Monday, January 21, 2019

A Master List of Resources About Microsoft's Inclusive Classroom Tools

Microsoft offers many excellent tools that improve the accessibility of documents, web pages, PowerPoint presentations, and other online media. Many of those tools are included in what Microsoft calls Learning Tools. A couple of weeks ago Microsoft announced ten updates to their Learning Tools. Microsoft offers free professional development training packs that you can use to teach others about Learning Tools. Last Friday those training packs in a new master list of links for inclusive classroom experiences.

Helpful Links for Microsoft’s Inclusive Classroom Experiences contains more than four dozen resources for learning about Microsoft's Learning Tools and other accessibility features. The list includes a few full-length professional development webinars, the aforementioned training packs, case studies, and deployment guides for IT administrators.

How to Use PhotoScissors to Remove the Background from Any Image

In yesterday's Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week I shared directions for using Remove.bg to take the background out of selfies and then use those modified pictures to virtually place yourself in a new setting. At the end of that newsletter update I mentioned PhotoScissors as an alternative to Remove.bg.

PhotoScissors lets you remove the background from any picture, not just selfies. This afternoon I used PhotoScissors to remove the background from a picture of my dog. I then used a picture of the White House's lawn in a Google Slide and layered the cutout of my dog on top of it. Watch this short video from my YouTube channel for an overview of how to use PhotoScissors.