FTT - Google Tasks: It Integrates into Everything!

 

Using Google Tasks!

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

There's something awfully cathartic about checking something off of your to-do list or crossing out items on your shopping list as you navigate through the bumpy, crowded supermarket. It's kind of nice to finally throw away that sticky note reminder or click the little box that removes that nagging obligation. There's a palpable feeling of release when you're done with a task, as if a real weight is being lifted off of your frayed mind.  You're off the hook from yourself, or your students, or your colleagues which gives you much more time for...other fun things to do? I'm sure we're all feeling the crunch at this time of the year with AP exams coming up, seniors are about ready to leave the comforts of your classroom, and our courses are wrapping up. Now is a good time to think about being more efficient with your tasks by using and exploring...Google Tasks!

Now what's the difference between Google Tasks and any other digital organizer? Well first off it's as simple as it gets. It's a light-weight Google Workspace addition that allows you to create lists, tasks, and subtasks that are all perfectly integrated with Google. It integrates with Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more. So wherever you are in Google Workspace, you can check your tasks. It also integrates well with Google Calendar events and due dates, as well as individual Gmails.

Getting Started

1. Create a task list: The first step to using Google Tasks is to create a task list. To do this, click on the "Tasks" button on the right-hand side of your Gmail inbox. This will open up a new pane on the right side of your screen where you can create a new task list.
2. Add tasks to your list: Once you have created your task list, you can start adding tasks to it. To add a new task, simply click on the "+" button at the bottom of the task list. You can also add subtasks to a task by clicking on the arrow next to the task.
3. Prioritize your tasks: Google Tasks allows you to prioritize your tasks by adding a due date and setting a priority level. To do this, click on the task and then click on the "Add date" button. You can then set a due date and select a priority level (high, medium, or low) for the task.

Gmail Tasks 

If you're reading an email and was reminded for the 3rd time to help that one student with that thing, you can click on the newly added task button on top of the email to add it as a task:

The bottom line is this: we all could use a little help keeping our priorities in check. Everyday we are bombarded with dozens and dozens of little requests by students or staff in the hallways in between classes, or serious, multi-step requests tackled over weeks or even months. Stay organized and use technology the way it should be used - help educators to be more efficient, productive versions of ourselves so that we can spend more of our time and attention on teaching! Let me know if you have any questions.

FTT - Learning and Teaching in the Age of AI

 

Learning and Teaching in the Age of AI

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

*The following blog was written by a human being

Last night a few colleagues and I went to the Learning and Teaching in the Age of AI conference held by Lake Forest Country Day School and we listened in on a variety of breakout sessions and guest panels run by some pretty serious and interesting folk. A few professors of computer science and technology and literature spoke on a variety of topics all relating to what they were seeing as the impacts of AI in their respective fields and classrooms. Besides being the only PD I've been to that had booze at the end, it was one of the first times as an educator that I truly felt my mind was being blown by what was being discussed. It was intriguing and thought-provoking but also just gave me the heeby jeebies. 

For the most part, I've got a decent understanding of current forms of AI and how they integrate into our professional and personal lives. My Roomba, Frank, has been terrorizing my kids and dog for months now and my daughter is so afraid of Frank that she is all but frozen with fright at the sight of it which leaves me no choice but to have it constantly covered with a towel. When she's at daycare, Frank expertly navigates a fairly perilous floor of toys, towels, and other traps using a combination of LIDAR, cameras, and an AI system that FAR outpaces its predecessor, Bob. But what does it mean that my robo vacuum Frank uses AI to clean my floor? Alan Turing OBO, the famed British mathematician, philosopher, and computer scientist still holds the best description of what AI truly is: an intelligent computer system that can imitate a human being. Can your self-driving car or robot vacuum or autofill email successfully predict the nuanced actions of what a human would have done in its place? A human, ideally, would see a pedestrian and slow down and stop the vehicle. A human would see dog poop on the floor and vacuum around the mess instead of dragging it around the entire first floor. Frank in turn navigates my filthy and battered floor the same way a rational human would: avoiding messes and traps but also creating an efficient route that is responsive to my floor plan and its optimized battery life.

