Best Practices
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How do I add the DLC template to Word?
Sask DLC Word Template Download here Saving the Sask DLC Template to your computer PC Open the Sask DLC template in Microsoft Word Press Save As, and in the file explorer, save to the Custom Office Template folder This PC > Documents > Custom Office Templates Mac Open the Sask DLC template in Microsoft Word In the top bar, select Save as Template, and press Confirm Creating a file using the Sask DLC Template Open Microsoft Word, and select Templates from the menu Under Personal, select the Sask DLC template Applying Template styles to an existing document PC Open the document you wish to apply the styles to Go to File > Options > Add-ons Under the Manage dropdown, select Templates, and click Go In the Templates and Add-ons window, click on Attach, select the Sask DLC template, and click Open Check the box that says Automatically update document styles, and click OK Mac Open the document you wish to apply the styles to In the top bar, click on Tools and select Templates and Add-ins from the drop-down From the menu that pops up, click Attach, and select the saved Sask DLC template in Finder Once it is selected, check the box that says Automatically update document styles
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Audio Books
Hoopla Hoopla is a digital media lending service supported by local libraries. Users can sign up with an email address, password and library card information. Hoopla provides access to the user’s local library collection of digital audiobooks with no wait times. This service is free to public library members and can be accessed from a web browser, smart phone, or tablet. Tutorial Video: http://www.chinookarch.ca/elibrary/eservices/hoopla Loyal Books Loyal Books provides users with a collection of free public domain audiobooks and e-books, and therefore does not require a library card to access. Many of the books available at this website are targeted for the high school audience. Tutorial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxpFaBOYPw Sora Sora, by OverDrive is a borrowing service that allows students to borrow eBooks and audiobooks from your school's library with Sora. Setup is simple - just find your school and sign in. Then download favourite books to your device. Tutorial Support: https://resourcebank.ca/courses/sora-reading-application/view Epic! Books Epic! provides users with instant, unlimited access to thousands of books, videos and quizzes from leading publishers to help kids read, learn and grow. The intended audience of this tool is children ages 5-12. This is a subscription-based resource that is free for teachers and librarians, but only accessible during school hours. Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smSuK1m56_I
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Pre-Teaching Vocabulary
Quizlet Quizlet is a website (https://quizlet.com) that allows you to create and work with digital flashcards, custom vocabulary games, and quizzes. There are also several pre-existing vocabulary sets that may be helpful. Quizlet enables students to interact with a vocabulary set in various ways to help reinforce understanding. Moodle Glossary The Moodle Glossary is much like a dictionary and allows students to find the meaning of words or phrases within their course. It offers an auto-linking feature that will highlight any word in the course located in the glossary. However, this feature only works on the Moodle page, so words within PDFs or external links will not be linkable with the glossary.
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Print Tools
Offline Quiz Plug-in for Moodle The Moodle MC Offline quiz module adds paper-and-pencil multiple-choice quizzes to Moodle. In offline quizzes, students mark answers to questions on a sheet of paper (the answer form). The students' answer forms are evaluated and graded automatically by the offline quiz module. There is no cost. Overview for the Plugin: https://www.academic-moodle-cooperation.org/en/module/offline-quiz/ Note: This plugin is still pending evaluation and is only available on staging. Respondus Respondus allows teachers to create Moodle quizzes offline using a Windows interface that can be published to Moodle. This allows for online and printed exams and assignments using the quiz tool. Current Moodle quizzes (including the full question bank) can be retrieved by Respondus complete with media, for printing. There is a one-time fee of $200. Creating and Formatting Questions in Respondus 4.0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avjt3R8r62k Publishing to Moodle from Respondus 4.0 (including printing): https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CK3H4ePAKCQ Moodle Books Moodle Books allows students to print the current page or entire book, in a clean, simplified format. This is useful for students needing to print lesson content (EX: issues with reading on a screen). There is no cost. To use this, simply click the gear icon in any book, click print book, click print book again, and select your printer. Official Moodle video on Books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBL5ZKZNt8Y H5P Print Option The H5P print option allows students to print the slides from an H5P course presentation. The slides are simplified for easy printing. This could be useful for students needing to read from a paper. Naturally, all videos embedded in the course presentation must still be watched through the H5P. There is no cost. To use this, simply click the printer icon on any H5P presentation, click print all slides, and select your printer.
