Tech Bytes - November

Welcome to the busy holiday season and time spent with family and friends. As you are gearing up to head out for Thanksgiving, ponder these technology integration ideas. How can you integrate them into your upcoming units and standards?

Be In the Know:

Image from Pixabay

Emojis and Educators...Oh What Fun!

Students and teachers alike love Emojis right? So why not incorporate them into your content? For example, did you know that you can insert emojis into Google Docs? Yes! From the Menu bar, choose Insert > Special Characters. Then click the drop-down and choose Emoji. If you are having your students publish writing in Docs, let them use emoji's to enhance their story. They can even draw their own Emoji (I'm thinking character, self-portrait...). Eric Curtis has published a blog post on 5 Emoji Learning Activities complete with screenshots and directions.

My latest find that I LOVE is using emoji's to help organize files and folders in Google Drive. Did you know that you could use special symbols to group and organize your Drive? Well, thanks to an extension called Emoji For Google Chrome, you can organize with Emojis! Check out information on how that works here.

Share any ideas you have or have found on using Emojis in the classroom.

iPad App: 

Notes App for iPad - The native notes app will do so much more than just keep a list for you. Notes provides a way to include photos, videos, drawings and text all in one place. Of course, it saves to your camera roll, providing an opportunity to upload into another app to continue creation and learning. With iOS 11, you can even scan a document in Notes. The Document Scanner automatically senses it is a document, cropping the edges and removing tilts or glare.

Cool Tools Corner:

20 Questions is a favorite of children, parents, and teachers alike. It's a sneaky way to get some critical thinking skills past the students! 😉 Google is using its Artifical Intelligence interface to bring the game to you today called Mystery Animal. You can play this game on the Chromebook. Check out the video below for more information. Have fun guessing the animal!

A Little Something Extra:

Looking for templates to use with Chromebooks? Then check out these two sites for a jackpot of resources!   Technotes Blog   and    Engaging Students Google Resources

Happy Thanksgiving!