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Weekly Tech Tips 30 May 2021

 Dear Friends,


I present to you the penultimate edition of this academic year’s 


Weekly Tech Tips


A reminder to those leaving that you might want to use Google Takeout:

https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout and or Transfer: https://takeout.google.com/transfer to take the contents of your Google account with you.


Google has made docs smarter with a technology called Smart Canvas, Here are three new capabilities (you may have already noticed them):


  1. Checklists added to Google Docs. Used to just be box shaped bullets, but are now actual functioning checkboxes. Later these checklists will be able to be assigned and shared making them really useful in group projects.


  1. Link suggestions suggested by the AI when you highlight a text fragment:



  1. Smart Chips for docs and events. When you type the @ symbol you get not only email contacts, but also relevant files and calendar events to possibly insert.


Read more about these three new "smart canvas" features here:

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/05/smartchips-for-files-and-meetings-checklists-in-docs.html


This Week’s Apps and Resources


Perusall

Developed by a couple of professors at Harvard University, Perusall says it is the world's only truly “social e-reader”. The link above is tio an 8 minute video. I am going to try this. I have to admit that while I was a big fan of CK12 early on and wrote about it in several newsletters, in practice it is a bit clunky and the sims and "Plix" included are really simple and most appropriate for elementary or lower middle school. I still meant what I said about them back in October. They are angels for putting together this wonderful free set of quality materials, but I think upperclassmen need something a bit more sophisticated. Would love to get some feedback or ideas on this from anyone who has assembled their digital lessons and materials.


Google Doc Calendar Templates for the 2021 SY by Eric Curts at Control Alt Achieve


Another application of Transformers. Natural conversations with Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA). Very cool and also a bit creepy. This AI thinks it's a paper airplane. Listen to these AIs hold meandering conversations that easily pass the Turing test.

Talk to Pluto and a paper airplane:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/18/22442328/google-io-2021-ai-language-model-lamda-pluto

More about LaMDA under the hood

https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/?utm_content=cta&utm_source=kw-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=05272021


Harvard Graduate School of Education (Free Courses at the Bottom)


Announcements


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/


The Google Certified Educator Level 1 course on Google Classroom is still there and will remain there for as long as it is relevant: Login to Google Classroom and input class code: 76trm2u or go here:

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



PLEASE TAKE MY SURVEY ABOUT NEXT YEAR!!!



Have a great final week of school!

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