IHMS Tech Tips

Last week, I posted about Readsy : a site where you can read text by isolating one word at a time.  Today's post is about a similar site called Spritz. " When you’re spritzing, you’re reading text one word at a time in our “redicle,” a special visual frame we designed for reading."  Using Spritz or Readsy to read helps readers to better focus their attention.  Instead of being exposed to large amounts of text, readers are instead given one word at a time.  What makes it so different? Using Spritz or Readsy allows you to read without eye movement.  Here's a link to even more science behind the concept. While Spritz and Readsy are very similar sites, Spritz allows you to add a bookmarklet to be able to Spritz from anywhere.  Bookmarklets are created with software that is stored in a bookmark that allows interaction with web browsers.  If students find Spritzing to be helpful, they can click the added bookmarklet and it will read any webpage to them....

Readsy  is a free website that " help[s] you skim large amounts of text by focusing your eyes on one word at a time without having to move them."   It was created by a computer science undergrad at Princeton.  Readsy is a great tool for struggling readers or others that get overwhelmed by a lot of text at one time.  Retention and comprehension should not be affected. To get started with Readsy, visit the site and have some text in mind to use, or you can choose a sample and Readsy will choose text for you.  You can copy and paste a URL (news article, blog post, etc.), copy and paste text (Google Doc writing sample, or student work), type into the site itself, or upload a file.  Once you have copied/pasted or uploaded your text, click "Readsy". Readsy defaults to 300 wpm, but you can adjust that speed to be slower or faster as needed. Here is a two-minute overview of Readsy in action: Next week, we will talk about the companion w...

If you are looking for another way to assess your students' learning, try Quizalize !  Quizalize can, " Turn boring tests into fun classroom team games. Instantly know who needs help and what they need help with. And effortlessly assign follow-up activities that boost student results." Registering is simple and can be done through your Google account.  Once you have created your account, create a class.  You can create your own assessment, or use the search bar to find something that has already been created. Assign activities to the classes you have created and share the Quizalize with your class using a unique code (same as Kahoot). With already-created assessments, you can modify it to fit your needs, or simply assign it to your class. When students are actively working on an assessment, they are given points for correct answers and for speed which help boost their team score.   Quizalize activities are not limited ...

Previously on the blog , I discussed how to use the Chrome Extension, Kami, to edit PDFs.  Today we will discuss how to use Preview to do the same thing. Preview comes pre-installed on all student and staff Macs.  Its primary function is for browsing and viewing PDF files, but it has so much more potential.  To mark up a PDF, first open the document.  It should default to open with Preview, but you can always start in Preview, select "Open" and find your document.   Once the PDF has opened in Preview , go to Tools, then Annotate .  You will see options to mark-up your PDF including highlighting, strike through, and inserting shapes. You can also use the Edit and Mark Up buttons in the Preview toolbar. There are many more fancy options to edit your documents.  Click here to see the possibilities.

With the removal of Notability from our bag of tricks, I know it has been a struggle to find a replacement app or website that allows students the same capabilities.  DocHub is one that works and even Preview on the Macs, but Kami is a Chrome extension that is a great office tool that works with Google Drive and allows for students to annotate documents in a way that most closely resembles Notability.  Yay! To add Kami to Chrome, first visit the Chrome Web Store (just Google it!) and search for Kami.  Some of you may have used it in the past when it was called Notable. Add this extension to Chrome. It will then appear the upper right-hand corner just as the "Share to Classroom" extension did if you added that one. Now that's it's been added, select the icon to open the extension.  It will open in a new tab and ask you to connect via Google, which is fine.  Then you can open any of your Google Drive files, or drag and drop a file from somewher...