So why do ChatGTP and Midjourney and other AI tools feel so much more impactful and impressive and rather more terrifying than Frank? It may be because they have the capacity to not just imitate us, but to surpass us and substitute us with a superior version of anything we could do ourselves. What I cannot wrap my head around is the absolutely break-neck pace at which AI is improving...and what AI is going to look like in the next few years. A popular Reddit post on ChatGTP summarized the newest and best ChatGTP API tools that were created in JUST THAT WEEK and it was dizzying how many advancements and resources the user was able to compile. 

The current released iteration of ChatGTP is actually 3.5. They recently released 4.0 under a paywall last month, but the productive difference between 3.5 and 4 is staggering. Take a look at what ChatGTP 4 can do that its predecessors cannot. And the rumors are that ChatGTP 5, which has not yet been officially announced by OpenAI, will be the closest thing to General AI that mankind has ever created. If true, the impacts would be exponential and staggering. A general AI can reason and plan and make unilateral judgments and learn instead of merely guessing the next logical word, which is what ChatGTP 3.4/4 is doing (it's essentially the world's most complicated autofill program). What the heck does this all mean for us as teachers and parents and citizens?

Paradigm Shift

In one of last night's breakout sessions, I had the unexpected pleasure of sitting next to former HP principal Tom Koulentes, who asked a poignant question asking how we adjust the ways we challenge our students in the face of something like ChatGTP. When Google and Wikipedia become more readily available, educators were pushed to avoid simple fact/recall questions and offer more analytically heavy formatives that students couldn't just "look up." But what do we do now? 

Dr. Janel White-Taylor, an associate professor of educational technology at Arizona State University, offered some assurances that once you are familiar with the academic "voice" of your students, you can easily discern the difference between legitimate work and artificially produced work. While that may be the case now, I wasn't so sure of my own ability to identify the surreptitious use of ChatGTP, especially when newer, more powerful versions are made available. 

Dr. White-Taylor also offered the idea of assigning fewer essays and substituting different ways for students to demonstrate authentic learning. The social studies teacher in me cringed a little bit, but for the most part, I was just confused. What do we replace The Essay with? Isn't it still mission-critical for students to work and think long and hard on an analytical piece of writing? Don't we have an almost fiduciary duty to our kids to give them the skills to convert important and complex arguments and theories in their minds and manifest them into something concrete? Do we just do more in-class writing assignments? I thought we abdicated penmanship and cursive for QWERTY? Video responses and speech assignments and project-based creations? Dr. White-Taylor didn't really have a good answer, and I'm beginning to think that there really isn't a good answer yet. And our careful answers to AI's like ChatGTP may become obsolete and redundant in a matter of MONTHS, not years as the pace of innovation sprints ahead of what we can properly respond to. Luckily, Turnitin has released its AI writing detector function in Australia and New Zealand and reportedly boasts a 98% confidence rating. Can firms keep up with the exponential growth of AI with their own AI?

Something Safe

I could go on and on and on about everything I saw and heard and thought about during last night's conference. Firms are offering Six Figure salaries to "prompt writers" or professionals who can trigger the most efficient series of commands to AI tools to get the desired outcome." Apparently, administrators at Vanderbilt University sent a ChatGTP-generated email to the student body in response to the horrific Michigan State University shooting in February and are now on administrative leave. One of the breakout sessions was titled, "Ethics and AI - Can a Computer Pray?" One panelist mentioned how simple coding scripts can instantaneously be written for you in ChatGTP and he doesn't know how much longer he'll be teaching those scripts in his beginner coding class. I then realized that ChatGTP can give you detailed instructions on Queary functions in Google Sheets (if you know what to ask it)!  

