Home Online Tools and Apps
Category:

Online Tools and Apps

Discover innovative online tools for education. Explore strategies and resources to enhance teaching, learning, and collaboration in the digital age.

Online Tools and AppsProfessional LearningTCEA Convention & Exposition

Resources Shared at the 2023 TCEA Convention & Exposition

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Another amazing convention has come and gone. If you were lucky enough to attend, then you enjoyed networking with your peers, gained a ton of new educational resources, and had the chance to see some amazing technology for learning. If you weren’t able to attend, here’s a small sample of some of the great things we discovered at TCEA 2023.

Ms. M’s Free Online Resource Libraries

Elementary teachers, be prepared to have your mind blown by all of the free resources that Ms. M. has created! These include multiple virtual libraries on a wide variety of topics, digital stickers, Valentine clip art, drawing tutorials, math videos, and so much more. Check out her math library with clickable links, one of many libraries that she has available.

Centervention’s 90+ Free SEL Activities

TCEA’s own Diana Benner, our resident SEL expert, shared Centervention’s 90+ Free SEL Activities. “The free resources include lessons and activities in the following skill areas: Communication, Cooperation, Emotion Regulation, Empathy, Impulse Control, and Social Initiation.”

Antimatter: A Collaborative Meme Generator

I overheard two attendees discussing Antimatter, a new collaborative meme generator for students. Teachers create a “studio” for each of their classrooms and then create spaces inside the studio for each lesson. Students are then invited into the space to begin their projects. Having students create memes to demonstrate what they understand about a particular topic or equation can be very powerful.

Google Arts & Culture’s The Descent of the Serpent

Social studies teachers were excited to discover The Descent of the Serpent from Google Arts and Culture. Students can explore the symbols, culture, and legends of ancient Mesoamerica in this fun and free game. The site includes downloadable lesson plans and gameplay in both English and Spanish.

Which One Doesn’t Belong?

In one of the sessions for math teachers, Which One Doesn’t Belong? was shared. This free site shows a collection of four objects, and students must discuss and decide which one of the objects doesn’t belong with the others. What makes this resource really powerful is that there is no one right or wrong answer; instead, it’s about the thinking that must occur to come up with an answer and then share and convince others that your answer is the best. These are appropriate for all grade levels and include shapes, numbers, and graphs.

Artificial Intelligence

If you are interested in the world of artificial intelligence and its use today, you would have loved Dr. Bruce Ellis’ session. He shared the following resources on the topic:

  • The AI Exchange – An amazing newsletter to subscribe to that will keep you current with the latest AI news and features
  • Futurepedia – A growing, curated list of AI tools that is searchable by category and updated daily
  • Elicit – Your AI research assistant to help with literature review

Matt Miller: ChatCPT in the Classroom

ChatGPT was a big topic this year. The amazing Matt Miller created this cool infographic on ways to use the new AI tool in the classroom.

Coaching Resources

For those supporting educators in improving classroom teaching and learning, a great resource on formal coaching cycles by Dr. Ashley McBride was shared. The site includes a printable checklist, a coaching interest form, pre-meeting information to gather, an observation document, and more. This EdTech Coaching Primer site has other ready-to-use resources for instructional coaches as well and is a real time saver.

The Kanbie Chrome Extension

TCEA Professional Development Director Miguel Guhlin shared a new resource for students that can help them with task completion. “Simple, task-based checklists can empower and assist learners to follow steps. What’s more, they help them do tasks with many steps, as well as serve as memory aids. When used effectively, checklists help students become more aware of their thinking. One tool that may be useful for older students, as well as teachers, are kanban boards. You may know about Trello, OneNote, CryptPad’s Kanban board, and Google Docs/Keep. But do you know about browser-based Kanbie, a Chrome extension?”

Professional Learning

For our IT members, Alexis Reed and Bonnie Koliba shared this great infographic on designing effective professional development for campus technicians.

Jamboard Template Collection

I was excited to share a TCEA-curated collection of more than 1,750 free Google Jamboard templates with convention attendees. The templates are organized by subject area and available for all grade levels. New templates are added weekly.

Be sure to mark your calendar and include in your budget request to attend next year’s fantastic learning experience. We’ll be back in Austin February 3-7, 2024. (Note that the convention will run Saturday through Wednesday so that districts having trouble finding substitute teachers can allow their staff to attend on Saturday and/or Sunday without missing school.)

3 comments
2 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
AdobeCanvaOnline Tools and Apps

Three Photo Editing Tools

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Isn’t it great when you take lots of photos of your kids or family and then take time to sit back and scroll through them, reflecting on the fun (and possibly chaos) that ensued? Unfortunately, sometimes when we do get a chance to scroll through the photos we realize there are some things we wish we could change. If you have found yourself in this situation at least once, then you’ll want to check out these three photo editing tools. I’m only going to share a brief bit about each, but these tools offer even more features for you to explore.

