners as they learn to break down words and phrases and improve their English literacy. Enhanced reading can also lead to enhanced writing, as my own story can attest.

Growing Up Bilingual

“How’s that book report coming along?” asked my dad. It was nearly noon on a Saturday. Balled up pages of handwritten text covered a corner of the hexagonal kitchen table. I smiled at him. “I’m on my fifth draft of a page-and-a-half book report.” The sheer exhilaration of putting words where I wanted to kept me wrestling with the ideas. Each time, I changed a sentence, I got an insight into the idea I was fishing for. I’d come a long way from my big fat “F” in reading and writing in second grade.

Research says a lot about children like me who grew up speaking and writing in two languages. Growing up bilingual? Some research says the following:

  • You may learn English words and grammar at a slower pace than monolinguals,
  • You tend to be better at multitasking than monolinguals.
  • You can pick out relevant speech sounds and ignore others in noisy environments. (So, my mom was right. I did have selective hearing as a teenager!)
  • Your verbal skills in each language are weaker than those of monolingual speakers.

Growing up bilingual, my dual language background enriched my writing style.

Improving Writing

From book reports to essays and then more book reports, I learned to write in sixth grade. Constant writing allowed me to refine my use of two languages. Some of the techniques that I rely on as a bilingual writer are as follows:

  1. Create graphic organizers, semantic webs, and concept maps.
  2. Summarize research and explain what another has said or written in your own words.
  3. Chunk writing in blocks with headers.
  4. Start with dialogue or a story.

Want to help your English language learners and bilingual/ESL students improve their writing? You can use these same techniques with the help of tech tools.

Blending Technology into Writing

Ready to blend technology into the four techniques I mention above? Today, we have access to a wide range of tools and resources. Here is a roundup of tools:

1. Create graphic organizers

Have a touchscreen device like an iPad, Windows 10 tablet, or Chromebook with a stylus? Use convenient apps to organize your nonfiction or fiction writing. These apps do well for note-taking. Find them available for iOS, Windows 10, Chromebook. Many types of graphic organizers exist online. Use them as a model to organize your work and model it for students. I grew up drawing concept maps for lecture notes and grabbing key ideas from texts. Until I internalized the process, I used them to organize my writing.

2. Summarize research in your own words

Summarizing is the process of keeping what’s relevant and discarding the rest. For bilingual brains, this is one strength to develop. As a child, I was assigned research papers. I had limited access to encyclopedias. If I wanted access to information at home, I had to take notes on what I read. I kept what was relevant to what I hoped to write. One way to encourage students involves focusing on the main ideas and supporting details. Get them to write, revise the information, and focus on the relevant. One tool that I use often is Hemingway Editor. It helps cut unnecessary words and shorten ideas.

3. Chunk writing with headers

Chunking splits information into small pieces. This makes reading and understanding faster and easier. Students may see a piece of writing as one long narrative. Teach them to write longer pieces. Each piece is assembled in short chunks. Students can apply chunking strategies with these methods:

  • Craft short paragraphs.
  • Keep sentences short.
  • Use bullet or numbered lists.
  • Create a visual hierarchy with varying styles of headings and subheadings (Source)

One easy way to model this for students is to write blog entries. Your students can write about anything. Practice chunking it. Begin with short pieces first. Craft longer pieces in time. A fun way to approach this could be to have students chunk an existing piece of writing, explaining why as they do it.

4. Start with dialogue or story

“When do you use quotation marks?” asked my son. I had shared my Dad’s approach to selecting books to read. He was wont to say, “I crack the book open. If it has a lot of dialogue, I get it. If it doesn’t, I leave it on the shelf.” This made my son want to create writing worth buying. “You use quotes around things people say,” I said to him.

“Quotes move a piece of writing forward,” I added after a moment’s thought.

Want students to use dialogue well? Have them create comics. Every speech or thought bubble is a snippet of dialogue, spoken or imagined. Using tools like Book Creator, students can make comics. They can highlight nonfiction or fiction information and ideas. Each exchange forces students to break concepts into smaller pieces. They use their own words, striving for natural speech.

