Why Do We Say Ok? - Another Question from My Daughters

Last night during dinner one of my daughters asked, "what does ok mean?" My other daughter quickly followed up with, "yeah, why do we say that?" The first question we were able to answer fairly quickly and in a way that a five-year-old can understand. The second question was a little harder to answer. I knew that I had watched a video that answered that question at some point in the last few years. So after my daughters went to bed I did a quick search of my archives which brought me to this video produced by Vox. 

By watching Why We Say "OK" you can learn where OK originated and the roles of a presidential campaign, the telegraph, and railroads in spreading the use of "OK" until it became commonplace to say it. The video also teaches viewers why some businesses use "K" to replace "C" in product names.

Vox's video about "OK" reminded me Words of the World. Words of the World is a collection of videos featuring historians and linguists explaining the origins of and history of the use of words in the English language. The videos attempt to put the words into a somewhat modern context. For example this video about the word "guerrilla" makes reference to Che Guevara. The video I've embedded below explains the word "coup."



Applications for Education
Words of the World could be an instructive model for your own lesson combining history and language arts. Have your students pick a word or two that they think is common and research it. Then have them create their own short videos in which they explain the history of those words. You might even have them research the dialect of the areas in which they live. For example, where I live we have a Range Pond. Most people would pronounce that as range, like "home on the range" yet everyone around here pronounces it as rang as in "the bell rang."  I'm not sure why that is the case, but I would love to find out.

Good Explanations of Inflation, Recession, and Bubbles

Turn on any financial news network like CNBC these days and you're likely to hear some discussion about inflation and concerns about recession. Even if your students aren't listening to those stories, they might be hearing about them from their parents or perhaps in your classroom as part of a current events discussion. Financial news was always a topic in my classroom when I taught a current events course. 

If you find yourself talking about inflation, recession, and related topics in your classroom, here are some videos that could help your students gain a better understanding of those topics. 

Inflation Explained in One Minute provides a very basic explanation of the concept of inflation. It could be fine as a conversation starter or introduction to a lesson. However, if viewed on its own without additional information it might give students the impression that inflation is solely caused by changes in money supply. 

How Inflation Works is an excellent twelve minute video lesson produced by CNBC International. The video does a great job of explaining demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation. Going beyond the the basics the video also provides an excellent comparison of the economic theories of Milton and Keynes. Students will also learn how consumer price index is calculated and how it is indicative of inflation. Finally, the video concludes with historical examples of inflation around the world and the causes of those hyperinflationary episodes. I should note that the video will lend itself to introducing other concepts to your students including the importance of the federal reserve's interest rate.



If you or your students would prefer an animated lesson about inflation, The School of Life offers this solid explanation of cost-push and demand-pull inflation.



Related TED-Ed Lessons
TED-Ed has four lessons that could fit in well with a larger discussion and lessons related to inflation.

Why Can't Governments Print an Unlimited Amount of Money? explains the concept of quantitative easing in the context of the last two years.

What Give a Dollar Bill Its Value? explains the role of the Federal Reserve in trying to control inflation and deflation.

What Causes an Economic Recession? uses the context of the Bronze Age to introduce the factors that can lead to economic recessions today. Those include inflation, borrowing habits, saving habits, spending habits, and government decisions.

What Causes Economic Bubbles? uses the context of the tulip industry of the 1600's to explain what causes an economic bubble and what happens when it bursts.

Inflation Calculators
Inflation calculators are useful in helping students see the effects of inflation over time. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offers a free inflation calculator that lets you go back as far as 1913 to view changes in prices and buying power over time. It's how I figured out that the first car I ever bought back in the fall of 1996 for $1500 would cost almost $2700 today (and still be a hunk of junk).

Finally, on the topic of money, next week I'm hosting a Practical Ed Tech webinar about how to create and sell your own digital products. Join me!

Try Choice Eliminator Lite for Removing Choices from Google Forms

Twice in the last 24 hours I've been asked about options for removing choices from Google Forms as they get used up. The tool that I used to recommend was Choice Eliminator (the original and version 2). It seems that add-on has been removed from the Google Workspace Marketplace. Fortunately, Choice Eliminator Lite is still available to use in Google Forms. 

Choice Eliminator Lite doesn't have as many features as the original version, but it does remove options from Google Forms questions as they get selected. In this short video I demonstrate how to use Choice Eliminator Lite in Google Forms. 

Applications for Education
Choice Eliminator Lite can be useful when you have a list of options for students to pick from, but you only want one student to pick each option. For example, this can be useful in signing up for meeting times or for making sure your classroom party doesn't end up with twenty trays of cookies and no milk to wash them down.

Use Canva's Design and Recording Tools With Your PowerPoint and Google Slides

The other day a reader sent me an interesting question that I hadn't thought about before. That was whether or not you can use Canva's recording studio with Google Slides. At first I thought to myself, "why not just make a screen recording of the slides with something like Screencastify?" Then I thought about it some more and realized that the reason for the question was that Canva's recording studio makes it easy to see your speaker notes while recording, but it doesn't show the speaker notes in the final version of the recording. 

It is possible to use your Google Slides, PowerPoint slides, and Keynote slides in Canva to use Canva's recording and design tools with those slides. The trick is to first make sure that your slides are in PowerPoint format. To do that download your Google Slides or Keynote slides as a PPTX file. Then you can upload that file to your Canva account where you can then use all of Canva's editing, design, and recording tools. Watch this video to see how that whole process works. 

Applications for Education

Canva is one of my favorite tools for creating short video lessons with your existing slides. The process is less clunky than using a screen recording tool to capture your slides as you explain the key points on them. If you're a Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Keynote user who has ignored Canva's recording tool because you didn't want to have to recreate your slides, the method that I demonstrated in the video above is for you. 

How to Change Google Calendar Notifications

I have some good news for you if, like another reader who emailed me this morning, you are trying to keep Google Calendar notifications flooding your inbox. It's easy to adjust the frequency with which you receive email, desktop, and mobile notifications from Google Calendar. To do that simply go into the settings menu for the calendar that you don't want to receive notifications from and then disable the notifications entirely or adjust when and where you receive them. 

In this short video I demonstrate how to disable and enable notifications for the calendars in your Google Calendar account.