Lemon Tech Tidbits

  Mrs. Arin Jones recently shared a website her students have enjoyed using to practice their typing skills. It is called NitroType . Students can easily login using their Google account or through Clever. Once logged in, students are able to change the color of their car, give it a sticker, and decide on a exhaust trail.  NitroType is a multiplayer car racing game where you need to type a passage currently and as fast as you can to win. Students compete against each other and other students from around the world. You can play as many times as you want.  It is free to sign up for an account and no email is asked or used. You do get friend request but can turn this feature off which is strongly advised. There are ads that are displayed which may cause concern for some students. 

I have found myself using AI more and more as a tool for creating educational products for teachers. One of the sites I use a lot is Bard AI, created by Google. Recently, there has been an upgrade and a new name. Bard AI is now called Gemini .   Why the change? Google wanted to change the name to make a more unified experience for users. Before, Google had Bard as a chatbot AI and had Duet AI as an AI powered generator. Now, both are combined with the single name Gemini. Why should I be aware of this change? If you use Google Assistant (“Hey Google” on a device such as your phone), it will automatically pull up Gemini. It even sounds like Google will soon be phasing out Google Assistant (and it’s app) and replacing it with Gemini. You can already install the Gemini app onto your phone if you want to give it a try. You Still NEED TO CHECK the content: I wanted to see if Gemini would be able to give information on an event from yesterday so I asked it to explain who won the S...

  PBS LearningMedia builds on the strength of public media and is designed to improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement. Resources are aligned to national standards and include videos and inter-actives, as well as audio, documents, and in-depth lesson plans for grades PreK through 12th grade. You can browse by standards, grade level, subject area, and special collections. You can also favorite and share resources with your class and colleagues. Best of all, PBS LearningMedia’s basic service is free for PreK-12 educators. I especially like the ability to easily add any lesson directly to Google Classroom.

  I found this presentation on one of the Facebook groups I belong to for school librarians. It is was shared by Christina Peet Nunez and all the work is hers. I wanted to share this as I found it to be very helpful and full of great information. The first slide has links to learning more about Google Docs, Drive, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites, and Chrome. Once you click on which Google product, you are brought to another slide that breaks down 6 to 8 different tutorials. If you pick one, you are brought to an instructional slide complete with a GIF to show you exactly how to perform that tip or trick. Even though I use Google products all the time, I still found ideas that I either hadn’t known or didn’t consider doing. For example, one of the tips shows you how to have students create a rubric together for a project using Google Forms!   Take a look for yourself.   

  I am sure you are like me and hate when you get emails from businesses and organizations that you would rather not receive. It takes a lot of time and effort to go into each email and scroll down to the bottom to select Unsubscribe, only to find you still get their messages. Google understands this problem and created a new way for users to unsubscribe from these unwanted emails. Now, if you see an email from a company you no longer want, you can hover over the message and a box will pop up asking if you want to unsubscribe. If you select it, an email will be sent to the company from Google asking they remove your address from their mailing list.  You can mark the message as spam as well. Just remember that when you mark the email as spam from a legitimate business or organization, it can negatively impact the senders email reputation. This can in turn negatively affect future emails from that company.  If you don’t notice this update, just wait. It will be slowly...

  Trello.com was designed for individuals and groups who have big and small projects to complete. It helps keep everyone organized and up-to-date.  Trello is a freemium site (free and paid subscription). For most people, the free version will work for what they need. It is easy to create a free account. Then, you are prompted to create a “board” where you can put all of the lists and other links necessary to complete the task or project. You then are prompted to create List and finally Cards. The cards are the steps you or the group need to complete. There is an option to add a date due to a card of when it needs to be completed. Finally, you can add or invite others in your group via email.  There are many things you can do with Trello. To find out, watch this quick video on youtube. For a longer tutorial, watch this video. (special thanks to Amanda Harrison for shouting out this tech tool)

  Mizou.com is a chatbot that was created for 1 to 1 student interactions in a safe environment. There is something from elementary to senior students to explore. With Mizou, teachers can customize and create an AI chatbot based upon their learning materials and rubrics. The chatbot can then be shared with students in a secure fashion (students do not need to login or sign up). Students can then interact with the chatbot using text, images, and audio. Students and teachers will receive automatic feedback identifying where students relate in context with the material.  If you don’t have a lot of time, try using one of the chatbots already created by another educator. You can search by grade level and subject. You can give them a try yourself before you share them with students. I tried a chatbot about learning the ABC’s and another where I conversed with Edgar Allan Poe. You could learn about mummification or get tutorial help in math. There are so many different and wonder...

