Friday, May 24, 2024

Tech Tips and News for May 24, 2024

Summer is Calling
Image created by ImageFX
I hope the long weekend allows you a little respite and taste of summer, which is only two weeks away. This issue includes the last in the Find Your AI Teaching Assistant series. You may not have found time to read through all the suggested tools, or tried any of them out. I hope once you've taken a bit of a break after school is out, you'll find the time to look at them and see how they may help you. There are some exciting time savers for teachers in there! The teachers at MACUL who were already using some of them just raved about so many of them, especially Brisk and SchoolAI. You'll also want to consider Googling some of the AI tools your students have found to save time with their homework. I guarantee many of your students are already using AI to some degree, so it's important to familiarize yourself with it in general and know what to look for in their work. 

News

Updates

Tips and Tutorials


Khanmigo is Now FREE for Teachers

In last week's Find Your AI Assistant series featuring tutoring tools, Khanmigo was listed as the only AI product that wasn't free. Well guess what? Khanmigo is now free for teachers. Here's a blog post and video tutorial by Eric Curts at Control Alt Achieve to refresh your memory on the ways it can create instructional content, assessing student needs, and more. To get started, open the Khanmigo Teacher Tools page and sign up as a teacher. 

6 Ways to Prepare Students for an AI Future

6 Ways to Prepare Students for an AI Future, From Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller
If our job as educators is to prepare students for their life as adults, then we definitely need to consider how AI will change their future. 

Google Drive:  New Hovercard Allows File Preview

Instead of opening a file to see what it is, or right clicking and choosing Open with preview, you'll be able to hover over the file and a preview thumbnail will pop up. You will be seeing this feature by the end of May or early June. Full details can be found here. 

Find Your AI Teaching Assistant Series:  Let AI Produce Differentiated Materials For Your Students

When you need to create content materials at either a lower or higher grade level, break projects down into smaller tasks, orgaize those tasks, judge or adjust the tone of text, translate text, detecting plagiarism, and so much more. let AI do the heavy lifting for you. Here are several tools that will assist:

Diffit

  • Get leveled resources from an article, PDF, video, text passage, topic, term, or question.
  • Choose the reading level and language.
  • Adjust the length of the new passage as short, medium, long, or original length.
  • Generate a summary, key vocabulary words, multiple choice questions, short answer questions, and open-ended prompts.
  • Translate generated content into any language.
  • Print, copy, or export any of the content as a Google Doc or Google Form
  • Free versus paid options - Resource link

Goblin Tools

  • Goblin Tools is a collection of small, simple, single-task AI tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult.
  • Magic To Do - Break large tasks down into smaller steps
  • Formalizer - Rewrite text in a variety of different tones
  • The Judge - Evaluate the tone of a passage of text
  • Estimator - Determine how long a task is going to take
  • And more!
  • All tools are free

Brisk

  • Free Chrome extension
  • Identify the reading level of articles and documents
  • Change reading level and language of articles and documents
  • Detect AI writing in documents
  • Generate a resource, exemplar, quiz, lesson plan, etc.
  • Generate feedback on writing
  • Video demo - Resource link
This is the last in a series of ways teachers can work smarter by use AI as a teaching assistant. All of the tools in this series were from the AI Tools for Teachers session I attended at the MACUL conference last March, presented by Eric Curts of Control Alt Achieve. Previous articles included Multi-Tasking Tools That Take the Guesswork Out of Prompts, Communication Tools to Use With Students, Save Time With Assessment Tools, Train Your TA to Grade For You, and Tutoring Tools.

After I Learned This Easy Email Trick, the Clutter Vanished From My Inbox

Learn the magic of creating an alias email account. It's easy and the instructions are included in this article.

The Gmail Survival Guide for Busy Teachers (or anyone who is busy!)

There are about 20 suggestions for using Gmail more efficiently and saving yourself a ton of time. 

End the School Year With Epic Review Olympics (free templates!)

Catch Olympic fever while reviewing with your students. This might even be a good way to start the school year to find out how much they remember. 

How False News Can Spread (video)

Here's a short Ted-Ed talk explaining how false news can spread so easily and quickly. Feel free to add it to your Digital Citizenship toolbox.


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Friday, May 17, 2024

Tech Tips and News for May 17, 2024

It's mid-May, we're so close ...and yet so far from the end of the school year. The kids are wired and teachers are exhausted trying to cram the last bit of content in before 2023-2024 reaches the finish line. On one hand you may be counting the days until June 6th, but on the other the dwindling number of days is stressing you out because there's so much still to be done. There's very little left in everyone's tank at this point. This week I've included some ways to take some of the stress off. I realize wellness really has very little connection to technology - unless it's unplugging from technology, or finding simple ways to make technology save time for us. I wanted all of you to know I see your dedication and fatigue as we near the end of the school year. If there's anything I can do to take away any tech-related frustration, or help you find an easier way to do something, please let me know. As the school year gets busier and busier in its wind-down, it's important for all of us to make time for self-care. It feels like an endurance contest, but we can do this with a little TLC!

