Control Alt Achieve: EdTech Links of the Week

Thursday, October 24, 2024

EdTech Links of the Week - 10-24-24

Each week I keep an eye out for the latest edtech resources through blogs, social media, podcasts, videos, user groups, and more. I then try to reshare these resources in many ways.

One way I share these is here on the blog in these "EdTech Links of the Week" posts. See below to explore the latest batch of resources, and be sure to share with others who may benefit.

If you want to make sure you don't miss new resources, you can:

🔗 View all EdTech Links of the Week: bit.ly/caa-links

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And as always, please let me know of any resources that you recommend. I would love to learn from you!

This week I have 4 resources from around the Internet and 3 resources from my blog.

💬 Citation Needed: AI Tools that Provide Sources

Resource Link

One concern about AI is its potential to make mistakes and produce content that is incorrect. Here are five AI tools that provide sources for fact checking and researching further:

✨ Gemini Double-Check
🤔 Perplexity
🤝 Consensus
🌩️ STORM
❓ Elicit

You can get all of the details about these tools and how to use them in my recent blog post linked above.

🎃 Halloween Themed Google Fonts

Resource Link

With Halloween almost here, I decided to share 12 of my favorite fonts for the spooky season.
These fonts can be used by you and your students to add style, personality, and creativity to your Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Sites, and more.
Check out my font selections in my blog post linked above.

📰 What's New in Google?

Resource Link

Feel free to join us online Wednesday, October 30th at 1pm (EST) for our monthly GEG-Ohio Google User Group meeting. These are monthly online meetings where we cover all of the new features and updates from Google from the last month, as well as great ideas for using Google tools in school. You can view (and add to) the agenda at the link above.

⏸️ Hit Pause Media Literacy Curriculum

Resource Link

Google has partnered with the Poynter Institute’s MediaWise to launch a new media literacy curriculum designed to help teens of ages 13 to 17 become discerning digital citizens.
The 11 lessons cover topics from evaluating sources and evidence, to recognizing AI-generated content, to tips for sharing content responsibly.
Everything you need is provided including lesson plans, slide decks, videos, and examples.
Each lesson is designed to last 30-45 minutes, but there is also an abbreviated 5-hour workshop or a 90-minute lesson version.
Lessons can be used sequentially, as stand-alones or in the order that best suits instructional purposes.

🥷 Brush Ninja Photo Collage

Resource Link

The Brush Ninja site is a great collection of free creativity tools for making animated GIFs, painting, coding, emoji art, comics, and more.
One of the tools include the Brush Ninja Photo Collage where you can easily create and download collages of your own images.
You begin by choosing from 21 different layouts, and then simply drag and drop your pictures into the collage.
You can then adjust the background color, shape of the photo corners, and size of the gap between pictures.
There is also a "Size" option which includes 5 different proportions from square to portrait to landscape.
When done you can easily download your complete collage, and there is not even a need to log in to use the tool!
See below for a collage I made from my recent South Dakota trip.

🍳 Food Mood

Resource Link

This is a fun AI experiment from Google that can be used to explore how AI works, but also might make you a great meal!
With "Food Mood" you use Google's AI to combine two cuisines into one new recipe.
First choose whether you would like to cook a starter, a soup, a main course, or a dessert.
Then select the two countries you want to create your unique food fusion from.
You can even select a dietary preference from the options provided, and include specific ingredients of your choice.
Finally click the "Let's Cook" button.
You will now get the recipe complete with ingredients, cooking directions, protips, and even an AI-generated image of the dish.

👻 Quizizz Halloween Escape Room

Resource Link

Quizizz has long been a favorite tool for educators to create gamified Assessments/Quizzes and Lessons, conduct formative assessments, host live activities or assign them as homework, tap into detailed performance reports, and so much more!

Recently Kyle Niemis shared a creative way to use Quizizz for a Halloween Escape Room activity.
Your existing Quizizz sets can be used with the ready-made templates Kyle has created.
Kyle has also provided a detailed video walkthrough with all the steps to set up the Escape Room activity.

Get all the details, directions, templates, and more here or at the link above.