Lemon Tech Tidbits

Promote young children’s visual-spatial reasoning and creative problem-solving skills through open-ended play RelationShapes is available for both iPad and Chromebooks. It was designed specifically for elementary students to encourage children to “explore and discover visual-spatial relationships, or how objects relate to one another, in a fun and interactive way. Children move through eight levels of cumulative, progressively challenging activities designed to encourage flexible thinking and creativity. As they drag, scale, and rotate both abstract and figurative elements, they are exercising their spatial reasoning skills – which build a strong foundation for mathematics, problem-solving, and creative expression.” To see how it works, watch this short video: https://youtu.be/urLBpZ_yVqA To watch an app review, click on this video: https://youtu.be/3r0lrch1wXY

Open Education Resources There are several Open Educational Resources (OER) available online for teachers and students to use for free. The problem is how to find them. A simple Google search does not limit the results and so you have to either have a very refined and specific search or spend valuable time going through all of the sites. A new search engine, OASIS , solves this issue by offering users worldwide “the ability to search a range of OER materials including textbooks, courses and corresponding materials, interactive simulations, public domain books, audiobooks, modules, open access books, videos and podcast on a variety of topics - from anthropology to zoology. OASIS also is the only tool that allows users to limit searches by creative commons licenses or by faculty review.” Other places to search include OER Commons and one created specifically for students in grades 6 and up called HippoCampus .

QUICK ACCESS SIDE PANEL in Google Docs, Sheets & Slides Google recently announced they have once again moved some of the tools in a design to make it easier for you to use. This time, they created what they call a Quick Access Panel to allow you to integrate other popular G Suite products without having to leave your tab. Currently, there are three products in this quick access panel: Google Calendar, Google Keep, and Google Task. I have raved about Google Keep before as one of the G Suite products I can not live without. I have also shared how students can use Google Keep in research for note taking . Now, it is even easier to use. To see the Quick Access Panel, open up an existing or new Doc, Sheets or Slide. Take a look on the right-hand side and you will see this new update feature. Give it a try. To see it in action, watch this short video: http://bit.ly/2QDOQR9

EMBED YOUR TWITTER FEED INTO YOUR GOOGLE SITES PAGE It is very easy to embed your Twitter feed directly into your Google Sites page. This way, everyone who visits your website will automatically be allowed to read your latest tweets. Here are the steps: Go to your Twitter Home page Copy your URL Go to https://publish.twitter.com/# Paste in your URL Copy the Code In your Google Sites, double-click and select Embed Paste in your code in the Embed Code tab. Hit enter Your Twitter feed will now show up on your website! A little bit of warning though. If you use the same Twitter account for your personal and school use, you may want to remember all of your tweets are now linked and visible on your school website. It may be in your best interest to create a new Twitter account solely for school use.

MyBib.com What happened? I hate to break it to you but after the great success of mybib being shared, something went wrong with the website. It is no longer there. Everyone is just as confused and perplexed as the next person. When you do a search for mybib.com, all that comes up in easybib. This makes me very sad as I LOVED mybib. Hopefully, it will come back online soon. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, here are few other sites you can use to create bibliographies and citations: CiteThisForMe : This is a simple and free to use site. There are ads but they appear to be minimal. To learn more here is a video tutorial: https://youtu.be/JmoKFgDp6ag Cite.com : This is still in beta form and looks very similar to mybib.com. It makes me wonder, is this what happened to mybib? Did they change their name?

I NKBOARD : An easy and fun way to draw on pictures or blank canvas with life-like creative tools. InkBoard is an app that can be downloaded onto an iPad or from the Google Play Store for Chromebooks. The idea behind this app is pretty simple. Start with a picture and then edit it by using different tools such as a pencil to sketch in notes, a paintbrush to highlight areas, and more. Or you can simply start with a blank canvas and create your own masterpiece. You can even easily download the app and use it on your iPhone or Android phone as well. Once your picture is complete, it is easy to share it with others. Although this app is more for fun, there can be educational uses, especially for a quick way to highlight areas of a picture or to draw a simple plan to share with students. To see a quick introduction video, click here: https://youtu.be/Xq9cyLFAZ5c

Hello! I found a trick today that I would like to share with all of you regarding how to add ONE Google Calendar onto your Google Sites that has all of your assignments due for ALL of your classes in Google Classroom. So it is easy to add a Google Calendar into your Google Sites. And if you have been using Google Classroom, you know a Google Calendar is automatically created for each of your classes. But when you go into Google Sites to add the calendar, you are left with only two easy choices. You can add each individual calendar for each of your classes or you can add your own personal calendar but that will allow everyone access to all of your private information as well. WELL - I figured out a way you can add ONE calendar into your Google Sites that shows the data from only the calendars you want.  Here are the steps: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kM1zwUU34HMWv2JqYF80Ju9e49ldtM0x/view Go to calendar.google.com Click on the gear icon Click Settings On the left-hand s...

MyBib.com: A Bibliography Generator! I have a love/hate relationship with EasyBib. The students seem to really like using EasyBib to create their citations but there are some issues. Primarily is the fact it is very easy for a student to “grab” a citation already created by someone else only to find out it is wrong. And then there is the fact EasyBib is slowly going to a paid subscription service. So imagine my delight when I heard about a new opensource site called MyBib.com. MyBib.com is completely free and will not bombard you and your students with ads. It is so very easy to use. The first time you use it, there are boxes that will appear to guide you along the way. There is even a Chrome Extension you can install. If you want more information, watch this video from Richard Byrne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaJR6MI1Ltw

BACKCHANNEL CHAT: An alternative to TodaysMeet A few months ago, it was announced TodaysMeet, a simple to use tool to host ongoing discussions, was going to close down. An alternative was needed! And that alternative is…... Backchannel Chat! “Backchannel Chat is a class discussion tool that was designed from the ground up to support teachers. Backchannels are great for increasing participation in classroom discussions and for informally assessing your students’ knowledge.” As a teacher, you can control all aspects of the discussion including removing messages and students from posting to locking the room so only you can post content. Students do not need to create an account to join in the discussion. This is a freemium service . You can have up to 30 students in a chat room at one time for free but they do offer other subscription services for a fee… $15.00 per year for a classroom of 50 students or $299.00 per year up to 80 concurrent students.