Reading and Writing to New Heights

Writers can be like rock climbers. The cliff climber pits herself against the physicality of the rock. A writer clings to ideas, dangling from a precipice. Embrace strategies and technologies for reading and writing with your bilingual students, especially as they work to perfect their English. Give them the skills they need to express themselves in English as well as they can in their mother tongue.

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Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Your Must-Have Microsoft Gadgets and Apps for the Holidays

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Are you making a list and checking it twice? As you prepare your list for Santa Claus, give some thought to these Microsoft gadgets. Here are three Microsoft tools that are definitely on my list. Since it’s the season of giving, I’m following those up with three of my favorite apps. Here’s wishing you happy tech-ing!

Gadget #1 – Microsoft Surface Go Tablet

The Surface Go is portable and compact. It makes on-the-go work simple. Featuring Windows 10 enhanced performance, it’s ultra portable and convenient. What’s more, the LTE version is now shipping, making access in a non-WiFi area possible. While the WiFi version may provide what you need in K-12 setting, the LTE version offers more. You won’t get stuck trying to access critical work files when the WiFi in your building fails. Parents, students, and staff are eligible for special pricing.

You can get the 64GB/Intel 4415Y / 4GB RAM/WiFi version for $359.10. Compare that to the 128GB model with 8GB RAM WiFi for $494.10. The LTE model of the 128GB model with 8GB RAM is $611.10. For each of these models, you will need to pay extra for the Surface Go Signature Type Cover and Surface Pen.

Order now.

Gadget #2 – Oculus Rift + Touch

Ready to immerse yourself in virtual reality? Give the Oculus Rift plus Touch ($399) a try. (Just make sure to check your computer’s compatibility first). You get a headset, controllers, and six free games with this device. The games include Robo Recall, Lucky’s Tale, Quill, Medium, Dead and Buried, and Toybox. Here are some of the claims about the VR immersion experience from the Rift website.

  • The headset is light, adaptable, and comfortable. When you‘re in VR, the headset goes away, and you go somewhere incredible.
  • Touch brings the magic of hand presence to life in VR.
  • Rift users enjoy integrated audio. This design takes VR immersion deeper than ever.

Gift Oculus Rift + Touch and embark on a virtual journey of discovery.

Gadget #3 – Razer Blade Gaming Laptop

Need a gaming laptop and productivity workhorse? Sending a child off to college in the fall of 2019? Check out the Razer Blade – 15.6″ Full HD GTX 1060 Max-Q Gaming Laptop (256GB SSD). Boasting a 256GB solid state drive, the Razer Blade comes with 16GB of memory. You can save 20 percent on HyperX gaming accessories when buying this laptop. The laptop is eligible for discounted pricing for students and military personnel. The cost is about $1,709.10.

The 8th Generation Intel Core processors deliver power and responsiveness. Make photo and video edits with ease. Switch between programs and windows quicker than ever. Consider getting a few games to go with it.

Change someone’s life with the Razer Blade Gaming Laptop.

Now that you’ve seen my top three gadgets, here are a few of my favorite apps you may like for your Android or iOS device.

App #1 – Microsoft Launcher

Curious about Microsoft Launcher? It’s an app for your Android phone. You can rely on it to open items from your Windows PC. Items you can open include calendar, documents, and recent activities.

One of its best features is that it continues on your PC. Let’s say you take a picture on your phone. Want to move that picture to your computer? Launcher makes it easy. Working on an Office 365 document? Keep editing on your device of choice with Launcher.

Put Microsoft Launcher to work for you. Note that this link will not work unless you are using a personal Google account. This is because it connects to the Android Google Play Store. This free app is Android only.