Cleanup.Pictures

Cleanup.Pictures is an online artificial intelligence (AI) photo editing tool that allows you to remove items from a photo. This technique is called inpainting. Have a photo where someone photo bombed you? Or did the crazy uncle want to be in the picture (be sure to put him on the end to make it easier to remove)? Or is there something distracting in the background? Use this tool to remove it from the photo.

The AI will inspect the photo and try to recreate what is behind the item you removed. This is a freemium site, so if you want to download your photos in HD, you will need to go with the Pro plan ($3/month) or ClipDrop Pro plan ($5/month). You can find out more about those plans on the pricing page. I’ve found that the free plan, which scales your photos down to 720p is more than sufficient for my tasks.

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Go to Cleanup.Pictures.
  2. Drag/drop your photo in the target area, or click the target area to upload the photo.
  3. Adjust the size of your brush by moving the slider dot. Move your cursor over the image to see the current size. You want to use the smallest brush size possible for the item, so you don’t wipe out other items in the image.
  4. Click and drag the brush over an item to remove the item. It’s ideal if you can erase the whole item before releasing your mouse.
  5. If any artifact residue remains, you can touch it up. Sometimes it’s perfect, and other times it needs a little tweaking.
  6. To see the before/after of your image, click on the eyeball just to the left of the green Download button (top right).
  7. When satisfied, click the Download button. It will append the name of the file by adding “_cleanup” so your original file is untouched.
before and after edit of sample image from cleanup.pictures. chair, papers on wall, and lamp are removed

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe has included some cool features in Photoshop that make use of Sensei, its suite of AI and machine learning technologies. I’ll be referencing the neural filters in Photoshop – specifically the Landscape Mixer, but I encourage you to explore the other creative filters within the neural filter category. If you really want to apply more filters than it allows, you may need to repeat the steps below two or more times.

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Open your photo in Adobe Photoshop 2022
  2. Click on FILTER –> Neural Filter
  3. Scroll down the All Filters list and turn on Landscape Mixer. If you have not used this yet, it may need to download on your computer before you can use it.
  4. Now select the preset slider scales on the right-hand side and adjust to the desired strength. The choices include: day, night, sunset spring, summer, fall, and winter. Below you can see the original image and then what it looks like when I set the Autumn to 50% or the Winter to 90%.
  5. Adjust the slider to get the desired strength applied. Note that this is most like rendering it on your computer so I suggest you don’t have other software running unless you have a good bit of RAM.
  6. If you do not want the AI to adjust your subject, then tick the Preserve Subject box. Whether you use this feature will depend on the colors that are in your subject.
  7. When you are satisfied with the filter, apply it by choosing the desired output (new layer, current layer, new layer masked smart filter, or new document). I prefer the New Layer option.
  8. Click OK to apply the filter and voila!

Canva

If you aren’t on the Canva bus yet, are you even online? Seriously though. Canva offers great features without the steep learning curve that comes with Photoshop. No, Canva isn’t an equal competitor to Photoshop, but they each are great design tools for their own target audiences and projects. The feature I’d like to share in Canva is the background remover. Yes, you can use a variety of websites that offer just that feature, but Canva is more than just a photo editing tool. It makes it easy to remove the background and then pull from a huge repository of photos to use as the new background. For the sample below I’m using a photo from a couple of years ago when I visited a friend in Houston. The setting was beautiful but the photo didn’t really capture it. Oh, and, no judging the main subject of the photo. ha! Here are the steps.

  1. Open Canva and begin a new project.
  2. Click on the Upload button (far left menu), and upload the photo that needs the background removed.
  3. Drag the uploaded photo to the stage area.
  4. Click on the photo if it not already selected (you’ll know it is selected if it has a purple border around it.). The resize handles on the corners of the photos and the crop handles are in the center of each edge of the photo.
  5. Click on Edit Image, above and to the right of the stage area.
  6. Click the BG Remover icon. It will analyze your selected image and remove the background.
  7. You can tweak its work by using the Erase and Restore tools.
  8. When done, click on the Apply button.
  9. To put a new background behind you, click on the Photos icon (far right menu panel) and search for an image.
  10. Place the new background image behind you by clicking CTRL+[ or set the photo as the background by clicking on the More icon and selecting Set Image as Background.
  11. When done, click the Share button (top right) and select the share option of your choice. If you choose to download, you may select what file type in which you’d like to download the image (I usually choose PNG).
  12. Click the Download button and save to your device.

So, which photo editing tool do you prefer? And, how will you (or your students) use these tools to enhance photos? Drop us a comment below, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share another photo editing tool to add to the list!

