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Declutter Your Inbox the Easy Way

by Dr. Bruce Ellis June 26, 2020

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

My inbox seems to keep growing. With interesting offers appearing and different websites I come across, I seem to subscribe to a lot of sites. They are great at the moment. But I’ve noticed that, after a while, I’ve moved on to other interests or found more relevant (or fresh) content. My dilemma is that I rarely take the time to declutter my inbox…that is, individually unsubscribe from the emails. Well, today I have declared war on my inbox. I have decided that I’m tired of selecting and deleting emails from sites that continue to share their information with me when I haven’t opened them in several weeks but haven’t unsubscribed because their next email may be a great one. No more!

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, and later updated in 2008, requires that companies sending emails as a way of advertising are required to make it easy to opt-out (unsubscribe) of receiving their emails and, once you unsubscribe, they should remove you from their list in a reasonable time frame. You can read a great synopsis of this act in an article by Vertical Response: It’s the Law: 7 Email Marketing Rules You Should Know. Be aware that once they remove you from their list, they may still have your contact information available to sell to other companies.

Keep reading to see different ways I’ve tried to declutter and what has worked for me. Though getting to “inbox zero” is worthy of going out to dinner, I haven’t been able to do that in a while. But at least my decluttering has given me back some time and energy that was spent juggling useless emails that kept coming and begging for attention.

Method 1: Unsubscribe Link

This is the typical method that is used to unsubscribe. But, as you can imagine, it will definitely take a considerable amount of attention and time to go through each email and search for the unsubscribe link. This is the best way to unsubscribe, though it isn’t necessarily the fastest. Plus, some emails that get through don’t provide an unsubscribe link. Hmmm, what’s up with that? Unlike the screenshot below, some emails are more “clever” (for lack of a better word) at following the law by providing a link to unsubscribe, but hiding it in a bunch of text at the bottom of the email or coding the text to be white on a white background, which means it appears to be invisible. Remember, though, that even though you’ve unsubscribed from them, those emails are still in your inbox and need to be deleted. Unsubscribing just means you won’t get future emails from them…unless you choose to get back on their list.

Method 2: Use a Third-Party Tool to Declutter

I do find that opening each email to be cumbersome…which is why I put off cleaning up my email. Recently, though, I rediscovered Unroll.me. This free service will scan your email and pull up those that can be unsubscribed. You then have the option for each identified sender to unsubscribe, keep it in your email (leave it alone), or add it to a “Rollup” list…which seems to be equivalent of a daily digest. I don’t make use of the Rollup feature myself, but have found the ease of unsubscribing to be very handy and an efficient way to declutter.

However, as you know, very few things in life are REALLY free, and the same is true for this service. Here is information from Unroll.me regarding their service: “As a means of keeping our service free, Rakuten Intelligence, which owns Unroll.Me, measures e-commerce through a technology that automatically recognizes commercial emails and extracts purchase information from them. Our technology is designed to ignore personal email, which does not help us measure market trends. Rakuten Intelligence strips away personal information, such as your name and address, to build measurement products that provide insights into consumer trends. To see how Rakuten Intelligence uses this data, take a look at the Rakuten Intelligence blog.”

Within about ten minutes, I was able to successfully unsubscribe from over 100 emails. Whew! That’s worth celebrating! Now I can focus more on those other emails that didn’t appear in Unroll.me that are still sending emails to me.

Method 3: Designate as Spam

Some emails you may receive do not have the unsubscribe link available. In this case, you may find it helpful to designate them as spam. They will still be hitting your inbox, but hopefully, your email client will route them directly to the spam folder so they don’t clutter what you are looking at. If you are using Gmail, select the emails you want to designate as spam and then click the Report Spam button (as indicated in the screenshot below). After an item has been in the spam folder for 30 days, Gmail will expunge it. If you are using an email client other than Gmail, you may need to check if spam is automatically deleted or if you have to manually delete it.

Method 4: Create Filters

The fourth and final method I use to get rid of spam is to create a filter to take care of it. There have been times where I have designated a sender as spam, but it occasionally finds itself back in my inbox. Grrr! I am pretty sure that I’ve unsubscribed from some, but continue to get emails and, of course, there are those that make it a game to find how to unsubscribe. That’s when filters become handy. In Gmail, I can create a filter that is triggered when an email arrives from someone on my “bad” list. Their sender email address and/or their subject line can trigger it – depending on how I set it up. Once Gmail has caught it, I have the filter skip the inbox and delete it. That’s kind of the equivalent to what the SPAM feature is supposed to do.

If you want to remove all emails from the sender, begin by copying the sender’s email address; if you want to remove just certain emails that the sender sends, but don’t want to completely unsubscribe, copy the part of the subject line that is always the same…for example, I’m going to filter out a certain email I get from a sender that has a subject line that always starts with “Fwd: Report results.”

