The Power Of A Camera: 

Using The Chromebook Camera 

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

I was late to the party when it comes to smartphones. I hung on to my LG flip phone for as long as I possibly could. I was perfectly happy being able to make phone calls and fire off a few text messages. As the technology got better, and data and messaging got cheaper, I eventually caved and jumped on the smartphone bandwagon. Immediately I understood the excitement. There were so many apps and so many games that I could engage with and lose track of time! Now that I have had a few iphones I can confidently say that the most underrated tool on this tiny computer is the camera. I use the camera for everything from remembering where I parked my car at the airport to scanning a receipt that I will most certainly lose.

I think we often forget that our students have chromebooks with cameras built in and there are some tools there that are very underutilized. This post will give you just a taste of what your students can do. I would encourage you to encourage them to play around with the camera that is built in and give the tools a test drive. I think that they will find that the camera can be extremely helpful in the classroom. 

How to access the camera on a chromebook:

Click on the app launcher button and then click on the camera app.

When you click on the camera app the camera will be in use.

The chromebook camera allows you to:

• record still photos
• record videos
• record animated gifs which are 5 second clips
• scan a document and convert it to a pdf

Below are instructions for using the chromebook camera, but first, let's look at some of the settings. 

Within the camera app, you have several settings that you can adjust. Have your students give these a try!

• Change the size of the grid, length of the timer, or change the camera resolution
• Select "mirroring" to flip your image from left to right
• Select "grid" to view a grid overlay to help line up your shots
• Select timer to turn on a 3 or 10 second timer
• If you have a second camera, like a document camera, you can click on "switch camera" to change between your external camera and the one that is built in
• When taking a picture you have the option for landscape (default) or square

Where are my pictures?

The pictures will get saved to the Camera folder on our chromebook. To access the images, open the Files app then select "my files" and then "camera".

How do I edit?

You can open and edit any picture you have taken. Here is a list of the editing tools that are built in. It gives you the basics. There are lots of free online photo editing tools that can be used for more robust editing needs.

• Crop and rotate the image
• Rescale the image to resize it
• Lighting filters to adjust exposure, contrast, and saturation
• Annotate to draw on top of the image

Recording a video or GIF

1. Choose "video"
2. Choose "normal" to record a standard video. You have the ability to pause and resume as you need.
3. Or choose "GIF" to record a  5 second animated GIF

Scanning a document

1. Choose "scan" then "document"
2. Line up the document in the frame and take the picture
3. Click "retake" if you need to rescan
4. Click "fix" if you need to adjust the frame
5. Click "save as photo" or "save as pdf" to save your scanned document

Want more support or help for your students? Let us know. We're happy to help.

You can also give the Chromebook Simulator  a try. 

 Gmail's New-ish Look and Integration Updates

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

Gmail is getting a relatively small update with more rounded corners and focuses on better integration between Google's main communication apps: Gmail, Google Chat, Google Spaces (think Slack, Discord, or even AOL chat rooms), and Google Meet. Essentially you can access the aforementioned apps in a full-screen format without having to create new tabs or switch between them. They began this integration process with Google Calendar and Keep a few years ago now, and has been widely viewed as a good move. 

Try it yourself

You can take a peek at the new interface by going to your settings. Click on "Try out the new Gmail View" and you may be surprised at how little actually changes. As mentioned, corners get rounder and the left bar UI gets a little cleaner. 

Integrations

So first off, heavy users of Google Chat, Meet, and Spaces will enjoy seeing a full-screen UI with their corresponding displays without having to switch tabs. You can toggle through each app by choosing from the left menu. Although the option exists if you'd still prefer chatting in a pop-up window:

Chat notifications are will now appear as bubbles that appear on the bottom left corner of the page. You can respond directly via the bubble, or you can chat via the pop-up window. 

The Bottom Line

These new integerations can be helpful if you utilize the various communication apps in Google. If you haven't jumped into Google Chat or Spaces yet, I highly suggest you give them a try. Here is a previous FTT Blog on Google Chat to assist you. If these changes are not enticing enough, enjoy the bubbles and rounded edges! 

 

Creation Multi-Tool

Canva Pro is FREE for Students and Teachers!

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

One of my favorite podcasts, How I Built This, recently did an episode with Tim Leatherman in which he described the journey of his leatherman multitool. He was looking for a simple solution to the problem of often needing a variety of tools that he could keep in his pocket. This episode really stuck with me as I am often looking for efficiency of time, effort, and space. The notion that this one little tool could do so many things is very appealing. In addition, the story of perseverance and belief in what he was doing makes Tim Leatherman's story an incredible lesson in entrepreneurship. It took him seven years to sell one Leatherman Tool and his company is now worth over $100 million.

