Tuesday Tips, December 5, 20

 TECH TIP:  Delete Old Emails

As the year winds down, this is a good time to delete old emails.  Here is a quick way to do that.  In the search bar within Gmail, enter in: before: YYYY/MM/DD. For example…if you want to delete all emails before January 1, 2020. You’ll need to run the following search query: before:2020/1/1

Once all those emails pop up, hit the Select All box and then delete. It's that easy to say good-bye to years of old emails!

BOOK TIP:  Books We Love from NPR

I love to give books for gifts, but sometimes, picking the right book is the hardest part.  NPR has a great tool called "Books We Love".  You select the categories you want and then it will create a list of books that fit your request. This is also a good place to just find a good read for yourself!

Tuesday Tips November 28, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Photogrammar:  Cool old photo collection

Photogrammar is a collection of photos taken during the 1930's by photographers hired by the Farm Security Administration to document the Great Depression.  The photos can be searched by county and town.  I found this one of Great Barrington:

These photos could be good in a history class or as a story prompt for creative writing.  But mostly a fun rabbit hole to go down.

BOOK TIP:  Learning Ally program for audiobooks

For any student that struggles with reading fluency and decoding and fits these eligibility criteria, we can get them access to audiobooks through Learning Ally.  Learning Ally provides audio versions of many texts.  Some are human read books, and some are voice text that highlights progress with the text.   I can set you up with a teacher account or you can have students connect with me and we can see if they are eligible.  This is a great resource, but we do also have Sora with thousands of ebooks and audiobooks for all students.  

Tuesday Tips November 14, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Are you a tab-aholic?

Are you someone who always has too many tabs open and, as the cartoon says, they are all "critical" (and you are guaranteed to close out the most important one? )

There are two quick ways to figure out what your tabs are, since often it just shows an icon.  One is the "hover".  Just hover your cursor over the tab and it will tell you what the tab is.  The other is to use the Search Tabs tool.  In the upper right hand corner of the browser, hit the drop down arrow and there you can search or scroll down to find the tab you need.

BOOK TAB:  Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater

This is not a book to be taken lightly.  It is powerful.  It is disturbing (content warning).  But if you really want to understand what happens with teens and social media, and how schools respond, this is the book to read.  Dashka Slater is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist who spent years investigating this story and countless hours of interviews with all involved.  While a difficult and divisive topic, Slater handles the telling of the story delicately.  It is not a book you want to read, but boy it offers insight.  

Tuesday Tips, October 23, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Translating a PDF document

Several people have asked lately about how to translate PDFs.  One of the best (and quickest) method I've found is to use Google Translate.   To begin, go to Google Translate and then click on Documents from the top.

Next:

• Upload the file
• Select which language is the original then which language you want it translated into
• Hit Translate

As with any translator, it is not perfect.  We have found that the text attached to any images does not translate.  

BOOK TIP:   Speech Team by Tim Murphy

  In Speech Team by Tim Murphy, four middle aged friends, former high school speech team members, decide to go on a road trip and confront their former teacher for his transgressions against them in high school.  It is a road trip book, it is a book about memories and the power of a teacher, in both good and bad ways.  But it is mostly a book that reflects on what kind of adult you want to be, can you escape the teenager you once were?

Tuesday Tips, September 26, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Doing a Pen Stroke in Google Slides

You can now add a pen to your Google Slides presentations, allowing you to be interactive with your slides as you present.  You can circle important items, highlight details, etc.  To turn on the pen, click on the three dots in the lower left corner and then pick Turn On the Pen.  Any pen strokes you make during presentation will NOT be saved.  

BOOK TIP:  Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

   Dragons and fantasy is not usually my genre, but this book is all over social media and has been on the best-seller lists for weeks, so I had to give it a try.   Fourth Wing is the story of Violet as she tries to become part of the elite team of dragon riders of Navarre. Fourth Wing also has vibes of Harry Potter, so if you are missing that series, I'd give this one a go.   Fast paced, unique and fun.

Tuesday Tip, September 13, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Google Doc translate

This came up in my IL group and not everyone knew about this feature, so here it is!  

If you have a Google Doc that you would like to translate into another language, it is very easy to do.  Open the doc (and it must be a Google doc, not a .docx file in Google Drive), go into Tools, then Translate document.  

Then select which language you want it in and it will prompt you to rename it and Save.

BOOK TIP: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

When people ask me what my favorite book is, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is ALWAYS on that list.  It took a long time for him to come out with another book, but it finally came out this summer!  The Covenant of Water is a big book, one you might want to save for a vacation read, but it was worth the wait.  An epic story following generations of family, so beautiful! 

Tuesday Tips, September 5, 2023

 TECH TIP:  Grading Categories Added into PowerTeacher

The three grade categories that teachers are being asked to use this year (Habits of Work, Formative and Summative) have been added into PowerTeacher as defaults, so you don't have to add those categories yourself.  You will need to customize the weighting for these categories, however, based on your grading system.

Here are the categories:

BOOK TIP:  Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

  Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano was one of my favorite books of the summer!  It is centered around the question of can love make a broken person whole?   The Padavanos are a happy bustling family of four sisters.  The family takes in Julia's boyfriend, Walter, into their lives and he is overwhelmed to be a part of such a group.  When his past threatens the family, will it break them apart for good?  Beautifully written, I cried.