1 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Good TeachingGoogle Tips and TricksOnline Tools and Apps

The Benefits of Using Pear Deck in the Classroom

by Jeannie Hipp
written by Jeannie Hipp

When it comes to motivating the unmotivated students in our classrooms, we can’t change the cards we are dealt, only how we play the game to secure their attention. So what’s the answer to going from ordinary to extraordinary, best practice-based instruction and engaging every student in your classroom? One game changer I’ve found for my classroom is Pear Deck for Google Slides. From beginning to end, bellringer to exit ticket, educators have the power to turn their pedagogy mindset from teacher-led to student-centered.

With a free account, you can:

  • Design brilliant lessons with interactive questions, polls, quizzes, formative assessments
  • Work seamlessly with powerful classroom tools from Google and Microsoft
  • Control the pace of class and project student answers anonymously
  • Enable students to join a session anonymously without email login
  • Keep students in sync with Locks and Timers
  • Ready-to-teach templates designed by educators
  • Teach vocabulary with Flashcard Factory*
Source

Here’s a video overview with information on how Pear Deck works. 

What Are the Benefits of Using Pear Deck?

Thousands of Customizable Templates in Google Slides

Pear Deck works directly with Google Slides and Google Classroom, which enables Google Education to be maximized when it comes to e-learning in the classroom. Once it’s been installed as a Google Slides add-on feature, you’re ready to double down with an array of options to assess your students’ critical thinking skills while holding them accountable for their learning. Pear Deck houses thousands of templates you can customize to align with any content. From littles (k-2), math, reading, social studies, science, etc., you can find any template suitable for editing as a bell ringer, “middle of lesson” activity, or exit ticket/reflection.

Photo screenshot of selecting a question type in Pear Deck
Image Source: Get the Pear Deck Google Slides Add-On

Pear Deck for STAAR Practice

Just for a moment, think about how much better a student’s formal assessments might be if they had (1) direct engagement in more effective learning discussions; (2) more frequent practicing of test-type questions in the viewing of a bell ringer or exit ticket; (3) were consistently held accountable for their learning. We can all agree that’s a combination for a winning hand!

STAAR Test Logo
Pear Deck Logo

In Texas this year, the hot news for educators in grades 3-12 is the STAAR redesign. The newly redesigned question formats affect every tested subject associated with these grade levels. How does Pear Deck connect to the latest STAAR? One of its fascinating features is the ability to construct diversified questioning. We can create questions that align with the new type of STAAR questions so students can practice as often as teachers like in a learning environment that isn’t directly associated with a formal assessment. Whether it’s questions that involve text response, number response, multiple choice (with more than one choice selection), or drawing and draggable style answer choices, you can customize Pear Deck templates for any of these question types. This can help prepare students for success with accommodating strategies that will enable mastery of these redesign questions in a manner that best challenges and satisfies their academic level of students. 

Interactive Learning

Interactive learning is a teaching method that supports educators by taking a hands-on approach to engaging students. Through this technique, there is social interaction between the educator and the learner (Interactive Learning Project, 2020). In other words, instead of teachers taking complete control and driving the instruction, becoming exhausted and frustrated trying to keep students engaged, the paradigm switches. Students no longer become passive participants. Instead, they become active participants and involve themselves as part of the conversation/discussion that’s taking place in the classroom. John Hattie’s effect size for direct instruction, classroom discussion, and feedback is a combination for great success. Pear Deck for Google Slides is a catalyst for increasing more robust academic success in your classroom. How? Great question! The following Pear Deck Infographic details the benefits of using Pear Deck as an engaging tool, as well as HOW TO power up your presentations for the classroom.

What Can a Pear Deck Lesson Look Like?

Beginning of Lesson

Depending on your class’s academic level or the content being learned, you may choose a bell ringer from Pear Deck’s Content Orchard template library that poses a question for students to answer with written expression, respond with a draggable slide, or draw a response.

During Lesson

As educators, we know the effects engagement has on learning. This article in Reading Rockets demonstrates the importance of students being actively engaged and not just compliant. Pear Deck promotes the qualities necessary to ensure every student is engaged and accountable for their learning. Whether you choose a multiple choice slide, draggable slide, or short answer response slide, you can get your students’ attention from start to finish.

End of Lesson

Exit tickets are informal assessments that hold students accountable for their learning. Pear Deck’s Content Orchard has sample templates that allow teachers to insert exit tickets into their Google Slides presentation. Having the ability to pick from several different types, along with customizing the exit ticket based on the content, makes the task easy and effective.

I hope this information sparks your interest in using Pear Deck to engage students in interactive learning. How will you use it in your classroom? 