Again, that all seemed somewhat overwhelming so now I've decided to compile some simple, concrete ways to incorporate AI into the production side of teaching. I'm not offering much insight on how to bring AI into direct instruction. I'm not quite there yet. But on the teacher productivity side, there's much to see. Here are a few examples of how I've used ChatGTP and AI in the classroom, as well as examples given last night:

Review Materials:

Last week I had a number of students miss an all-important Monetary Policy lecture on how the Federal Reserve used to impact interest rates. In addition to reminding my student via email that the presentation and lecture notes and assignments were on Schoology, I decided to ask ChatGTP for assistance. The prompt went something like this: "You are now an AP Macroeconomics teacher and you had a number of students miss your lecture on monetary policy. Write a brief explanation of the three fed monetary tools used to change the money supply."  Then I asked it to rewrite the explanation as if it were talking to a 10-year-old. Then to a 5-year-old. I read and reread each excerpt for accuracy and created three separate docs and sent them to my students. Students were immediately intrigued, especially considering ChatGTP is certainly much more interesting and cleverer than I am. It took us (ChatGTP and I that is) a mere 45 seconds of prompts and re-prompts to generate the three review excerpts, and it took me 5 minutes to slap them into a Google Doc and digitally ship them off to my students. 

Warning: ALWAYS review what ChatGTP generates for accuracy

Generating Templates and Documents

Need to write an email and.....don't want to? Enter a specific prompt into ChatGTP and use and edit the template. Now prompt writing may become the next new skill we may want to pay attention to. The ChatGTP-generated product is only as effective as the prompt. If you give it a prompt but do not like the output, refine your prompt conversationally. Here are a few email prompts to get you started:

Could you create an email template for…

• Reminding students about missing homework.
• Parent communication regarding absences.
• Information going out to a club, sport, or activity.

Could you write a direct email to colleagues about...

• Anything

I even asked it to write a song to the tune of Everlong by The Foo Fighters explaining Monetary Policy. I mean....it produced it, but it's certainly not winning any Grammys anytime soon.

Conclusions?

Here's where we need to go next: as an educational community we have to gain some insights into AI and envision its role in our pedagogy. Will we outright ban its use and strike it from our network or do we embrace it and utilize its efficiencies? To what extent do we add AI to our digital literacy curriculum? Do we teach our elementary and middle school students about ChatGTP and why it's useful or harmful to their learning? What about the ethics of AI-produced work? Who "owns" the value of what it generates? Should staff automatically disclose when they use it? What are the costs of using ChatGTP to write a letter of recommendation for students or colleagues if they are then accepted/admitted to their program of choice?

This blog could go on and on and on and it still wouldn't cover interesting things in AI that happened in just this week. So I'll just leave you with something one of the panelists said that stayed with me on the drive home: Dr. Sugata Banerji, an associate professor of Computer Science at Lake Forest College said that "no professional runner competes without shoes, and within 1 year I don't imagine a world where any educator doesn't use AI in their classrooms."

FTT - Annotate PDFs and So Much More. It's the Magic of Kami!

Annotate PDFs And So Much More

It's The Magic Of Kami

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Back in the 2014-2015 school year I visited a middle school classroom for students with disabilities. The 8th grade students were coming to high school the next year and the staff were very excited to show off how they were using technology in the classroom. They had ipads for each student and were thrilled to showcase their use. When I got to the classroom there was a lot of fanfare about the ipad use. There were posters on the wall about how to care for the devices. There was a giant cart for charging them. There was a schedule on the wall indicating the plans for the day including "break time". The lesson involved the students reading pdfs on the ipads and then answering verbal questions from the teacher. When break time came, the students all excitedly played games on the ipads. The teacher proceeded to tell me how much the students enjoy having the devices in class. 

Even back in 2014 I remember being unimpressed. Giving students ipads to read on was not exactly going to make the reading more engaging and it certainly was not going to impact their reading comprehension. What the students really enjoyed was the games on the ipads, because there was some interaction there. The break time could have been used to play a game in the classroom that involved some human interaction. There has got to be a way for students to interact with the text, right?

How to interact with pdfs continues to be a common question that I get.  There are lots of reasons to digitize our print materials, primarily for accessibility purposes, but it's 2023 and we want more than just having students reading pdfs.

Kami is a chrome extension that provides tools and features that allow you and your students to easily interact with pdfs. It was developed in Aotearoa, New Zealand by four university students who wanted to streamline their note-taking. Kami has received many accolades over the past 2 years and are really being noticed on the edtech scene. This is for good reason, Kami is easy to use, and the tools really can level the playing field for many of our students who struggle in school. 

