PPS Instructional Technology

How many ugly looking presentations are you going to have to look at again at the end of this project? I mean, just look at this example at the right. His picture (although ruggedly handsome) is sitting right on top of the Eiffel Tower and it has all this horrible background clutter distracting from the tower itself. Not to mention the I “heart” Paris image with that unappealing square, white background. Ugh. So, how can we fix it? How can the student keep the images he has so carefully selected, but get rid of that white background and the image clutter? Enter... EditPhotosForFree.com has an EASY TO USE background removal tool that makes this quick and painless for teachers and students. Every time a student visits the Background Remover the set of instructions below appears to remind users of the four simple steps. Select an image Use the edge (boundary) tool to define the areas to keep and to remove Mark the areas to keep (foreground) with the green ...

With only 8 and a half days left in the school year, we are all looking for ways to keep out students engaged in the learning process while we wrap up the remainder of the curriculum for the year.  I may have found just the tool to help you with that very goal! Adobe Spark  allows you to "turn your ideas into impactful social graphics, web stories and animated videos—in minutes."  This free tool is super simple to use, works on Chromebooks, iOS devices, desktops, or laptops, and allows even our youngest users to create a professional looking project in minutes. There are three tools in Spark.  The first, Post, allows users to create a graphic, like a twitter banner or poster, to share a message.  I had my second and third graders create their own faux twitter banners.  They loved trying to share a message with simply a picture and a quote.  Here is a project created by Teah.  She chose this quote because it is what her family says every n...

We love student created content! Creating materials to teach others can, when done well, really impact a student's learning. However, no matter the positive outcomes of students teaching students, when it comes to presentation day, getting students logged into and out of Google Chrome can be tedious and time consuming. Ugh. Well, here's a tech tip that might just speed up students getting access to their Google Drive presentations (or any other files associated to their Portage accounts). Google Chrome's Incognito Window Chrome's Incognito Window allows another user to quickly login to and out of Google Services without disrupting your profile on Chrome. Either use the shortcut keys Ctrl+Shift+N from Chrome or click on the Chrome menu button and choose "New Incognito Window" Then type in or go to " gmail.com ", " drive.google.com ", or whichever Google Service you wish and login to that service. When students are done pr...

Have you ever wanted to annotate right on a PowerPoint slide while you were giving a presentation?  Need to call attention to a particular part of your slide?  Good News!  You are only a click away from being able to do this in PowerPoint 2010. Choosing Your Pen While playing your presentation/slide show... Step 1: Right click on your slide. Step 2: Select Pointer Options Step 3: Select Pen or Highlighter Step 4: You can also change the color of your ink from this same menu To Keep or Discard Annotations When you exit your presentation, it will ask you if you want to Keep or Discard your ink annotations. Keyboard Shortcuts There are also some keyboard shortcuts you can use to access your pens during a presentation. ctrl+p during a presentation will turn your pen on ctrl+a during a presentation will turn your mouse back in to an arrow Turn Annotations On or Off You can also choose to turn your saved annotations on or off.  While in the...