Another random handful of web resources that might be of interest

Unclutter is a free and open-source Chrome and Firefox browser extension that anyone can use to remove the clutter from a web page. That’s not all that Unclutter does. It also lets you save articles to read later, highlight and annotate articles that you save, and Unclutter lets you adjust the size and contrast of the text displayed on your screen. The clutter that Unclutter removes from web pages include all sidebar content as well as all advertisements appearing above, below, and in the body of an article.

Animate from Audio hosted by Adobe Express is a fun little tool that matches your spoken words to an animated character of your choosing. The finished product is a short video that you can download as an MP4 or share on your favorite websites. To create a video with Animate from Audio simply head to the site then select the character that you want to animate. Then record your spoken audio. After recording your audio Adobe Express then matches your audio to movements of your chosen character. The more inflection in your speech, the more movement you’ll see in the character.

Felt is a free multimedia mapping tool which just recently added some new features including new base maps and an updated image overlay feature. The image overlay feature on Felt can be used to overlay historic maps on current maps. You can adjust the transparency of the overlay to easily compare past and present views of roads, buildings, and landmarks. The updated version of Felt lets you use image files as well as PDFs as overlays.Felt makes it easy to add collaborators to your map, set individual permissions, and keep the map private within a team. And for those into maps, MapPuzzle is a simple online geography game based on the premise of political boundaries being the lines in a jigsaw puzzle. You have to drag the countries, states, or provinces into their proper places on the map.

TED-Ed’s Periodic Videos page features an interactive Periodic Table of Elements. Click on any of the elements to launch a video. Below the video you will find a link to the related TED-Ed lesson. Each of the TED-Ed lessons follows the typical format of providing a handful of multiple choice and short answer questions. The lessons also include some links to additional references.

REMC January free PD opportunities

Register for a January REMC course and kick-off 2023 with new tips and tricks for the classroom

Start the new year off with a REMC Course and incorporate new tips and tricks into your classroom. Our professional learning is the best way to beat the winter blues and enhance student engagement and achievement. Our courses offer 10 FREE SCECHs and can be taken from the convenience of your home and when the time is right for you.

Registration deadline is Thursday, January 5th, each course begins on Monday, January 9th. Through the support of REMC SAVE’s vendor partners, all courses are FREE and there are no SCECH fees. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn, connect, collaborate and grow with REMC courses.

Check out January 2023 courses here:

Register by Thursday, January 5th. You will receive a welcome email with the course information prior to the course start date. If you have questions or need further assistance with your course registration, please click here.

Podcasting: From Idea to Implementation workshop to be held March 22

Ready to start your podcasting journey? Looking to expand your podcasting knowledge with current practitioners? Join us on March 22nd for a workshop that will focus on amplifying your voice, as well as your students or colleagues through podcasting.

This workshop is a hands-on experience to equip participants with knowledge, skills, and time to begin developing and creating a podcast. Held at the Gratiot-Isabella RESD, teams and individuals are welcome to attend. For those who can’t travel to the in-person session, a virtual option will be offered. The workshop is FREE and will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those attending will earn 6 SCECHs. Click here to register.

In addition to this upcoming workshop, REMC has developed Podcasting for Educators classroom resources. These resources were designed for anyone – from those who have podcasting experience to those who are new to the game. Podcasting is a great way to increase engagement with both students and other educators. These resources help answer common questions and how-to’s and were designed with classroom teachers, students, administrators and support staff in mind. Check out our FREE resources and start your podcasting journey today!

Rubicon Atlas Updates including Google Calendar integration

Rubicon Atlas’ product team have been focusing on improving the Atlas experience for teachers and some recent updates include:

Calendar improvements across both units and lessons allow teachers to better manage pacing throughout the year with the ability to sync your Atlas calendar with your Google Calendar for streamlined planning. (see more on this below)
Editing lessons while viewing units simultaneously improves workflow and simplifies the planning process.
A brand new Atlas Dashboard to set the stage for a productive start to 2023.
To learn more about these and other updates, browse to What’s New in Atlas

VIEW and ACCESS your Atlas courses, units and lessons all within your Google Calendar! To learn more about the Google Calendar Integration and how to set it up, click here.

To login to Rubicon Atlas, browse to HERE

Closing Down Technology For Break!

Happy holidays all!

For those of you about to begin a well deserved two week winter break, which we hope will be all you hope for and a bit more, on THURSDAY before you leave (and possibly, if need be, again on Friday)….