App #2 – Friendly

Managing many social media profiles? Want to block fake news stories via keywords? Give Friendly for Facebook a try. I switched to Friendly as my go-to app on-the-go for Facebook, Twitter, and Medium. It allows me more control over several Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The keyword filtering feature lets you hide posts and articles containing certain words. Any posts that have those keywords will not appear. You can choose to seek out posts with keywords. This makes it easy to highlight topics (e.g. micro-bits, TCEA, cats, OneNote) you do want to see more of.

Start with Friendly for Facebook. This app works on Android or iOS. This app has in-app purchases, but they won’t set you back much.

App #3 – Xodo

Need a quick way to view or sign PDF files on the go? Xodo’s handy app (Android or iOS) makes it a cinch. Use the app to edit, annotate, sign, and share PDFs. Rely on the Xodo web app, too. It makes merging many PDFs, from either your computer or Google Drive, easy. You can insert, delete, reorder, and rotate pages in a PDF document.

Manage your PDFs with Xodo.

Gift Yourself Microsoft Gadgets and Apps

I hope you enjoyed the chance to see some of the gadgets Santa Claus may drop under your tree this holiday season. And don’t forget to play around with the apps to see what might work well for you. Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear what’s on your Microsoft wishlist this year!

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CTO/CIOLeadershipMicrosoft Tips and Tricks

Tips for CTOs on Knowledge Management

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“How do you keep track of everything?” I asked my secretary. We stood in a dilapidated portable building, the Technology Department building.  In response to my question, my secretary waved at the three large file cabinets behind her desk. In my previous district, my secretary and I had cleaned out all the paper, digitizing the critical. In my new district, I faced a monumental task, digitizing the paper and creating a new order of things.

Organizing and tracking important decisions and resources is knowledge management. Let’s explore some strategies you can use to achieve knowledge management (KM) nirvana.

You Need Knowledge Management (KM)

If you’ve ever had to sort through paper copies of contracts to find the one you need for a meeting, you need KM. Wish you had an easy way to set up virtual meetings with others and sharestatus reports? Wish you could pull up those meeting notes, E-rate spreadsheets, equipment replacement plans? You need KM.

You need knowledge management if you have assets that include databases or documents. This can include policies, procedures and un-captured expertise and experience in individual workers.

Establishing a KM Culture

Essential to your KM setup effort is a common, positive attitude to learning and sharing. Without this, your KM journey will fail. You may also have to overcome the “tyranny of competence” obstacle. This type of person is one who works alone and has a high technical competence. The more unique their work, the more powerful they are. This person is less prone to collaborate with others. In some ways, they hold the entire team hostage with their expertise.

When setting up a KM system, you have to encourage each team member to share what gives them a sense of job security. When job security centers around the skills one person has, there is a lack of team trust.

No longer do we live in a time where organizations can get by with siloed information. A select few no longer hold the keys to the castle. Best-in-class organizations earn their success. They empower their employees through knowledge sharing and professional growth (adapted from source).

Tips for Knowledge Management

Here are a few tips for setting up a knowledge management system. For each tip, find technology tools that you can use.

  1. Create shared spaces and deadlines. It’s easy to set up a shared space. You can use Microsoft Teams to make connecting and sharing calendar deadlines together.
  2. Make content edit and search friendly. One way to achieve this is to use Microsoft OneNote. You can add tags for quick keyword searches and organize your data into sections. You can share the OneNote notebook with others who can open the notebook using their mobile app (e.g. iOS, Android, Win10, Mac). OneNote Online Notebooks make information accessible via a web browser.
  3. Collect data that allow for easy graph summaries. Use Microsoft Forms to collect data to meet metrics. This data can feed key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can share with leadership.
  4. Start with how-to’s and facts and then move to culture norms, policies, and procedures. Creating a culture of sharing can take time. Make it easy with how-to facts, logins, and passwords. With Microsoft OneNote, you can limit access on a need-to-know basis. You have the ability to embed documents* saved in OneDrive into a OneNote page. This means you can keep the original file up to date. Those viewing the data in OneNote will see the updated data. (*Note: Mentioned in Microsoft Ignite (2018) presentation)
  5. Choose key staff to capture ideas and information and include it in your KM space. Most of your team will need to have access to the KM space in the OneNote Notebook for reference purposes. You may want to select someone who can update other parts of the KM space.

