January 2018

Integrate: Teaching Students to Spot “Fake News”

EdTechChristina Digital Safety and Citizenship, Websites ,

Here’s a great way to help students learn about “fake news” on the internet and cross checking facts.  Check it out~

First, go to https://www.allaboutexplorers.com/webquest/teacher/ for the teacher instructions and lesson plan.  It was developed by the Centennial School District to teach Internet literacy skills to 5th grade students (although 4th grade and middle school students would find it helpful too!).  Students are asked to research explorers as they prepare to give a recommendation for a new state holiday.  It’s designed to be a long project, but it could definitely be adapted for a shorter project or even a one-period lesson.  Students are asked to find information on this site (which looks so “real”!) and then compare it to other (reliable) provided sites.

Students will start at the homepage:  www.allaboutexplorers.com

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Just a Little More: How to Edit Your Chrome Bookmark Bar (for more space!)

EdTechChristina Google G Suite , ,

Is your Google bookmark bar getting full?  Would you like to make some room and get organized?  You can edit the text of each website that appears on your bookmark bar, or even remove the text all together (that will free up a lot of space!).

Here’s how:

Here’s a screenshot of my bookmark bar on the Chrome browser:

When I right click on a bookmark (for example, “My Drive”), I see options.  Click on “Edit”

At the top, I can change the text of the bookmark.  To get more space across your bookmark bar, keep the text as short as possible:

Now, it looks like this on my bookmark bar (takes up a little less room):

That may not be such a big deal to take out the little words, but some of our bookmarks have long titles and this tip really helps with those!

OR…

You can delete the text and just use the favicon (the icon that appears as a favorite on my bookmark bar):

Now, only the favicon (icon) appears on my bookmark bar (which really frees up a lot of space!).  Just be sure to remember what the icon represents.

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