Updates

Tips and Tutorials




Google Drive:  Find Files With Updated Keyboard Shortcuts and By Entering First Letters


Very soon it will be easier to find your files in Google Drive. When you see a list of files in Drive, you'll be able to find the one your looking for by typing in the first letter(s) of the file and it will highlight the first matching file in the list. If there is more than one file starting with the same letter, pressing the same letter again will move to the next file alphabetically. To turn this feature on, select it when the banner notification appears, or go to Drive > Settings > Keyboard shortcuts > Update now.  By August 1, 2024, this feature will be turned on for everyone. You can find more information on using keyboard shortcuts here. 

Google Sheets:  Quickly Create & Format a Table

Simply highlight your data range, select Format > Convert to Table, and Sheets will do the work to organize and format your data into a nice looking table, including column types, filters, color coding, dropdown menus and more. You'll save lots of time not needing to align your columns, color code, adjusting row height, etc. You can set the column type (date, currency, dropdown, etc.) Above the table you'll see a menu option to manage the table settings. When you convert the table in Sheets, it will assign a name to the table and each column header that you'll be able to refer to in formulas. You will also be able to easily group your data in the table. There are also pre-built tables for tasks like project management, inventory management, event planning, etc. Learn more about using tables in Sheets here. The details for this update can be found in this Keyword post. We should see this update in late May or early June.

Google Sheets:  Easily Make Drop Down Lists From the Data You've Entered

With this update you'll be able to select the data in a column and quickly create a drop down list for the fields in the column. Highlight the data in the column, select Convert to Dropdown Chips. To insert dropdown chips on your own, enter @dropdown in the field. This feature should be available by the end of May/beginning of June. You can learn more about inserting smart chips in Google Sheets here.

Google Sheets:  What's the New Looker Studio Option? 

If you use extensions frequently in Google Sheets, you'll have noticed a Looker Studio (new) option in the Extensions menu. You can now create reports and dashboards for your data using Looker Studio from within Google Sheets. This will allow you to easily share and analyze the data in your sheet. The Looker Studio report remains connected to your sheet, and can be refreshed to reflect any updates to your data. Here's how you can create a Looker Studio report within any Google Sheet.


Don't Let Your Phone Bully You, 4 Ways to Stop the Interruptions

The very first thing I do when I add an app, or get a new phone is turn off nearly all notifications. Group texts? Mute them. The constant interruptions drive me crazy. The emails, texts and social media posts will still be there when you have time to deal with them. 

Find Your AI Teaching Assistant Series: AI Can Help You Tutor Your Students

Isn't there always a student or two who just doesn't grasp the concept you are trying to teach? Give them some interactive review or a deeper dive into a topic with these tutoring tools. Unfortunately at this time, subject and age options for tutoring tools is a little more limited than some of the other AI tools, but as with all things AI, more will be coming. Both Sorcerer and CK-12 Flexi are free, but Khanmigo is a paid service. I included it so teachers can evaluate it to see if it might be a worthwhile subscription for the school. 

Sorcerer

  • Sorcerer is an AI-powered tool that asks you questions about topics to see what you know and help you learn more.
  • Start by putting in a topic that you are learning about.
  • Sorcerer then asks questions to determine your knowledge and understanding.
  • Sorcerer provides help along the way if you get stuck or do not know the answers.
  • Sorcerer can be set to five levels of difficulty including middle school, high school, undergraduate, masters, and PhD.
  • Demo Sorcerer - https://antimatter.systems/sorcerer/control-alt-achieve 

CK-12 Flexi

  • Flexi is a free AI-powered digital tutor for students from CK-12 for MS and HS science and math.
  • Provides immediate feedback to help students learn complex topics with real world applications.
  • Answers students’ questions and provides interactive examples to help them understand the underlying concepts.
  • Tests students’ knowledge of a concept by giving them relevant questions at their skill level.
  • Supports students with the right amount of help via hints, content recommendations, and reinforcement of foundational concepts.

Khanmigo

  • Khan Academy's AI powered chatbot that is designed to help students without giving the answers. Activities include:
    • Tutor Me - Math, Science, Humanities
    • Refresh - Practice my knowledge
    • Write - Craft a story, Brainstorm an admissions essay
    • Debate - Elementary, middle school, or high school topics
    • Chat - Literary characters, historical figures
    • More!
This is the fifth in a series of ways teachers can work smarter by use AI as a teaching assistant. Previous articles included Multi-Tasking Tools That Take the Guesswork Out of Prompts, Communication Tools to Use With Students, Save Time With Assessment Tools, and  Train Your TA to Grade For You. Coming soon...AI differentiation tools.

Generative AI for Educators

Google has created a course for teachers to learn about generative AI, which is the type of AI that creates new content, such as text, images, or other media. The course is designed to help you explore how to use generative AI tools to assist you by saving time on everyday tasks, personalizing instruction, and enhancinig lessons and activities. The estimated time to complete the course is 2 hours. Get started here. 

Email Writing for Students

Email Writing for Students, from TCEA by Lori Gracey
This is a terrific guideline for teaching students how to properly use email. 

Radical Wellness: The Self-Care Nobody Is Talking About

Radical Wellness: The Self-Care Nobody Is Talking About, from Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller with Guest Post by Kim Strobel
Nourish your emotional well-being.

