The other day my friend and colleague Layla Lyons (great follow on Twitter by the way) shared a way to make photo comparisons using a site known as Juxtapose.
I recommend taking a look at some of the examples that have already been created. The ones of Berlin took my breath away.
The site is very easy to use.
Find 2 pictures that show a comparison
best if taken from the exact same spot
Right click to copy the image address and paste where states URL
Add a tlabel and credit
Select preview
Publish and share
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 19 second YouTube tutorial.
Semantris blocks are very similar to the Arcade version, however, you are presented with words that you need to eliminate. When you eliminate the word you are given a certain number of points. However, take a good look around and make sure that when you enter a clue word it is not similar to another word, An example would be boat. I was going to type in water; however, the term ocean was there as well. So, I typed in an engine and it removed the boat.
If you see a word in a certain color block and there are a lot of other colored blocks - you will want to aim for that word because all of the blocks will be removed, thus gaining you more points.
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 40 second YouTube tutorial I created.
Semantris is a word association game powered by machine learning. The goal of the arcade version is to think fast, type fast, and get as many points as you can. In order to "get points" you will need to enter clues that you think go best with the given word. Each time you enter a clue, the AI looks at all the words in play and chooses the ones it thinks are most related.
The faster you are the more points you will gain.
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 19 second YouTube tutorial showing how this site works.
A big thank you to Steve Wick for sharing this link the other day on his Twitter feed. Embedded below is a 1 minute and 13 second YouTube tutorial I created showing how to use the site.
Today I was asked a question on YouTube dealing with checkboxes in Google Docs and how to get a sum of the total number of checkboxes. Here is how to do it.
Enter into your Google Sheet and select the area that you would like checkboxes to appear
Select Data
Data Validation
Criteria - select the box that states select from range and change the criteria to checkbox
Select use custom cell values (for this example I used 1 for checked and 0 for unchecked)
Select Save
Go back to the sheet and select the boxes you would like checked
Finally, insert a Function (in this case I used sum)
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 9 second YouTube tutorial I created.
A quick reminder that you can search in the Google address bar (also known as the Omibox). A new feature (was previously an experiment) is that many times you will receive an answer to your question in the Omnibox. Please know answers do not always come in the Omnibox but will when you hit enter.
Something to point out is that you can search for experiments in Google Chrome by typing in chrome://flags and then searching for some features to help make Chrome "better".
One experiment to check out is the ability to add Favicons (think pictures companies have to represent them). To add the Favicons type in Favicon and add the Omnibox UI Show Suggestion Favicons. You will need to relaunch Chrome in order for the Favicons to show.
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 18 second YouTube tutorial.
A great feature to check out in Chrome://flags is Tab audio muting UI control. What this does is allow you to instantly mute a tab in Chrome without having to even go into the site.
Why is this great? Say you are playing some music in one tab and working on something in another tab. Someone comes into your room and you can just select the mute sound in the tab. Takes less time that right clicking and then muting.
Google’s G Suite has a new activity dashboard to show who read your files (Docs, Sheets, and Slides). The dashboard is available by selecting:
Tools
Activity Dashboard
Think of it as being very similar to read receipts in an email. Once shared you can check the activity dashboard to see who has opened the file as well as who has access to the file. Maybe someone shared the file with someone you would rather not have access.
The option is available for users to toggle Activity Dashboard off for all files or for just this specific file. Below are 2 pictures showing you an introduction to Activity dashboard you will see in your file as well as the options you have to toggle on or off the dashboard.
Only G Suite Business and Enterprise users can see who has viewed their documents (when administrator permissions allow).
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 19 second YouTube tutorial.
If your students use Epic! and you would like to add a quiz to a particular book or books follow the steps below.
When you have selected a particular book hover to the upper right (until you see the area where you can favorite a book). This time select the question marks.
Once selected start creating your quiz. You must name it first.
You must add at least three questions with at least 2 answer choices per question.
Once at least three questions have been submitted you can now publish your quiz.
It is your choice if you wish to share with the Epic! community.
Embedded below is a 1 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial I created.
"He hacked the computer!" I have heard that a lot this year from students and teachers when they see the embedded picture below.
