The other new features highlighted in the video include hiding your own video when speaking, hitting the spacebar to temporarily mute or unmute, changing the hand raise order, and using OneNote chiclets in Teams. Watch the video to learn how all of these features work and why they might be helpful to yo when teaching online.
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Blurred Backgrounds and More Microsoft Teams Updates
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
New Lesson Plans from DocsTeach
New DocsTeach Activities
There are six new DocsTeach activities that were recently featured in the DocsTeach newsletter sent out to registered users. I've listed and linked to them below. And at the end of this post I've included my tutorial video about how to use DocsTeach to create your own online activities based on the primary sources hosted on DocsTeach.
- Comparing Perspectives in the Dawes Act and a Hopi Petition. This activity uses the compare/contrast model and is intended for high school classes.
- Fannie Lou Hamer and Voting Rights. This is an activity intended for middle school students to complete by answering some questions about specific portions of the document.
- Analyzing a Document about Teaching at Indian Boarding Schools. This is another activity designed for middle school classrooms. Students compare the salaries and responsibilities of educators at Indian Boarding Schools with those of educators at public schools.
- Writing to the President is an activity that introduces elementary school students to the process of analyzing a primary source. In this activity students read a letter written by third graders to President Gerald Ford asking for a "Kids Day."
- Japanese American Incarceration During World War II is an in-depth primary source analysis activity for high school students. The activity requires students to analyze more than two dozen primary sources. I recommend reading NARA's statement on potentially harmful content before using this activity in your classroom.
- Ten Crucial Days: From Washington Crossing the Delaware to the Battles of Trenton and Princeton is an activity for middle school students in which they'll match descriptions of events to their corresponding locations on maps.
On a related note, next Tuesday (February 15th) I'm hosting a webinar all about search strategies for history students and teachers. Join Me!
40,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way
My Most Popular Videos
If you haven't seen my YouTube channel, some of my most popular ones are embedded below.
The Basics of Creating a Quiz in Google FormsHow to Host an Online Meeting With Zoom
How to Create a Video With Canva
How to Share Videos Through Google Drive
How to Annotate PDFs in OneNote
How to Create Your Own Online Board Game
How to Create an Android App With the MIT App Inventor
How to View the Moon and Mars in Google Earth
Are you a tech coach or media specialist looking for some new ideas to share with your colleagues? If so, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook you need. You can get it right here.
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
How to Create VR Tours of Local Landmarks
I like to take a lot of pictures of this little winter playground at Mount Abram. Last weekend when I stopped to take some pictures I used the photosphere mode on my Pixel 5 to capture a 360 view of the intersection of a few trails. Doing that reminded me of a cool tool called Story Spheres that offers an easy way to make little virtual tours of places that you photograph.
How to Create a VR Tour
There are many ways that you could create a virtual reality tour. This is a simple method that utilizes the native camera app on a Pixel 5, Google Photos, Story Spheres, and Vocaroo.
Step 1: Use the photosphere mode in the camera app on a Pixel 5. (If you don't have a Pixel 5 or 6, there are other camera apps you can install to capture 360 imagery). Save the picture to Google Photos.
Step 2: Go to your Google Photos account and download to your computer the 360 image that you want to use in your VR tour.
Step 3: Create a free account on Story Spheres.
Step 4: Create a new story on Story Spheres. The editor will walk you through uploading your 360 image.
Step 5: Use Vocaroo.com to record short audio narration for your Story Sphere. Save the recording as an MP3 file.
Step 6: Upload your MP3 to your Story Sphere story (again, the editor guides you through that process).
Step 7: Publish your Story Sphere!
I provide a complete overview of this short process in this short video.
Applications for Education
Creating a VR tour with Story Spheres can be a great way to get students to research, create, and share little reports about landmarks in their communities. Their Story Spheres could be included as part of a larger multimedia project that they publish on Google Sites or a similar platform.
Are you a tech coach or media specialist looking for some new ideas to share with your colleagues? If so, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook you need. You can get it right here.
How to Create Collaborative To-do Lists in OneNote
OneNote for Project Management
An easy for students to use OneNote for group project management is to simply create a new shared notebook and on the first page include a task list. Then when group members complete tasks they can check them off. The nice thing about this is that students can see the task that have been done and who did them. They can also uncheck tasks or add notes if a task needs to be done again.Watch this short video to learn how to create collaborative task lists in OneNote.
Are you a tech coach or media specialist looking for some new ideas to share with your colleagues? If so, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook you need. You can get it right here.