5 Free GIF Apps for Students and Teachers

5 free Gif creators

"It seems like GIFs are everywhere these days, from social media feeds and emails to group texts. And it's no wonder: Like emojis or memes, they're a fun way to add a little humor and creativity to our daily communications. A GIF (which stands for "graphic interchange format") is a digital image file that contains multiple frames so viewers see a quick animation, often accompanied by playful text or images. GIFs are typically used to express a humorous reaction or feeling."

from CommonSense Education

5 free Gif creators

Google Classroom: Resources and extensions

Extensions

Link to Chrome Web Store

"Instantly change the sharing permissions of a Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/Drawing to "Anyone with the link can view".

How many times have you shared out a link and had a faceslap moment where you forgot to change the sharing permissions? The Alice Keeler AnyoneCanView Chrome extension helps you with this problem. When creating a Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides or Google Drawing the default sharing setting is private. Changing the viewing permissions requires multiple clicks. Instead, click the AnyoneCanView Chrome extension to instantly change the sharing permissions to "Anyone with the link can view." This will open the viewing permissions to those outside of your domain or school. The link to the Google Doc is also automatically copied to your clipboard. This saves you from the extra step of copying the URL after you changed the sharing permissions. Simply paste (Control V) the link where you want to share the document and have full confidence that others can view the document. See my other Chrome extensions at http://alicekeeler.com/webstore."

Link to Chrome Web Store

Creating Gorgeous Graphics and Finding Free Media

Today I met with a group of grade 9 students during their community time to explore creative commons resources and free design tools. (Lesson Outline, Slides)

We started by comparing and contrasting the two slides below. Students pointed out the message a slide gives across about the presenter's credibility and how engaging a speaker will be. Students also noticed that the second slide has a creative commons attribution and we spent some time discussing the importance of giving credit where credit is due.



Students had some time to explore these free design tools and media  before launching into a digital design challenge to create an album cover for the band Wild's new song Just Begun.



With only 20 minutes to create, I was so impressed by their designs! Most students remembered to use creative commons images and to include an attribution.

In their exit ticket reflections, students walked away with a bank of free resources and reminders to show where they found their media in projects. Whether or not they do this (or go to Google Images and grab the first photo they find) will depend, I think on how often we hold them accountable to this and how we as educators model this practice ourselves.

See what you can do with a 3D Printer!

Comment bank in Google Classroom for student feedback

If you enter the same comment for many students, you can save the comment to use later. The comment bank is tied to your Google Account, so you can access it from any computer. To edit and delete comments in the comment bank, go to classroom.google.com/g/cm.

You have 3 ways to search for, and then use, comment bank comments.

Use hash and autocomplete

1. Open a student assignment in the grading tool.
2. Highlight text and click Add comment .
3. In the comment box, enter #  enter a keyword or phrase.
4. Classroom’s suggestions autocomplete as you type.

5. To insert the comment, click the comment  Comment.

Use only a hash

1. Open a student assignment in the grading tool.
2. Highlight text and click Add comment .
3. In the comment box, enter only a hash #. The 5 most recently used comments appear.

Search

1. Open a student assignment in the grading tool.
2. Highlight the text and click Add comment .
3. In the top-right corner, click Comment bank  Search .

1. Point to the comment you want to use and click More  Copy to clipboard.
2. In the comment box, paste the comment.
3. (Optional) Personalize the comment.

To make it easy to find comment, Classroom autocompletes content you enter after a hash #. As you enter the content, a list of matching comments appears. This list narrows as you enter more content.

Source: Google Classroom Help

Device Free Dinners

Do your dinner times look like this? Do you want to see a positive change where the members of your family communicate with each other rather than everyone else?
Common Sense Media have made this short parody and provided some resources so you can aim for a Device Free Dinner.

Watch video

Tech on Tap - What did you miss?

With AR & VR, teachers are no longer limited by the space of the classroom. Google Expeditions allows a teacher to guide students through collections of 360° scenes and 3D objects, pointing out interesting sites and artifacts along the way. Presented by Sheila Yap Explain Everything is a presentation app that can integrate content from many sources, enabling teachers and students to use it to create lessons, tutorials, and more. Users can import photos, PDF files, movies, websites, and more from iTunes, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and other sources to use in a presentation or use it like an interactive whiteboard. Presented by Samuel "Jake" Breedlove Matt Johnson shared ways he uses Twitter to network with other international educators and share the amazing things happening at SFS with a global community. Check out Matt's slides and this free Cultural Guide to Twitter for educators. Want more? Watch this to learn about the importance of a school hashtag. Presented by Matt Johnson (@int_educator) Burstio converts burst photos taken with the built-in Camera app into videos or GIFs. Featured on Lifehacker, CNET, Product Hunt and other websites. Link to a video showing how the app works. Presented by David Beaty Life 360: Part location, part communication, all awesome. Life360 keeps millions of families and close friends connected, no matter what chaos life throws their way. Link to a video showing how the app works. Presented by David Beaty Effortlessly build engaging instructional content right Google Slides with Pear Deck Add-on. Think: bell ringers, checks for understanding, exit tickets, and more. Simply drop in one of these templates for instant engagement and watch your class transform. Presented by Heather Breedlove Arduino is an open source platform that students and teachers can use in and out of the classroom. It is easy enough to be used by all ages with enough flexibility to make sure all ages are being challenged and stretched. It teaches students to tinker and collaborate. Presented by Peter Yap Chatterpix Kids  let's you take or import a picture, draw a line over the individual's mouth, record 30 seconds of audio. Your photo becomes a talking photo. This would be a really fun exit ticket, you could provide images of historical characters for students to give voice to, or use it as a perspectives activity. Hey ES teachers, Chatterpix works well with Seesaw!  Path On allows you to draw lines on an image and write words that will follow the lines that you drew. This is a great tool for concrete poetry, for analyzing characters, for conveying a message.  Presented by Jill Zappia Instant Heart Rate : Measure accurately your pulse and heart beat zone with your heart rate & health monitor after sleeping or during workouts & training. Instant Heart Rate doesn't require heart rate straps. Monitor blood circulation with accurate heart health monitor (similar to ECG or EKG). Functions similarly to pulse oximeters, detecting change in your finger to provide accurate heart beat measurements. Link to a video showing how the app works. Presented by David Beaty BadgeU is a simple badging system that is easy to setup and manage. Create your own badges and distribute them  to your students. You can issue badges with levels of difficulty so you can use them as a points system as well. To find out more or to get the SFS BadgeU package which is already to go, contact Alan.  Presented by Alan Hoskin ThingLink is the simple way to make online images interactive. Create graphics and annotate with links that open up multimedia making content and activities engaging. It is also easy for students to work collaboratively. Examples Presented by Elizabeth Mcgarroch-Slack  Hyperspektiv is a powerful video & photo effects app. Create music videos, make your Instagram look super cool, use for VJ visuals, or take next level selfies. Link to a video showing how the app works. Presented by David Beaty Ryan Kuhl explained his process for keeping his Mac clutter free. Daisy Disk is a disk analyzer tool for OS X that visualizes hard disk usage and allows to free up hard disk space. If you've updated to Mojave, managing your storage space is built in to the storage portion under About My Mac. Here are other Mojave features you should check out.  Wakelet is a curation tool. Use it to share articles, videos, images, tweets and other great content with one link. Save them for later and create collections, called wakes, at any time. It's also a Chrome extension! With the press of a button you can pull all of your open tabs into your wake. Example Wake Jo Bigwood