Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

Texthelp Blog - Our latest thoughts from the world of technology in education & the workplace

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“When am I ever going to need to use this?”

Teachers across the globe have been asked this question, or a variation of it for as long as there have been teachers and schools. It’s fair to say that math teachers might get asked this question more often than some of their colleagues from other subjects. Sure, unless you are an engineer, a rocket scientist or an actuary then you mightn’t need to use complex math as part of your daily work. However, math is a life skill that we are taught in school, and that stays with us forever, whether we realize it or not. 

Since you're reading this blog, it’s likely that you already know that math is part of everyday life - and you want to show your students just how important math skills are. So let’s take a look at a few examples of math in action.

Math and building

It’s hard to build anything without math, from calculating how many bricks you need, how much concrete or how much electricity cable - math is vital when you are trying to build anything. It’s not just professional construction workers either, if you are taking on any kind of DIY project you will need math to figure out how much paint or wood you’ll need to get the job done. 

So whether your students become construction workers or architects in the future - they will need math. If they are just tackling a project at home themselves then the skills they learn in the math classroom could save them money. 

*Class Tip: You could set a building project in the classroom, challenging students to make a house out of boxes or a structure out of wooden blocks. This can help teach math- related skills like measuring, estimating, patterns and following directions. 

Math Cake

We probably use math in the kitchen more than any other room of the house. Cooking and baking is both a science and an artform, and it would be impossible without math. What a tasty way to see math in action. 

Recipes are essentially mathematical algorithms, and there are many ways in which math comes into practice:
- Measuring ingredients
- Multiplying and dividing if you want to make more or less of something (usually more)
- Converting the recipe from centigrade to fahrenheit 
- Converting a recipe from mls or grams to cups 
- Figuring out cooking time 

*Class Tip: You could try a “no bake” recipe in the classroom, like no bake cookies or snacks to share as a class. 

Short changed

Another great example of math in action is shopping, whether you’re shopping for food or a new outfit - math is essential. Otherwise how would you know how much you can afford to spend, whether a discount is really a bargain, or if the cashier has given you the right change.  

*Class Tip - get your students to play “estimate the total” when they are next at the grocery store with their family. The closest answer wins! 

Early or late?

Math and time go hand in hand, understanding time can be a difficult concept - but once your students have mastered this skill it is one they will use constantly.  Teach your students the value of time by looking at both digital and analog clocks, you could then show how time changes around the world, and then talk about how everyone likes to spend their precious free time. 

*Class tip: Your class could set a goal of how long they will take to complete a task, create to-do lists, rank tasks by priority and talk about timetables. There are loads of ways to look at time online using train timetables or the world clocks. You could set a global challenge, getting students to calculate times in capital cities across the world. 

Math could save your life

When you travel you do it with math, figuring out when you need to leave to get to a certain place, and how long it will take to get there, do you have enough gas to get there or will you have to stop on the way - this is all math in action. 

Your students may not remember the days before GPS and Google Maps but it might be a fun project to look at how people used to navigate. Math reading is a dying skill but is a handy one to have if your phone runs out of battery or you have no signal. 

Learning that the sun sets in the west in the northern hemisphere, or how to spot the North Star could be enough to save someone’s life, if they are lost in the wilderness. 

*Class Tip: Plan pretend trips or expeditions so you can show your class how to orientate themselves on a map. Or challenge them to find the best way from point A to point B, this is also a good opportunity to look at all the symbols on maps. You could ask your students to create their own treasure map of a far flung island. 

So there you have it, 5 ways to show your students math in action. Math is everywhere, there’s no getting away from it. The next time someone asks you “when will I ever need to use any of this?” you can share these examples. 

“When am I ever going to need to use this?” Teachers across the globe have been asked this question, or a variation of it for as long as there have been teachers and schools. Since you are reading this blog, it’s likely that you already know that math is part of everyday life - and you want to show your students just how important math skills are. So let’s take a look at a few examples of math in action.

Real World Math - 5 ways to see math in action

Real World Math - 5 ways to see math in action - “When am I ever going to need to use this?” Teachers across the globe have been asked this question, or a variation of it for as long as there have been teachers and schools. Since you are reading this blog, it’s likely that you already know that math is part of everyday life - and you want to show your students just how important math skills are. So let’s take a look at a few examples of math in action.

Create Jamboard Math Activities with Equatio

Find out how to create math in EquatIO and paste it straight into Jamboard.