Now, click on the small down arrow on the right side of the search box. This will allow you to search mail as well as quickly create filters. If you copied the sender’s email address, paste it in the from section; as you can see to the right, I pasted the text from the subject line in the subject section. Next, you want to click on Create Filter. You will get a list of emails matching your criteria. Because we are interested in deleting them, we will just select the Delete action. If it has identified emails that match the criteria and you want them deleted, select that action. All that is left to do is to click the blue Create Filter button. Voilà! Now even if those pesky emails continue to arrive even after they’ve been uninvited AND they get by your spam filter, this filter should take care of them.

Let us know how you declutter your inbox. Do you have a different way of getting rid of pesky emails that seem to fill up your inbox and distract you from having enough time on those that matter more? Share with us in the comments. We’d love to hear from you.

June 26, 2020 4 comments

Good Teaching

Adobe Khan+Create Activities

by Miguel Guhlin June 23, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Did you know that blending media into text has a powerful impact on student learning? In this blog entry, we’ll explore an offering that combines Khan Academy with Adobe.

The Modality Effect

John Hattie via the VisibleLearningMetaX database defines this instructional strategy like this:

The modality effect refers to how learner performance depends on the presentation mode. That is, how you present studied item with other media aside from text. When you present combine text and media, you improve learning. The media can be auditory with graphs, diagrams, or animations.

The effect size is d > 0.55, which accelerates student growth in one school year (standard growth is d = 0.40). That’s what makes Adobe’s Khan+Create Activities so exciting.

adobe activities

Introducing Adobe’s “Khan+Create” Activities

These free activities build on the non-profit Khan Academy’s work with free educational videos. Adobe’s effort seeks to:

Extend meaningful instruction and practice Khan offers today
Use Adobe’s creative toolkit to assist students to create and communicate
Model the use of writing, images, video, audio, animation, and design
Assist students to show deeper levels of knowledge, critical thinking, communication, and creativity.
Enable opportunities for peer- and teacher-feedback
Make digital creative work easy to share and make collaborative

Adobe partnered with classroom teachers to create activities that they call “Khan+Create.” These activities present students with Khan Academy materials that are paired with guided activities that allow students to create. Students have the opportunity to express themselves and explore new subjects.

adobe activities

Using the Activities

Adobe suggests that you keep the following information in mind. Activities are:

Available for free and enjoy Creative Commons licensing
Appear as editable Google docs
Present as activities anyone can take, copy, and adapt to suit their own context, needs, and goals
Are easy to customize for purposes to align to the content

Teachers will need to use cross-platform tools like Adobe Spark. Remember, you can get Adobe Spark for free as an educator.

Let’s take a quick look at the activities, which fall into three categories:

Elementary School
Middle and High School
Higher Education

Activities at the elementary level are a nice mix of language arts, math, and social studies. Middle and high school focus on several subjects, including language arts, science, math, social studies, careers, and art history. Higher education activities fall into the careers space in some way or another.

adobe activities

Elementary School Activities

You can find a list of activities online, but here are a few that jumped out at me:

Tell a story with memory and perspective (literature and language)
Primary ratios (math)
Building arrays (math)
Modern art in 2020 (social studies)
Common and proper nouns (literature and language)

Let’s take a closer look at one of them.

Activity Example: Tell a Story with Memory and Perspective

This activity gets students to:

Tell a story from memory answering the big question: How can you tell a story with pictures and words?

The activity starts with a Khan Academy video. The goal is to scaffold students creating a story from memory. At the end, they respond to reflection questions and end up in an activity.

Excerpt of the Activity

Create a Spark Post that answers the following questions:

In one sentence: How do you describe your memory?
In one sentence: Why do you think you remember it so well?
In one sentence: What feelings does it bring up?
Look at the colors in the image above. Does your memory trigger colors? If so, what colors?

*Extension: If you want to go further, you can add more description!

Take a look at this student sample if you want some inspiration. Use the tutorial to guide you if you are new to Spark Post.

The Google Doc offers a step-by-step guide for every aspect of the lesson.

More to Learn and Do

As you might imagine, there are many more activities for middle and high school. Take a moment to explore these. Adobe’s “Khan+Create” makes it easy to get started with Adobe Spark and Google Docs-based activities are adaptable for G Suite EDU schools.

This article was updated with new content on October 19, 2021.

June 23, 2020 0 comment

Google Tips and Tricks

Come Read with Me: Google’s Read Along App

by Miguel Guhlin June 17, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Want to improve your child or student’s reading ability? Google has created a new reading app to make that easier to achieve. You may recall Google’s previous entry into reading apps, Rivet. We wrote about it in Reciprocal Teaching with Google’s Rivet App. Today, we’ll review some important research on reading and then jump into the new Read Along app.

Note: Trying to open the link to the Rivet or Read Along app? Read Along is now in public beta for the web and works in popular browsers. Read Along includes brand new stories from two YouTube content creators. Those include ChuChu TV and USP Studios. Use Read Along as a reading practice tool in schools and at home. For each, use Google Workspace for Education account or personal Google Accounts with Family Link at home, respectively.

The Power of Reading

“On average, Americans aged 20 to 34 spend a 0.11 hours reading daily, which amounts to less than seven minutes per day.” (Source: Statista). Is that trend reflective of what happens in schools?