WOULD YOU PLEASE SECURE ALL VALUABLES in the classrooms and office spaces you inhabit. This includes laptops, document cameras, Apple TVs, remotes, and interactive pens.

Further, would you please make sure all iPads and ChromeBooks are in their carts and those CARTS ARE LOCKED and plugged in before leaving.

Finally, would you please also POWER OFF any of the following equipment, if it is equipment you handle:

projectors
sound amps
SmartBoards
desktop computers
monitors
printers

THANK YOU for your cooperation.

Grammarly Extension Will No Longer Be Force Installed Starting January 16, 2023

Grammarly is a Chrome browser extension that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes in English texts. It detects plagiarism and suggests replacements for the identified errors. It also allows users to customize their style, tone, and context-specific language.

The Grammarly Chrome extension has been force installed on student Google accounts for the past several years, however, it recently started creating an issue with the built-in spell check feature in Google Docs. Its interference with Google’s native spell checker means that when students or staff are using Google Docs and words are misspelled, these mispellings aren’t identified with a red underline. While Google’s spell checker can still be used, the lack of underlining requires you to launch it by depressing Ctrl+Alt+X and using the arrow keys to cycle through words of concern.

To address this issue, the district will no longer force install the Grammarly Chrome extension on student accounts starting Monday, January 16, 2023. (Staff will not be impacted by this change since the Grammarly extension is not force installed on their accounts.) Unfortunately, when Chrome extensions are no longer force installed, they are automatically removed from the impacted accounts. If students would still like to use the Grammarly extension after it is removed, they must manually install it from the Chrome Webstore. Below is a direct link to where the Grammarly extension can be installed.

Grammarly Chrome Extension from Chrome Webstore

After the extension has been reinstalled, users will be able to use it as they have in the past, but also will be able to disable it when desired, such as when using Google Docs.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the technology department by submitting a service ticket.

Some sources for Video Clips Accessible in district

Many teachers like to use video clips to help engage students with their content.

Below are some websites built for teachers that offer usable classroom clips.

Classhook: Search for clips from popular movies and TV shows by grade level and clip length. Or browse by subject to find something to fit your needs. Their free plan includes up to 20 ad-free clips per month with an embedded question as well as access to discussion starter templates.

The Kids Should See This: Self-described as “smart videos for curious minds of all ages.”

The Literacy Shed: This site has video clips and lesson ideas, including many of the Disney shorts.

Of course, don’t forget the district-provided video content resources like BrainPOP (accessed via Clever) and EdPuzzle (6-12).

Finally, on the TED-Ed lessons website you can sort TED-Ed lessons by grade level by going to the TED-Ed lessons page then looking about half-way down the page on the right-hand side to find “filter by” and “sort by” settings. In the “filter by” drop-down menu you can choose elementary school, middle school, high school, or university. You can combine grade level sorting with sorting to find the oldest, newest, most watched, and least watched TED-Ed lessons.

See also this post from last spring for more online resources offering video clips.

Highlights from the December Google for Education newsletter

Check out Google for Edu’s latest monthly newsletter HERE. Some highlights are noted below.

Introducing the Future of Education
What might the future of education look like? Check out Future of Education, our new global research report featuring insights from 94 education experts across 24 countries, conducted in partnership with Canvas8 and advised by American Institutes for Research.

Safer Internet Day Grants from ConnectSafely
Our partners at ConnectSafely are offering grants to help teachers purchase supplies or resources for student programs and activities for Safer Internet Day. Applications are due on December 31, 2022, so be sure to apply today!

Choose Your Own Adventure with Applied Digital Skills
Our most popular Applied Digital Skills lesson just got an update!: In Write an If-Then Adventure Story, students can collaborate with each other to create an interactive story using Google Slides. Check it out today.

Arts & Culture: Ukraine is Here
Explore the arts and culture of Ukraine, from architecture to traditional crafts and food. Discover music, art, design, heritage and nature conservation through stories, videos, virtual tours, and 3D models to understand the history and creativity of the Ukranian people.

Arts & Culture: La Baguette
Discover the “staff of life” in France and around the world, the French bread stick, la baguette. Explore the science, the history, what makes a good loaf, regional bread, the language, a fun game, career ideas or bake your own loaf.