Additional Resources

0 comment
2 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
mastodon magic
Digital LiteracyEquity, Diversity, InclusionOnline Tools and AppsSocial Studies

Mastodon Magic: Five Tools Shared by Educators

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

 

Looking for magical tools to use with your students? You’ve come to the right place. In a series of toots, educators have shared some amazing tools on Mastodon. Let’s take a moment to explore those in this inaugural edition of Mastodon Magic! I’m going to present you with five favorites I’ve discovered so far.

What Is Mastadon?

Like an email service for social media, Mastodon provides people with places to connect. What makes Mastodon unique is that it is run by volunteers who create communities of people. People are welcoming and respectful. And there are no ads in Mastodon. Be sure to read TCEA’s How To Get Started with Mastodon.

What’s more, each community has a different address. You can connect to people in different communities, much the way you do via email – you need only know their address.

Here are some of the addresses for names that may be familiar to you:

You can find a list of educators online (take a look at how to add yourself to the list). Many educators are now joining Mastodon and connecting with others. Here are some tips for using Mastodon, and you can watch the video walkthrough series below to help you get started. A group to follow to stay up to date is @edtech@chirp.social once you get your Mastodon account.

Here’s an invitation to join the Mastodon.Education instance

Did You Know? Video Series on Joining Mastodon from Educators' Perspective
Want a little more information on Mastodon and how to get started there? Watch my video series on making the transition. These four videos will start you off right! They include: 

-> Part 1 - Introductions and Selecting a Sastodon Instance That Is Focused on Education

-> Part 2 - Exploring Mastodon Preferences

-> Part 3 - A Discussion of Apps to Use on Smartphones and Tablets

-> Part 4 - Migrate From One Mastodon Instance to Another

-> Part 5 - How to Set Up Your Profile, Bio, and Pin a Post

-> Part 6 - Importing the EduTooters List

Now, let’s explore some takeaways shared by educators on Mastodon.

Takeaway #1: Create Your Own Custom Map

Screenshot by author, MapChart

You may recall I’ve written about the amazing ways maps can facilitate learning. I can’t wait to share this new tool with you! If you want to create your own map of the world, Europe, the United States, or other places, with MapChart, you can color code countries or states, fill in the legend, and save the map to your device. MapChart is the tool to use.

Screenshot by author, Mapchart

There are many maps to choose from, including:

  • World maps
  • Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Oceania
  • US states and counties
  • Subdivision maps (counties, provinces, etc.)
  • Single country maps (the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and 20+ more)
  • Fantasy maps

What’s even more exciting? The created maps are licensed under a Creative Commons license. This means your high-quality PNG formatted image can be made for free and shared. Here’s a quick map of the two places I’ve lived most of my life:

Screenshot by author, Mapchart

Takeaway #2: Time for Inclusive Education

Looking for resources to educate on subjects that address stereotypes and stigmas? Then the TIE website provides a variety of resources you can use. The Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) describes itself this way:

Image Source: Time for Inclusive Education (TIE)

We take an educational approach to tackling homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic bullying and prejudice in schools. Fundamentally, we believe that LGBT history, role models, and equalities education should be taught within all schools. Education is the most powerful tool we have to tackle prejudice.

Only an educational approach can fully address the stereotypes and stigma which can lead to homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic bullying. We work with teachers and national decision makers, produce resources and curriculum materials, and deliver services in schools to raise awareness, heighten knowledge, and foster good relations.

TIE offers curriculum resources, including lesson plans and learning activities. These include mathematics worksheets, role models lesson plans, discrimination learning activities, and infographics. Although Scottish educators may find this of most use, there are resources any educator or institution can use.

Screenshot by author

Takeaway #3: Shared Piano Lab

A fun, browser-friendly tool you can use is the Chrome Music Lab. Although I lack musical aptitude now, I hope to someday add it to my repertoire.

Screenshot by author

If you know how to play the piano (I don’t), and have a couple of friends, you can play the piano in tandem with them. Isn’t that cool?

Takeaway #4: Technology Resources and Info

On Mastodon, you can find a rich, growing community of educators sharing resources. Also, people are generous. This New Hampshire educator from Pinkerton Academy has some great resources for you.

Screenshot by author

Christina DiMicelli (@MrsDi@qoto.org) shares some great slide decks you can swipe and use. With her permission, I share them with you and all #EduTooters who may find these resources useful.

How amazing is that?

Takeaway #5: Native Land Digital

As I began this list with maps, it’s only fair that I should end it with the most exciting takeaway on this list. It may be serious, though, since it relates to the imprecise history of Indigenous Peoples. Upon arriving, the website immediately points out:

This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question.

Also, this map is not perfect – it is a work in progress with tons of contributions from the community. Please send us fixes if you find errors.