This can have a profound impact on student learning over the long run. Jennifer Gonzalez (Cult of Pedagogy) highlights these points from Schmoker’s book, Focus:

In the early years, students need time to read, not to do skills drills or reading “activities.” Students should “never, ever engage in cut, color, or paste activities.” Those occupy more than 100 instructional hours per year, asserts Schmoker.
Students should read fiction and nonfiction. He says, “We learn to read well by reading a lot for meaning,” when we read to do the following:
- Analyze or support arguments,
- Arrive at our own opinions as we make inferences or attempt to solve problems.
Students should engage in discussions at least three times per week. These discussion should have established criteria to guide them.

His assertions underscore the importance of reading. You can use Reciprocal Teaching and TRTW. As you can see from the chart below, getting children to read early on has a direct connection to whether students graduate.

With those statistics and information in mind, we must do more than encourage reading. We have a mandate about what it can do in the lives of our children.

The App

In the free Android Read Along app, young readers have a digital tutor that assists them in reading text on screen. If you ever read Living Books’ Arthur’s Teacher Troubles, then you have an inkling of how things work.

The app has a reading buddy who listens to your young learner read aloud and offers help when they struggle. Rewards are given in the form of stars. It works best for children who already have some basic knowledge of the alphabet.

Watch this video of it in action:

The app combines games and stories, as shown below:

The app shows pictures and text on screen and listens to the child read a story. It encourages students to read for ten minutes a day. It will also keep track of how much they’ve read and offer prizes. It has a fun option of playing music in the background that may become annoying.

You can also switch to a variety of languages, such as Spanish. See how books appear in Spanish when you switch languages.

Don’t be afraid to give this app a try with your young reader. It may be the type of engagement your child needs. Read along with your child to improve engagement.

June 17, 2020 0 comment

Educational Trends

Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits – Part 1

by Lori Gracey June 15, 2020

written by Lori Gracey

Over the past few months, I’ve gathered together a pretty good collection of tips, tricks, and tech tidbits that I found interesting or useful. And I’d like to share them with you. There is no particular theme for these, nor are they organized into any semblance of order. But maybe you will pick up a new way of doing things from them.

Quickly Create a New Google Anything

If you type “slides.new” or “docs.new” or “sheets.new” or “forms.new”or “keep.new” or “sites.new” in the address bar of any browser, you can very quickly begin a new Google page.

Make a New, Fun Background for Your Computer Desktop

Open a new Google Slide (see above for how to do that quickly!).
Right-click on the slide and select Apply Layout — Blank.
Click on Insert — Image — Search the Web. (By the way, did you know that the graphics you find here are legal to use in your work and for your students?)
In the Search for Images box on the right-hand side of your screen, type in something you would like to use as the background for your desktop (clouds, beach, brick wall, etc.). Find one you like and drag it onto the slide (or click on the background and then click Insert on the bottom right). Resize the picture by dragging with the handles until it covers the slide.
Send it to the back.
Go to Insert — Shape — Shapes and find some shapes that you want to use to create boxes on your desktop. (These boxes can hold shortcuts to your folders and files and help to keep them organized.) Create the boxes and place them where you want them to appear.
Add color with the Fill option.
(If you have a Bitmoji of yourself, feel fee to add it in now.)
Save the whole thing as a JPEG.
Go to your computer settings and the JPEG as a background.

Photo from Linda. M. Comers post in the Bitmoji Craze for Educators Facebook group

Avoid Pop-Up Ads in YouTube

If you type _popup before the question mark on the web address of any YouTube video, then it will take off all of the ads and any other surrounding videos that the students could possibly click on. For example, this video on adding fractions has a YouTube URL of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQipFjAoT8. If I change it and add the _popup, it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch_popu p?v=tDQipFjAoT8. Now it opens full screen without any annoying ads.

Scan Documents with the Free iOS Notes App

If you have an iPhone or iPad, you can easily use the Notes app (that you thought was completely useless) to scan any document for you. You can read more about this tip in a great blog from Peggy Reimers.

Use the Awesome Screenshot Extension to Annotate Quickly

This fabulous free Chrome extension allows you to annotate on any website and take a screenshot of it. This makes it perfect for creating handouts for students or adult learners. You can even blur out things on the page, like student names.

Eliminate the Interruptions

Did you know that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus on work after you have been interrupted by email or Slack or your favorite social media page or any other communication tool? Force yourself to stay on task with the free Strict Workflow Chrome extension.

Strict Workflow uses the Pomodoro technique of having structured work and relaxation periods. You select whether you want 25 minutes working and five minutes off or 45 minutes working and 15 minutes off. The Strict Workflow automates this and blocks websites of your choosing during work time. It can be a tough boss, but does really help you get into deep thinking on critical projects. A similar extension is StayFocused.

Stop Accidentally Closing a Critical Tab

I don’t know about you, but I am constantly closing out the tab of a website that I need to continue using in Chrome. Now there’s a way to prevent that. Open the site you want to keep open. Right-click on the tab of the site and select Pin Tab. Now the tab won’t close, even if you close out of the browser. It will still be there when you reopen Chrome. To unpin the tab, do the same thing and select Unpin.

