Take Me Away!

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving break. It is so nice to just get away from the day to day grind of the classroom every now and then. Unfortunately, we can’t always get away in real life, so getting away virtually is the next best thing. If you haven’t experienced VR (virtual reality) then you should give it a try. It is best when experienced through a headset, but you can get the gist of exploring a virtual world on a monitor or your phone’s screen. Some virtual experiences, like games, are completely imaginary, while others are digitized versions of the real World. For example, take a few minutes to relax on the beach, or take a tour of Paris.  These kinds of virtual escapes can be so enjoyable, but they can also be educational.

I have been looking forward to next semester because I was going to offer a course on using Google’s VR tools Tour Creator, Tour Builder, and Expeditions. Then, just a few weeks ago, Google announced that it will be discontinuing these resources. As frustrating as this news is, I have already started working on a new course to help teachers create their own virtual content that students can do on their Chromebook or smartphones.  Until then, here are some ways you can get you and your students out of the classroom without having to leave the building.

 

Search YouTube for 360 Videos to share with your students. There are 360 videos for just about every subject.

 

Find 360 resources at https://schools.360cities.net/. This site has a lot of great 360 photos from around the world, and they are in process of creating guided tours as well. 

More Google Updates

 

It’s only been a few weeks since I posted about updates to Google, but there have been so many, I need to do a follow-up. Some of these features will be available for all users, while some will be for users with an Enterprise license. Bamberg 1 is in the process of rolling out Enterprise, and hopefully this will be something that happens for Bamberg 2 very soon.  So, without further delay, here are some Google updates in which you might be interested:

Replace backgrounds in Meet- For a while now you could blur out your background. Well, now you can change your background with images provided by Google.

Check Permissions for all content in Google Slides- Sharing Slides with someone is easy, but often people forget that they have to share anything that they have inserted from their Google Drive, as well. Now, when you go to share your Slides with someone, Google will look for content that needs to be shared such as videos, audio clips, or images and give you the option to share that content.

Mention a user directly within a Google Doc- This has been a feature in comments and in Gmail for a while. All you have to do is type “@” and the person’s name. Click it when it pops up and it will add their account info into the document. This makes it easy to see and communicate with everyone that is working on a document.

Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup in Google Sheets- Not everyone uses spreadsheets, but those that do, know it can be difficult to write formulas that accurately give you the results you need. It can be worse when your data is written in different ways. Google has introduced Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup, which is very exciting. These features are new and still don’t work as well as promised, but when they do work properly, it is amazing. I can’t wait to see how this evolves.

There are always more updates, so expect more posts like this in the near future.

 Update 11/12/2020

Not every update is good. If you use Google for personal use, you should check out these two announcements that Google made yesterday:

Updating Google Photos’ storage policy to build for the future

An update to storage policies across your Google Account

The Death of Flash

 

Halloween is over, but this post will focus on a bit of the macabre. On December 31, Flash Player will reach End of Life (EOL). This announcement was officially made back in July of 2017 by Adobe in order to give developers and programmers a chance to make the needed updates. The vast majority of websites and browsers have already made the transitions, but there are many that have not. Unfortunately, many educational websites fall into the group that have not updated. That means that after December 31, if the sites haven’t updated they will not work. In other words, when Flash dies, so will those sites.

 

Top 3 ways this will hurt educators.

1. Older online textbook resources rely heavily on flash. These resources will cease to work after EOL of Flash. Publishers for the most part will not update the older versions of their content as a way to force districts to purchase newer versions.
2. Many educational games and simulations were made with Flash. Throughout the years, educators have created wonderful Flash based resources that teachers have made a regular part of their instruction. These games and simulations will no longer work after EOL of Flash.
3. Lastly some old school web developers use flash to make their webpage more interactive or engaging. Most or all functionality of these sites will cease to work after the EOL of Flash.

 

What you should do before December 31, 2020?

1. Go through your assignments and bookmarks to find any flash related content that you currently rely on.
2. Search for alternatives that do not require flash. There are a lot of great games, simulations, and resources that don’t use flash. If a site doesn’t ask you to allow Flash, it most likely doesn’t use Flash.
3. Bookmark these resources so you can easily find them later and share them with other teachers.

 

DO NOT use an extension or 3^rd party program to run old Flash content. This is a great way to get malicious programs on your computer.

 

For more information, visit the Flash EOL Page or watch the video below.