  Sembl.app was designed by educators for educators. It takes the hassle of trying to find a good math task online from a variety of sources. With Sembl.app, all you have to do is search this ONE free website. You can search by grade level and skill and then launch the task directly from the site.  To sign up, click on the three horizontal lines in the top right corner. It will then ask you a few questions. Once you have signed up, you will see a short video introduction. Click on the button at the bottom to get started and you are presented with the next screen to narrow down your search. You can pick the grade level, the tasks, and the concepts you want to focus on. If you find one a task, click on it and it will give you more information. Make sure to scroll down! If you like what you see, click on Launch OR simply click on the site. I found many of the tasks to have been created in Google Slides. I clicked on the Google Slides icon in the bottom right corner and it open...

  Coming soon, you will be able to excuse an assignment for a student in Google Classroom. If a student has an assignment listed as missing, you can select the three dots and change it to Excused. (if you don’t see this feature yet, just wait. It is being slowly rolled out)

  Adobe Express has released a cool new feature that allows you to create an audio recording with an animated feature. It is called Animate from Audio and it is totally free and easy to use. First, login using your Google account. Second, pick your character and background. There is a wide variety to choose from. Once you have selected these features, simply click on the record button and record your voice. When it is done processing (may take a few minutes), you can download it as an MP4. This mp4 can then be put into Google Drive and added to a Google Slide presentation or into Canva.  This would be a great and fun way for students to share their knowledge over a topic.  This tool was included on a 12 Days of Techmas presentation put together by Christina DiMicelli. You can watch her slide over Animate from Audio in which she explains how to use this tool by going to this site and selecting the first sweater.

  Did you know that in Canva for Education , there is a whiteboard you can use with your students? Simply sign in to your Canva account. In the box titled “What Will You Design Today,” notice there is a button for a Whiteboard. Like everything else in Canva, there are many templates you can easily use or you can start from scratch. You can download a Google Slide presentation or single slide and upload it into Canva to use with the whiteboard. Assigning a Whiteboard is very easily as it is integrated with Google Classroom.  For more information, watch this short video . To learn more about Canva for Education, including how to get started using it, watch this video . It is a playlist of videos to walk you through what you need to know.

  Eric Curtis is sharing Ed Tech Cool Tools during the month of December. One of the tools he recently shared was over SchoolAI. I was intrigued so I decided to check it out - and I was blown away!  SchoolAI is different from other AI tools in that it was designed to be used by Teachers AND students. And it is completely free! SchoolAI allows a teacher to set up an AI tool called a Sidekick (which only takes a few minutes to do). They then share the AI tool with students who can then interact with the tool in a safe environment. The students do not need to login or anything. They simply go to the generated link and start interacting with the AI tool. What is so great is that all of their interactions can be monitored by the teacher and at the end, the teacher receives a summarization on how the students did. BUT THAT IS NOT ALL! There are some AI interactive tools already built into the program for the students to interact with including historical figures, famous peopl...

  Padlet has recently announced their version of an AI tool allowing you to create AI images. Padlet is a freemium (free and paid subscription). The free version allows you to only have 3 padlets BUT you can reuse them to continue to use the free AI image creation tool.  To use this new feature, create a Padlet. Click on the plus sign in the lower right corner. When a box opens, give it a title. Next, click on the three horizontal dots to open up the menu. Select “I Can’t Draw” to have the AI tool “draw” for you. Type in a description of what you want. Next, hit publish to save the image onto your Padlet. To use your image in another app, you can double-click on the picture. On the top right-hand corner, select the three dots which will open up a menu. Select download and your image will then appear in your download folder for you to use. I tried it out by typing in a description for a 6th grade math student in clipart form. This is the image it gave me to use. I found t...

  Google just announced a new feature that will soon be coming to everyone’s Google Slide presentations - the ability to record while you present! “From webinars, to employee trainings, to lessons for your classroom, slides recordings help you effortlessly record visual and engaging presentations without ever leaving Slides.”  This new feature will be released to everyone’s account by January 2, 2024. When it arrives, you will notice a new record button on the top right corner under the Share button. Once selected, it will record your presentation and then save it to your Google Drive account. A few things to remember:  You MUST be in the Chrome browser on a laptop.  You can not record using a mobile device at this time.  All recordings have a 30 minute time limit (I wonder if you could do a part 1 and a part 2 if your presentation is longer than 30 minutes).  You must have edit rights to the Google Slides in order to record.  All recordings will be ...