Ready to see how that might work?

See Example

In my first knowledge management spaces, I relied on wikis and G Suites for Education Sites. Now there are other tools like Microsoft Teams, OneNote, and OneNote Staff Notebook.

 

 

 

 

View an example of a knowledge management repository created in OneNote.

Microsoft Teams save time and simplifies tracking everyday logistics, making sharing easier.

  • OneNote Staff Notebooks are a part of every Teams setup. They allow you to organize content, share, and collaborate with your team.
  • Apps integrate into the Teams experience. You can access the Office 365 apps you use on a regular basis. Those include apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Planner. Use these to customize your knowledge management space. 

Achieve Knowledge Management

Getting started with knowledge management can be daunting. Take the time to build the culture of sharing first. And be sure to start slow and use technologies that make sharing easier for your team.

References

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Coding/Computer ScienceMicrosoft Tips and Tricks

TCEA Responds: Minecraft Licensing

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Dear TCEA Responds:

In the next few months, our new Windows 10 computers will arrive. Soon, I will teach students game design. I had hoped to use Minecraft: Education Edition.  I thought I read something that listed it for $5/user/year.  Do you know how to access the Minecraft: Education Edition, as well as how much it will cost?

-Tina

Dear Tina:

Thank you for your question. Congratulations on the upcoming arrival of your equipment! How exciting that you are considering using Minecraft: Education Edition (MCEE). Licensing for MCEE depends on the type of Office 365 license your district has. Before we go into licensing, you may want to review a few points about game-based learning.

Licensing Types

There are three types of licenses; those include:

Office 365 A1

This license, available for free for students, staff, and faculty, includes the online version of Office 365. This free version includes:

  • OneDrive, cloud storage solution
  • Sway
  • Forms
  • Microsoft Teams*
  • Microsoft OneNote*

*Both the online and app versions for Android, iOS, Mac and Windows 10 are included.

Office applications include the online versions only:

  • Outlook Online
  • Word Online
  • Excel Online
  • PowerPoint Online

Other supported services include Exchange, Sharepoint, Skype for Business, Stream, Flow, and PowerApps. With the A1 license, you can buy Minecraft: Education Edition for $5 per student.

 Office 365 A3

The next licensing tier ($2.50 per student or $3.25 per staff, per month) includes online versions of the Office Suite. It comes with Teams and OneNote. The A3 license comes with the Desktop versions of the Online tools:

  • Outlook
  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Publisher (PC only)
  • Access (PC only)

With the A3 version, you get the Class and Staff Notebooks, which enhance OneNote. Minecraft: Education Edition licenses come at no extra charge.

Office 365 A5

The A5 license includes all the features in A3 plus more. Read more online about Microsoft’s intelligent security management, advanced compliance, and analytics systems.  Minecraft: Education Edition licenses come at no extra charge.

TCEA Responds: Minecraft Licensing

As you mentioned in your query, Minecraft: Education Edition comes with lesson plans. You can find an Introduction to Computer Science curriculum available for free.

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Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Remote Work with Microsoft Tools

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Work from home? If you teach in K-12, probably not. But remote work is a growing trend. Let’s explore Microsoft tools that make it easier.

Let’s review statistics about remote work.

Remote Work Statistics

Here are a few studies  on people who work from home:

  • Eighty-six percent of those asked said they “hit maximum productivity” when working at home alone.
  • Thirty percent said it allowed them to do more in less time.
  • Twenty-four percent surveyed said they could do more in the same time.
  • Eighty-two percent of workers reported less stress.
  • Researchers observed a fifty percent decrease in employee turnover.
  • Eighty-seven percent of remote workers felt more connected via video chats.
  • Twenty-three percent of employees (2015) reported doing some work at a remote site.

Without technology, this kind of work would be difficult.

Remote Work with Microsoft Tools

If you work in an Office 365 environment, here are some essential tools for you.