Create Jamboard Math Activities with EquatIO

Create Jamboard Math Activities with EquatIO. This blog will show you how to create math in EquatIO and paste it straight into Jamboard.

April is Math and Statistics Awareness Month and so throughout the next few weeks we’ll be sharing lots of tips and ticks on teaching math - and as it’s our specialist area, we’ll be concentrating on digital math! 

Our friend Eric Curts has a blog, Control Alt Achieve, all about using technology in education. We asked Eric to share some of his favorite ways to create math in Jamboard using EquatIO. 

Teaching writing has never been an easy task for a teacher. With the shift to online teaching, many teachers have been left in the dark, trying to figure out how to use technology to teach the writing process. In this post, I will give you tips and tools to help you make the digital shift.

There are many ways to approach the pre-writing process. Many students struggle to get words on a page. The first step in the writing process is pre-writing, and it should never be skipped.

Brainstorming - Give students time to think about what they will write about and use digital tools to support the brainstorming process. Jamboard is an excellent tool for getting ideas on the “digital” page. This can be a more abstract brainstorming method of just adding text boxes and sticky notes. Or, you can create a graphic organizer template to help guide students like, a main idea brainstorm, a Venn diagram for comparisons and arguments, or more intricate graphic organizers for older students with more in-depth writing skills. (Other tools that work well with graphic organizers: Google Drawings, Google Slides, or PowerPoint.)

Outline - When students are ready to take their ideas and organize them into an outline, Google Docs (or Microsoft Word) are obvious choices. Be sure to help students find the outline “bullets” in the toolbar. I remember how my students really struggled with Roman numerals on paper. These are built into our favorite word processors to make it less painful and a good way for students to learn those numbering systems.

Voice Recording/Voice Typing - Sometimes, it’s easier for students to just talk aloud about what they want to write. These days it’s usually pretty easy to use a voice recording app to talk out your ideas. (I do this ALL THE TIME!) Of course, remember that students can always use speech-to-text to talk into their documents. The Read&Write for Google toolbar has a handy talk-and-type feature, and Google Docs has voice typing! 

When it comes to drafting an essay or paper, your favorite word processors are your digital BFF. Google Docs and Microsoft Word make it easy to substitute for paper but allow us to make the writing process more DYNAMIC with additional features that go far beyond substitution. In my book Blended Learning with Google, I share many strategies for going beyond substitution and using Google tools to create Dynamic Learning experiences for students. (CLICK HERE to get the FREE Blended Learning with Google Toolkit.)

Voice Typing - Like I mentioned earlier, using voice typing or speech-to-text can help all learners. Most of us talk faster than we type anyway. This feature can help students get their words on the page without the pain of slow typing skills. Plus, it’s a fantastic support for struggling writers, like students with dyslexia and dysgraphia.

Word Choice - Word choice is an important writing skill. There are many online tools to help students find the best word. Google Docs has a built-in dictionary tool to help students search for words and verify spelling and parts of speech. The Read&Write for Google toolbar not only includes a dictionary tool but also a picture dictionary to help young writers and English learners. But one of my favorite features of The Read&Write for Google toolbar is the word prediction tool. As students type in Google Docs, the word predictor will automatically suggest logical words that would come next in the sentence. What a great way to support struggling and emerging writers.

Feedback - Feedback from the teacher and peers can really help students revise their writing and become better writers. Google Docs has a feature called suggesting edits. Once enabled, it green lines the suggestions so students can choose to accept or reject the changes. This is a much more effective method for helping students revise their sentences than just a comment.

Spelling/Grammar Check - We all make mistakes, and one advantage of digital writing is the ability to check spelling and grammar. Google Docs will automatically check the spelling and grammar (once enabled), or you can use the Read&Write for Google toolbar to check it. (Related: How to Check Spelling and Grammar in Google Docs)

Honestly, this post is just scratching the surface of what’s possible with digital writing. The bottom line is to find the tools and strategies that work best for you and your students. Using technology should never make things more difficult. We want to use digital tools to support learning each and every day.

What are your favorite digital writing tools and strategies?

Teaching the Writing Process Online with Kasey Bell.

