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PDF Presentation Tool: Meet Sumatra PDF

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ever wish you could easily display a PDF full screen? Every other Zoom or Google Meet meeting, I found myself wishing I could make a PDF into a full-screen presentation without having to install fancy software. Now, turning your PDF into a dynamic presentation is easier. A tool to use is Sumatra PDF. It is simple to use and free. Use it to read PDFs, ebooks, comic books, as well as view images on Windows computers. And, you will also find a grab bag of AI PDF Summary tools below. Come along and take a look.

Before I share more about Sumatra PDF, let’s see how these align to the TCEA Essential Learning Expectations (ELEs) for Teachers.

Essential Learning Expectations (ELEs) Alignment

The most important alignment is the one focused on Digital Literacy. Working with digital documents to create presentations remains a challenge for many. How many times have you gotten a PDF from the web or a colleague, then had to share it at a staff meeting?

ELEAlignment
1.0 Tech IntegrationSumatra PDF seamlessly integrates technology into teaching practices (1.1)
2.0 Digital LiteracyEnhances digital document presentation skills (2.1)
5.0 Critical ThinkingAllows for interactive analysis of digital content (5.1)

There are several ways to share a PDF full-screen, of course.

Alternate Ways to Share a PDF

You can always drop a PDF into Canva for Education (free), Google Slides, or MS Powerpoint. You can even choose to use Adobe Acrobat.

Once there, you can turn it into a presentation. But the drawback to that? That PDF is now filling up your cloud storage space. And, the translation of an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) may not work well.

If you are on Windows, you have another alternative that is free and portable. In fact, I’m putting PDF Slideshow on my USB flash drive as one of my must-have tools on the go.

Unleashing the Power of PDFs

With Sumatra PDF, you can now view or present your PDF files. It describes itself in this way:

SumatraPDF is a free PDF, EPUB, MOBI, CHM, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR reader for Windows. It’s small, fast, customizable and full of features.

As you can see in the screenshot above, it’s easy to flip to fullscreen or presentation mode with a Ctrl+L or press F11 function key on your keyboard.

Pricing

If you are wondering, “How much does Sumatra PDF cost?” you need not worry. It is free. You can get it in a variety of versions, including a portable version that can be run from a USB drive. This makes it a perfect helper in situations where you are working in an academic setting and want a reliable PDF viewer on the go.

AI-Powered Summaries

Before you leave, let me share a list of AI-powered PDF Summary tools. These are popping up everywhere, so make sure to check out my list. If you don’t see your favorite one, let me know, ok?

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A list of AI-powered PDF Summaries

Conclusion

SumatraPDF offers an easy to use, versatile solution. Use it to quickly display PDFs full-screen, or set up a computer to cycle through the PDF. What’s more, it comes in a portable version you can take with you on a USB flash drive. That might make it the perfect solution for a presentation station or wall-mounted display. Give it a spin.

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Grading Worksheets: Easy as Duck Soup

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

If there’s one thing that teachers consistently ask for, it’s more time. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do all that they are required to do. In this blog entry, I will share Ducksoup, a paperless electronic worksheet (esheet) tool that offers the ability to grade the worksheet, saving you valuable time and energy.

Origins of Duck Soup

Not knowing the origins of “as easy as duck soup,” I looked it up. I thought you might be interested to know a bit more about an expression that became a digital worksheet tool. “Duck soup” is defined as follows:
An easily accomplished task or assignment, a cinch to succeed, as in Fixing this car is going to be duck soup. This expression gained currency as the title of a hilarious popular movie by the Marx Brothers (1933). The original allusion has been lost. [Early 1900s] (source)

Duck, Duck…Soup?

You’re already familiar with tools like Kami and Xodo that make editing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files easy. To this digital plethora of esheet tools, you can now add DuckSoup.

Update to Xodo.com

Did you know that Xodo has been acquired by PDF Online? You can still access the original tool, but don’t be surprised when you go to Xodo.com. You will see a different list of tools. Let’s hope PDF Online keeps Xodo around, since it offers noteworthy features. Of course, you may only need what PDF Online offers, which is significant.

DuckSoup allows you to take any digital document (e.g. PDF, Google Drive doc) and turn it into an easy-to-grade activity. What’s more, Ducksoup promises that your students can “write on it like it’s paper.” If you have dropped a PDF or image into Seesaw’s Activity Center, then you know how easy it is to do there, too.

How It Works

Do you make copies of worksheets, pass them out, then collect and grade them? Ducksoup is for you. Here’s a quick summary of the process you would follow when using it:

When you get your account (available for free), you will first create a class. Second, you will make an esheet for your class. To do that, you can connect your Google Drive account. Any file can work. For fun, I grabbed my old Technology Support Staff Metrics document:

ducksoup

It was a simple matter to add answer blocks to the document, making it easy for my “students” to fill in. Once you create your esheet, you can share it to Google Classroom (see below).

ducksoup

If you’d rather not share the esheet via Google Classroom, you can assign it to a class in Ducksoup. Once assigned, students can complete it and you will get to see statistics on completion. Those statistics include, for example, which students have completed it. You can also see how many points they have earned, as well as their average score. Save an assignment’s grades as a comma-delimited (CSV) file. You can import that CSV into your class gradebook. Other features for managing the esheet are also available, as shown below:

ducksoup

How Much Does It Cost?