  • Get Feedback with Microsoft Teams: Now that Teams is available for free, just like Slack, give it a try. Use Microsoft Teams to get feedback on work projects, shared documents, and more. Add tabs to Microsoft Teams to pull data from anywhere (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, Flipgrid). See TCEA Resources for Teams.
  • Make Your Digital Workspace with Microsoft OneNote: If you are not using OneNote to organize yourself, you need to start soon. Educators, take advantage of OneNote’s power. Use integrated Class or Staff Notebook functions. OneNote is the “one-stop shopping” solution to creating curated content, and more resources. View TCEA Resources for OneNote.
  • Be Mobile-Friendly with Microsoft Sway: With responsive web design, you can work alone or together. Create mobile-friendly presentations and newsletters. A clear interface makes placing audio, images, and videos a cinch. Open TCEA Resources for Microsoft Sway.

Keep It Organized

If Teams, OneNote, and Sway make teamwork potent, Forms and To-Do serve as organizational helpers.

Is Remote Work in Your Future?

Chances are, you will find yourself working from many places. Some may be your office or classroom. Embrace these tools. Lower your stress, connect with the team. In short, get more done.

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OneNote hacks
Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Five OneNote Hacks for Your Classroom

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

If you are using OneNote with your students, you’re probably already aware of how powerful it is. But just like any program, there may be some special features that you don’t know about or haven’t started using. In this blog entry, I’ll share some of the most common ways you can manage OneNote in Class Notebook.

1- Digitize Your Content

As an educator, you probably have pages of projects, activities, resources, and worksheets. When my wife invited me into her second grade classroom for back to school prep, I was astonished at the sheer volume of resources. “Have you thought about digitizing these?” I asked as I clutched an overstuffed manila folder in my hand, waving at even more crammed folders. The question of digitizing content always comes up at OneNote workshops. The best answer is to use a copier/scanner solution. You can drop several binders of content, scan it to PDF, and you are ready to go. FedEx/Kinkos have these awesome scanners at their locations if you don’t have one at school.

Why not carve out $20-$30 to scan your most precious resources? After all, you never know when the ceiling is going to drip a torrent onto your papers. “Wait, then how will I pick out that one page (page 52) of a 200-page PDF when I need it?” The easy answer is to use one of the PDF tools I discuss in my blog entry Top Five PDF Annotation Tools. These tools make it easy to extract one page or several from a large document. It’s so easy, you could show a third grader how to do it for you.

If you want to be more selective of what you digitize, or scan as you go, then take advantage of other Microsoft tools, such as Office Lens  (read Tip #3) or OneDrive (read Tip #4). When should you use one or the other?

Get Google Slides version | Powerpoint version of this infographic template

While either tool can make your work easier, Office Lens can make navigating text easier for your students with the built-in Immersive Reader.

2- Organize Your OneNote Master Notebook

Now that you have your paper digitized, what’s your next step? Organizing all your materials, units, lesson plans, and resources in one place. OneNote can make this difficult process easy. OneNote features sections and sub-sections. I like to organize my OneNote materials following an outline model. For example, consider the following:

  • Notebook Topic – Mathematics
  • Sections Group – This is an overarching idea or concept (e.g. Algebra I). Section Groups work as containers for sections.
    • Section – This is the actual section where you will add pages of content. If Algebra I is the overarching concept, then this might be Introduction to Algebra I.
    • Pages – Places resources, information, and lesson plans relevant to the Section topic in individual pages.
  • Example – In this example, we have tons of resources to keep track of. So our Section Group starts
    • Section Group Title: Algebra I
      1. Section #1 Title: An introduction to Algebra I
        • Pages:
          • Learning Not Performing
          • Making Sense
          • Conjectures, Creativity, and Uncertainty
          • The Beauty of Mistakes
      2. Section #2 Title: Modeling with Functions
        • Pages:
          • Rate of Change
          • Graphs
          • Functions

As you can see, a well-designed outline (I swiped, er, adapted this one from New Visions) can save you work. You can begin to move your content (e.g. digitized documents) into the appropriate section.

