What's New, Hot and Cool?

SolveMeMobiles are great for developing algebraic thinking and problem-solving skills!

Check out these tweets for extending the activity:

@Mrs_evans6

@mrsbistro

@MrsFaberGrade1

Also available as an app!

Metademolab will bring drawings or images to life through artificial intelligence (AI).

1. Draw a character on a white background. Make sure the drawing has legs and arms.
2. Take a picture or scan the drawing and save it to your computer or drive.
3. Open sketch.metademolab.com.
4. Click Get Started.
5. Click Upload Drawing and navigate to your picture and click Next.
6. If the border around your drawing does not show the entire character, edit the border.
7. You will be asked to make sure the character is separated from the background. Edit the outline if necessary with the pen and eraser tools.
8. Align the dots for the location of the eyes, ears, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles. This is how the website knows where to add motion. Move the dots to the correct location if necessary and click Next.
9. From the panel on the left, choose what action you want your character to do.
10. Click the Share button to access sharing options for your animated drawing.

The Achievery is a new site from AT&T in collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery that uses movie clips as a digital learning tool to promote engagement. Lesson plans are included! Sign up for your free account!

Categories include:

English, Language & Arts

Maths

Science

Social Emotional LearningTechnology & Engineering
Digital Literacy
Digital Arts

Teachflix is a collection of curated videos for use in the classroom. The site was created by Matt Miller of Ditch That Textbook and the videos are vetted by educators. You can search by grade level strand and content area.

Padlet now gives you the ability to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) to tell Padlet what to draw as your post.

1. Add a New Post.
2. Select More Attachment Types (pink hexagon with 3 dots).
3. Click the I Can’t Draw button.
4. Type in what you want Padlet to draw.
5. Select one of the generated images for your post.

Do you need to remove the background on your latest selfie? Remove.bg does the trick! It currently only works with pictures that have people in them. Photo Scissors is another site that also removes the background from photos.

Have you seen Cleanup Pictures? This allows you to remove objects or people instead of removing the background. You can use this site to create Spot the Differences games (just like those from Highlights Magazine).

Pixabay and Unsplash are great websites to find free pictures from anywhere in the world.

Unscreen can be used to easily remove the background from short videos and convert them to a .gif. Add these .gifs to your Slides, google docs, etc. to engage your students!

The free version allows you to upload a 5-second video.

1. Open unscreen.com.
2. Click Upload Clip.
3. Locate your video clip and click Upload Clip.
4. Click Download.

Supported formats: .mp4, .webm, .ogg, .mov and .gif

Tutorial with a great example: bit.ly/unscreentutorial

This Chrome Extension is great to use when you need to celebrate students during Zoom meetings or presentations.

Trigger your confetti with:

- Windows: Ctrl + B

- Chrome OS: Ctrl + B

- Mac: Command + B

Wordwall allows you to create both interactive and printable activities. The free version allows you to create 5 resources, however, you have access to the activities that other educators have created.

When you are on the Wordwall home page, go to the Community tab and search for a topic. If your computer does not show the Community tab, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Community. Once you find a game you want to try or send to your students, look under Switch Template to see what other interactives are available for that topic.

Click the Share button to send the game to students.

Examples: bit.ly/linkswordwall

The Kid Should See This website includes a collection of over 5,000 ad-free, kid-friendly videos. Curated for teachers and parents, the videos have a special focus on STEAM - science, technology, engineering, art, and math.

Do you need free sound effects, sound loops and music for your presentations or classroom? The Orange Free Sounds website is so much fun!

Spinner Wheel allows you to create up to 8 wheels on one screen. Wheels can include images and the wheels can be spun independently or simultaneously.

Examples:

Mental Math - Spin the 3 wheels and solve the problem created from the 3 spins.

Writing Prompts - Spin the 3 wheels and use the content to write a story.

You’ve seen these crazy emoji math problems on social media, so why not let your students have some fun and try to solve them? There are multiple skill levels to play online or download.

Sovelmoji.com

To add more fonts to your Google Apps:

1. Select More Fonts from the drop-down menu next to the font listed in your menu bar.

2. Type in the name of a font or use the various filters.

FYI...

• Think about readability for students with different needs.

• Anything kids need to read goes into Sniglet, Lexend Deca, or something similar. Please don't use fancy a's or curly t's!

• You can search the More Fonts options under Show to find Sans Serif fonts, which are easier to read.

See a list of fav fonts at bit.ly/favfonts1

Tutorial for installing fonts - bit.ly/moregooglefonts

The Best Google Font Pairings + More Design Tips for Teachers blog post by Hello Teacher Lady

Yippity.io uses Artificial Intelligence to create a list of questions and answers for you to study. Enter text or a web link for your content and generate the quiz. Best of all...it's free!

