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Weekly Tech Tips 24 January 2021

 Dear Friends!


I had the opportunity to meet up with all my colleagues in the math department last week. It was nice to be together talking about teaching. One thing I learned is that there is a need for basic Macbook / Browser navigation skills. I also learned that my weekly newsletter can be a bit on the loquacious side for some. It’s a dilemma because I have so many things to share after the break. I only got to a few of them last week. I will try to keep it short, relevant and helpful 


Weekly Tech Tips


I definitely wanted to introduce parlayideas.com. This is an online collaboration tool that allows you to set up either live or asynchronous roundtables for students to discuss any topic you care to introduce them to. It's pretty easy to use. I set one up (I borrowed the topic and prompt from the library) so that we can try it together. Please take a minute and write your response to the prompt. There are lots of tools for magnifying students’ voices and assessing their participation. It's a pretty neat tool not only for the obvious classes like English and history, but it can also be used in math and science.

Let’s try it out together at:

https://go.parlayideas.com?invite_code=hFpd%24fjWM

When you arrive click on the prompt. Watch the video, or not, it is 13 minutes long, then add your response over on the left I think. You should see this when you go to add your response:

Once you submit your response to the prompt...




Use Google Earth in your Classroom, since we can't go anywhere.

https://www.google.com/earth/education/


Now for those shortcuts and navigation skills that we mentioned. I am not a big Mac user or fan, but I realize that’s what most of us use at work so here is a short list of the most common shortcuts for the types of machines we use. 

https://support.apple.com/guide/macbook-air/keyboard-shortcuts-apd194062a6d/mac

Here’s another more extensive list

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236#:~:text=Command%2DH%3A%20Hide%20the%20windows,front%20window%20to%20the%20Dock.

Here is a categorized list of Chrome shortcuts for all computing platforms

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/157179?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en&oco=0

These lists are not that helpful though are they? We’ve all been sent  links to or lists of shortcuts which we look at then file away never to be looked at again. So in addition to that list let me share the shortcuts I use all the time. You too may find them useful or you may not. Here’s hoping something sticks and saves you time.

Insert links at lightning speed:

I am inserting a lot of links these days. This series of three shortcuts saves me a ton of time. Select the text to be linked (Shift+Option Left or Right key to select)

Open the insert link box (Command K)

Copy your link in the box (Command V)

Hit Enter to save

Fingers never leave the keyboard. Really fast once you get the hang of it. 

Scrolling through Tabs on Chrome

Option + Command + left or right arrow. I used this extensively when doing grades and I was going back and forth between Schoology, Powerschool, and my Excel gradebook. Drag ‘em right next to each other and slide back and forth quickly.

Speech to text

I am a horrible typist. If you would like to talk instead of type you can press the Fn (Function) key twice or click the Edit menu and select Start Dictation on your keyboard to open speech to text dictation. Also handy when your hands are full. To voice type on a Google doc hit Control Shift S

You may have to be sure you have shortcuts enabled for these to work. Lemme know if you need any help and please share your favs, even if you are positive everyone already knows it. You’d be surprised.


Have a great week!

Scott

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