A couple of weeks ago I published an introductory overview of a new digital mapping platform called Felt. As I said in that introduction, I've only begun to scratch the surface of all of the things that students can do and make on Felt. One of those things is the ability to quickly and easily map walking, running, and biking routes. Those routes can be displayed in a variety of colors on the map. Another neat feature is the option to overlay any image onto the map.
Applications for Education
Creating a map of walking or bicycling routes can be a good way for students to familiarize themselves with their communities. It's also a good way for physical education teachers to map short routes for their classes.
Image overlays are helpful when you have an image of an old map or an image of how a place used to look. Overlay the image on its corresponding location to show students a "then and now" perspective.
On a related note, my Google Earth & Maps course is 50% off for the rest of the month use the code GEOAWARENESS22 during registration.
Google Drive has contained a search function almost since its launch more than ten years ago. That search function is fairly obvious. A less obvious search feature that sometimes gets overlooked is the ability to search within a specific folder in your Google Drive account.
To search within a specific folder in Google Drive simply right-click on its title to make a new menu appear. Near the bottom of that menu you'll find an option to search within the folder. Selecting that option will open a menu of search functions that are specific to that folder. Those functions include searching by file type, date, and file owner.
The ability to search within a Google Drive folder can be particularly helpful when you are looking for files within a large shared folder. You might use a slightly different naming convention than your colleagues or students so being able to search by date, file type, keyword, and file owner can be a huge time and frustration-saver.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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