I hope that you found these tricks useful. Have a great one to share? Please place it in the comments!

June 15, 2020 6 comments

virtual background - screenshot by author

Google Tips and Tricks

Virtual Backgrounds for Google Meet (Updated)

by Miguel Guhlin June 2, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Connecting to a Google Meet, and wish you could drop in a virtual background like Zoomers do? If you read Dr. Bruce Ellis’ blog entry, Creating Virtual Backgrounds for Zoom, you know what I mean. You can add a virtual background to Zoom with ease. Can you do the same with Google Meet? In this blog entry, we explore two possible solutions. Let’s find out.

Got the Virtual Background Power?

When my primary computer died in March, 2020, I had a moment of fright. Would I have to clean up my home office? Would I have to venture out and try to find a Dollar Tree green tablecloth as a cheap green screen? The answer was, “Yes, I did have to clean up my office.” My old Dell didn’t have the graphics card to handle virtual backgrounds for Zoom.

Did You Know?

Sign up for one of our Google Certified Educator certifications. You’ll learn about more than Google Meet, as well as earn 12 CPE hours per course. Use these courses to get Google Educator certified. Find out more online.

“Wait a second, I thought we were talking about Google Meet?” you may be saying to yourself. And, yes, that’s true. We aren’t worrying about the Zoomers with their fancy computers. We need solutions that work on Chromebooks, or low-end computers like mine. But most may not know about a way to create virtual backgrounds for Google Meet.

Virtual Backgrounds for Google Meet

Those of us who have dwelt in the dark of our home offices have seen a great light. That’s right, it’s a Chrome browser extension that makes virtual backgrounds a reality. You can use this virtual background add-on to mask what’s behind you when in a Google Meet. Imagine the story if this consultant had enjoyed the use of a virtual background:

virtual backgrounds

Virtual Backgrounds for Google Meet (source for image above) offers ten soothing background in different locales. While I don’t see an easy way to add an image or video (like Zoom does), something is better than nothing.

The best part about it? This browser extension works on low-powered devices. But I will admit that it’s not perfect. You will appear to have a halo around your head and torso.

virtual backgrounds

Another neat tool to explore is Visual Effects for Google Meet. Unlike Virtual Background for Meet, it DOES allow you to upload your own background and change it. While you still get the same halo effect as in Virtual Background Chrome extension, Visual Effects lets you achieve this with green screen OR an uploaded image. Nifty!

You are now ready to enjoy your next Google Meet. Use one of the available virtual backgrounds to escape your home office mess. You may even find that other folks will ask you, “How did you get a virtual background for Meet? Do you have a green screen?” Tell them to visit the TCEA TechNotes blog to learn more.

Don’t be afraid to give this app a try with your young reader. It may be the type of engagement your child needs. Read along with your child to improve engagement.

June 2, 2020 6 comments

Educational Trends Good Teaching

The Latest Educational Tool: Bitmoji Classrooms

by Lori Gracey June 1, 2020

written by Lori Gracey

I was wandering around Facebook recently and was surprised to discover the interest that educators were expressing in creating virtual, Bitmoji classrooms (and office and libraries and so much more). I had not heard of this resource before, but was interested to see what it was all about. So I joined the Bitmoji Craze for Educators Facebook Group. Wow!!!!!

What’s a Bitmoji?

Bitmoji of @GwynethJones, the Daring Librarian

A Bitmoji is a personalized cartoon avatar that can appear in your Facebook, Snapchat, Slack, or G Suite tools. You create a cartoon version of yourself that can add fun to your communications. Of course, with remote learning recently, this resource became even more valuable as dedicated educators created virtual worlds for their students and themselves to live and learn in.

You create your character using the free Bitmoji app, available for Android, Chrome, and iOS. Then you can go on to design your virtual space and furnish it with more choices available to download and use than you could ever possibly imagine.

Use of a Bitmoji in the Classroom

While having an avatar is certainly a lot of fun to create (I think of it as being similar to playing with paper dolls, but with technology!), it also has a TON of uses for learning in the classroom. You can decorate the classroom with virtual furnishings from rugs to bulletin boards to shelves of library books. Each item in the classroom can be linked to a video or audio recording or a website or activity. Thus, they become interactive centers for learning. Take a look at these examples below from WeAreTeachers:

Learn How to Create Your Own Bitmoji Space

TCEA is pleased to offer a two-webinar series on creating your own virtual classroom, office, or library. The first webinar will be held on June 4, 2020 from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. CST. (If one or both dates have already passed, you can still sign up to receive the full recordings from both sessions.) During this first webinar, participants will learn:

Uses of a virtual cartoon classroom (as a launchpad and for personalization)
How to create a Bitmoji of yourself using the free Bitmoji app
How to set up up your basic classroom with a background, furniture, your avatar, and more
Additional resources to use in your Bitmoji classroom

The second session will be held on June 18, 2020 from 9:30 to 10:30 am. CST and will help you to take your virtual classroom to the next level as you:

Add hyperlinks to key resources for student access
Add audio
Make an animated Google header
And more!

