Deb Norton Tech

What is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning? AI (Artificial Intelligence) is the ability for computers to perform tasks that are usually performed by humans such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and translations in languages. Machine Learning is a type of AI where computer systems learn to make decisions based on collected data. After listening to the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast on the topic of AI and Machine Learning,  I was inspired to write this post. Here are some examples of AI and Machine Learning that you can use in your classrooms. Quick Draw by Google  - Draw the object and see if the computer system can recognize the object.  Auto Draw  - a game where the computer tries to guess what you're drawing and lets you replace your drawing with an artistic drawing. I drew a turkey Here is one of the recommended artistic images Mystery Animal  - The computer pretends to...

It has been a week filled with great technology learning moments. I attended the Amplify CollaborateIT conference on Tuesday. Here are some of the incredible takeaways from the keynote speaker, John McElligott who talked about Embracing Disruption . John works at York Exponential in Pennsylvania. He spoke about Robotics ,  Humanized Computing and mind controlled bionic arms OH MY!  To say the least, I was in my techy element. This week I listened to this podcast - Is Facebook Spying on You? Have you experienced talking about a product and then having it appear on your Facebook Ads? This book was recommended to me and I’m going to start reading it over Thanksgiving break. It’s about coping with the exponential increase in computing power. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. A friend made me a turkey placeholder like this one .  Simple and fun!

Happy Veteran’s Day - today and tomorrow I celebrate all of the men and women that serve or have served in our military. Thank you to Andrew Schaller for putting together this honor wall   at Oshkosh West High School. My Uncle Jerry Kunde is on this wall. I listened to this podcast this week which gave me so many things to think about and consider with technology and deep thinking.  Are we using the applications and tools to the fullest potential? Did you read my blogpost on Ways to Use Animation for Student Projects and Engaging Lessons ?  It amazes me how far animation and 3D design has come in just a few years. This week I am working with a teacher and her students to record a Ted Talk using Flipgrid . I also set up a new BreakoutEDU , a scrapbooking and card making station and we finished a pixel art poster in the Innovation Lab . This week, someone surprised me with free printable pumpkins for our Innovation Lab. What a thoughtful thing...

Animation Comes in Many Forms Using animation tools can help to add engagement, creativity and technological knowledge  for students   . Animations can also add excitement to your lessons. With plenty of applications for animation, the days of static imagery and boring presentations are long gone. Here are some of the possibilities. Create looping Gifs  ABCya Animate or Giphy can be used to make looping animations called gifs. Students could show a process, change over time or movement through a gif.  With ABCya Animate, students can create scenes that will play in a short animated video.  This site seems most appropriate for elementary and middle school students, however, when I showed this recently to some high school students, they enjoyed creating gifs and with the ability to add your own images this site becomes more attractive.  Giphy can be used to upload a series of images to turn into a gif or a paste in the url of a YouTube v...

CheckMark is an Extension for Giving Feedback Quickly Classrooms continue to become more and more paperless with writing assignments in Google Docs and extensions such as CheckMark can make the process of giving feedback and grading writing assignments much more timely and efficient. Here is how the extension works. First add the extension in the Chrome Web Store . Once you have added the extension, open a writing assignment in Google Docs.  Next click on the extension to turn the check mark green. Then highlight any word or group of words and a popup list of possible comments will appear.  If the popup list does not appear, you may need to click on the Secure or i next to the url to allow for popups.  When you hover over an icon in the list, the feedback text will show.  When you click on a icon, the feedback will be added to the Google Doc as a comment.  Here are all of the choices for possible feedback that can be ...