Links and Loves - Friday, October 15 2021

Greetings colleagues and friends. How was your week? This week flew by! I've been managing the hustle and bustle of work, family and enjoyment. 

It has been a bit of a difficult week for me and my family with the passing of a family member, a cancer diagnosis for a family member,  an injury of a family member, a serious heart issue of a family member and as sickness of a family member. Needless to say, when family members are struggling and dealing with health issues, it is hard to be my cheerful and positive self. Every day that we wake up healthy is truly a blessing! Please remember to take care of yourselves and your family.

Here are a few things that have come my way this past week.

I watched two different series on Netflix recently. 

One is called Squid Game which is now the #1 biggest series launch ever, with more than 111 million global viewers! Squid Game is a South Korean series about contest players that are all deeply in debt and play children's games with deadly penalties if they lose the games, but can be rewarded billions of dollars if they win. It was definitely unlike anything I've watched before and quite disturbing at times.

The other is called Maid which is based on a true story about a single mother who has a young child and the father is emotionally abusive. The mom works a maid cleaning service for rich people and finds herself homeless and trying to get help to survive, but meets many road blocks in the system. This series was difficult to watch at times, but is eye opening and teaches us a lot about how single moms are viewed by society. 

This week I showed a teacher how to use MOTE for putting an audio voice over or voice comment into a Google Doc or Google Slide. Mote is easy to use and works like a charm.

A colleague from another district shared this translator with me. They said that this translator out performs Google translate in their opinion.

I discovered this amazing post with links to podcasts for students and adults. I listen to a podcast almost every day on my commute to work. 

Podcasts are a great way to enhance literacy, vocabulary and our listening skills. Have you tried using podcasts with your students?

Canva now has a video editing tool that goes beyond the basics. I look forward to checking this out. 

Check out this social media presentation template from Slides Mania. Educators can use this slide template to promote the use of technology and media in a safe way, to teach about digital citizenship or the responsible use of social media.  

Enjoy your weekend and find some time to do something for yourself and self care. I'm planning to go on a long walk, spend time with people who are enjoyable to be around and do some cooking and baking.

 
Be well,
Deb