Curious about the pricing for Ducksoup? The Free account gets you five free esheets to begin with, then one free esheet a month. You also get website support. Pay $4.99 monthly and you get a lot more features. Yearly payees ($49.99 a year) get even more. See the chart below for details:

ducksoup

Ready to get the DuckPro membership? You can pay with PayPal, MasterCard, VISA, Discover, or American Express.

It’s as Easy as Making Duck Soup

Ducksoup is drop-dead easy to use and inexpensive. It works for educators who needs its features and are hoping to save valuable time. If you have Seesaw, Kami, or one of the other tools, then the grading feature may be the only unique aspect. Try it for free before making a decision to get DuckPro membership at $4.99 a month.

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Converting PDFs/Images to Digital Worksheets

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“I need help! PDFs! Parents are frustrated with how we have kids submit assignments,” says Sammie. She left her PDF lament in a popular Facebook group for Schoology. If there’s a question that reoccurs often in any forum, it’s how do I edit PDFs? How should I be converting PDFs into easy-to-edit documents that students can use? This includes exit tickets, assignments, digital homework, printables, quizzes, and more.

That’s the million-dollar question for educators. They are struggling to convert paper worksheets into digital learning opportunities. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a few ways educators are getting the job done.

Step #1: Digitizing Content with an App

Need to digitize that worksheet? In previous blog entries, we’ve covered some quick tools you can use to digitize content. How do you digitize that paper worksheet in your manila folder? One easy solution is to convert documents to PDF. Use Microsoft’s Office Lens app on iOS and/or Android. You can snap a picture and convert it into a PDF you can put anywhere.

edit easy

Photo Credit: Windows Community

Need another choice? Give my favorite app, Fast Scanner, a try for free,or get the pro version ($4.99). This app makes saving black and white, color, and greyscale images/PDFs to Google Drive easy.

edit easy

Now, remember that there are many websites online that share worksheets in PDF. For example, GreatSchools offers worksheets for all ages. Other sources of worksheets include:

And let’s not forget Seesaw’s Activity Library. With a free Seesaw account, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Activity Library they offer. What’s more, with a SeeSaw Plus or for Schools account, students can edit and annotate those PDFs and turn them in.

Did You Know?

Get up to speed with all that SeeSaw offers via the TCEA SeeSaw Educator self-paced, online course. Learn more online.

Step #2: Converting PDFs to an Easy-to-Edit Document

Making PDFs into an online form boggles the mind. How do you take images and PDFs and then turn them into something students can type on or draw on? And, is it possible to track assignment completion on a PDF or image? The answer is, “Yes, but it depends on the tools you decide to use.” Each of these tools has its own advantages and disadvantages.

You can use a popular PDF to JPG/PNG website (e.g. PDFCandy, PDF2PNG, ILovePDF, SmallPDF.com). Each of these websites makes conversion a breeze. If you need to install a PDF tool on your Windows computer to split PDFs, get PDFsam Basic. It makes splitting, joining, adding, and deleting pages in a PDF easy.

edit easy

But what do you do afterwards? It all depends on what you need students to do and where. Let’s explore what’s available.

Step #3: Convert PDF/Image into Learning Activity

Let’s take a quick look at the tools available, from free to more expensive:

My favorite tool is the one that does the most and costs the least. For web-based users, free Google Slides/Microsoft PowerPoint, or OneNote work great. Need scoring? You will need a tool like TeacherMade.

How To: Google Slides/PowerPoint/OneNote

Import a PDF into Google Slides and/or PowerPoint. Set it as the background, then add text boxes on top. Assign it to students to complete. OneNote users also have it easy.

Other tools, although they offer a trial or lite version, like Wizer.me ($35.99 a year) and KAMI ($99 year), cost money. My least favorite tool is the PDF tool built into Canvas because it is quite limited. Erin Hartman does a great job exploring it in this blog entry, “Edit PDFs in Canvas Assignments.”

edit easy

Note: Only a portion of the chart is shown.

The above comparison chart may assist you in deciding which is the right tool for you. I’ve made the chart easy to edit if it needs correction or additions. What do you think will be your go-to tools?

New Tool Spotlight: TeacherMade

Since I hadn’t seen Teacher Made before, I thought I’d do a quick walkthrough. I was able to create my free account with my G Suite EDU login credentials. Two seconds later, I was working on creating my single page worksheet. (Of course, TeacherMade supports PDFs up to 12 pages long). Since I didn’t have one handy, I saved one from the Great Schools website mentioned earlier.

edit easy

For fun, I decided to turn this into a matching activity rather than a circle one. I inserted color blocks to cover the words and turned the line border to transparent. Then I set up matching pairs, drawing boxes and then linking the two matching items. It was easy. Finally, I revised the instructions.

edit easy

You can see a worksheet preview here:

Once you have customized the worksheet for students, you can assign it to them, as you can see below:

edit easy

Start your journey of TeacherMade.com discovery with Kimberly Jacquay’s video series:

Lean into TeacherMade with these two follow-up videos:

And don’t forget that TeacherMade is free.

Now You Know

Get started soon transforming paper worksheets into digital learning opportunities. Use tools like PDFCandy to convert anything into a PDF or JPG/PNG. Or, get a PDF worksheet from a free online source. Then, make it interactive and scorable with an available tool.

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