If you would like to read more about the ideas behind Native Land or where we are going, check out the blog. You can also see the roadmap.

As someone who grew up in the Republic of Panama with the stories of Urraca, an Indigenous warrior who fought the Spanish off until his death, this is an exciting revelation. Combine this map with the The Latin American History Podcast, and you can see travel back in time.

Screenshot by author

The Latin American History Podcast shares the story of Spanish and Portuguese America. It starts with its beginnings and continues until the present day. You can find other history podcasts here. Learn the history of the Taino, who were wiped out by conquistadores. When you see how far the Taino territories extended and their erasure from the land, it is quite sobering. The Native Land Digital website seeks to accomplish the following:

We aim to improve the relationship of people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, with the land around them and with the real history and sacredness of that land.

This involves acknowledging and righting the wrongs of history, and also involves a personal journey through the importance of connecting with the earth, its creatures, and its teachings.

Let the connecting begin. I hope you’ll find your way to the Fediverse, where Mastodon instances abound. You’ll find many educators ready to welcome you there. This blog entry, How To Get Started with Mastodon, can aid you in your journey.

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author, Native Land Digital

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Content CreationDigital LiteracyOnline Tools and Apps

How to Use Canva’s Text to Image Feature

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Canva is a platform that allows users to easily create visually stunning images using artificial intelligence. One of its standout features is the artificial intelligence (AI) text to image function that was recently deployed. This feature allows users to input a block of text and generate an image based on its contents. This can be super useful if you are looking for content-specific images but coming up empty handed.

One of the biggest benefits of the AI text to image feature is that is highly customizable. The more detailed your request, the better it can create photos to match what you might want. But this tool isn’t perfect, so be prepared to tweak your input text and try again. And, as the AI improves, you can expect fewer cases of having to tweak your text in the future. Also, you can reach your image quota for the day, though no specific information can be found as to how many requests you can make before this happens. As their servers and processing power scales, you may find that this is no longer a limitation of using their tool.

Five Steps for Using Canva’s Text to Image Tool

  1. Open Canva, and start a new project.
  2. The first time you use Canva’s text to image tool, you will need to scroll down on the left-hand menu to locate it in the Apps directory.
  3. As shown below, you will need to describe the image you’re looking for as best you can in the text box.
  4. Next, scroll through the styles to select the one you are interested in, or you can just leave it as “Surprise me.”
  5. When you are ready for Canva to generate four options for you to consider, click the “Generate image” button. To use an image, just click it or click and drag it to the stage area. You can then use the image as you would with any other graphic!
Screenshot of Canva's text-to-image tool
Screenshot by author

Four Best Practices to Optimize Image Output

When using Canva’s AI text to image feature, there are a few best practices to keep in mind in order to maximize its impact.

1. Carefully plan the content of your text.

The AI algorithms in Canva will use the words in your text to generate the image, so it’s essential to choose your words wisely. Make sure that your text clearly conveys your intended message and uses language that will be easily understood by your audience. If the images aren’t created as you intended, consider how you can tweak your text input and try again. You may need to be more specific or more generic in your input.

2. Consider the context in which your image will be used and choose a style that fits.

In Canva, you can choose from several options: Surprise me (which will create a variety of styles from your input), Photo, Drawing, 3D, Painting, Pattern, and Concept art (associated icons shown below in order).

Screenshot of Canva's image style options
Screenshot by author

3. Keep your audience in mind when using the AI text to image feature.

Think about what your audience is looking for and tailor your images to meet their needs and preferences. That may mean you have to tweak the wording to include specific objects, colors, locations, surroundings, people, feelings/emotions, etc.

4. You cannot go back to previously generated images, so add images you think you may use to the stage area.

This will allow you to also compare images from several tries. Then, you can just delete the ones from the stage that you choose not to use. Additionally, you can add each image to a separate page so you can go back to them at a later date. Doing this will allow you to save each image individually when you save the file as a JPG or PNG file.

Examples of AI-Generated Images in Canva

Canva offers several ideas to prime the pump in case you aren’t sure what to try first. They include:

  • A panda riding a bike through a city with a depth of field
  • A light watercolor painting of koi fish in a pond
  • A photo of a magical forest city from the future

For the following images, I chose the Surprise me style. Above each set of photos is the text I used to generate the images.

“Settlers traveling across Texas plains in covered wagons during winter“

Various images created by author in Canva

“Phileas Fogg Rides an Elephant as led by a young Parsee guide into the jungle” (in reference to chapter 11 of Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne)

Various images created by author in Canva

“A scientist mixing chemicals from two different flasks. Smoke rising up from one flask. Liquids are red and blue.”

Various images created by author in Canva

Be sure to visit and bookmark Canva’s Free AI Online Image Generator page to stay up with the latest info on this fabulous tool. You can also find more exciting news and info by following Cana on Twitter at @Canva!