In this blog post Kasey Bell shares her tips for teaching writing online.   Kasey Bell is a former middle school teacher turned award-winning digital learning coach, international speaker, author, blogger, and podcaster with a Texas-sized passion for technology and learning

Bringing inclusivity and equity to the way we write is an enormous (and important) pursuit, and small changes to common phrases can improve how inclusive our communications are. Specialty vocabularies are a prime opportunity to examine “what we’ve always done.” For example, the phrase “master and slave”—often used in engineering and IT settings to refer to a primary unit that controls secondary units—has significant racist connotations. Re-examining how we use language, then adapting more accurate phrases like “controller/responder” or “main/auxiliary” is an easy-to-implement first step toward improving inclusivity. 

Breaking Down Industry Terminology And Jargon 

As an addiction treatment center, it is important that our website is accessible for all our patients. That means using high contrast, easy-to-read text that breaks down complex medical terminology into something even a middle schooler can understand. Furthermore, we try to incorporate videos where we can to appeal to those who have trouble readings for various reasons.

Retail shopping came to a complete halt this year, making items that are typically bought in person now only available online. We create a seamless digital experience, including detailed product descriptions, multiple pictures and views and a chat support feature to answer all questions customers might have. Shopping for a phone case that looks good and fits your phone is easy to do in-store, but taking that experience 100% online has required us to give more thought to the digital experience for a more vulnerable audience.  

In an effort to quantify page experience, Google introduced Core Web Vitals to help websites offer a better website experience. Included in Core Web Vitals is a metric called Cumulative Layout Shift, or CLS. You know when you’re on a mobile device and you’re about to click on something, then an annoying ad gets in the way and you accidentally click on that ad? CLS measures how much content shifts and penalize sites that offer these poor website experiences on mobile and desktop devices. This should help improve the page experience for everyone, especially vulnerable customers online.

Adoption is a vulnerable process, whether you are a brave birthmother making the choice to follow through with adoption or an adoptive couple looking to grow your family. There is so much emotion throughout the entirety of the process from all sides. To be able to serve the people we work with through our adoption process, we have tried to create the best digital experience possible. Birth mothers or adoptive parents have the ability to text, call, email or chat 24/7 about whatever they need. 

Arrow Lift provides accessibility lifts and home elevator solutions that minimize the impact of mobility challenges and improve the lifestyle of our customers. We service customers with physical disabilities who have come to the realization that they are unable to access the part of their own home with stairs, which makes them vulnerable. To create an inclusive digital experience for those people, we have worked to create one that normalizes and provides educational information about installing a start lift or home elevator into their homes. We also provide free on-site consultations for those customers that need more of a personalized experience. 

Our online retail store makes sure to use ALT text and descriptive captions so that vulnerable customers can visualize images when they can’t view them. One of the most problematic issues of an inclusive digital experience is missing or ineffective ALT text, which is why ecommerce stores like ours need to take the extra effort to ensure this information is included in images. This way, there is a positive user experience for all of our customers.  

Yes, it is deeply important to us that our website is accessible to everyone. One thing we made sure of as we were creating our website was to use a high contrast design with large text to cater to those who may be color blind or hard of seeing. This design carries over into a mobile site; as we know, it can be even harder to read small, light-colored text on a phone or tablet.

- Elliott Greenberg, Touchfree Concepts -

On the Recruiterie website,  job seekers can email their resume rather than filling out an online application form. This helps them to easily apply for jobs that employers need to be filled. COVID-19 has left thousands laid off and seeking work, so we want to make sure that job seekers have an inclusive digital experience on our site during these vulnerable times. 

We hope you learned a lot from our friends at Terkel. If you'd like to learn more about web accessibility, visit our dedicated resources area.

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published. 

To help your company create digital experiences that are inclusive to all, we asked business leaders and PR experts for their best ideas. Here are nine ways to create inclusive digital experiences for your customers.

9 ways to create digital experiences that are inclusive for all

To help your company create digital experiences that are inclusive to all, we asked business leaders and PR experts for their best ideas. From implementing accessible chat features to high contrast design, there are several tips to help you create inclusive digital experiences for your customers. 

Here are nine ways to create inclusive digital experiences for your customers: 

For the last year there has been a greater demand than ever for tools and technology that can help children and young people learn at home and at school. These technologies have made continued education possible during the pandemic. They’ve also helped to decrease learning loss. 

After this unusual year our friends at Tech and Learning Magazine saw it fitting to add a new category to their "Awards of Excellence" program. The new "Best Remote/Blended Learning Tools" category. These awards recognize the work of technology providers, whose solutions were key to delivering continuous learning.