3- Curate Content For Placement in Your OneNote Master Notebook

Content curation is the process that you use to select, sift, save, and share content. Many educators use tools like Pinterest, Pocket, Evernote, Diigo, Flipboard, LiveBinder, or Wakelet for this. The drawback with using these tools to store content is simple. If you are in an Office 365 school district, you’ll have to figure out a way to copy that content into your OneNote notebook. Instead of relying on all these other content curation tools, just use OneNote.

In this screenshot, you can see OneNote WebClipper’s main options. With it, you can save to a notebook (e.g. TCEA Connect v4) to a section (e.g. Resource Roundup)

The OneNote Web Clipper will help you clip content (with website source for citation) straight into the notebook and section of your choice. It’s an extension for your Chrome or Firefox web browser. It makes dropping content into OneNote easy-peasy. However, the OneNote Web Clipper is not the only way to get content into your OneNote document. You can also use OneNote’s built-in INSERT menu, as shown below:

For those who are comfortable using social media, you could take advantage of IFTTT.com to automate saving of content into your OneNote notebook. Learn more about how to curate content in this way.

4- Manage OneNote Class Notebook

OneNote Class Notebook includes web-based management tools you can use. You can create, modify, and manage Class Notebooks via this link. After you log in with your Office 365 work/school account, you will see a screen like the one below.

If you click the “Manage notebooks” button, you will be able to select your Class Notebook. Here’s what that looks like:

From the options available, you are able to lock/unlock (off/on) your Class Notebook’s Collaboration Space. Need to share links to the Class Notebook with parents/guardians? You will have the option to select an individual student or generate links for all students. These links provide parents/guardians with access to their student’s individual notebook.

5- Manage OneNote Class Notebook in Microsoft Teams

Just announced in August 2018, teachers using Teams have the ability to access the management component of OneNote from within Teams. Here’s the text of the announcement:

To help save teachers more time when using OneNote Class and Staff Notebooks inside Microsoft Teams, we’re releasing a few key updates. Teachers will enjoy the new and improved Class and Staff Notebook settings directly inside Microsoft Teams – just select “Manage Notebooks” in the tab menu. Plus, we’ve improved the Class Notebook toolbar and added a new Staff Notebook toolbar, specifically for staff teams. In addition, page distribution is now fully supported in the Teams desktop app!
Read more

Using OneNote Class Notebook as a part of Microsoft Teams has other benefits. Be sure to explore Microsoft Teams.

Five OneNote Hacks for Your Classroom

There you go, five OneNote hacks for your classroom. What are some OneNote hacks that you have used or developed to make your work easier?

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ChromebooksMicrosoft Tips and TricksSpecial Needs

Reading Made Easy in the Chrome Browser

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“Darn, I hate it when I have to wade through advertisements, sidebars, and banners just to read a blog entry,” I muttered to myself. The truth is that as you visit most websites these days, you suffer annoying, extra content. While I understand the desire of website publishers to make money from clicks or to seek deeper engagement, you can spend up to a minute or two just figuring out what’s relevant and what’s fluff. Both Apple’s and Microsoft’s browsers have something uncommon in common with each other. That feature is a “reader view” that strips out distracting advertisements. Want that same feature on the Chrome or Firefox browser? Read this blog entry to learn about tools that make reading easy in those browsers.

The Reader View

Assisting children in distinguishing between the relevant and irrelevant can seem an impossible task. Many browsers, like Microsoft Edge, have made great strides in converting the content barrage into an easy-to-navigate stream of useful information. Some of the ways that Microsoft has made that happen in its Edge browser include:

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)
  • Support for PDF and ePub views

Microsoft Edge edges out other reader views, since it now features a read-aloud function. This means you can right-click on any word on a web page and select read aloud. From that word forward, the browser will read the text to you. You can customize voice settings, read aloud speed, and more. Let’s take a look at Chrome and Firefox browser extensions as they reach for the Edge browser’s level of excellence.

