Cool Tools

At the URI Digital Literacy Summer Institute, participants have the opportunity to attend "Cool Tools" sessions each day. One of the standout sessions I attended today was a hands on activity using vialogues.com. Take a few minutes to practice with vialogues.com. Vialogues is not entirely unique, but it is free and add free. It's built by Teacher's College, Columbia University. Vialogues.com is an awesome tool for discussing and critiquing videos collaboratively with your students. It would be a solid resource for any media literacy class, critiquing sueded videos, or for engaging kids in current events. Actually, any time you want to empower kids to participate in media literacy and comment on or discuss a video, vialogues.com would be an awesome platform on which to build the experience.

Google Docs 101 Tips and Tricks

At this morning's Tech Tuesday workshop, I was asked for a Google Docs tips and tricks sheet. Here's a small list of resources you might find helpful.

Getting started with Google Docs (links to a comprehensive, text based tutorial)

Short video on sharing Google Docs

Publishing Google Docs

20 expert tips and tricks

An exhaustive list of Google Docs keyboard shortcuts

UPDATE:

A colleague also asked what the f5 and f6 keys do. f5 and f6 dim and brighten the keyboard backlight feature. The library was too bright to really see the keyboard backlight effect. Try it in a room that is not so brightly lit.