What the student did was right click (or Ctrl+Shift+I) on the screen and then selected Inspect. Inspect basically shows you the innards of the site (source code, images, fonts, icons, etc). It is intended for developers, although anyone can access it. Typically the reason they did it was to get attention and make it look like they were "hacking".
I was not sure if I was going to share the following video with everyone but then I thought that knowledge is indeed power. If someone wanted to get someone else in some hot water - making it look like a social media post says something that it truly doesn't can accomplish this very quickly.
Please note again that they did not change the site - this is a browser feature intended for developers
Just so you have the knowledge - here is how to do it.
Right click on the web-page and select Inspect (or Ctrl+Shift+I)
Select Console
type in document.designMode = 'on' and select enter
you can now go in and select the text you would like to alter
again you are not changing the actual site
The embedded 1 minute and 33 second YouTube tutorial below show you how a user can use this "Inspect" to go into any site and make it look like the site itself has been altered.
Please remember to always double check your sources before acting. You just never know.
Epic! is an amazing site that offers +25,000 books free to educators and their class (during school hours).
If you are interested in how to sign up for the site as well as how to become an Epic! Educator click here for these posts (or click on Epic! books above).
To add a collection and assign follow these directions:
select search and search by author, title, or keyword
when you find the book you are interested in select it
in the upper-right you will see a Heart
select the heart, favorite it, and select the + Add To
you can now create a new collection or add to a previously created one
To share / assign the collection
go back to the main screen (select epic! upper-left of page)
select the Heart (My Library)
you will not see collection(s) and the share icon in which you can share with an Epic! Teacher, email, Pinterest, or copy collection link
can also select assign and assign to the whole class or specific student(s)
Student point of view
they will select the Mailbox
find the shared collection
click on the book(s) and then select the Heart to favorite the book
If you are interested in creating and assigning collections + what it looks like from a student's point of view select the embedded 2 minute and 10 second YouTube video below.
If you would like to become an Epic! Certified Educator (and learn how to use the site) you will need to follow the instructions that pop up on the right hand side of your screen.
You will be taken through
Find a book and read it
Create Two Student Profiles
Google Classroom Import as well as a CSV file (Excel) is availabale
Find Your Classroom Code (unique to your class)
Explore Books and Content by Category
"Favorite" a Collection
Create a Collection
Find a Book at Your Student's Reading Level
Embedded below is a 2 minute and 28 second YouTube tutorial where I take you through the process.
That's right - check-boxes are available in Sheets.
When you are in a sheet simply select
Insert
Checkbox
Checkboxes in sheets have many uses - the one I show below deals with my wife who teachers 4th grade and has students write a state report. Students can not double up, so pasting in all 50 states and then adding checkboxes in the 2nd column easily shows what states have and have not been chosen.
FYI - this new feature was available in my personal Google account and has not yet been added to my school account.
If you would like to have access to over 25,000 books available to on any deviceto children 12 and under try Epic!
Epic! is free for educators; however, for families it is $7.99 (unless you get a referral by a teacher in which case it is $5.99 a month). Please note you have 30 days to try it for free.
In order for families to have access at home (after school hours) families would need to sign-up for an account.
The free educator version is for use in the classroom or school library only. For use at home, students should be using the home version of Epic!. This is due to our Terms of Service and our contracts with publishers.
In order to sign up you will need to follow the instructions on the site. If you are a teacher make sure you enter all information necessary so your school will be verified.
The other day I was working with a student whose name was always underlined as a spelling suggestion in his Google Docs. Once I showed him he could add his name in "personal dictionary" under Tools > Spelling his face shone so brightly!!
If you have added closed captioning to your YouTube videos (click here for a short blog post) and have noticed that it does not load onto Facebook with the captions it can be very frustrating.
In order for the captions to load on Facebook follow these steps * note Twitter does not allow as of the date of this post (4/19/2018).
In YouTube's video manager select Subtitles/CC
Select English/Automatic
Select Actions (left side) and then select the .srt file
Make sure you download the video to your computer
Enter into your page on Facebook and add the video
On the right you have some choices under subtitles and captions (cc)
select the video language
you can have Facebook auto-generate them or write them in yourself
or you can upload the .srt file from YouTube
you will need to rename the file with the name of the file and then .en_US.srt
example = captions.en_US.srt
Select Publish and you are good to go
Embedded below is a 2 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial.