Practicing Self-Care: 5 Tips for Teachers

Practicing Self-Care: 5 Tips for Teachers, From Understood by Brittney Newcomer, MS, NCSP
Feeling overwhelmed with no time for self-care? Here is how other teachers do it. 

20 Ways Google Tools Can Make the End of the School Year Rock

20 Ways Google Tools Can Make the End of the School Year Rock, from Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller
20 end of the year activities you can do with your students using Google Workspace. 

100+ Best Teacher Influencers To Follow on Instagram

100+ Best Teacher Influencers To Follow on Instagram, from We Are Teachers by Malia Bartek
Looking for some inspiration, comedy relief, or just other teachers to commiserate with? These suggestions are broken down by grade level and specialty.
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Friday, May 10, 2024

Tech Tips and News for May 10, 2024

Image generated by ImageFX
You may be getting tired of hearing about AI this and AI that, but honestly it's such a huge technology transformation that it dominates all my news feeds. If you've been around awhile (like me) you'll remember other major milestones in technology, such as the personal computer, graphic user interface (like Macintosh and Windows as opposed to entering prompts into DOS), the Internet and Web 2.0, the smartphone and tablets, and WiFi. Remember when we had to learn how to use email? Or when Wikis were all the rage? Those little video time capsules definitely illustrate how far we've come. Each of these new technologies revolutionized the way we process, absorb, and generate information, as well as how we interact with people and business. AI is the next step of that evolution. It's not going away. It's going to infiltrate everything we do online. Already we encounter an AI chatbot whenever we contact customer service or support for pretty much any company. Now it's time for us to familiarize ourselves with it leverage AI it to our advantage. If you don't know where to begin, check out the ABCs of AI webinar link below. All of this being said, I was able to find a few articles this week that didn't revolve around AI this week for those of you who just can't hear AI one more time right now. 😉

Safety & Security

Tips and Tutorials



10 Security Tips Your IT Department Wishes You'd Follow

While some of these may be tips you've heard before, there are really good explanations with them. 

The Rise of AI Is Creating a Rise in Scams on Social Media

Social media scams are getting smarter with AI. Here's how to stay safe from these six types of scams.

Over 850,000 people hit with online shopping scam that steals credit cards — how to stay safe

Don't become one of the over 850k people who's credit card info gets stolen from a sketchy shopping site. Read through to find out how to safely shop online. 


Find Your AI Teaching Assistant Series:  Train Your TA to Grade For You

Have you ever wished someone could help you grade student work? That time has come! And these products are free for teachers! Class Companion will give your student writing feedback in real time. Enlighten AI will learn how you grade student work and provide you with student feedback you can edit as needed. Snorkl will help students develop thinking and reasoning skills with real-time feedback, then provide you with their progress. This list has been curated by Eric Curts, Control Alt Achieve, from his The AI Toolbox: Best AI Tools for Schools session at MACUL last month.

Class Companion

  • Class Companion is a free AI tool for instant, personalized feedback on written assignments. In short:
  • You create a written assignment from scratch, imported, from the library, or AI generated.
  • Students then write their response, including short answer, essay, or outline.
  • The AI assesses the student writing based on the rubric and instructions you provided.
  • The AI gives detailed personalized feedback to the student on their writing.
  • If allowed, the student then rewrites their response to improve it.
  • As needed, the students can ask the AI questions for clarification and assistance.

EnlightenAI

  • EnlightenAI is an AI-powered tool to grade written student work based off of your style and guidance.
  • Create an assignment or import submissions from Google.
  • Grade a few student submissions to train the AI.
  • Review and edit AI generated feedback, modeled after yours.

Snorkl

  • With Snorkl, students record and share their reasoning then receive instant AI-powered feedback to drive deep and meaningful learning.
  • Develop thinking and reasoning skills by giving students the tools to record their voice and visually represent their thinking on a simple whiteboard.
  • Students receive on-the-spot insights into their thinking and problem solving–which teachers can effortlessly review, edit, and expand.
  • Use AI scoring to comprehensively monitor class progress, skim through videos for insights, and gain an in-depth understanding of each student's thinking.
  • Snorkl Examples - student.snorkl.app/i1xdfc
This is the fourth in a series of ways teachers can work smarter by using AI as a teaching assistant. Previous articles included Multi-Tasking Tools That Take the Guesswork Out of Prompts, Communication Tools to Use With Students, and Save Time With Assessment Tools. Coming soon...AI tutoring tools, and AI differentiation tools.

The ABCs of AI - Recorded Webinar

The ABCs of AI - Recorded Webinar, from Control Alt Achieve by Eric Curts
If you're overloaded with AI information, and don't know where to begin with it, here's a good start.

One AI Tool I'm Actually Excited to Use in My Classroom (Video)


End of the Year THRIVE-al (Not Survival) Guide

End of the Year THRIVE-al (Not Survival) Guide, from Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller
Here's a handy toolbox full of resources for several end of the schoolyear scenarios. Keep in mind that some of these sites may be blocked for our students due to their age. You may want to login as a student and test them. 

A Fun Geography Game Full of Cats



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