Websites All Educators Should Know About

We must think differently about the kinds and types of assessments we give our students.

Here are some websites of which you should be aware that we know our students are using regularly. The first is called GradeSaver.com, which contains everything from textbook answers to college essays – here is the link - http://www.gradesaver.com/textbooks .  Sites like these, including CliffNotes.com, SparkNotes.com, and a multitude of language translators are also being accessed regularly.  Some are blocked by the filter and others are not. Please just know that at any given moment, students can access these sites using their cell phones. As you may also have seen this week, photos of the grade 5 NYS ELA exam wound up on a Suffolk County “Moms” Facebook page and circulated rapidly. While the intent was either for cheating or discrediting the test, this type of “cheating” or sharing is rampant. This highlights, whether we like it or not, how we must think differently about the kinds and types of assessments we give our students in an ever increasing, technology-based society.

-  © Kerrin Welch-Pollera - 4/19/2018

Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs

Technology can be a powerful tool to assist students with special needs or any sort of learning challenge. In particular the Chrome web browser allows users to install a wide variety of web extensions that provide tools that can help all learners, regardless of ability level.

In this blog post we will take a look at over 30 Chrome web extensions that can assist students in five main categories:

• Text to Speech
• Readability
• Reading Comprehension
• Focus
• Navigation

To read more of this post follow the link below from the blog - Control Alt Achieve - Transforming Education with Technology

http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html

Don’t Give Away Historic Details About Yourself!

Author - Brian Krebs

Social media sites are littered with seemingly innocuous little quizzes, games and surveys urging people to reminisce about specific topics, such as “What was your first job,” or “What was your first car?” The problem with participating in these informal surveys is that in doing so you may be inadvertently giving away the answers to “secret questions” that can be used to unlock access to a host of your online identities and accounts.

Click the link below to see the rest of this article by: © 2018 Krebs on Security. Powered by WordPress.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/dont-give-away-historic-details-about-yourself/?

Google is shutting down its goo.gl URL shortening service!

The company wants you to use the more app-centric Firebase Dynamic Links.

URL shorteners can be both useful and fun. Google's take on the tech launched in 2009, and added a third-party API, the ability to create QR codes and the power to link right to iOS and Android apps. Even Keanu Reeves has a URL shortener named in his honor. Unfortunately, Google is replacing its own service, goo.gl, with Firebase Dynamic Links (FDL) as of April 13th. These new smart URLs let you send folks to any location within iOS, Android or web apps.

You won't be able to create new goo.gl short links after the 13th, but existing users can manage them via the goo.gl console for the next year. After that, all the links will still work, but you won't be able to access the console itself after March 30th, 2019. Google suggests creating FDLs from now on, or using other shortening services like Bitly and Ow.ly or tinyurl.

This information taken from https://www.engadget.com