Anyway, I really want to talk to you about Canva. By the way, there's a How I Built This episode about Melanie Perkins, founder of Canva, too! It's from 2019. Canva is the Leatherman Tool of the design world and for teachers and students, the Canva Pro account is FREE!

We have featured Canva before on this blog.  The first post was back in 2015. The features that I wrote about back then still hold true but now Canva has so much more to offer in terms of creativity and design. 

What can you and your students create with Canva?

I talk to so many teachers who are designing lessons where students are creators and not just consumers of information. This is great! Canva is a wonderful tool for this because it is so versatile. You can create everything from infographics and posters to videos, social media posts, mind maps, flashcards, newsletters, and more. The drag and drop system makes it simple to create beautiful designs with a very short learning curve. 

How do you get your free account?

In the near future, you will only be required to sign in with your school Google account. Until then, go to https://www.canva.com/edu-signup/   and enter your information. You can then create a link for your students as well. 

Where should you get started with Canva?

First, think about the goal. What is it you want your students to learn, understand, or be able to do?
Canva will give you suggestions but you can also click the Templates tab at the top of your screen. 
There are thousands of templates to try and there is a search bar so you can find what you need without wasting a ton of time.

No need to stare at a blank screen! This is perfect for students who struggle with getting started. 

When you click Templates, you can browse by subject, or by project type. You will also see trending templates.

Since many of you have probably already used Canva for digital design or print materials. I thought I would use this post to highlight the newer video editing features in Canva. From the home screen where it says What Will You Design you can choose video. From there you will have some easy to assemble video options. These are great for students and will work on any device they are using. There is nothing to download!

You can choose from templates that you will drag and drop and then customize as much as you like.

When you are finished with your video, click the share button. You have so many options for sharing your video creation including getting a sharable link. Also, you can set the permissions just like on Google docs, so you can determine how private or public you want your video to be. If you want to embed, you can get the html code and add it to your website or blog page. 

Here is an example:

What will you create with Canva Pro?

 

photo credit: albertogp123 via photopin cc

Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment with Socrative

@JoeTaylorDHS

Full disclosure - some of this content is a repeat of a blog post I wrote in 2014. I thought it was worth revisiting.

Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment is a topic that is much bigger than this relatively short blog post. However, virtually every successful 1:1 teacher I've worked with says the same thing. The ability to use the technology to weave formative assessment into the classroom frequently and relatively seamlessly helps lead to increased student achievement.

Scholars Ian Beatty and William Gerace (2009) believe so strongly in the research behind technology-enhanced formative assessment that they built their entire pedagogy on it (click here for the full article). They wrote that the classroom should not only be student-based, but also assessment based, and that formative assessment should be used to:

1. Motivate and focus student learning with question-driven instruction.
2. Develop students’ understanding and fluency with conversational discourse.
3. Inform and adjust teaching and learning decisions.
4. Help students develop metacognitive skills (see full citation below).

There are actually lots of different tech tools to help you embed formative assessment into your classroom, but one of my favorites is called Socrative. Socrative is a free, online, classroom response system that can help you accomplish the goals outlined by Beatty and Gerace above. While you can use Socrative for asynchronous work at home (like Google Forms), or embed it within a presentation that you are making in class (like Pear Deck), I like to use it as a stand-alone tool so that an entire lesson is centered around questions and responses. 

I loved to use Socrative in a conference session I used to lead on the "Fair Use" exception to the Copyright law in the US. If you just yawned, you weren't alone. Rather than droning on about the nuances of the law, I created some fairly simple, but open to interpretation, real-life dilemmas faced by schools on a regular basis and used them to drive discussion. Here's an example:

Of course, the answer to the question is, it depends on the scenario. But it led to some great discussions both in and between our groups, and was more interesting than listening to me doing my impression of the history teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

To get started, go to Socrative.com and create your free account, you have several options for interacting with your students:

You can create a quiz in advance, and lead your class through it as graphical displays of responses appear on the screen, or you can put the students in groups and have them work at their own pace. You can also create questions on the spot or use the "Space Race" (students square off against one another in teams) to add a competitive gaming element to the classroom. At the end of the activity, you can get a report of how each student did on the quiz.

Here's a really short intro video (Socrative in 90 Seconds):

But for a deeper dive, here is a detailed video from Socrative:

*And if you are interested, my go-to expert on Copyright and Fair Use is Renee Hobbs and the Media Education Lab. If the topic interests you, please explore The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education.

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Reference:
Beatty, I. D., & Gerace, W. J. (2009). Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology. Journal Of Science Education And Technology, 18(2), 146-162.