Kami lets you and your students annotate, highlight, draw on, and comment on pdfs. There is also a library of templates within Kami that you can customize and use. Students can work together to collaborate on the templates, or any file you share within Kami. The list of tools that you have available to you in Kami is long, giving many options for students to interact with digital text. 

We currently have a trial of the pro version of Kami. But even before we had premium access I had been using the free version as it is robust on its own. Here is a list of the features and tools that are included at each level. Since we have the premium access, let's take advantage of it and give it a try. 

Getting Started With Kami: 

You and your students can access Kami by downloading the chrome extension which you can access here, or by going to Kamiapp.com. Kami saves and works seamlessly with Google drive. I know that it can look and feel overwhelming to try a new tool in your classes. When you use Kami you don't need to worry because there are built in supports including a tour of the dashboard and short tutorials. Kami files are available even when you and your students are offline so if the internet goes out you are still able to access and work on those files. 

The Dashboard:

Take a look at the screenshot of my Kami dashboard. It is uncomplicated and straightforward. 

•  If you have files saved on your Google drive or your computer, you can just click where it says- open file. 
• You also have the ability to create your own by starting with a blank page in Kami.
• If you have a file that you are unable to edit, the text recognition tool will scan your file and make it possible for you to edit. There is also a split and merge tool that allows you to separate files or combine multiple files into one. 

Here is a two minute video tour of the Kami dashboard.

With premium access, Kami integrates nicely with Schoology. You can assign through the Kami app in Schoology and your students can turn in their work to you after they have used Kami on their files. Here is a short video showing how it works.

Start With A Template: 

I am a huge fan of starting with a template whenever it's available to me. I can easily customize something that is already created and for me it's much faster than starting with a blank page. Take a look at the Kami template library and you will see that you can easily filter the templates by grade level, subject, or file type: brain breaks, diagrams, activities, etc. They even have templates made for your students to learn how to use and explore the tools in Kami. 

I especially like this hexagonal thinking template. It prompts students to use the voice comment tool to explain the connections they create. This is a wonderful formative tool. It can also be used collaboratively if you have your students work in groups.

There are lots of templates for note-taking, graphic organizers for pre-writing, diagrams, timelines, charts, and comic strips. From the Kami dashboard, just click on template library to see what is there. You could even allow your students to choose the template that they think most appropriate for their work. Hearing their reasoning could be a wonderful insight into their understanding.

How will you use Kami? Want some help getting started? Feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to help.

. 

FTT - Google Workspace: AI, Pageless Formats, Emojis, and More!

 

Google Workspace: AI, Pageless Formats, Emojis, and More!

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Google Docs and Beyond

Get ready for this, Google Docs is now old enough to drive! This year Docs celebrated its 16th birthday and many of you have probably noticed some subtle changes to its appearance. It's a little bit like Facebook user interface updates. You initially hate the appearance changes but eventually, you don't even remember what the old setup even looked like. Well in addition to some aesthetic changes, Google Docs has quietly added some powerful collaborative updates, some that we've highlighted before, but some that could positively impact your class, club, or activity!

Pageless Google Doc Format

It's kind of absurd how much of our educational budget is spent on printing and ink for assignments, homework, assessments, etc. Don't worry, don't worry I'm not about to go on a rant about going completely digital. Look, as an AP Econ teacher, I know full well that sometimes there isn't a substitute for traditional pen and paper. But with more and more of us pushing out digital assignments like Google Docs, it's sort of unnecessary to be bound by margins and page breaks on Docs. Now you can switch to the Pageless view of Google Docs and it's kinda awesome. Go to "file" and "page set" and you can switch over to "pageless" view. 

AI Summaries....oh no

Don't be alarmed, ChatGTP isn't taking over your Google Docs. But there is a neat AI-powered function that automatically generates what it thinks is a suitable summary of your document. By creating a document outline, the AI attempts to grasp the highlights of your document and delivers a bite-sized summary paragraph that is fully editable. Watch this GIF (soft g) of the summary AI in action:

Google Meets...meets Google Docs

Listen, I still shudder every time I even hear the word Zoom. I had a student remark that they took my class during remote summer school on Zoom and I was as shocked as anyone because I apparently blocked that part of my memory. Even so, conferencing can be an easy way to communicate and collaborate when there's some distance between us. You can now create Google Meets within a Google Doc. Let me try to explain. Think about every time we were on Zoom or Google Meets and someone shared a document. Our entire screen was filled with their shared screen and it left very little digital real estate for us to contribute or work on the document ourselves. Now, within Google Docs, you can create a video conference where everyone still has access to the document!