  Escape rooms are a great way for students to practice resilience and creative thinking. There are many different digital escape rooms available. I thought I would share a few here that are ready to be used for the winter season: Snowman Math for 1st-2nd graders (I created this one for math review) Find the Abominable Snowman for 6-8th grade (I created this one for math review) Iditarod Digital Escape Room for 3-6th grade (another one of mine) Mr. Popper’s Penguins (I created this to go with the book) Winter Breakout (easy level) Snowman Stumper (harder level) Merry Merry Breakout  for 4th-8th grade Elf on the Shelf Google Form Breakout for 3-6th grade Christmas, Hanukkah, and Around the World Breakouts (with answers) from Matt Miller Deck.Toys Holiday Digital Escape Rooms (search by grade level and holiday) Cracking the Christmas Code for grades 6-12 (free download from TpT) Finding Rudolph for elementary students

  AntiMatter is not just a science term, it is a company that was developed with a simple idea: “if a student really understands a topic, then they will be able to make a meme about it.”  Students can make a meme using the built-in generation tools built into the system. They then share them with each other over the curriculum topic. A teacher can assign a prompt and have the students create a meme around that prompt. They can then discuss the memes created together. Another activity available is the ability to create a text conversation between two characters using the “New Phone, Who Dis” application.  Now, Antimatter has released their AI version called Sorcerer . (it is still in Beta form). The idea behind this new project is the ability for students to see what they know or need to know about a topic. The students would start by naming their Sorcerer. They then put in the topic they are currently learning in class. Once everything is set up, they then “visit” their ...

  Keeping with the Gratitude theme, there are a few other blog posts that I thought I would share with you. These could make wonderful activities to do with students in this short week before Thanksgiving vacation.  WeAreTeachers has a post about creating Thank You letters and cards to teachers. Included at the bottom is a link to download all 19 thank you cards. Another post includes 13 thank you cards for those extra special people in a school building such as cooks and janitors.  Ronnie Williams from Greenbush has shared a post over Awesome Thanksgiving Resources to be used. Canva for Education has many already created templates you can use with your students to talk about Gratitude. For example, here is a template for a gratitude jar worksheet. On a Facebook group titled Teachers Teaching With Tech, Christina Peet Nunez shared an Attitude of Gratitude Hyperdoc lesson ideas for elementary through high school students to use. You can access it here .

  One of the hot new tools right now is Figjam for Educators. It is basically a white board in which all students can participate from their iPads or Chromebooks. I previously talked about Figjam in the Tech Tidbits before. Hopefully, you have explored this new tool.  Recently, Alice Keehler has been doing a deep dive into Figjam on her blog. She recently had a post about how to save a background image to Figjam so students don’t accidentally move any key features. Another blog post is where she shared a template ready to be used over Gratitude which is perfect for the Holidays. To find more templates ready to be used, you can search this site: https://www.figma.com/@education or see the ones Alice Keehler has created by going here: https://www.figma.com/@alicekeeler

  What is it? Khan Academy Kids is a comprehensive early learning program created for students between the ages of two to eight years old. It was created to help provide individual practice for foundational skills. Once installed, students will have individual learning paths to help guide them through the activities. Teachers can check in on them to see their progress or provide them with individual activities from the library of resources.  How much is it? Like all Khan Academy apps and websites, this app is FREE! What does Khan Academy have? A few of the activities include reading comprehension worksheets, teachers tools such as setting up a class or finding resources by state standards, circle time of youtube videos with interactive stories and much more. Where can I find more info? Watch this quick introduction video about the app or watch this video to see an example of one of the activities.

  Curipod has recently announced two updates created for elementary students. One is titled Word of the Day . It is a vocabulary building activity. The students learn a new word, get to make a sentence with the newly learned word, and practice synonyms and antonyms. It was created for grades K-4. The other one is Paragraph of the Week. This activity was created for students to practice writing a paragraph based on an interesting prompt. It was created for grades 2-6. If you have not spent any time exploring Curipod, I would strongly recommend you do. Not only can Curipod create an interactive slides to add into your presentation (thanks to AI), but there are so many already completed and ready to use lessons and presentations available in the Discover library. Not only are the lessons engaging but they tell you exactly how much time it would take to go through the presentation. Curipod is free for teachers to use with some limits. One of the limits is you can only have five pres...