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Weekly Tech Tips 2 May 2021

 Dear Friends,


Back in the saddle 100% and T minus 5 weeks and counting!


Weekly Shortcuts 


This is one of those 4 times a year when our attention turns to spreadsheets. Here are a few sheet shortcuts in case you didn’t know.

From The Verge: Five Little Google Sheets tricks I Taught my Dad.


If you want to power up (way up) your sheet skills may I recommend Better Sheets. This guy has turned sheets into a full fledged programming language. You’d be amazed at the stuff you can do with a simple spreadsheet.


Weekly Tech Tips


Educase Horizon Report Teaching and Learning Edition:

Every year it lays out teaching technologies and practices that are most likely to have an impact. This year’s report drew on the expertise of more than 70 panelists who hold a range of teaching and technology positions in higher education.

Among technological trends, Educause’s panelists considered the most important to be widespread adoption of hybrid learning models, increased use of learning technologies, and online faculty development. They also identified some important technologies likely to move teaching and learning forward, such as learning analytics, artificial intelligence, and quality online learning.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XfQbXO79Jg0JjAKXNS7z4taUo33pcwjb/view?usp=sharing


Last week with online classes I had some group work that needed done. I asked my students their prefered method to talk online and it was Discord. What is Discord and why is it so popular with young people? From Higher Ed.

My Students Started a Discord Server. Now What?



This Week’s Apps and Resources

Have you heard of Mote?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mote-voice-notes-feedback/ajphlblkfpppdpkgokiejbjfohfohhmk

I feel like this is one you may have heard about already. Seems to be a bit of an audio craze these days with apps like Clubhouse taking over. I guess people are rediscovering the human voice after decades of text and emojis. This extension allows you to leave audio messages / feedback on Google Docs. AI will create a transcript and translate it into another language (including Korean and Japanese). Great for ELL or LD students. Once you get the hang of it, it can save you a lot of time. Reuse pre-recorded comments.


Don’t forget that the Weekly Tech Tips are now all online for you to reference if you ever want to go back and look up something that caught your eye but can’t remember.

https://drwsweeklytechtips.blogspot.com/


Also please remember I have made a Google Certified Educator Level 1 Class for anyone and everyone. It is SELF-PACED. It is just sitting there for you to use whenever and however you wish. It is a series of exercises designed to prepare you for the Google Certified Educator Level 1 exam. The course is almost complete. You can join any time by going onGoogle Classroom and inputting class code: 76trm2u

or going here:

https://classroom.google.com/c/MTQ5Mjg3ODQ1MjZa?cjc=76trm2u

I will be making a new course soon to reflect the changes that Google has made to the apps and to the suite as a whole now that it is Google Workspace for Education. I should have that for you by mid-summer.


Have a great week!

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