The cost for both webinars is just $25 for TCEA members and $74 for non-members, which includes a one-year membership in TCEA. Participants will get hands-on practice creating and will walk away with their own Bitmoji and a strong start to their virtual space. I urge you to register now for this fun adventure that will really add to any remote learning that you may do in the future!

June 1, 2020 8 comments

Android

Google Play Store Labels Teacher-Approved Apps

by Miguel Guhlin May 21, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Looking for Teacher Approved apps for your children? Wish you could align Google Play store apps to a teacher-approved checklist? The Google Play store has made them easier to find. In this blog entry, we’ll peek at what you will find in their new section.

Did You Know?
TCEA provides you with a list of student-friendly apps online. Be sure to check out the Must Have List of Android Apps. TCEA helps educators find the best apps for their students and their curriculum. Our professional development team tests and reviews apps, sharing recommendations in curated lists that are helpfully categorized by subject and purpose, so you can find exactly what you need. See more apps for your device.

Finding Kid-Friendly Apps

Are you at your wit’s end, keeping your children engaged? You are not alone. Some parents toss their children an Android tablet to buy time while they try to prepare a meal, care for another child, or get a moment of peace and quiet. But how do you know that what you are encouraging children to “play” is educational? That’s where Google Play Store has taken some steps.

Did You Know?
Sign up for one of our Google Certified Educator certifications. You’ll learn about more than Google Meet, as well as earn 12 CPE hours per course. Use these courses to get Google Educator certified. Find out more online.

Teacher Approved

For parents, seeing a badge stating “Teacher Approved” may make all the difference. Google certifies that apps sporting this label are “enriching and entertaining.” They’ve even contracted with educators to make the decision:

To share the best apps for kids on the Play Store, we’ve teamed up with academic experts and teachers across the country, including our lead advisors, Joe Blatt (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and Dr. Sandra Calvert (Georgetown University). Apps that have been rated by teachers and meet our quality standards receive a “Teacher approved” badge. (Source)

Each app sports a simple badge.

How to Find the Teacher-Approved Apps

While it would have been cool for Google to create a “Teacher-Approved Apps” button, they instead did this:

On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Play Store.
Tap Games or Apps.
At the top, tap Kids. All apps in this section are teacher approved.
1. For Movies and TV, tap Family.
2. For Books, tap Children’s Books.

When you tap on Kids, you will see only the apps that are teacher approved. Go to the Kids tab to see “Teacher approved” content. Google Play Pass subscribers can find it at “Apps and games for kids.” If you are scratching your head and wondering, “Is this that easy to find?” you are not alone. Google could have done a better job for students and parents to locate content.

Selection Process

Wondering how Google decided what is “teacher approved” and what is not? They asked trained teachers to rate apps based on a framework that evaluated things like:

Design quality
Appeal to children
Enrichment potential
Ads and in-app purchases
Age-appropriateness

Teacher-approved apps appear in the Kids section on Google Play, are featured in banners or collections, and display the badge. Most important, they show what teachers found valuable in the app details page. Don’t be afraid to give this app a try with your young reader. It may be the type of engagement your child needs. Read along with your child to improve engagement.

May 21, 2020 0 comment

Cybersecurity Technical Support

Are You a Victim of Typosquatting?

by Dr. Bruce Ellis May 21, 2020

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

Educators have made great strides in teaching digital citizenship to students. Many students now know the value of a strong password (that is, not shared with anyone), common phishing scams via email, and even how to spot fake news sites.

But few students realize that if they misspell a website URL, they may end up at a site that is more than they’ve bargained for.

Cybercriminals have figured out how to scam folks, even those who are trying to do all the right things. It’s likely that this has happened to you or someone you know. You type in the URL and hit Enter, not realizing that you made a small typo in the address. But you end up at the intended site, or so it seems, so you don’t catch your error.

Little do you know that those criminals have planned for your typo and created a mock site at which they hope to solicit personal information from you and/or gladly share malware with your system. The term given to this type of nefarious activity is typosquatting; you may have also heard of it by other names such as URL hijacking or cybersquatting.

To counter this, many retailers purchase misspellings of their own URL and have it automatically direct users to the intended URL. Those retailers who aren’t quite so savvy, or slow to purchase the misspelled domains however, may find that the criminals are getting free traffic each time a user accidentally makes that typo.

For example, Google’s main site is http://www.google.com. But they also have these other domains that, if you type, will automatically direct you to the correct page: gooogle.com (notice the additional “o”), googel.com (it should be “le”), and gogle.com (oops! an “o” is missing).

Strategies to Lessen the Likelihood of Being a Victim

Check Your Spelling

If you are typing the URL in the search box, be sure that you are typing the address accurately. Just a small typo can land you on a website that can be nefarious and damaging to your computer. If you have ended up at a typosquatting website, check to see if your browser allows you to block specific websites. If so, add the site to your list to prevent the mistake from happening again.

If you aren’t sure if your browser has this feature, check out Computer Hope’s post; you’ll find a variety of ways to block the website to protect you and others that may share your computer.