Water is another site that needs no explanation! Try it out as a way to relax or just have a little fun.

360 Cities has been a favorite website for years, but now there 360Schools was created for use in the classroom. There are thousands of panoramic images for your students to view. Search for an image, click the Share icon and choose how you want to send it to your students. You can copy the link, email the link, add it to Google Classroom or use the QR Code.

Quizizz has some cool features you might not know about:

• Lessons (slides)

• Draw & other new question types

• Flashcards

• Import from Google Forms

• STAAR Question Templates (informational flyer)

The Draw option and other question types are great for allowing students to show their knowledge in a way other than multiple choice. You can provide an image or a blank background for the students to draw on. Note: The best way to view student results is through the Results option in your Teacher Dashboard.

Quizizz has the ability for you to create a slideshow and have your Quizizz activities built into the presentation. Add Slides from Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Create your own. Use the slides to teach a concept or two and then have students answer a question. Everything is in one place!

Flashcards - From your assign page, click "Preview" and then select "Flashcards". This will allow you to use the Flashcards for whole-class instruction. Click the share button to access a link that you can give to your students so that they have flashcards to study on their own.

Import from Google Forms - Take a Google Form and turn it into a Quiz. After you create a quiz, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select Google Forms.

STAAR Alignment - The question types are aligned with the question types that are found in the new STAAR tests and the TEKS are loaded in Quizizz if you want to align your questions to standards.

bit.ly/quizizzstaar

Virtual Stickerboards™ from StickTogether are digital 'paint by pixel' images that your students will love! Check out all of the virtual Stickerboards from StickTogether. (@byStickTogether).

The library of images can be used in various content areas and grade levels. Stickerboard tutorial

Directions:

1. Login to your account at letstick.to.

2. Click Create New Stickerboard™.

3. Select an image for your Virtual Stickerboard™.

4. This is the image the players will create together. It will not be revealed to them until it is finished.

5. Give your image a title and type in your name.

6. Click I am sure.

7. You can send your board to your students via the link or the QR code.

What's coming in the future? Be on the lookout for the option to upload your own images. There will be a nominal subscription cost for this feature.

Check out the StickTogether website for more great activities!

How fast can you type? Check your speed and accuracy by retyping entire novels or individual chapters on TypeLit.io. The free version allows you to use the books on the website, but for $5.00 a month, you can upload your own books.

Great for secondary students!

Students love using emojis to convey their thoughts and ideas! Did you know that you can access emoji keyboards on most devices? There are also several emoji generators that can easily be accessed from the web.

Access Emoji Keyboards:

Mac: Command+Control+Space Bar

PC: Windows key, then press the period button

Chromebook: Right-click where you want the emoji to be placed. Click emoji from the pop-up menu and select an emoji. This option may not work on all Chromebooks.

Add an Emoji as Bullets:

• Create your bullets as you normally would.
• Right-click on one of the bullets.
• Select Emoji under the Symbols tab and click on the Emoji you want to use.

Emoji Generators:

Keyboard Chome extension

getemoji.com

coolsymbol.com

emojipedia.org

joypixels.com

emoji.kitchen

Use the Microsoft Excel mobile app and take a picture of something that you want to be in spreadsheet format. The App will turn the photograph into editable text inside an Excel spreadsheet.

Read more about how it is done here.

Just for fun...you definitely are getting older!

Check out this website, You're Getting Older, and find out tons of useful and useless information!

This extension allows you to use Immersive Reader on websites. Highlight the text, right-click and select Help Me Read This and Immersive Reader will open.

To understand how Immersive Reader works, view this video from Tony Vincent.

Wordmark.it lets you type in a word or phrase to see how the text will appear in all of your installed fonts. Wordmark.it is available as a Google Chrome extension and Microsoft Edge add-on.

Click here to install the Google Chrome extension.

Click here to install Microsoft Edge Add-on.

Note: You will need to restart the Browser after installing new fonts.

There is a Pro account ($18.00 per year) that includes some other cool features!

Who loves getting money back? Fetch Rewards lets you earn points on restaurant and store receipts and then redeem them for gift cards and other rewards. Available for iOS and Google Play.

Please use this referral code: 2J6V1C

Thanks to Tony Vincent (@TonyVincent) for this great tip! You can access a map of where your photos were taken by following these steps:

1. Open Photos app.

2. Click Albums.

3. Scroll down to "People & Places."

4. Tap Places.

5. Tap the Map tab.

6. Zoom in to see more precise locations.

Free 3D Icon includes a collection of free 3D icons that you can use in projects or websites. Search and click on the icon to download it.

J2 Training

Janet Corder & Joan Gore
www.j2training.org
j2training@yahoo.com
tinyurl.com/j2shelf

Follow us on Twitter:
@corderj
@joangore