Safety & Security
Updates
- Google Classroom Has a BIG New Feature + All Feb. EDU Updates (Video)
- The One Gemini Feature You Can't Use in School + All March EDU Updates (Video)
- Google Classroom: Educators Can Get Help Drafting Personalized Guidance on Written Assignments
- NotebookLM: New Ways to Customize and Interact With Your Content
- Google Vids: New Cartoon Avatars
- Google Vids: Expanded Video Length
Tips & Tutorials
- Here Are 5 Ways You Can Teach Cybersecurity
- Record Audio and Video Directly in Google Classroom!
- 10 Smart Ways Elementary Teachers Can Use AI to Save Time and Inspire Creativity
- NotebookLM for Schools: Your Grounded Google AI Super Tool (Video)
- PBS Learning Media Resources for Teachers
- Take a Brain Break and Wander the World
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Half of All Cyberattacks Start in Your Browser
Half of All Cyberattacks Start in Your Browser, vrom ZDNet by Charlie Osborne
New research finds that 48% of cyberattacks involve your web browser - and AI is only making matters worse. Follow these best practices to protect yourself.
Scammer Got Your Email? Here's What to Do Immediately
Scammer Got Your Email? Here's What to Do Immediately, from PC Magazine by Kim Key
Two scenarios: A scammer has access to your email account and password, or someone does not actually have access to your email account but is pretending to be you. Find out what to do in each case.
Ordering a New Phone? Watch Out for This Convincing Scam That Hits Immediately After
Ordering a New Phone? Watch Out for This Convincing Scam That Hits Immediately After, from ZDNet by Lance Whitney
This one is pretty creepy. It's also telling that Spectrum and Xfinity declined to answer how scammer immediately notified about a new phone purchase - including the user's name and phone purchased. If you're buying a new phone anytime soon, please be aware of this scam.
How to Clean Up Your Digital Footprint - and Why It Matters More Than You Think
How to Clean Up Your Digital Footprint - and Why It Matters More Than You Think, from ZDNet by Erin Carson
What will someone find if they Google you? Will there be an old, embarrassing social media post that surfaces?
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Google Classroom has a BIG new feature (Feb. EDU Updates)
Reminder: ASA uses the Teaching & Learning upgrade for Teachers and Admins.
The One Gemini Feature You Can't Use in School + All March EDU Updates
Google Classroom: Educators Can Get Help Drafting Personalized Guidance on Written Assignments
With this update, teachers can get AI suggested feedback on written assignments in Google Classroom. When giving feedback in private comments on assignments in Google Classroom, educators can select “Help me write” to have Gemini suggest written feedback for the assignment. Teachers can then review, edit, and refine before sharing with students, ensuring teachers remain in control of the guidance provided while reducing the time spent on writing manual feedback. Learn how to give feedback on assignments here. You should already be seeing this update.
NotebookLM: New Ways to Customize and Interact With Your Content
There are several improvements to the content you can create with your data in NotebookLM:
- Slide Revisions: This is a very welcome update, and I hope it comes to video overviews soon! can now make slide-by-slide revisions, ask for changes or fix any issues, and submit stylistic or factual feedback for each slide. Available to users over 18.
- Cinematic Video Overviews: Cinematic Video Overviews are immersive, deep-dive videos with fluid animations and rich, detailed visuals to help you learn and engage with the topics you care about. Available to users over 18.
- New Infographic Syles: Users can now manually choose from ten new predefined infographic styles to visually summarize their sources. By default, NotebookLM will continue to auto-select the best style for your sources.
- Improved Flashcards & Quizzes: Progress is now saved and loaded across sessions when using Flashcards and Quizzes in NotebookLM. Users can also now mark flashcards as "Got it" or "Missed it," shuffle the deck, and use a new results screen to rerun any cards they missed. Additionally, specific flashcards or quiz questions can now be deleted.
In addition to these improvements to the content you can create, You can also now upload EPUB files as sources. In addition you can export your created slide decks as PPTX files, in addition to PDF files. We should be seeing these improvements now. Here is the full update, where you can view instructional videos and GIFs.
Google Vids: Expanded Video Length
If you've use the video creator in Canva, Google Vids works the same way, with the added advantage of integrating with all your Google Workspace for Education apps and tools. Previously Vids were limited to 10 minutes in length. With this update, video length has been expanded to 30 minutes. Recordings now have the same expanded length, and imported video and audio clips can be up to 95 minutes in length, or 4GB in size. You should already be seeing this update. You can find the full update description here.
Google Vids: New Cartoon Avatars
In addition to the photo realistic avatars available in Google Vids, there are now also 2D and 3D cartoon avatars available. This will make the speaker in your video a little more "kid-friendly". You should already be seeing this update. Learn how to use AI avatars in Google Vids here.
Here Are 5 Ways You Can Teach Cybersecurity
Here Are 5 Ways You Can Teach Cybersecurity, from PC Magazine by Kim Key
This article claims most kids don't learn cybersecurity in school - do you agree? If you are teaching your students good cybersecurity habits as well as digital citizenship, feel free to share this article with your parents to help them reinforce those habits at home.
>Record Audio and Video Directly in Google Classroom!
Record audio and video directly in Google Classroom!, from Chromebook Classroom by John Sowash
This is a helpful idea for student feedback, sub plans and more.
>10 Smart Ways Elementary Teachers Can Use AI to Save Time and Inspire Creativity
10 Smart Ways Elementary Teachers Can Use AI to Save Time and Inspire Creativity, from Chromebook Classroom by John Sowash
To clarify, these are ways to make YOUR job easier, not ways you can use AI with students. The list includes tips like changing the grade level of any reading passage, building kid-friendly rubrics, design an active learning lesson, designing custom decodable stories, or writing your classroom newsletter.
NotebookLM for Schools: Your Grounded Google AI Super Tool
If you have not yet embraced the wonderful world of NotebookLM as your teaching assistant, you are truly missing out on a HUGE time saving tool. Give yourself the gift of time to learn this tool, I promise you'll thank me later. It's so useful for understanding a lot of information quickly, using it as an ongoing resource where you can ask questions about a long document, such as a handbook, as well as creating useful resources from that information. This video is an hour and a half in duration, but will cover EVERYTHING NotebookLM can do for you.
PBS Learning Media Resources for Teachers
Are you familiar with PBS Learning Media? This is the educational portion of PBS designed specifically for teachers. There are so many free online resources for teaching and learning. Sign up for free and check it out.
Take a Brain Break and Wander the World
Take a calming brain break, spark curiosity, or prompt conversation with Citywalki. Tour over 200 cities by walking, car or flying. After opening the site and selecting a city, you'll see a YouTube video of a street level view of of someone walking through the city and taking in all the sights.
