The Magical Mac Trackpad
The trackpad on the Mac is one of it's most productive features, but can also pose a challenge for those who are used to a PC environment. Mastering the trackpad is a key skill in making the transition to the Mac. Check out this short Youtube video to see the trackpad in action.
Storage space on the Macbook The Macbook Airs are designed to be light, portable and durable. The hard drive, which is the storage on the Macs, is flash based, which means there are no moving parts like the old hard drives on the PCs. This is the latest and greatest technology, but it also means we don't have an over abundance of storage capacity. Most of our Macbook Airs have 128gb hard drives and the students may have less. So it's a good idea to periodically check your storage capacity and clean out some commonly used folders such as "Downloads" and "Trash". Checking the storage on your Macbook is easy by following the steps below:
I have found private web browsing to be a useful tool in class for three reasons:
Students are sharing computers and need to sign into their Google Drive, while another student is logged in.
A student wants to sign into Google Drive on your computer to access a presentation or document for a presentation in class.
I want to show students how to sign into a site that requires my username and password.
In the three above scenarios by opening a private browsing window, I do not have to sign out of another account. The private browsing window thinks that I am a new user and will not remember my previous username and passwords. Follow the steps below to open a private browsing window.
In Google Chrome:
Click the three horizontal line icon in the upper right hand corner.
One of my biggest challenges in the past has been dealing with the many different reading abilities of students in one class. When I would give struggling readers a difficult reading and they saw a word they did not understand, immediately I would lose their attention. Earlier, I wrote about using Google to search by reading level to find different leveled texts, which is one solution to this challenge. Rewordify is also a web 2.0 tool that can help.
Basically, Rewordify takes any digital text and replaces difficult words and phrases with content that is easier to understand. It look like a great tool to help students break down difficult readings.
The site is extremely user friendly. Simply copy and paste text from a word document, pdf, website, or any other digital text into the site and hit “Rewordify text.” You can also copy and paste the url of a website into rewordify. Rewordify analyzes the text and creates a simplified version with difficult phrases and words highlighted and defined.
Before analyzing the document, you have the ability to select the difficulty level of the modified text. (The site uses the Brigham Young University 450-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English to determine the difficulty of the modified reading.) Below are the six reading difficulties you can choose from:
Easiest: Reword as many words as possible to the simplest possible replacements.
Level 1: Reword almost all hard words.
Level 2: Reword the top 80% of hard words.
Level 3: Reword the top 60% of hard words.
Level 4: Reword the top 40% of hard words.
Hardest: Reword only the hardest words.
Potentially, you can have students all reading the same text but with 6 different levels of complexity.
Watch the video below to learn more.
Rewordify also have many different public domain books and news websites already analyzed and ready to use in the classroom.
In addition to changing the text complexity, Rewordify will create definition lists, matching sheets, flashcards, vocabulary quizzes, word bank activities, and cloze activities.
Give Rewordify a try in class and leave a comment in the section below on what you think.