Image Source: Browser & Platform Market Share, July 2018, W3 Counter

Setting the Standard

To set the standard high, let’s use Microsoft Edge to see what a busy page looks like, as well as one that has been optimized for reading. To see the difference, let’s use one of my favorite websites that has awesome articles on a daily basis.

Here’s what the page looks like without reader view:

Original view of web page

Here’s what the view looks like in Microsoft Edge’s Reader View:

Chrome Extensions

Given that the Chrome browser has the most market share, let’s take a look at some Chrome extensions that you can use right away to get rid of extraneous content. We’ll test them by seeing how they work with the same page that Microsoft Edge did so well with.

Extension #1 – Reader View

This particular extension had a hit-or-miss approach. Most attempts were misses.

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Not viewed since extension failed
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Not viewed since extension failed
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? Not viewed since extension failed

As a result of these tests, you can skip this particular Chrome extension until it’s improved.

Extension #2 – BeeLine Reader (Free Version)

Bee LineReader worked flawlessly, removing extraneous content, stripping the page down to bare elements. The resulting screen looked like this:

Compared to the Reader View extension, BeeLine Reader is feature-rich, albeit at a price. You can see some of the features hinted at in the screenshot below:

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes, limited usage based on free version vs paid
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Yes
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Yes
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? Yes as a separate extension for PDF at $4.99 a month

Worth the cost? I don’t think I would pay for it.

Extension #3 – Just Read

Just Read works well, as you can see from the screenshot below. While it removed the featured image from the blog post, the content is easy to work through.

It offers a free, open source Chrome extension, along with a paid version that can to do a bit more. The extra feature includes the ability to save and share Just Read versions of pages. Below, find a breakdown of free vs paid features.

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? No
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? No
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? No

Of all the Chrome extensions I’ve looked at so far, this is the easiest and least obtrusive.

Extension #4 – Easy Reader

If you liked Just Read like I did, you may enjoy Easy Reader even more. Take a look at the Easy Reader view of the blog entry:

The colors on the fonts appear to be a shade of olive. Unlike some of the other reader view extensions, you can customize the look of the reader view. See that Options available for Easy Reader online. On the left side, you can adjust the cascading style sheet (CSS) style elements while seeing the preview on the right side of the page. This allows you to set a consistent look for all web pages you decide to use Easy Reader on.

Another neat feature is that it converts the headers on the page into a left-hand table of contents you can click to aid navigation. In the screenshot below, I clicked on Tip #3: Color Palettes Made Simple to jump to that section on the page. Cool, huh?

  • Quick off/on button in the toolbar that switches reader view from normal to streamlined? Yes
  • Adjust reader view style to light or dark mode? Yes with style sheet changes
  • Change font size to larger size (or dial size down for skimming)? Yes with style sheet changes
  • Clutter-free printing (great for saving paper)? Yes
  • Support for PDF, ePub views? No

Firefox Built-In Reader Support

The Firefox Quantum browser is one of my favorites for two reasons. It offers security, speed, and neutral ground between the two giants (Microsoft and Google). To share browser extensions that provide a Reader View without mentioning solutions for Firefox would be a crime.

Note the toolbar in the top left quadrant of the screenshot.

Why would it be a crime? Firefox has built-in reader view support, just like Microsoft Edge. Not only that, it has a toolbar that makes switching to light or dark mode quick and even easy. It offers built-in narration with speed control, too.

You have control over the font, text size, spacing, and mode

You can adjust the voice, as well as the speed of a read aloud

Want to read ePubs or PDFs in Firefox like you do in Microsoft Edge? Add the ePub Reader add-on to Firefox. For PDFs, use Firefox’ built-in PDF viewer.

Reading Made Easy in the Chrome Browser

While reading can be made easier in the Chrome browser, give some thought to trying out Microsoft Edge and Firefox, which offer native reader view support. If not, Easy Reader is the most affordable extension for Chrome. Easy Reader‘s support for table of contents and style sheet customization are cool enhancements. Too bad it lacks read aloud. For the rich, Beeline Reader should be your go-to.