What will you create with Canva’s new AI text to image tool? How will you use it to support vocabulary and language acquisition, comprehension, critical thinking, and other skills that benefit from having visual supports?

If you don’t already have one, I encourage you to sign up for a free Canva for Education account.

More AI Articles

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools Spur Classroom Creativity
How AI Can Enhance Education
An AI Tool for Generating Higher-Order Discussion Questions
How ChatGPT Can Help with Grading
Four Ways AI Can Help Teach Poetry
How to Improve Google Search Results with ChatGPT

0 comment
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
animate your voice
AdobeOnline Tools and Apps

Ahoy, Mateys! Animate Your Voice

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ready to create an animation that will engage viewers? You may want to take advantage of a new tool from Adobe that makes voice-based animations easy. Let’s explore this new digital tool from Adobe.

First, though, let’s take a quick look at how animations can engage K-12 students. Engagement, while the final destination for learners, ensures you capture student attention.

Flipping Interest Levels

Students may not find the content interesting. Without an engaging story, anecdote, video, or movement-based activity, students ask, “Why?”

Learning something new is often exciting for the learner. Novel experiences cause a rush of dopamine. This not only makes learning seem exciting, but also makes you want to repeat the experience.  (source)

To hook student learners into a dopamine stream, you want an engaging activity. Animation can be that activity. Some of the ways animation works best for K-12 students include:

  • Ensuring a clear understanding of abstract ideas
  • Use of short, attention-grabbing animations to cover specific, relevant content
  • Make learning interactive and participatory
  • Enable experiential learning

While there are more benefits, this short list demonstrates the value. Let’s take a look at how the free, Adobe Express tool can help.

Introducing Animate Your Voice

This tool makes it easy to:

Make an animated character from your own voice recording using Adobe Express.

There are only three simple steps:

  • Choose a character from those available.
  • Upload your audio file or record your dialogue.
  • Preview the audio and animation, making changes to the character or background as you see fit.
  • Save or share your animation with others.

Let’s take a look at each of these steps in turn. Ready? Let’s go.

Animate Your Voice

Step 1: Choose a Character

As you can see from the image above, there are ample choices of characters. Choose from any of those available, and see them appear center screen.

For fun, I chose a character resembling me and decided to upload the audio I recorded. That’s an option available in addition to recording your audio via the website.

It was the beginning of a free story I found at Kids Love To Know. The story is that of “Captain Silverhook’s Symbol of Strength” (PDF). You can save it to your device or read it online for free.

Here’s a little information about it:

Captain Silverhook’s Symbol of Strength is a 600-word short  story. It is suitable for children of all ages. Kids in second grade or higher may be able to read the story on their own. The story is about a pirate  with a problem to solve. Captain Silverhook must replace his ship’s destroyed, nautical figurehead. That’s the shape carved on the front of his ship. He must  come up with a new design before he loses the respect of the other  pirates.

Using Audacity, a free open-source audio editor. I read the first paragraph of the story with a little flair:

Then, I uploaded the audio file for processing to Adobe Express’ Animate Your Voice site:

You can see the finished product below:

Step 2: Preview the Animation

You can make changes to the animation you’ve recorded, cropping the audio as needed. It’s not too difficult, and you can bring this process to a close if you’ve done your editing in Audacity or a similar tool, which I recommend.

Step 3: Save or Share Your Animation with Others

Click the Download button, and if you aren’t logged in with your free account, you will need to create an account. The process is easy if you use Google Authentication (which I did). Adobe offers access to other authentication schemes, so creating an account isn’t hard.

To share your animation, you will save an MP4 video formatted version. You can watch my creation below:

Once you’re done saving video to your device, Adobe will prompt you to buy their $54.99 Creative Cloud All Apps plan which includes Character Animator.

Final Reflections

Animate Your Voice is an easy-to-use tool, and I can definitely see my third-grade students and older students using it. Give it a go!

0 comment
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Canva
Content CreationOnline Tools and Apps

Upping Your Canva Game

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Canva is an online graphic design tool that is perfect for busy people. The Pro version is completely free to educators, which makes it even more perfect. You can use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos, animated GIFs, Zoom backgrounds, book covers, and more. It’s great for making your lessons or newsletters more engaging, whether you are a pro with graphic design or a rank amateur like me. And it works on any browser or on the iOS or Android apps.

Here are a few tips to help you take full advantage of this fabulous tool.