“Despite the many challenges schools have had to face this past year, technology continues to be one of the key drivers for innovation,” says Tech & Learning Group Publisher Christine Weiser. “The winning products recognized here have supported continuous instruction throughout the pandemic, and we expect this momentum to continue into next year and beyond.”

After 40 years of publication - they know what they're talking about. So we were delighted when three of our products were awarded “Best Remote/Blended Learning Tools” across primary and secondary grades. It is important to us that we provide a solution for school pupils of all age groups, from the youngest to the oldest. So to be recognized for our hard work in creating universal tools that can grow with young people is fantastic.

EquatIO® lets you make math digitally, helping to make STEM and math classes more accessible and engaging for every student. EquatIO will integrate with popular Learning Management Systems and classroom software like Blackboard, Brightspace D2L, Canvas and Schoology. To find out how to make math digital, check out this page for more information.

Tech and Learning judges also selected WriQ® as a standout product. WriQ helps to create better writers, while reducing the time teachers spend correcting and grading work. It can automatically score writing using indicators such as spelling, punctuation, and grammar, vocabulary maturity and time taken.

Students can track how long they can write for, before taking a pause or stopping (a writing burst). Positive nudge notifications prompt them to do a little better every day. They’re only ever in competition with themselves, so there’s no pressure. If you would like to find out more about WriQ, you can check out this product page for more information.

Fluency Tutor®, our reading assessment tool, was also recognized in the Primary Grades category.  Fluency Tutor helps struggling readers, with features including a dictionary, text-to-speech and translation. Teachers can share reading passages with their class and receive recordings of the assigned passages back. It helps to keep students reading, whether they’re in class or at home, and can help to decrease learning loss. To find out how Fluency Tutor works simplyvisit our product page.

As more students slowly return to the school setting, technology can close the gap between home and school. Our CEO Martin McKay recently recorded a podcast looking at the future of education from 2021 onwards.

You can listen to the podcast or view the transcript.

Texthelp products receive Tech and Learning Awards of Excellence

If we know each other, then you know I really believe students writing more improves student writing more than any other strategy; it's not teachers "grading" or giving feedback that makes students better writers, though that must be done from time to time. What REALLY makes students better writers is WRITING and WRITING and WRITING. I know this in my soul to be true because I taught writing for many years and I saw how much daily writing improved my students' writing. BUT (and that's a big big BUT), I could not keep up with the feedback loop on daily writing without a team of assistants. Did I have a team of assistants? No, I did not, BUT, I came up with other strategies like spot checking, random journal checks, etc. that allowed me to keep my students writing daily AND maintain most of my sanity. 

Luckily for you, today there are more tools and better ways to encourage daily writing and my favorite by far is WriQ from Texthelp. This amazing tool gives students feedback on their writing. You can also use it to grade papers with its built in rubric and grammar/spelling check, but today let's focus on STUDENTS using WriQ to "mark" and correct their OWN work. This really works and it's actually completely free. If your school or district decides to buy WriQ, they can add custom rubrics and get really cool and amazing stats on student writing, but for an individual teacher OR student, FREE, FREE, FREE! Have I convinced you to give it a try all while stringing you along for those writing prompts? I hope so! Here's a link to make it easy! 

AND here's a quick video so you can learn more about what WriQ can do to make your life easier and your students learning better:

Okay, hopefully you're still here and still waiting, rather patiently I might add, for those writing prompts. First of all, I didn't make this list myself. I found it online years and years ago, but there are some keepers in here. I really like that these give me ideas then I can change them around to make them work for exactly what I'm looking for. For example, I taught high school, and I know better than to ask some of these questions. When you read the list, you'll probably see what I mean and just IMAGINE the "interesting" responses you would get 😜 . 

Well, here we are, almost at the end and with a gratuitous gif waiting down there for you. Here's that list of writing prompts I promised you! This link is a "copy link" which means you will get a copy of my doc in your own Google Drive. Once you create your own copy, you can find it in your Google Drive from then on! 

If this post made your day, you learned something new, or you are even mildly interested, leave us a comment, would you? Share it with your colleagues . . . that would be even better, and help there be less grading of papers going on this weekend! 

Get Your Students Writing Today with These Writing Prompts

In this blog post our friend Amy Mayer, the CEO and Founder of FriEdTechnology - a Google Professional Development Partner Company, offering professional training for educators, shares her thoughts on how to get students writing. 