They quietly added a video conference button to Google Docs on the top right corner of the screen. Now no one has to "share their screen" and you can still communicate and collaborate in real-time!

Just click on the camera icon, choose "start a new meeting" and you have the option to share the file AND the video conference call all in one go!

Custom Building Blocks

We've highlighted the usage of the "@" sign on Google Docs in the past on this blog. They've expanded a bit of their menu with simple, yet powerful templates that allow students and staff to create project kickoff templates, milestones, to-do lists, code, calendar invites, and even email templates. You can write an important email on Docs enjoying the full menu of text editing customization (font, size, colors, etc), and then automatically convert the doc into a Gmail ready to be sent. Check out this fantastic 1-minute video that highlights the features of building blocks:

Calendar Draft Template

Similar to the email template, they've recently added a calendar template option. While I'm not entirely sure how much more utility you can get out of this integration versus merely using the calendar app, I'll have to test it out to see.

Emoji Voting Chips

Much like my reaction to the Emoji movie, I wasn't quite sure about emoji's clawing their way into every facet of our lives. But thumbs up and the fire emojis seem to be relatively tame. Users can quickly give non-verbal feedback on a variety of inputs.

Third-Party Smart Chips

OK so before we go any further, what the heck is a smart chip? Think about it this way: apps are to phones as smart chips are to Google Docs. If you hate that...think about it as Extensions are to Chrome as smart chips are to Google Docs.

Anyways, they are customizable tools that you can use to get more productivity or efficiency out of Google Docs. There is a ton of potential for third-party smart chips that can be more Education focused. While there aren't too many partner applications to choose from so far, I can see our usual educational integrations jumping on board soon.

Summary

OK, that seems like enough to get started. Just knowing that the changes happened is the first step. What I truly like about Google Workspace is how flawlessly it allows users to integrate every aspect of Google that we rely upon. On one document I can dynamically link a Google Slides presentation, PDFs, Calendar events, User emails, and more. That may seem overwhelming which is perfectly OK. Start with a SINGLE integration chip. Use it, get comfortable with it, see if you even like it. Then go on to another and before you know it, you'll be a Google Docs power user! As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

FTT - What's New With EdPuzzle?

What's New With EdPuzzle?

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

On March 11, 2020, two days before school and the world shut down, we had a representative from Edpuzzle come to District 113. She was here to teach us how to use this new tool that integrates with Schoology and will help us make videos more interactive and engaging for our students.  We already knew a little bit about Edpuzzle, but we just started paying for the premium license. At that time, I had no idea that video was going to be the primary way many of our students would get their educational content and I remember feeling excited to share the new things I learned about Edpuzzle with our staff. 

Fast forward three years and Edpuzzle is still a wonderful tool that we have available to us. While we are now back in classrooms and can see our students' faces there is no denying the power of learning through video. I have personally completed many household projects and have fixed several appliances in my home by watching YouTube videos. I know that this is different from learning concepts or understanding complex ideas but so much of our content is taken in from video and thus educators need to keep video on the table as a means for sharing ideas and information.

If you have not used EdPuzzle in a while or if you have just been using it the same way since 2020 (no judgement!) you might not know about the many new features that Edpuzzle has rolled out. Here is a summary of the new things you will want to try with your students.

1. Edpuzzle Originals

Edpuzzle is now creating its own content. They are professionally made videos that are made by a team of expert teachers. They are aligned to learning standards and they even have questions already embedded. You can copy and assign them as-is or you can edit and add your own questions. This is great because YouTube can really take you down a rabbit hole if you are searching for videos that you can use. At least with Edpuzzle originals, you know that there is a level of quality and content that will be appropriate and useful. They are adding more and more content at a furious pace and they are prioritizing middle and high school topics such as literary devices, algebra, biology, and more. Check out this Edpuzzle original lesson on Pi Day. 

