Snow Way Out: Surviving the Mid Year Weather Blues
If you're reading this several months later, let me quickly refresh your memory. January got cold. Then it got even colder. Then it got a little warmer. Then it got really, really cold and then it was just cold again. Then February showed up with some rain, some ice, some snow, some more ice, some more snow and then it got cold agin.
Now, I'm not a person that gets overly grumpy about the cold. I've spent my life living in a four seasons environment and generally really enjoy each one of them. However, this temper tantrum that Old Man Winter is throwing can put itself down for a nap any time now.
However, with the cold I've been able to explore and research some interesting tech tips and resources and get to the bottom of a semi-major change from one of my most used Google applications. So let's get to it.
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Quickly and Evenly Divide Your Chrome Browsers on Your Computer Screen
Sorry for all of those people using Firefox and Safari or any other web browser not called Chrome. But for all of you Chrome-iacs out there, here is a fantastic new feature that's not widely known.
So let's talk a little preamble. In the "olden days" (i.e. a couple of months ago) when you wanted to put two browsers side by side on your screen you had to do it manually. Say you wanted to quickly input some grades from Google Classroom into PowerSchool or wanted to use an AI tool to generate some information for a Google Slide deck. It was just nice to have 2 windows side by side. But you had to "eyeball" and manually adjust the size of each browser window to get it as evenly as possible. But not anymore!
Chrome now can quickly adjust the size and position of your browser windows. You simply hover your cursor over the green button (top left) and a small dropdown appears with your formatting choices. It's very slick and very easy and I find myself using it all of the time because I always seem to need multiple browser windows open at the same time (like, while I'm writing this post and looking at my spreadsheet for the tips that I wanted to use this month.
*If for some reason you can't find this feature then check to make sure your Chrome browser is updated to the latest version.
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ExplainThatStuff
So let's hang out in an el
ementary school classroom. These teachers are working miracles every day. But they often don't have the time or energy to answer every "why" question that young and curious students can offer up. And, unfortunately, that can sometimes lead to a curious student not wanting to be as curious anymore. So let's have them check out this
website: https://www.explainthatstuff.com
ementary school classroom. These teachers are working miracles every day. But they often don't have the time or energy to answer every "why" question that young and curious students can offer up. And, unfortunately, that can sometimes lead to a curious student not wanting to be as curious anymore. So let's have them check out this
website: https://www.explainthatstuff.com
This website is designed for curious children. It was created and maintained by Chris Woodford, a British science writer with over 25 years of experience in explaining science and technology. It is suitable for all ages with no problematic content. It is designed for young people and intended to keep students curious about science and about how things work and why. Take some time to roam around this site and then see if you can use it to supplement some of your science lessons or even use it as bonus activity for the students that need a little extra. You know, the ones that finish early and then have to kind of sit there letting their curiosity fade just a little bit.
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Google Forms Publish Update
Well, all of that's changed and it seems to be causing a bit of confusion. Never fear, it's actually not that bad ..... AND the update makes a lot of sense in terms of security. Here's the long and short of it:
- When you create a new Google Form, you have to "activate" it by pressing the Publish button. This feature keeps a form from being used until its creator has actively turned it on.
- After hitting that button, you will be able to manage who your responders will be.
- You then can send your form out using the link button or by pressing the Publish button again and copying the responder link.
- In the sharing menu (little person with the + sign) you can now configure editor AND responder settings.
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Mozart for Math
The original study found that college students who listened to Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major" performed better on a spatial reasoning task than students who listened to silence or a relaxation tape. The study's results were exaggerated in the popular press, leading to the claim that listening to Mozart makes people smarter. This claim led to a commercial fad, with parents buying Mozart CDs for their children.
However, there is some reasoned truth that listening to classical music, particularly Mozart, can stimulate logical functions of your brain. And this is rooted in Pythagoras' "division of the string" discovery. Long story short, Pythagoras discovered that pitch is produced by the speed of sound wave vibrations and that the ratio of those vibrations, when mathematically aligned produce desirable harmony. Essentially, a major chord sounds good or "happy" to us because their individual notes mathematically align. MUSIC IS MATH. Conversely, two notes right next to each other (think of the "Psycho" ree ree ree ree) sound tense or anxious to us is because they can never work themselves into a mathematical alignment.
Mozart, in particular, wrote with a very mathematical style both in his harmonic construction and in the structure of his musical pieces. It stands to reason that listening to a well constructed piece of music (a.k.a a Mozart piano sonata) can stimulate the logical processes of the human brain.
And I wrote all that to say .... here are some great playlists in YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify that you might want to play gently in the background as your students work on their math assignments. Pythagoras would approve.
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