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Reduced Reading
Text Compactor Text Compactor is a free online tool for summarizing and simplifying text. It is user-friendly and requires no login, so it’s a perfect tool for students to add to their own toolkits! Simply copy and paste digital text into the box, use the slider to determine the percentage of text you want to end up with, and view the simplified text. WordSift WordSift is designed to help anyone easily sift through texts by cutting and pasting text into the tool. The program will quickly identify important words that appear in the text. This program helps support EAL students and can be used as a strategy for vocabulary development. Website: https://wordsift.org/ Tutorial Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aptR6gHEPiw
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Scanners
Genius Scan GeniusScan is a free IOS/Android app that enables you to use your mobile device as a scanner. It uses the camera on the device to scan images of your documents into a manageable file. It allows you to scan multiple pages into one document, crop your pages, adjust coloring, and export as a range of file types, including PDF. GeniusScan has the most options for file formats when exporting. Microsoft Office Lens Microsoft Office Lens is compatible with both Android and IOS devices and is accessible with an Office 365 account. It allows you to save scanned documents to your device, open files in Acrobat, and share a copy with someone else. It also allows you to export your file to other Microsoft programs, which you could then use in a range of formats. You can share scanned files with the Immersive Reader, which provides a range of accessibility features such as annotations and text-to-speech. Office Lens does not allow you to scan batches of pages into a single document.
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Simulations and Manipulatives
PhET PhET (https://phet.colorado.edu/) is an online website that provides physics, chemistry, and a few biology and earth science simulations that demonstrate microscopic or abstract science concepts. There are also math simulations made by PhET. Sims can be sorted by grade level or topic. If you sign up for a free teacher account, there are lots of teacher-created resources available too. The HTML 5 simulations can be used on tablets, but Adobe Flash ones must be used on a desktop/laptop. The simulations are suitable for middle and high school levels. Check out this page for a brief introduction to PhET and helpful tutorial links: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/teaching-resources Desmos Desmos (https://www.desmos.com/) is more than just an online graphing calculator. Desmos has created activities and quizzes that can be customized by the teacher and used in conjunction with the online graphing calculator, scientific calculator, or geometry tools (they also have an app). They have built-in tutorials with each of the programs they offer (https://learn.desmos.com/) Math Playground Math Playground is a free (the ad-free version is paid) website with a variety of math manipulatives and games to practice math skills. It is suitable for elementary level and manipulatives can be sorted by grade. There are helpful tips and links to essential math skills under each manipulative. (https://www. mathplayground.com/interactive_hundreds_chart.html) Virtual Math Manipulatives This is a resource produced by McGraw Hill that offers a variety of math manipulatives and tools (free) for Pre-K – Grade 8. It requires the student to manipulate the object on the screen, so might be better for the older age range. The help menu (question mark) provides general instructions, instructions for each of the tools (i.e. ruler, protractor, etc.) and manipulatives (i.e. base ten blocks, geoboard, calendar) with images to support learners and teachers.
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Speech-To-Text
Microsoft Office Speech-to-Text Dictate is a built-in speech recognition feature in various MS Office applications such as Word, Outlook, One Note and PowerPoint. This feature allows the user to dictate their speech into the computer and it will appear as text on the screen. This feature requires minimum requirements for MS Office. Desktop application requires the purchase of the latest MS Office. Tutorial Video: Dictate your documents in Word - Microsoft Support
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How do I make images smaller on Photoshop Express?
Step 01 Click the settings icon on the bottom left. Step 02 resize the image. Note: keep the image quality at, "very high" Step 03 Click the arrow on the top left corner of your screen to return to the editor
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How do I optimize images?
Optimizing an image means reducing the file size as much as possible without sacrificing the quality. This will lead to a faster load time for your online course and happier students. In this tutorial, you will learn 3 methods to optimize images. Optimal file size for web images is: Pixel size: 400px X 600px File Size: 20K - 200K Preferred file format: JPEG Method 1: Make the image smaller reduce the file size by making the image dimension smaller. You can do this with the following software: Photoshop Express How do I resize images using Photoshop Express Photoshop GIMP https://picresize.com/en/batch Method 2: Use an online image optimization generator TinyPNG TinyJPG Method 3: Use Photoshop When saving your image File > Export > Save as Web (Legacy) Tweak until the file size is around 20-200K Save