Google's Applied Digital Skills Lessons

Students are allowed to keep their Chromebooks home over the summer - so reinforce and/or enhance your kids’ digital skills throughout the summer with Google’s Applied Digital Skills lessons. You kids can make pixel art inspired by Frida Kahlo and Mexico or create a comic strip in Google Drawings. You can also learn job-ready skills from anywhere with the video-based lessons. Have a wonderful and relaxing summer with the family!

Kami Library

Kami is a digital annotation tool that helps students and teachers interact with pdf documents. We’ve mentioned Kami before and their comment tools. We’ve also shared Kami Geography Scavenger Hunt Activity as a way for you and your students to test out some Kami’s features.  Now, Kami has expanded their templates for note-taking, games, and more! Kami Library has hundreds of free, ready-made teaching templates to download, customize, and share - no strings attached! You can filter by grade level, resource type, and subject.

All students have the Kami extension pre-installed on their Parkway-issued Chromebooks. Teachers need to install the Kami extension in Chrome.

Voice-Typing in Google Docs

If a student is having trouble writing or typing his/her thoughts on paper, consider voice-typing in Google Docs. This allows the student to talk out ideas and is helpful for those who have difficulty typing as quickly as the thoughts come into their head. This is also great accommodation for students with written expression disability.

In a Google Doc (and Slides), go to the Tools menu and select Voice typing. Punctuation is not automatically included, and your child will need to do some editing after voice-typing. Check out this 2-minute video demo!

Parent Pointer: Connect to nature through technology

 

image from Wikipedia Commons

Connect to nature through technology

Happy Spring! Take time to get some fresh air and enjoy the beautiful weather. Integrate technology into your family’s outdoor experience to encourage an appreciation and a deeper understanding of the natural world. Use the iNaturalist app to participate in the City Nature Challenge in St. Louis from April 29 - May 9, 2022.

iNaturalist app

Take photos of plants, fungi, and animals (or even evidence of animals such as tracks, nests, shells, or skulls) and iNaturalist can help you identify these organisms. You can also connect with other scientists and naturalists who can help you learn more about nature. By recording and sharing your observations, you’ll create data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature. iNaturalist is a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. Thanks to the generous support of many organizations and individuals, it is FREE for anyone to use. iNaturalist is available on Google Play and Apple. 

What are you waiting for? Go out, explore, and learn more about the world around you today with technology.

Kami's Split and Merge Feature

 Kami is a digital annotation tool that helps students and teachers interact with pdf documents. We’ve mentioned Kami before and their comment tools. Now we’re diving deep with a fan-favorite Kami tool - Split and Merge.

Split and Merge allows you to effortlessly customize and combine your PDFs by simply clicking a few buttons. Cut out content you don’t need, rearrange the pages for a better flow, or get completely creative by chopping and changing a bunch to make something completely original. Check out Parkway’s Kami’s Split and Merge video!

All students have the Kami extension pre-installed on their Parkway-issued Chromebooks. Teachers need to install the Kami extension in Chrome.