Verify Before You Click

If you are clicking on a link, be sure to check the spelling of the domain before clicking on the link. It is very easy to read what we think something says instead of what it really says, like the word puzzles that have “the the” in the sentence, but our minds only read it as one “the.”

If the URL is in a hyperlink in which the text is different than the URL, mouse over the hyperlinked text; you should notice the URL appear (typically in the bottom left of your browser). Paying attention to this can greatly reduce the chances that your computer is compromised by hackers who are creative enough to use typosquatting as one of their strategies.

Educate Your Users

If you are in a position that supports users and manages the network at your district, it is important to provide clear instruction and education to your employees. Though you probably already have SPF and DKIM included in your DNS and are utilizing anti-spoofing technology, don’t underestimate the creativity of hackers. After providing adequate training, make use of designated emails to catch those who are employing the strategies. All it takes is one user to infect their machine, which can then quickly spread to other users.

This education isn’t just limited to adult users. It is important for students to have appropriate information included as part of their digital citizenship curriculum. Also, it may be helpful (and appreciated) if basic information and strategies are shared with parents.

Are You Already a Victim of Typosquatting?

If you think you’ve been a victim, contact your information technology department. They can guide you in current strategies that are being used in the district, as well as specific recommendations for trusted browsers and possible browser extensions to use. They can also help make sure that your antivirus software is installed correctly and updates regularly without any effort on your part.

At TCEA, we want you to be safe as you surf the internet. For more information on how you can stay safe, check out our other posts related to cybersecurity, such as Five Cybersecurity Tips for Newbies and How to Adopt a Security Mindset, at https://blog.tcea.org/category/cybersecurity.

May 21, 2020 0 comment

Good Teaching

Connect Instructional Strategies with Tech

by Miguel Guhlin May 12, 2020

written by Miguel Guhlin

Wonder what technologies you can blend into high-effect-size instructional strategies? In this blog entry, I revisit the revised Strategies That Work app that you can use on your mobile device. It also works in your desktop’s or laptop’s web browser. Read the “Coaching for Results” series, yet? If so, you know how to match instructional strategies with technology. You can make those strategies relevant to how children learn today with technology.

Get app online at https://tceastrategies.glideapp.io

Strategies That Work

In the Strategies That Work app, I shared several important instructional strategies. The app makes it easy to find information about each one. A recent update now includes a list of suggested technologies for each strategy. Find it online at https://tceastrategies.glideapp.io

If you’d rather not work with an app on your device, there’s another option.

Access Strategies via a Google Doc

In this Google Doc, you will find a list of strategies that you might want to use in your classroom. Matched to each is the latest description and effect size from the Visible Learning Meta X database. You will also find a column with a list of technologies that teachers and students may use. The purpose of the technology list is to complement and expand what you may know about using them.

Access chart online at http://ly.tcea.org/mst

Let’s take a quick look at two examples. We’ll explore how a single technology and single instructional strategy work together. The strategies and matching technology are in four categories, including the ones I referenced in my “Coaching for Results” series.

Example #1: Summarization (d=0.74)

Although it lacks the punch of a strategy that accelerates three or more years of student growth, summarization is a critical one to know and use. The Visible Learning MetaX database defines summarization in this way:

The ability to summarize a text is often taken as a marker of reading comprehension. Many scholars have advocated explicit summarization training for students who struggle with comprehension. This can include deleting unnecessary material or materials that is redundant. It can involve substituting a subordinate term for a list of items or actions. Or, the summarizer may select a topic sentence or constructing a topic sentence if one is implicit in the text.

When asking students to summarize, we can have them engage in any one of the following activities:

Traditional paper-and-pencil activities
Verbal activities as part of reciprocal teaching strategies
Recording some form of multimedia

Several technologies lend themselves to the use of summarization. While there are some obvious connection, one key component of summarization involves annotation. Digital annotation of websites and digital documents can prove quite useful.

Some typical tools for annotation appear below:

Each tool has much to offer within its sphere of influence for annotation purposes. Digital documents (e.g. PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Word) offer many opportunities for student-led annotations. Even tools like Amazon’s Kindle eReader app have made annotation easy, and exporting those into other documents straightforward.

“Hypothesis is my literary Facebook. When I’m reading I sometimes wonder, does anyone actually understand this? Am I crazy? With this brilliant tool I know I’m not alone,” says Shannon Griffiths, Student, Plymouth State University.

Give Hypothes.is a try with a team of professional learners. You can add it to your Chrome browser since it has an extension.

Example #2: Mnemonics (d=0.80)

While not my first go-to strategy to use, I can see why mnemonics is an under-estimated teaching technique. Mnemonic instruction works for students with learning problems, including learning disabilities (LD) or mild intellectual disability (MID) (source). The Visible Learning Meta X database defines mnemonics in this way:

A practice by which students learn a significant amount of information for long-term recall by memory. There are five classes of mnemonics: linguistic, spatial, visual, physical, and verbal.