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Cornell note-taking
Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Go Digital with Cornell Note-Taking and the OneNote App

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Back in September, 2016, I had just begun working with Microsoft OneNote to setup a Cornell Notes type page in OneNote Desktop (a.k.a. OneNote 2016). Since then, Microsoft has made tremendous updates to its free OneNote app on Windows 10. The popular app, which works on iOS, Android, and Mac, has a different way of getting things done. As a result, my earlier guide to Cornell Notes is now a bit dated. To reflect the new OneNote app on Windows 10, I’ve created a whole new guide. Since OneNote 2016 is still in use in many districts, I’m leaving my earlier step-by-step online.

Learn More About Cornell Note-Taking

Don’t know about Cornell note-taking? I know I hadn’t heard about it until I attended AVID training a score of years ago. Here’s a bit of history about it as an approach that’s been around since the 1940s. Wikipedia shares the following:

The Cornell Notes system (also Cornell note-taking system, Cornell method, or Cornell way) is a note-taking system devised in the 1940s by Walter Pauk, an education professor at Cornell University. Pauk advocated its use in his best-selling book How to Study in College.

The Cornell method provides a systematic format for condensing and organizing notes. This system of taking notes is important as a high school or college level student. The student divides the paper into two columns: the note-taking column (usually on the right) is twice the size of the questions/key word column (on the left). The student should leave five to seven lines, or about two inches (5 cm), at the bottom of the page. Learn More

Ready to see the Cornell note-taking template in OneNote? Before I show you that, did you know you can customize pages in OneNote, as well as insert tables to help organize your content?

Customizing Pages in the OneNote App

As wonderful as the OneNote app on Windows 10 is, you won’t find templates like you did in OneNote 2016 (a.k.a. OneNote Desktop). The most you will find is the ability to customize the number of ruled lines on a Page. You can do this under the View menu, as shown in the screenshot below:

Note that you can also change the color of a Page. This is, so far, the sum total of Page customization in the OneNote app. OneNote Desktop/2016 templates are just a feature not (yet) present in the app. That raises the question, how can you create your own templates for students?

Creating Your Own Templates for Students

Creating your own Pages in OneNote is easy. To make your own template, you will need to get comfortable with inserting tables. What’s neat is that you can shade different cells in the table to reflect information.

Need Directions? Want to add a shade of color to an individual table cell? Click in the table cell you want to shade, then go to the Table tab in your OneNote navigation bar. Click on Shading, then pick the color you want the cell to be shaded as.

In the OneNote app, you are able to create a page (or copy and paste) with the format of a Cornell Note-Taking page. To accomplish that, you will need to open an existing notebook with the template, then copy and paste the frame that has the template. Once you have customized the template the way you want, you can use OneNote Class Notebook to distribute that page to all students.

You may choose to place the template(s) in your Class Notebook’s Content Library so that students can copy and paste a blank copy. The video in the next section below will take you step-by-step through the process.

Get a Cornell Note-Taking Template or Two

To get you started, I’ve placed a completely editable OneNote notebook with Cornell note-taking templates online for your use. You can navigate to this notebook, then copy and paste the frame of the page from my pages to your OneNote Notebook. Here’s a video that models the process:

That’s pretty much all there is to it! Have questions? Don’t hesitate to leave them as a comment below and I’ll get back to you with an answer.

Did You Know?

Want to share a OneNote notebook with others? Marjolein Hoekstra (@OneNoteC) says “It’s no longer necessary to give people edit rights to a notebook. Place the notebook on OneDrive.live.com (using a free Microsoft account). Follow these steps:

  1. Share the READ ONLY link to the notebook
  2. Sign in with a personal Microsoft account. This will make a button available labeled “Open in OneNote”
  3. Once the notebook is open on the OneNote app, they can copy the Cornell template pages to their own notebook

This approach will NOT work with Office 365 accounts.

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