Curipod new feature! Option to present your slides for students to view on their devices.

 Curipod's new feature allows students to view your slides on their own devices. This is a great feature as students can now read exactly what is on your slide easily (in the past this could be difficult for students in the back of the room as well as many additional reasons). Of course, you toggle this feature off by choosing the freeze button (see below). Also, students can scroll back through the previous slides already presented by the teacher on their device.

If the freeze is not on students will see what you see below (notice on the left the Focus and Slides). Note that below is when the Focus is on.

Below is when the student choose Slides when a questions (Poll) is being presented.

When Focus is chosen when a question/poll is presented see below.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 57 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to create your own Connections-style game to share with your class or with friends!

 Yesterday I shared the popular Connections game from the NY Times. If you click here, it will take you to a site that allows you to create and share your own Connections-style game with your students.

Connections - Group words that share a common thread.

 While many of us have enjoyed playing Connections (where you group words that share a common thread). This is something for you, depending on the grade level you teach, to share with your students. Or, it is one to work on together as a class. 

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 34 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Have a worksheet created for you in mere seconds directly from a prompt or a document you upload using MagicSchool.

 MagicSchool  has a new tool that allows you to instantly create and save a worksheet from a prompt or a document in seconds.

Simply enter into the site and enter in your prompt, or upload a document, and you will have a worksheet created for you. Of course you can edit as well as copy and save the resource.

 

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 54 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Create custom vocabulary puzzles for friends using word.rodeo Create anywhere from 3-15 letters in this Wordle-style site.

 Word.rodeo is an easy to use Wordle-style site to create vocabulary puzzle for friends/students.

To get started enter into the site and enter your word (anywhere between 3 and 15 letters). You can see the embedded image below.

Once your word is chosen and you create your puzzle you will see the options to share (see below).

Once shared the site for students looks like below.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 41 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

In Outlook's app how to remove the Teams Meeting invite for in-person meetings.

 If you use Microsoft Outlook's app for calendar invites, you know the default includes Teams invitations to online meetings. If you would like to change that, simply enter into the app and follow the following steps:

• select Inbox in the upper left

• Choose the settings gear in the bottom left

• Select calendar

• Select online meetings

• Toggle off Make every meeting online

Embedded below is a 36 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Twin Pics. Have an AI image presented to you and try your best to match the description in under 100 characters. The closer you get, the higher your score.

 Twin Pics is a site that provides you with an AI generated image and your (or your student's) goal is to match the description in under 100 characters. Once submitted you will then be presented with a % "score" from the website.

This would be amazing for students to work on their descriptive writing as well as being succinct in their writing. My 6th grade English teacher Mr. Basore would be a happy man - he loved students being succinct and to the point with their writing.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 13 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Try Driving in the Dark. New Dark Mode coming to a Google Drive near you

If you have not seen it already, you will soon - New Dark Mode in Google Drive. You will see a popup when you open Drive (see image below). By default Light is enabled, but you can move it to Dark and then enable it. If you are not sure if you want to enable Dark mode quite yet, below the image you will see a 1 minute and 30 second video on how you can enable this later on ( as well as a few additional tips).

Take care,

Brad

Create personalized educational and interactive lessons/games revolving around the topic of your choice (students can make them as well)!

 Tiny Tap offers over 250,000 learning games for students. As you can see in the image below you can start playing and creating right away. You do not need to create an account to start creating (you just can not edit the game). We will look into Trying TinyTap Ai.

You (or a student) can type in a topic and create the lesson. Typically, the lesson is created in under 20 seconds; however, one lesson I created took 1 minute.

To see this in action, take a look at the embedded 1 minute and 56 second YouTube tutorial below.

Take care,

Brad

School AI - you can now export documents to Google Docs!

 School AI has some really helpful and amazing tools (see image below).

Once you have your creation you can now export it to Google Docs (in the upper right of the screen). Below you will see the image to select Google Docs (you will need to allow Google).

You will then see the following pop-up.

Embedded below is a 56 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Extensive compilation of virtual "classrooms" created in Google Slides, each linked to a variety of educational materials!

 Tony Vincent shared the Tweet you see below where he shared Sarah Wood's collection of amazing virtual classrooms available in Google Slides.

Huge collection of "rooms" in Google Slides with hyperlinks to learning resources! Rooms for every month, most holidays, and other occasions. Make a copy of a room and you can customize it. Thanks Sarah Wood! (via Eric Curts)https://t.co/EngI0gTrlx

— Tony Vincent (@tonyvincent) April 15, 2024

The collection of rooms is available by clicking here  as well. Once you select the link you will be taken to a Google Doc (16 pages in all). 

At the top you will see a link to a Symbaloo page as well (see image below).

Each image carries with it a hyperlink to an educational resource. If you want to edit, you can go into the Doc and select the long link and then make a copy for yourself and edit as you see fit.

