Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Did You Know: Engaging Your Students with Interactive Activities

Are you looking to engage your students with some interactive activities?  Here are 2 links to some great ideas to use in either Google Slides or MS PowerPoint.

30 interactive Google Slides activities for classroom excitement

20 interactive PowerPoint activities to add awesome to classes

Most of these are easily adaptable to the college classroom.  Need help?  KATE is here to help.


Friday, March 26, 2021

Friday Matinee: What does this say about education?

Take a look at this video:





What does this say about education and how students learn?  How can we bring more of this excitement into our classrooms?

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Did You Know? Official Guide to Wakelet is HERE! 😎



Wakelet is an amazing FREE app that allows you to curate information and more!  According to Holly Clark:

“It is the newest, hippest curation tool out there and it can help change the collaboration, creation and organization of learning in a classroom. Wakelet makes it ‘easy to capture, organize and share multimedia resources’ for both the teacher and student."

You can save any link on the web to Wakelet, organize multiple links into beautiful collections,
and then share those collections with whoever you want!What's more, it is super easy to use.

Here's Wakelet's new eBook that will help you and your students quickly become Wakelet superstars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ !  Be sure to follow @Wakelet on Twitter too.

Need help?  Let me know and I'll be glad to help.

Friday, March 19, 2021

Friday Matinee: Would You Rather Icebreaker Activity



This is a great activity to start class with or do after a test.  You will have to make a copy of this file to make it your own.  Feel free to change the questions or use it as it is.  Your students will look at each slice and "vote" by dragging a star from above each slide to their answer.  When I create activities like this, I keep a copy of the file as my MASTER, then make a copy for my class to edit.  Their answers may lead to interesting conversations!


If you want to use this with PowerPoint, just go to FILE > DOWNLOAD AS > CHOOSE MICROSOFT POWERPOINT.  It's that easy!!

Have a great weekend!  You might try "playing" this with family or friends!!

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Did You Know? You can now use automatic closed captioning in Zoom!

 

In order to use automatic closed captioning in English in Zoom, you need to enable it in your Zoom settings.  Log into Zoom on the web (murraystate.zoom.us) and go to settings.  Search or find "closed captioning"

Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 12.16.25 PM.png

Turn Closed Captioning on in settings.  When you open Zoom the next time, you will see Live Transcript next to the record button.  When you click on it, it will look like this:

Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 12.23.18 PM.png

Click Enable Auto-Transcription.   You will see the live transcription at the bottom of your screen.  For students to see it, your participants must enable it as well.  For your students, it will look like this:

Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 12.25.37 PM.png

Most students should click on "Show Subtitles''.  View Full Transcript pops opens a side panel with the captions in real time.

You can access the subtitle settings by opening the Subtitle Settings and increasing the font size.

Friday, March 12, 2021

Friday Matinee: Google Tips for Remote Learning

If you are using any of the Google apps you will find some great tips in the presentation from Kasey Bell of Shake Up Learning.  She presented this at the TCEA Conference in Austin, TX.  Kasey has presented at The Summit here at MSU.



Not sure how some of these really work?  Just ask and we'll be glad to help.

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Did You Know? You Can Retrieve Deleted Calendar Events!

If you are like me, you have probably accidentally deleted more than one event in your calendar and panicked! Luckily, deleted events go to the trash bin and can be restored.  Here's how:


How to undo accidental deletion of Google Calendar events?




The good news is that they stay in the bin for 30 days!

On that same site, there are lots of other great tips about Google Calendar as well.  Need help?  Ask KATE!

Friday, March 5, 2021

Friday Matinee: New Kentucky Academic Standards for Technology

Kentucky has recently approved new Academic Standards for Technology that will go live in April.  If you are working with preservice teachers, they need to be aware of these standards and how to implement them in their future classrooms.  They are closely tied to the ISTE Standards (International Society of Technology in Education) for Students.  ISTE also has Standards for Educators.


It is important that our education students are aware of these standards.  If you are not in education, you might take a look anyway to see what will be required of your children or grandchildren.

Have a great weekend and let us know if you have any questions.

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Did You Know? Managing Chrome Extensions

Extensions in Google Chrome let you do things quickly when you are working on the computer.  For example, when I need a password for a site, I use the LastPass extension to fill it in.  When I want to block ads, I use AdBlock Plus.  BUT, if you have too many extensions that are active, you can really slow down your computer.  Google now has a built-in manager for your Chrome extensions and it looks like a puzzle piece and lives to the right of the search bar.



Here's a great video on managing extensions and a couple Wakelet files with information on great extensions to try and some tips, tricks, and resources on Chrome.

Need help with remote teaching?  Remember to check out our Remote Teaching & Learning Resources website or set up a time to Zoom with me to learn more.

Have a great day!