Get to Know the Templates Available

Want to save a ton of time? Spend a few minutes becoming familiar with the types of templates that Canva offers. As an example, it has more than 3,400 templates for creating astonishingly beautiful charts and graphs (perfect for math and science) and 2,490 diagram templates (great for ELA and social studies). Are you hoping to create a fun meme to make your students laugh? 288 templates for that. Need a new background for your PowerPoint or Slides presentation to the PTA? 10,970 templates to choose from. Making a choice board for the students? 103 templates available. Trying to find just the right look for a “getting to know you” This or That activity for the faculty meeting? 35,240 templates. Just spend a little bit of time in the Canva search bar, and you’ll then be ready to rock the world, graphically speaking!

Canva

Change the Size of Your Designs Proportionally

This trick is a lifesaver, especially if you’ve ever grabbed a corner of a graphic and then ruined its proportions. Hold the ALT/OPTION key and drag your design elements out by either the side handles or the corner handles to scale them proportionally. Here are a few other keyboard shortcuts to know:

  • Change text to uppercase: Shift + CMD/CRTL + “K” key
  • Bold text: CMD/CRTL + “B” key
  • Duplicate elements: CMD/CRTL + “D” key
  • Group elements: CMD/CRTL + “G” key
  • Ungroup elements: Shift + CMD/CRTL + “G” key
  • And here are even more keyboard shortcuts.

Animate Elements of Your Design

You can easily animate elements on any design. After selecting the template, click on an element (or several elements) that you want to move. Then, find the Animate option on the middle top side of the workspace. There are 12 different ways the image/images can be animated.

Canva

Use Canva with Students

The Pro version allows you to share the Canva project goodness with your students. The teacher sets up a virtual classroom, invites students, and can them have them collaborate on a project. It can be used in the classroom or remotely, with the aid of a video chat tool as well. Comment additions from the students are helpful with @ options, allowing alerts to be sent to the teacher. This lets students enquire about their work as they go, so they can feel confident they’re going the right way. There’s even a free Canva for the Classroom online course to help you get started and a great secondary Canva Lesson Plan to introduce it to the students.

Get More Help to Fully Master Canva

TCEA has two ways to help you become a Canva ninja and amaze your friends and colleagues. One is to take the online, self-paced Canva Educator course. Self-paced means you work at your own speed when you have the time. And you have a full year to complete the course, although most educators finish it in a few days. It’s priced at just $39 and will cover not only the basics of the program but also design principles and how best to use it in teaching and learning.

The second way to get your Canva on is to attend the virtual Canva for Educators Conference to be held on Saturday, October 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Presenters will be experienced Canva users in education, and they will share tons of resources, ideas, and tips with you. Attendees will have access to all of the sessions via recording through November 30. Early registration is just $59 and ends October 7, 2022. Register early, pay $79, and receive access to the full conference and the Canva Educator online course (normally $39). Both of these are bargains!

However you decide to ramp up your Canva skills, make sure that you are taking full advantage of this free-for-educators tool!

0 comment
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Google Tips and TricksOnline Tools and Apps

Five Unexpected Search Tools For You

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

From Yahoo to Altavista to Google, all these tools have one thing in common. They make finding things easier. Whether it’s a curated list of high-quality resource links or fast searches, search tools rule. Want to find things faster? Take advantage of these search tool suggestions. You won’t regret changing your habits and finding what you need, sooner.

search
Screenshot by author

The All-In-One Advanced Search for YouTube makes it easy to find what you are looking for on YouTube. When I search YouTube, I often get a list of results that may or may not do what I need. For example, I wanted to find school surveillance videos that focused on tornadoes. That is, tornado damage school surveillance video cameras have recorded. And I wanted to avoid certain results. To get that, I relied on the search parameters below:

search
Screenshot by author

Tool #2: Cheatography

If you’re looking for quick reference guides and cheat sheets for your favorite software, then Cheatography is the web directory for you.

Here are a few that jumped out at me:

All sheets display the development date and when it was last updated. You can also search by operating systems, browsers, and/or keywords. For example, if you wanted to learn science or math terminology, you could search for keywords.

Tool #3: Find Sounds

Need a quick way to find sounds for use in a podcast or as part of a presentation? FindSounds takes the trouble out of locating a repository of copyright-fee sounds. Use it to find sounds for anything from a dog barking to a blue whale. Besides a single search box you can use “à la Google”, you can find sounds by type.

search
Screenshot by author

But wait, there’s more! Have you heard of Musgle? It’s a search engine that enables you to find music. Type the title of the sound effect or music you want to find (e.g. Beethoven, Mozart) and wait for it to pop up.

search
Screenshot by author

You may know about Google’s Reverse Image Search. To access it, you can go to Google Images, then click on the camera icon to bring up a screen like the one below. Then, upload the image you want to find on the web. This is a great way to find images students (or staff) have saved off the internet but failed to cite properly.

search
Screenshot by author

Another tool you may be unfamiliar with is the TinEye Reverse Image Search. Sporting a fancy robot icon, TinEye assists you in a similar way that Google’s Reverse Image Search does. It also offers a browser add-on for Chrome/Chromium or Firefox browsers.

search
Screenshot by author

Wikis abound on the web. When you search for a special movie character based on a comic book character, you’ll find the bio in an online wiki. Have a question about how to do something? A wiki page articulates the steps. Looking for encyclopedic information about anything? Someone has put it into a wiki.