 

2. Student Projects

While Edpuzzle is fantastic for making sure students watch and understand videos, there is nothing more powerful than having students create. Edpuzzle now has a student projects feature that allows students to create their own Edpuzzle video lesson. As the teacher, you will click Add Content and then choose Student Project. You can decide if you want students to search for videos or upload their own. Here is a 1 minute video showing 7 ways you can use Edpuzzle student projects.

3. Audio Responses

When students have open-ended questions to answer, they now have the option to respond via video. Some students are better able to show what they know verbally and this gives them the option to do so.

All they need to do is click under the answer box where it says Answer With Audio.  They can record their audio response and submit it without leaving Edpuzzle. 

4. More Languages And Closed Captions

You can now use Edpuzzle in languages besides English! And there is Edpuzzle original content available in Spanish. Click on the profile logo and go to the settings tab. From there, you can adjust the language.  They are working on adding new languages in the near future.

5. Multiple Attempts

You can now allow students multiple attempts at answering questions and viewing videos.  Want your students to have unlimited attempts so they can practice for an upcoming summative assessment? No problem! When you are on the assign page, just indicate the number of attempts you are willing to allow. 

How are you using Edpuzzle? Have you forgotten about it? I think it's time to bring it back. Want some help getting started? Feel free to reach out or book a time with me.

FTT - AI Tools to Improve Your Productivity (Or just have a bunch of fun)

 

AI Tools to Improve Your Productivity (Or just have a bunch of fun)

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Where to begin?

While ChatGPT seems to be getting all of the attention, there are in fact a number of AI-related services on the web that can be utilized to drastically improve your work productivity. Or they can just be plain fun to mess around with as we explore and experiment in the relatively early stage of the consumer-side AI market. Something to consider: good AI is just like good CGI. You see, when CGI is well done, viewers never notice it. It blends in with reality and you would have never guessed that castle wasn't really there. Bad CGI hits you in the face with a metaphorical hammer. Believe it or not, we've been relying on good AI for years and years and things seem to be ramping up. So let's take a quick peak at some of the newest and greatest consumer AI products out there.

Rationale.jina.ai

Rationale.jina is a decision making AI that offers a number of different analysis modes that can help you make a simple, yet rational decision in under 10 seconds. The economics teacher in me immediately weighed the marginal costs and benefits of trusting a random AI to be my personal assistant. 

So imagine you are pondering a decision like: should I become a vegetarian. You can decide between a few analysis modes:

• 3 Pros and Cons
• Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, or Threats (SWOT)
• Multi-Option
• Causal Chain

Now you can also create a "persona" which asks you to add details of your life for context and a backstory to get a more "personalized analysis." Using the SWOT analysis model, the program gave some decent, albeit basic, advice. It might be simple information/data, but sometimes our students just need simple.

Clipdrop.co and Letsenhance.io

The MakerSpace has been using an AI-powered image enhancer for a number of years now when we create our signage and stickers. So essentially if someone sends a low-quality image and wants it turned into a poster, I typically upload it to LetEnhance.io to beef up its resolution. Using AI, it sees where there is a lack of pixel depth and guesses to fill in the blanks. Now it's not a magic bullet like what you'd see on a corny CSI episode where they magically enhance a license plate, but it does its best.

This is a gross oversimplification

Clipdrop.co seems to take this to another level. You ever see those clickbait ads that say something like, "Doctors hate him! This one weird trick...." well this is almost true for the graphic design teachers out there because it automates some of what used to be locked up behind the skill chest of Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. You can cleanly remove a background from an image, cleanup blemishes on a person's picture, change the lighting, upscale the resolution, and true to its namesake, clip drop multimedia from one image to another. No idea what that means? No worries because neither did I until I watched this quick demo video.

