McNair's Tech Toolbox

 Last week, Richard Byrne introduced us to three online recording tools that are truly very simple to access and use. The best part about them is they are free and students don't need to worry about logging in to anything. The three audio recording tools Mr. Byrne suggests are:  (1) Vocaroo (2) Online-Voice-Recorder.com (3) Twisted Wave Students can go to any of these three and begin recording immediately. Vocaroo and Online-Voice-Recorder.com both have very simple, almost rudimentary websites that lack visual clutter which is awesome for students understanding where and what to click on. They are self-explanatory as there is a microphone icon in the center of the screen where they can immediately start recording. Once audio is recorded, you are prompted to save it. Vocaroo does involve an extra step after clicking save; students then have to choose between a few options like downloading it to your computer, turning the recording into a qr code, or uploading it directly to fac...

Read & Write is one of those essential chrome extensions that every student should have added to their chrome toolbar.  It is very simple to use and get started! Once added to your toolbar, you click on the Read and Write icon (a purple puzzle piece) and it brings up the toolbar across the top of your web page or the document you have open. It is compatible with almost any website, however, it can be quite finicky. Students must be patient and allow the toolbar time to pop-up as clicking it again turns off Read & Write and makes the toolbar disappear. (Above: Image of Extensions Toolbar) (Above: Image of Read & Write Tools)  The main features that my students use it for are the speech to text and text to speech technology. Students can simply click on the play button and it will start reading from the beginning of the document or they can highlight a portion of the text they want it to read. The speech to text technology can be accessed by clicking the plain headph...

As an educator new to using Canva, I am always happy to learn about more features that could be used to engage my students. Richard Byrne gives us another great breakdown of this feature provided by Canva that would have likely gone unnoticed. While there are many features that can be used to create a comic on Canva, building a comic from scratch seemed to be time consuming. However, they have added comic templates (I believe they added them in the fall of 2020). With Canva's comic strip templates, you can create your own comic as the teacher, invite students to make their own, or have students collaborate together in real-time to create a comic. A few years ago I had a student that discovered a hidden talent in creating their own comics! I wish I would have discovered something like this back then as it would be a great way for a student to demonstrate learning, especially in regards to story elements.  Here is a quick tutorial on Canva's comic strip templates from Richard Byr...

Trying to motivate a student that "hates" reading? Storyline Online brings books to life and will engage even the most reluctant reader! With Storyline Online, students can listen and watch books being read to them by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Costner, and many more! As the books are read, some of the illustrations are also animated, increasing engagement. It is free to use (they run on donations) and they have a fairly extensive library of well-known books like A Bad Case of the Stripes by David Shannon and Enemy Pie  by Derek Munson. While they don't display the words that are being read on the screen, I still really like this website for students so they can engage in literature without the pressure of reading and as previously mentioned, it is great to get a student interested in reading. Teachers who have the copy of the book may find it beneficial to let the students follow along with the text with the book in hand while they watch and listen.  The we...

 Last week I posted about creating a point sheet via google forms and creating a QR code for it so it can be easily scanned and filled out by staff members. In that post I suggested using https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/ to create the QR code. This QR code generator will still work fine but google chrome has come out with a new feature that makes creating a QR code extremely easy and streamlined. I have just now discovered this while reading Richard Byrne's blog post on Free Technology For Teachers. Instead of going to a third party to create the QR code, you can simply highlight the URL at the top of your Google Chrome web browser (you must be using google chrome) and it displays a QR code icon on the right side of the address bar. Click on the icon and it creates the QR code that can be downloaded. It is so simple! **Be sure to complete the latest update for Google Chrome or you will not have this feature** Richard Byrne created a video for this and included it in his b...

 This week's post brings you another well known resource in the field of education and one that I use frequently. Reading a-z offers a plethora of resources. The website is easy to navigate and find what you need. They have leveled books as well as leveled benchmark passages with plenty of options to choose from. Their leveled system uses letters but easily compares to grade levels and other well-known leveled systems such as DRA and Fountas & Pinnel. As you drag your mouse across the letter system, the website displays these comparisons and clicking on a letter will bring up texts at that level. I have found that some Reading A-Z texts can be a little more difficult than what the listed level is but for the most part, the leveling system is accurate. Benchmark passages (which are shorter; 1-2 pages) have four options at each level while the leveled books have anywhere from about 80-100 books per level.                ...

 In an older post (summer 2020) by Richard Byrne, he discusses a new template on Flippity.net - an interactive game board.  This is an awesome tool for educators looking to make a fun, engaging activity for students to either review topics, practice math skills, or a number of other possibilities. Editing the game board does take a little practice as it runs using google sheets. Some cool features of the board game template include the ability to play with up to eight players; customization of player markers (can upload images); you can edit the directions or prompt on each square; up to three dice that roll; up to two decks of cards that can be edited to include anything from just text to videos or links. One major downside is that only one computer can control the game board while playing. This means that playing online during virtual instruction may be difficult or less fun for students compared to playing with everyone present where they could take turns moving their own d...

Google forms is a well known and widely used tool by educators around the world. As many of you are likely familiar with this technology, this week's post will be focused on a specific application for google forms. For those of you struggling to keep up with data collection (specifically social-emotional or behavior data) or just want to get four hours of your life back each week, this is for you.  In the past, "point sheets" used to collect data on a student's behavior or social-emotional skills has commonly been done on paper, traveling from teacher to teacher on a clipboard. Google forms will keep a running average for each goal for the student in addition to automatically recording the raw data into an excel sheet for record keeping. It even time-stamps when the point sheet was submitted! One caveat, however, is that you'll have to manually clear or delete all submissions if you are wanting an average for a given time period. For example, if you are wanting a ...