Wiki.com searches ALL wikis. That’s a search that yields more than only popular wikis like Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia). This makes it a handy tool because it focuses on wikified data that is often curated like a web directory.

Bonus Tool: Icon Archive

Need to find an icon to represent something on your device? An image to accent a digital document? Explore the Icon Archive.

search
Screenshot by author

Feature Image Source

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Online Tools and Apps

Four New Tools You’ll Want to Use

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Yes, I’m back with a few more tools. I admit that I have an ed tech tool addiction. But sometimes there is a real need for a very specific resource to help in a unique situation. And so, here are four more tools that I really think you should add to your list.

What Assessment Tool Is Best for This Situation?

The fabulous Liz Kolb has created a very simple diagram that helps educators select the best formative or summative assessment tool for a given situation. You make a choice at several different branches (Formative or summative? Elementary or secondary? Interactive or quiz?) and then end up with several perfect tools to use. This will save you lots of time!

tool

Measuring Student Engagement

High school math teacher David Sladkey and some of his colleagues created the Engagement Wheel tool. It’s something a teacher can use after giving a lesson to reflect on student engagement. This tool is fast and simple– key requirements for any busy educator.

tool

Help Your Students Think

Project Zero has an amazing collection of thinking routines that work well for students and adult learners. Select from ten different categories or filter by subject area or thinking competence. Once you find a specific routine that will work for you, the site offers a handout that talks you through the thinking routine, and also a student handout, a project that uses the routine, and more. It’s all prepared for you.

Get Creative with StickerMule Studio

This fun site allows you to create your own stickers using either their vast collection of templates and graphics or your own. You can pay them to print your stickers, or you can keep them digital and download them as a PNG or JPG for free. These would be great to add to your LMS. No registration or login is required to save digitally. I found this site lots of fun!

I hope you enjoy these four tools. I’ll be back with more soon!

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Online Tools and Apps

Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (September 2022)

by Sara Qualls
written by Sara Qualls

It’s September, and hopefully, you and your students are in the full swing of things with your back-to-school routine kicked into full gear. September through December is a long stretch with Thanksgiving breaking things up a bit. But fear not. I’ve got some new finds for you to explore for fun, accommodation, accessibility, and…more fun. Let’s jump right in with this month’s haul of Chrome extensions and worthy websites.

Chrome Extensions to Try

Open Dyslexic for Chrome. This Chrome extension is an open-sourced font created specifically for users with dyslexia. Digital accessibility is often overlooked. Open Dyslexic will help to reformat fonts to be more easily readable.

Cute Cursors. If you’re tired of that boring black-and-white pointer, here’s another extension to help you customize your cursor. Choose one to help you find it easier on your screen or one that will give you a laugh.

Return YouTube Dislike. YouTube may have rid the ability to see how many dislikes a video had, but the people have spoken and found a way to retrieve that info with this extension. Save yourself a little time by finding out which video will be a boom or bust.

Flappy Bird Offline. Remember back to 2012 when a little game that was developed in just three days was all the rage? The world overwhelmed the creator, and he had to take it down. Well, now you can play it again– and without the internet. If you want the full scoop, you can read it here.

Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader. I think we can all agree that read alouds are important. If you’re not sure why, then check out this post to learn a variety of reasons (and get free resources). This extension is powerful because it uses text-to-speech (TTS) technology to convert any webpage text to audio.

Must-Visit Websites

Skribbl. Pictionary enthusiasts unite! With this website, you can challenge your friends and family or people across the world with this guessing game.

World History Encyclopedia. Remember encyclopedias? Those huge books that we used to pull out to write reports? They’re long gone, as now, we have most everything at the tips of our fingers. This site is full of resources like maps, translations, quizzes, and primary sources, and it’s a must-save for history buffs.

Akinator. Here’s a popular and interesting one to visit. It asks you to think of a character (real or fictional) and will guess your choice by asking you a series of questions. Supposedly, the website has never guessed incorrectly!

Have a favorite extension I need to try? What about a website that everyone needs to hear about? Share it with me in the comments below.

Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (August 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (July 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (June 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (May 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (April 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (March 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (February 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (January 2022)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (December 2021)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (November 2021)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (October 2021)
Eight Chrome Extensions and Sites You May Not Know (September 2021)

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts