Tech Tip Tuesday: Free Stock Images

We are always looking for free images. Unsplash has always been the favorite of mine (and still is). However, I came across another useful site called Pexels, which is very similar.

What is great about all of these sites, regardless of the one you choose, is the opportunity to teach students HOW to properly search for images. It should become best practice to understand copyright regulations, and which images they CAN use when they are working on a presentation. I also like seeing students use these sites because it enlightens them to be more creative and enables me time to work in presentation skills.

Pexels offers free, hi-def images, that are copyright free under creative commons. You do not even have to include attribution to the source image.

So what if students used Pexels:

• To create a blog or website
• To put together a formal presentation
• As a “picture-book”
• To summarize a reading with images
• When creating background images to use with Thinglink

Tech Tip Tuesday: Printing Student Quiz Results in Schoology

Sometimes it can be useful to be able to print student results of a quiz. For example, a student with an IEP might need/expect a copy of the quiz they took on Schoology, a parent might request a copy, or you might be looking for a way for students to learn from their results and make the necessary changes. Whichever it is, there is a pretty straightforward way to print the individualized results of a Schoology quiz.

To do this, open your Schoology course and select the quiz you want to print the results from. Once inside the quiz click RESULTS –> click VIEW ATTEMPTS next to the student’s name –> and next to the attempt click on the little GEAR (settings) icon. Then select VIEW/EDIT. The student’s responses should load with correct answers. To print these results, simply do a web print (right-click print).

Tech Tip Tuesday: New Google Slides Update

Google Slides recently updated to offer some new robust tools that might just come in handy and make your presentation even that much more professional.

First, Google has integrated Google Keep into Slides. This is a fantastic addition. I wrote about what you can do with Google Keep and Google Docs before. This will add the same features to Slides and open the possibility for conducting research in a more meaningful manner while designing presentations.

Second, Google now lets you link and sync slides from multiple presentations with the click of a button. This allows you to maintain a single source of truth and easily update linked slides to match the source. This is awesome if you continually update presentations.

Third, there are SO many new add-ons that you can attach to Slides. You can get images with the Adobe Stock or Unsplash Photo add-ons! There is an AWESOME Pear Deck add-on that lets you add question types to an existing Google Slide presentation or present the presentation with Pear Deck from your Google Drive. Looking for more icons? There is even an icon add-on to add hundreds of new icons to your created slides.

Finally, there is an updated toolbar look, the ability to insert diagrams (even from Lucidchart), and a new grid view for how you access and change your slide layout/order.

You should already see these changes on your personal gmail account. Look for these to roll out soon throughout the district.

 

 

Tech Tip Tuesday: Week of Respect Resource

This week’s tip is more of a resource. Since it is the week of respect, I wanted to share a resource that I came across. I remember this video floating around a few years ago. Originally a poem by Shane Koyczan, the To This Day Project was started to mark the anti-bullying initiative “Pink Shirt Day”- which aims to highlight the effect of long-term bullying on students in school and to help schools better deal with this situation.

Shane Koyczan later released an animated video set to his poem. I remember showing this to my English class when I was teaching and remember the impact it had and raw emotion it drew from my students.

Take a minute to check out the video below.