Brenham Tech Daily [BISDwired]

Must Know Monday: Lunapic Website

The best thing about going to conferences, summits, workshops, or any kind of PD, is you usually snag a couple of good ideas, tips, or tricks. This weekend when I was talking to fellow teachers at the TXGoogle 2018 Summit, they were excited to share this Lunapic website. They were talking about one of the sessions that they went to, a presenter had mentioned Lunapic. 

What is Lunapic?

It is a free website that let’s you take a picture with a white background, and it turns the white background into a clear/png background.

How does it work?

1. Find the image’s URL link and copy it.

2. Paste in the URL on the Lunapic website and click go.

3. Go to File-Save As. Then save it as a png to have the transparent background.

*Check out all the other cool tools you can use to adjust your image.

Have you heard of the Pic Say app? This is a great app to use in the classroom, and it works great on our classroom Chromebooks. In the app, you can take any photo and add a speech bubble. This is great for historical figures throughout history, characters from books, and more!

How do you do it?

1. Open the app.

2. Click “Get Picture”

3. Upload image 

4. Add “sticker” to picture

5. Type in text in the balloon sticker

6. Click “export” to send or save picture.

*You can have students turn it in on Classroom and they could make comments on each other’s picture. Or, you can add it to Padlet or another platform.

*The possibilities are endless!

Have you ever shared a spreadsheet with a colleague, friend, parent, or student, and they messed up your columns or rows or changed up all the information or data? If we are honest, we all probably can think of that one time someone changed your spreadsheet. Most likely, it was probably a total accident, too.

Make sure you lock your rows, columns, and cells next time you create a spreadsheet! Then everyone can work in their assigned cell, row, or column.

Here’s how to do it-

1. Highlight your row or column or cell you want to protect.

2. Click on “Data” and “Protected Sheets and Ranges” from the menu on the top.

3. Title the data, and click “save permissions” and then check and uncheck who you want to be able to access that column. Click done to save changes.

You can do this for as many rows, columns, or cells that you want to.

It is almost that time of year again! It is getting near the end of the year, and it is time to start cleaning up your Google Classroom for next year. 

What can you do to get your digital classroom ready?

*Archive your classes

*Return Student Work

WHY?

#1- Frees up/Cleans up space in your Drive

#2- Students can edit assignments (like websites they created or resumes they made)

This screen will confirm that you want to return the work to the students.

*This semester, Mrs. Lynch and I helped the students create websites about themselves with resumes, experience, work, skills, and more. When the students turn it into classroom, then the teacher becomes the owner/editor. Students can view only, so this would be a good assignment to return to the student, so they can be editor again.

Must Have Monday: Texting Story App

This app has been one of my favorites this semester. Have you tried the Texting Story app? It is an app that is available on the Google Play Store and Apple Store. I have talked about iFake Text before. This site is fun to use, but if you want to expand on that, then try Texting Story. Texting Story let’s you create a story of texts, and then it makes it into a video that you can share.

Mrs. Ruiz showing students how the Texting Story app works.

We first tried it in Mrs. Ruiz’s classroom with her World History sophomore students, and they LOVED it. After learning about the French Revolution, Mrs. Ruiz had her students partner up and have a texting story between the Government and the Commoners. One student played the Government character and the other student played the Commoner character. The students were creative in how they would act if they were that character. 

Then we tried it in a finance lesson in Mr. Kenjura's classroom. It was a success there, too. 

However, these are the tips we learned-

*Have students write out what they are going to say on paper before typing it in app because it doesn’t delete anything you type.

*Show an example, but then let students be as creative as they want.

*Give plenty of time to finish it. It takes a while for students to come up with their texting conversation.

*We used this app on our Chromebooks through the Google Play Store!

How to use the app (download on Chromebook or iPad)-

1. Open app.

2. Clear story if there is a previous story written in app.

3. Click on settings to change the names in the texting story.

4. Click on name at the top right or left to change who is speaking.

5. Type texting story. Click right arrow to enter text in conversation.

6. When finished, click create story.

7. Share with teacher or classmates.

How can you use Texting Story?

*Have students create a conversation on what you just learned as an exit ticket.

*Have students pick two characters from a book to have a texting story in between each other.

*Have students listen to a texting story that you wrote on a concept that you want them to learn.

Here are some examples-

How would you use it?