These five classes may be expanded in the following way, as adapted from Lubin and Polloway (2016):

Linguistic: Pegword and keyword methods form this approach. They associate a new idea with familiar words and/or phrases to help remember the item.
Spatial: This uses the loci, spatial grouping, and finger methods. Each connects a new concept to a familiar place, pattern, or finger. This aids in memorization of the material.
Visual: These rely on pictures or visualizations that create an association to the target concept (e.g., symbolics, pictographics).
Physical: This approach makes use of the body parts to aid in remembrance. Do this via movement or physical sensation.
Verbal: This method uses meaning and stories to help students remember. Some approaches may rely on grouping, semantic organization, and story-telling or narrative chains.

How do you go about storing information for long-term memory recall? You use a mnemonic. While it’s easy to create a linguistic mnemonic focused on keywords, others may be as much fun.

Image Source: Visual Mnemonic Examples

To make linguistic mnemonic (e.g. keywords) creation easier, consider the use of tools (some may be inappropriate for younger students) such as:

To make pegword mnemonics, you need an app or paint software. This comes standard on many computers, not to mention is available as part of Google and Microsoft Office Suites. One can imagine students creating pegword mnemonics using an iOS app like Doodle Buddy.

Image Source: IRIS | Pegword Method

Connecting Conclusions

As you can see, the more you know about an instructional strategy, the easier it is to use technology as a part of it. Applying them in the classroom will involve drawing a connection. The connection must be made between learning outcomes and how the tech will be used.

May 12, 2020 0 comment

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Creating Virtual Backgrounds for Zoom

by Dr. Bruce Ellis May 11, 2020

written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

If you happen to be using a PC or Mac (not a Chromebook) to connect with Zoom, then you may have noticed that you have the ability to do virtual backgrounds (assuming it has been enabled in the settings). Other than using the background photos that Zoom provides, where can you find additional great choices that will set you apart in your next Zoom meeting? Continue reading to find out!

The Specs for Zoom Backgrounds

Before we jump in, we should clarify that photos for Zoom virtual backgrounds should be in 16:9 ratio with the ideal resolution of 1920 px by 1080 px. If you use a photo with a different ratio, then you can expect to have black bars appearing on the sides since Zoom will fit the photo in the 16:9 space. This will definitely identify you as a newbie.

GIF, JPG/JPEG, or 24-bit PNG images can be used. Be aware that, if you have a photo with any transparent pixels, these will show as white. Also, if you are planning to add a logo or text, don’t add them to the bottom of the background photo, as Zoom may superimpose your name over it while in the meeting.

Step 1: Find Good Photos

Having a great photo is the key. You don’t want something that is too busy or distracting and you do want something that is true to who you are. Be sure to check out the copyright to see what attribution is required.

Here are five websites to get you started with finding great photos.

Pixabay has so many great photos for you to choose from. Plus, they offer some fantastic ways of filtering through the photos so that you can find that perfect graphic quicker. After you search for the topic of background (i.e. wall, nature, sunrise, clouds, celebration, trail, etc.), set the orientation to horizontal and choose the most relevant category; I usually choose backgrounds/textures.

NOTE: If you create a free account with Pixabay, you don’t have to identify that you are not a robot each time; logging in with your username/password allows you to skip that step.

Pexels is another great tool for finding images that you can use with hesitation. Be aware that there is an overlap between Pixabay and Pexels so you will find some commonality in the search results. But there is enough difference to check out each. Similar to Pixaby, just type in the topic of interest.

Though Pexels doesn’t provide as many filters, you can set the orientation of choice as horizontal. You can’t specify the ratio or the pixel width/height, but you can choose the size (small, medium, or large). I recommend choosing large and seeing if you are satisfied with the results. You can always trim down a photo, but you run the risk of pixelating the photo if you try to enlarge it to fit the Zoom ideal.

A few other sites to consider include Unsplash, Reshot, and RawPixel. Each has its own interface, so you’ll have to explore each one and learn how to best search and filter to find the photo that you want to use.

Step 2: Edit Your Photo

You can use a simple online photo editor such as Pixlr, BeFunky, Fotor, or Adobe Spark if you need to work in the cloud to edit your chosen image. Here is how I go about creating Zoom backgrounds in Photoshop, PowerPoint, or Google Slides. The main thing to remember is that the end result should be a photo that is preferably 1920 px by 1080 px, but at least fits the 16:9 ratio.

Editing in Photoshop

Begin by opening your photo and select the Rectangle Marquee Tool. For the sake of instructions, we’ll assume we don’t know what ratio the photo is. With the Rectangle Marquee Tool selected, choose Fixed Ratio from the dropdown and set the width to 16 and height to 9 (refer to the image below).

Video demonstration for cropping a photo to 16:9 ratio in Photoshop.

You are now able to click and drag a selection area of the photo. If the photo is already 16:9, you should be able to drag from one corner diagonally to the opposite corner and encompass the whole photo. If the photo is NOT 16:9, you’ll notice that the selected area doesn’t fit perfectly. That’s okay since we can move the selection around to choose the area we want to use. Once you have a 16:9 area selected to use, click on Image –> Crop. If this photo is now the finished product you want, click on File –> Export –> Quick Export PNG. If you would like to continue editing to add a logo or text, save your file now as a Photoshop (PSD) file; this will allow us to continue editing it with layers which we are about to add.