Elevenlabs.io

Elevenlabs is a brilliant, although beta speech synthesis service that can quickly turn text into truly human-like voice recordings. If you were impressed with Alexa or Siri, you'll be amazed at how quickly they can synthesize a random paragraph into an audio clip that seems to nail every type of punctuation you can throw at it. I took a random part of a David Foster Wallace speech, and it actually sounded like a breathing human was reciting the piece. As mentioned it's currently in the beta stage and they are looking to add Spanish, Polish, and German by the end of the month. You can choose between about a dozen different voices between premade "Arnold" and "Bella" or even the cheerful "Sam." Check out their FAQ page here.

So play around with these options. They're all free with options to upgrade for premium features. Remember, these are all mostly in beta stages. We're really living in some extraordinary times and most foresee an exponential explosion of power and usage from AI programs. Might as well get used to it! 

FTT - Create Unique Experiences with Interactive Images with ThingLink

 Create Unique Experiences

With Interactive Images

ThingLink

 @LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Brain science tells us that being able to experience something helps with working memory, thereby creating a stronger connection in the brain which can lead to improved comprehension and a greater chance of transference of skills.*  But sometimes the thought of creating lessons that involve students getting to be hands-on or experiential feels daunting on a day-to-day basis. Not every day can be full of experiences, right? 

In my opinion, there are lots of ways to provide experiences for our students. Some experiences will be long and involved, while others can be small and not really require tons of prep on the back end. 

The digital tool ThingLink can be one of those small but mighty ways our students get to explore in an experiential way. You can make it as small or as involved as is needed for the lesson. How you use it is up to you, but it will allow your students to be in the driver's seat for at least part of their learning and they will need to do some interacting with the material, which is often the goal.

ThingLink allows you to make an image interactive. Think about a display you might see in a museum. There is an image of something that would otherwise be very difficult or cost-prohibitive to see close up.  Let's say the image is Reykjavik, Iceland, and its iconic sculpture located on the waterfront. The image presented in front of you has icons indicating that if you press on them, there will be more information. The information can be in the form of another image, a video, some text information, or a link to a website. It might look something like this.

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

This was created by me using the 360 library housed within ThingLink.

You can also use images that you have, OR you can create your own using Canva. Imagine that you create an amazing infographic for your students. Then what? They just look at it while you talk about it? How about if you share it with them and they explore it themselves by clicking on the tags you have created in Thinglink. You can even record your voice to give instructions.

Here is one I created about using Universal Design For Learning In The Classroom. I plan to use this with my class. Go ahead and give it a try. 

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

This can be a new way to mix things up in terms of how your students get information. You can also offer ThingLink as an option for students to show you what they know. Instead of having them create Google slides presentations, again, why not have them create an infographic in Canva and then use ThingLink to highlight and extend their knowledge.

Here is one that I did not create but that I especially like. It's 110 women composers and ThingLink is used to connect each one to a YouTube video of their music.

Five other quick ideas for using ThingLink to make dry content more interactive and interesting:

1. Have vocabulary students need to learn? Make an infographic with the terms and use ThingLink tags for the definitions and examples.

2. Want students to understand a timeline? Make it using Google Drawings, download as a jpeg or png and then add ThingLink tags to the relevant dates and events. 

3. Have a map students need to learn? Add ThingLink tags to the various locations and incorporate videos so students can experience different places in context to the map. 

4. Have a complicated multi-step problem that you just can't explain one more time? Put it on a Google Drawing and download as a jpeg or png and add it to Thinglink. You can create tags for each step and explain what is going on and why. You can even upload audio of you talking through the steps. 

5. Want students to notice a specific piece of artwork? Upload an image of it to ThingLink and then add tags for the information you want them to know. Let them click and explore on their own rather than listening to a lecture about it. 

Getting started with ThingLink is simple and quick. 

• Just go to ThingLink.com and sign in to get started. In order for your students to interact with your ThingLinks they do not need to log in which makes it totally SOPPA compliant. Also, the steps to begin are clear and easy to follow. Check it out here.
• You will upload your image and then add "tags" which will be those interactive elements for students to click on. You can even customize the icons used which can help your students quickly identify when there is more information to view. 
• Once you're done, click the share button. You can add the link to your Schoology page or use the embed code and add to a Schoology page so students can see it right there without leaving Schoology. 

Want some help getting started with ThingLink or not sure how you could utilize this tool for your class? Reach out via email or book a time with me. I'm always happy to help.