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 1 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

A graphic design app that helps you create professional quality social media posts, invitations, digital postcards, graphics, and more.

 If you are interested in creating quality graphics in mere moments, make sure to try Microsoft Designer. Please note if you try signing up in the district where I work, you can not currently signup with your district account; however, things could change over this summer. You will see an image like you see below.

However, you can sign up on a personal account. When you log in you will see an image like you see below. If you select an image you will see how you can edit/adjust the prompt (see second image).

You can then generate your image. Make sure to see the different designs and the prompts.

Embedded below is an image I created of a monkey in the 1700s drinking coffee as well as a 2 minute and 6 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

How to create a classroom in Project Read - an AI Co-Teacher for the Science of Reading

 Project Read provides students a way to practice objectives like you see below (there are 108 in all).

Once you create a class and add students for the younger students (older students could type in their own name).  The younger students can then join by typing in the join code and then their name.

Once they join they are asked to read a particular sentence that is working on the objective (see below).

I have found the site to work quite well and when I make a mistake regarding the particular objective, the program asks me to re-read and try again.

To see this in action take a look at the embedded 2 minute and 12 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Check out Google Art and Culture's App to create some fun selfies with art and AI

 Google's Art and Culture App is available in the Google Play Store as well as Apple's App Store .

When you open the app and sign in you will see an image like you see below.

Feel free to select what you would like, but in this tutorial we took a look at the Art Selfie 2 where you can have fun with your selfie, famous art pieces, and some AI.

Below you will see some images that were created when I tried it - made me chuckle!

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 46 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Combine Art, Music, and Artificial Intelligence with Google Arts and Culture's Musical Canvas. Fun and simple to create.

 If you would like to try something that combines art and music, and is well fun, check out Google Arts and Culture's Musical Canvas.

Once you enter the site, make sure to look on the right side for tool options and color options. If you do not see them make sure to either select ctrl - or go to customize Chrome and Zoom to 90%.

You will then be able to start drawing and once your drawing is complete - make sure to select Generate Music. You can see my drawing below.

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 14 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Create your own customizable Character Chatbot where students can chat with any historic figure, author, or recognizable character from a story.

 MagicSchool 's new MagicStudent with customizable tools is an outstanding feature.

SchoolAI has an amazing Historic Figure Chat Bot as well as additional Historic Figures for your students to chat with. While that may be more aesthetically pleasing, MagicSchool's customizeability (word?) makes the session with your students very powerful.

You can see the full list below. In the embedded video below I show how to use the Character Chatbot tool and customize it.

Once you select the tool, you can then hover over it and choose to customize.

What is nice is when you customize it, you can see what the customization looks like on the righthand side. You can also choose the eye next to each category which can hide the field (see image below).

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 16 second YouTube tutorial in which I show how this can be used so students can have an interactive chat with Stanley from the book Holes. This is amazing for students to interact with a character from a book and or history.

How students will receive feedback from a rubric of your choice using Magic School. You can now customize the tools for students!

An amazing feature built into Magic School / Magic Student is the ability to create a room with the specific tool (or tools) for your students and then be able to customize them. You can see the full list below. In the embedded video below I show how to use the writing feedback tool and customize it.

Once you select the tool, you can then hover over it and choose to customize.

What is nice is when you customize it, you can see what the customization looks like on the righthand side. You can also choose the eye next to each category which can hide the field (see image below).

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 19 second YouTube tutorial in which I show how this can be used so students receive instant feedback on writing examples. This is amazing for students to practice their writing and continue to adjust and try new techniques.

You can now edit DALL-E images in ChatGPT on the web, iOS, and Android platforms

 This is pretty amazing, in ChatGPT using DALL-E, you can create images in a variety of styles (see below (Abstract, Dystopian, Acrylic, Hand-drawn, Graffiti, and then a randomizer for other styles) as well as the ability to adjust the aspect ration.

However, what is really cool is the ability to create your image and then adjust/edit the image to your liking.

All you need to do is select the image and then choose the select icon.

Then, make sure you go back to the image and select the area you would like to edit and type in what you would like. Pretty amazing!

See the image below. The first one is the original (Panda winning the World Series).

The adjusted one is one where I asked it to include a Phillies hat.

Embedded below is a 1 minute and 14 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad

Chat GPT can read aloud your messages on the web, as well as on your iOS or Android + a fun teacher tip (Mad Libs in Chat GPT)

Sometimes it is nice to have text read aloud for you. A nice new"ish" feature in Chat GPT is the ability for your messages to be read aloud for you.

If you are on an iOS or Android do the following:

• Tap and hold the message, then tap "Read Aloud"

On the web simply scroll underneath your message and choose the Read Alod.

A fun teacher tip is to use Chat GPT and take any story and place it in Chat. Then, ask it to replace all the verbs (example) with underlines (and write the word verb after the underline)  in the previous story.

Embedded below is a 56 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,

Brad