Now to add text to our image. This could be your district or school name or it could be some other information that better identifies you and/or connects you with other viewers in the Zoom meeting.

Let’s begin by clicking on the Horizontal Type Tool and then click on the photo where you would like to start typing – but don’t start typing just yet. On the screenshot below, you’ll notice what appears when you are using the Horizontal Type Tool. Select your font from the drop-down list and set the size. Click on the appropriate alignment option and confirm the color of your text (indicated by the color box just to the right of the alignment options). Once you have these set, it is now time to start typing. NOTE: We can start typing before setting these options, but I typically find that I have to select the text and go back and change the options afterwards when I’m in a hurry.

Video demonstration for adding text in Photoshop.

You may have noticed that a new layer appeared when you click on the photo. Though it looks like you are typing on the photo, you are really adding text over the photo in a transparent layer. If you realize that your text should be moved some, then click on the Move Tool and then click and drag the text to the new area; be sure that your mouse is over some of the text itself as it will assume you want to move whatever is under the cursor.

If you are looking for fonts to use, my go-to sites include dafonts, FontSpace, and 1001 Free Fonts. You’ll find plenty of fun, festive, and even professional-looking fonts to use on your background.

Video demonstration for adding a logo in Photoshop.

In our final step, let’s add a logo. This could be a school mascot, your bitmoji, or other image. Open the logo in Photoshop as you initially did the original photo. Click Select –> All to copy the logo to the clipboard. Now go to the Photoshop tab with your Zoom background photo. Click Edit –> Paste. If your image does not have a transparent background, you may need to remove it.

You may also need to resize the image. Click on the image to the right to view the brief tutorial showing how to insert, remove the background, and resize the logo.

Editing in PowerPoint

Video demonstration for creating a simple Zoom virtual background in PowerPoint.

You don’t have to have a high end photo editing tool to get great results. And you might find that using more simplistic tools (or actually re-purposing such tools) may make the process much faster.

I prefer to start with a blank slide in PowerPoint – that is, no text boxes for the title or anything. Click on the Design menu –> Slide Size –> Wide Screen (16:9). We now know that the ratio will match that of the Zoom background. Insert your photo and resize to perfectly fit the slide. If it doesn’t fit perfectly and you don’t want to stretch part of it, consider centering the photo on your slide and adding a border to hide the gap, similar to adding a mat over a photo that doesn’t fit a picture frame perfectly.

We’ll use the border of a transparent rectangle placed over the image for our border. Begin by inserting a rectangle. With the rectangle selected (and sized to fit the slide), set the shape fill to transparent (Shape Format menu –> Shape Fill –> No Fill); you should now be able to see the photo. Now make the border coordinate with the photo by clicking on Shape Format menu –> Shape Outline –> Eye Dropper. As you move the eye dropper around, you will notice that a small color square is indicating what color will be picked if you click at that location of the photo. Click somewhere to choose a color.

Now let’s make the border thick enough to cover those gaps. We don’t want to add a border directly to the photo because it will just highlight the fact that it is a different ratio; adding the border to the transparent rectangle on top retains the 16:9 ratio and hides the imperfection. With the rectangle still selected, click on the Shape Format menu –> Shape Outline –> Weight –> More Lines. Increase the width until all gaps are covered. Don’t be surprised if the number is large.

You are now ready to save the slide out as an image. To do so, click on the File menu –> Save As and locate the folder where you want to save the Zoom background. For the file type, choose PNG Portable Network Graphics Format. When asked if you want to save All Slides or Just This One, choose Just This One. Your background is now ready to be used in Zoom.

Editing in Google Slides

Video demonstration for creating a simple Zoom virtual background in Google Slides.

Editing in Google Slides is very similar to the PowerPoint process. Begin by clicking on the Insert menu –> Image. You have several options as to where get your image (upload from the computer, search the web, Drive, Photos, by URL, or camera).

Once you’ve located your image and added it to your slide, resize the photo (making it larger or smaller) to cover the slide area. If you want a logo, locate that image and add to your photo noting that the ideal placement is most likely the top left or right corner but allowing a bit of a gap between it and the edge of the photo.

Since Zoom will have your name showing at the bottom (assuming that the host did not turn off showing names), any text that you add to your background should probably avoid the bottom third (where the name may appear) or the middle section (where you will appear). You may find it helpful to put contact information such as a phone number, email address, or social media identifier to encourage other users to connect with you outside of meeting times.

Knowing that these words may not be very legible if other participants are looking at a small stream of you, consider keeping the text to a few words at best. You don’t want the text to compete with you in the video stream, but you do want it to be readable.

Step 3: Enjoy

You are now ready to enjoy attending Zoom meetings with your fantastic virtual background. You may even find that other folks will ask you for a copy of your background or to create one for them. You don’t have to tell them how easy it was. That will be our secret.

So, what will you create? Will you use Photoshop, PowerPoint, Google Slides, or another tool to edit your image? The main thing to remember is to be creative without being distracting. We’d love to see what you create! Share your background via Twitter and use the hashtags #tcea and #zoombg.

May 11, 2020 0 comment

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