New Google Sheets Tutorial for Beginners
We recently published a new video covering How to use Google Sheets for Beginners. This video covers basic functionality all the way up through VLOOKUP and pivot tables – check it out on YouTube!

Looking for past issues of the Google for Education newsletter? Find them below, and sign up to hear from Google for Education.

Ditch Summit’s Free Online PD now available through January 6

As mentioned in one of our last month’s blog posts, the Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit hosted by Matt Miller promises valuable knowledge from top innovators AND tips you can implement immediately. All videos — more than 80 — will be available in December and early January. Like any other conference, when it’s over, it’s over and the videos will disappear. Speaker videos last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. They’re practical and inspirational, from hand-picked education leaders. Each video is accompanied by a PDF notes page summarizing the message. Download the notes, share, and keep them as long as you want.

Canvas Update – Unsplash images

Canvas Instructure recently shared in their Community Blog Post, that the Unsplash images integration has been removed from all instances of Canvas. This integration was previously available in the Rich Content Editor (RCE) to add images. According to Unsplash, any images previously embedded within Canvas courses will remain intact with no broken links.

If you wish to continue using Unsplash, you can access those images simply by searching the free repository directly at www.unsplash.com. and download the images to your device to either upload or drag/drop into the RCE. You will, of course, still be able to upload images from the computer in Canvas within the RCE in place of Unsplash.

ChatGPT: AI technology specializes in dialogue and generates original responses to questions in moments

ChatGPT by OpenAI (link blocked on our network) was recently released and has taken social media by storm. ChatGPT is a technology that is powered by AI (Artificial Intelligence).

What is unique about this technology is the AI can answer a multitude of questions with original responses that cannot be checked by modern plagiarism checkers. The writing is so advanced that these platforms (such as Google’s Originality Reports and Turnitin) see it as original work. There are springing up detectors such as this one that can be used to analyze and rate on a scale how likely a block of text was AI-generated, but they are far from 100% accurate.

See for example this article and look at the example below gathered from this article: https://www.springboard.com/blog/news/chatgpt-revolution/

Technology disrupting the education field is nothing new. When the PhotoMath app – Video, came out a couple of years ago, it too made an impact. The fact that a student could simply take a picture of a math problem and the app could not only give an immediate answer, but then show the steps it takes to solve the problem, caused consternation.

Below are some tips and tricks that we recommend to teachers to help address possible concerns with usage:

Utilize a blended learning/flipped model: Canvas can offer a multitude of options and solutions. Upload lessons, screencasts, teachings, using the Canvas platform, and have students view these outside of school. So, then when you are meeting in person, they can write during class time, complete math work, have meaningful discussion about what was learned.
Google Assignments: In Canvas, teachers can assign work with Google Assignments. Which allows the teacher to share a template/file with the student. In doing so, the teacher has immediate access through Google Drive to that assignment. So the teacher can “check-in” on the assignment throughout the writing process. Here is a previous blog post put out by the TIS team. https://tech.pccsk12.com/google-assignments-1-3-a-closer-look/
Version History in Google Docs/Sheets/Slides: With google docs auto saving technology, the docs are saved every 3 seconds. Because of this the version history of docs can be extremely helpful. If a large portion of the writing appears, more than likely this was block copied. For help with version history click here: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9308971?hl=en You may also want to use the Google docs’ extension Revision History to playback the composing of a document so you can see the timing as well.
AI detector software: AI detectors are not reliable. Even as they advance, research shows that a few small changes made by a user will make allow it to pass through AI detection. Instead you might direct students to Proof of Positive Authorship.
Frame different questions, in some cases seeking subjective responses (so for example, “explain your opinion on ___ with evidence that informed your opinion”).
NEWLY ADDED RESOURCES to further explore AI
1. check out CommonSense’s posting on ChatGPT at https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/guide-to-chatgpt-for-parents-and-caregivers
2. check out the AI Education Project at https://www.aiedu.org/

While the district has blocked ChatGPT on its network (due to terms of service issues as well as for security and academic concerns), this tool still can be accessed at home or on cell phones by students.

We hope that the ideas above help you and support you with understanding and leveraging this new technology and how to continue to support your students when new technology appears.

As always, reach out to curriculum and instruction team for additional ideas and best instructional practices for the classroom. Also, reach out to a member of the TIS team for additional ideas and support around educational technology, and how to utilize technology in the classroom.

LATEST TOS have now been updated to allow for service use by those between 13 and 18, but parental/guardian permission is still required: