PicMonkey - Premium Content

Do your students like to include images in their written work?  
Would you like to add fun details, information or images to the assignments you give to your students?  
Are you looking for a new way to create social stories?

PicMonkey might be just the thing you need.  PicMonkey is a photo editor that can add color and pizazz to yours and your students work.  

PicMonkey is available as both a Google App and a Google Extension

The PicMonkey App is a free photo editor.  As a photo editor it has "Collage, Touch Up, Teeth Whiten, Fonts, Effects, Filters, Frames, Stickers & more" according to the website.

The PicMonkey Extension instantly allows you to edit web page images and screenshots.  You can "instantly grab images from any Web page and open them up in PicMonkey for editing."

PicMonkey is simple to use.  Here’s how it works: 

Click the PicMonkey icon when you’re viewing a web page. In one kajillionth of a second, every image on that page and a screenshot of the entire page appears as a tiny thumbnail in a sidebar. Select one to edit, and wah-la!  PicMonkey shows up to do your bidding.

PicMonkey is a free online photo editor that says Booyah! to whatever your creative heart desires. Its lean and fast engine lets you perform basic edits, like crop and rotate, and enhance your images with luscious effects, overlays, fonts, textures, frames and touch up tools.  Ridiculously easy, staggeringly gorgeous.

Phonetic Spell Checker

Spell checkers are getting more and more sophisticated.  They are able to pick up more misspellings, daily.  Even though, there are still times that Google or Word cannot determine what was written on the paper, they give you a squiggly line but no suggestions.

Werdz is a website that can help with this.  According to their website, "Werdz is a phonetic spell checker that uses the sounds of clusters of letters to determine how a word should be correctly spelled.  It correctly spells words like sossidge, lettis and menny utha werdz." 

Test it out for yourself.  Go to Werdz and type in a phonetic spelling of a word and look at all of the suggestions that populate. 

You can listen to the different options by selecting the speaker icon or selecting the work.  Selecting the word will take you to OneLook.  Selecting the speaker icon you will be re-directed to howjsay.com.

     

One Look not only provides pronunciations of words but it also provides different search options.  By going directly to the sight, you can look up a definition or a related word.  One Look also lets you search for portions of words or words related to word sections.  It is and interesting sight to explore.  

Rhyme Finder

Writing a poem?
Trying to think of some lyrics?
Looking for a rhyming word for any type of project?

Rhyme Finder is a Google Docs add-on that allows you to select words in your document and find rhyming words.  It is a fun add-on that could have a huge impact on writing.



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Google Docs has some great add-ons to help fill in some of the features gaps that exist in the base Google programming.  Please review my previous How to Find post for more instructions.   

#ChooseKind

Replace offensive comments and abusive language with expressions of kindness!

What if the internet could be a kinder place? Inspired by the movie WONDER, the #ChooseKind Chrome Extension will change the way you see the web by replacing abusive comments with positive and uplifting words. 

     

Using Chrome for desktop, the extension leverages powerful machine learning technology to spot abuse online — making it easier to focus on kindness as you scroll through social feeds and video comments on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. 

Natural Reader

Natural Reader (https://www.naturalreaders.com) is a professional text to speech program that converts any written text into spoken words.  It offers downloadable software, available for both Mac and PC, an online version, as well as Android or iOS apps.  

The free downloadable version of Natural Reader offers: 

• Text to Speech
• Works with PDF, Docx, TXT and ePub
• Change speed and speaker
• Floating bar to read text in other applications

The free web version offers:

• 20 minutes per day for Premium Voices
• Unlimited usage of Free Voices
• Supports PDF, Docx, RTF and TXT documents

With the free web version you can drag and drop your files, or type, paste, and edit text directly in the box on the page.  You can also convert files using the bookmark bar icon.

The free Android or iOS apps offer:

• support for PDF, Word documents, eBooks, HTML files, and PowerPoint
• provides a variety of ways to import text, including a built-in browser and copy and paste input
• access to Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive 
• synchronization with the NaturalReader desktop software 
• import function to access documents from your Android’s micro-SD 

DocHub

DocHub is a website that works with Google to let you mark up, manipulate, and annotate PDFs directly from your Drive account. DocHub, like so many sites these days, has a free and a premium version. The free version allows a user to view and edit 2000 documents and sign up to 5 documents per month.

Check out DocHub.com for videos and information about all of the wonderful things you can do with a PDF.

Listed below are some of the features available in DocHub, copied directly from their sight.

Editor Tools:

* Insert Text
* Draw
* Highlight
* Comment
* Erase
* Sign
* Insert Image
* Stamp
* Undo/Redo

Page Management:

* Merge documents
* Reorder pages
* Append pages
* Rotate pages
* Delete pages


Document Templates:

* Upload a template once then...
...easily fill it out a unique copy of it as many times as you need.
...send copies of it to multiple people for signing or filling.

Signing:

* Easily sign and save any document
* Create and import signature from phone
* Send documents to others to be signed

Open/Import Documents Directly From:

* Your computer
* Gmail
* Google Drive
* Dropbox
* Any webpage URL

Keyboarding a.k.a. Touch-Typing

I have recently been involved in some conversations about Keyboarding vs. Speech-to-text. Speech-to-text is an alternative to keyboarding, but is not as robust of an option, according some experts. Keyboarding or touch-typing on the other hand, is a life long skill that must be developed through time and practice. Below are some different keyboarding options to try with your students.

Typing Club is a Google App and a website (typingclub.com) with free keyboarding instruction for those who need to brush up!

Kidz Type (http://www.kidztype.com/) is a version of Dance Mat Typing.

TypingGames.Zone (https://www.typinggames.zone/) is a fun way for students to build fluency and speed.
- Have the "older kids" "test" the different games for lower grades. This makes typing practice more "authentic" (they are testing for it the younger kids).

Keybr.com (http://Keybr.com) allows you to create a user so you can track progress and continue lessons from where you left off.

Dance Mat Typing (http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr) has four levels to play, each divided into three stages.

If you would like to look at more keyboarding options please visit the High Incidence Accessible Technology website (http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/hiat-tech/) and search for Comparison of Online Keyboarding Websites.

For more information on Speech-to-Text you can see my previous Blog Post titled "Speech-to-Text a.k.a. Dictation"
(https://at-udl.blogspot.com/2016/07/speech-to-text.html).