Watch Out for This Email Scam Pretending to Be From YouTube Support

If you have a YouTube channel, there is a new (new to me anyway) email scam that you need to be aware of. This scam landed in my inbox earlier today. Fortunately, the scam is so poorly executed that it is rather easy to spot. 

The scam is that someone finds the email address you have associated with the "about" page on your YouTube channel then sends you a PDF by sharing it via Google Drive. The PDF is titled "Copyright Warning" and claims to be from "YouTube Support." However, the email address associated with the shared file is a generic Gmail address. That's the first clue that the email is a phishing attempt. 

Another clue that this was a scam was that in my case, the email address found on my channel's about page is different from the one that I use to actually log into and publish videos on my channel. YouTube support, from whom I have received legitimate emails, will only contact you through the email that you use to log into and publish on your YouTube channel. 

Because I enjoy unraveling scams like these, I made a video to highlight the flaws with the scam and how to avoid falling for it. You can watch the video here on my YouTube channel or as embedded below. 

Applications for Education
I like to take scam email attempts like this one and use them as the basis for short lessons about cybersecurity. Emails the like the one I got today have some tell-tale signs of a scam that are fairly easy to spot. See if your students can spot them.

Some similar scams that I've unraveled in the last couple of years include this one about image attribution and this one also about image attribution from someone pretending to be a lawyer.

How to Add Descriptions to Google Drive Folders

A few days ago I received an email from a reader who was looking for suggestions about how to keep track of what is contained with the folders of a Google Drive account. My suggestion was to try adding descriptions to the folder. 

When you right-click on a folder in your Google Drive account a new menu appears. All the way at the bottom of that menu there is a little description field in which you can write up to 25,000 characters. Watch this short video for a demonstration of how to add a description to your Google Drive folders. 

Applications for Education
Adding a description to your Google Drive folders can be helpful to you. It can be even more helpful to the people with whom you have shared a Google Drive folder. For example, you may want to write a description of the contents of a folder full of review materials that you share with your students or a folder full of lesson materials that you share with your colleagues.

More Than 70,000 Pieces of ClipArt and Pictures for Students

The Florida Center for Instructional Technology hosts two fantastic resources for teachers and students in search of clipart and pictures for classroom projects. One of those is ClipArt ETC and the other is Clippix ETC. 

ClipArt ETC is an online catalog of more than 70,000 pieces of clipart that students and teachers can download and use in classroom projects. The catalog is arranged in thematic collections and sub-collections. Simply pick a collection then a sub-collection to find the clipart that you want to use. The clipart is available in three file sizes to meet most needs. 

Clippix ETC is an online catalog of thousands of pictures teachers and students can download and use for free in their classroom projects. Like ClipArt ETC, Clippix ETC is arranged in thematic collections and sub-collections. Images are available in three resolutions to meet most needs. 

Watch this short video for an overview of ClipArt ETC and Clippix ETC. 

Applications for Education
It's important to note that these collections were built specifically for classroom use. That means that you shouldn't encounter any images that aren't appropriate for school. It also means that the licensing for the clipart and images is specific to classroom use. Use outside of the context of a classroom setting does require purchasing a license to re-use the images and clipart.

How to Read Music - And 17 Other Lessons About Music

Music Snippet is a Google Docs add-on that I've written about in the past. It's handy tool for writing music in Google Docs. A reader recently asked me about it which prompted me to search my archives for other music-related resources. One that I came across was a TED-Ed lesson that explains the fundamentals of reading music. Watching the video won't turn students into composers over night, but it provides a good start.

TED-Ed offers a lot of interesting and useful video lessons for students. Many of the videos are organized into playlists. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a playlist of all of the TED-Ed lessons about music. To remedy that problem, I made a playlist of my own featuring eighteen TED-Ed lessons about music.

Maps and Videos About Where Thanksgiving Foods Come From

Where Does Your Thanksgiving Dinner Come From? is an interactive storymap that I've shared in the past and still find interesting. The map displays where eight popular Thanksgiving foods are grown and harvested in the United States. The storymap includes a map for each ingredient. Each map shows the locations of commercial producers. Fun facts are included in the storymap too. For example, did you know that Illinois has at least twice as many acres of pumpkins as any state?

Where Does Your Thanksgiving Dinner Come From? shows where food comes from today, but it doesn't show the historical origins of traditional Thanksgiving foods. That's an interesting topic of its own. It's Okay to Be Smart and TED-Ed offer video lessons that address the origins of traditional Thanksgiving foods. 

Through It's Okay to Be Smart's The Surprising Origins of Thanksgiving Foods students can learn how the most common, traditional Thanksgiving foods originated and evolved to what they are today. This lesson includes an explanation of how archaeologists and scientists determined that turkeys were one of the first animals to be domesticated in North America. We also learn why the turkeys we find in the grocery store today are so much bigger than those of just a few generations ago. 

Corn is often seen as a symbol of Thanksgiving. Today, corn and many products made with it are a staple of the diets of many of us. How did corn become a staple of our diets? What has enabled it to become one of the most cultivated crops in the world? And what are the consequences of cultivating so much corn? Those questions and many others are addressed in the TED-Ed lesson titled How Corn Conquered the World.