Issue 6 • Date July 31, 2024

Artificial Intelligence requires big computers that run hot. It takes an enormous amount of electricity and water to run and cool these machines. In addition to the environmental impact, there are ethical and legal concerns, particularly around the use of others' intellectual property in AI training.

Although I am aware of the drawbacks, I continue to use chatbots, image generators, and other tools powered by AI.

I have mixed feelings that come from using AI, but I am hopeful that advancements will lead to more energy-efficient technologies and ethically trained tools.

Let’s commit to being informed and mindful of issues with AI as we navigate the changing landscape of artificial intelligence in education.

Chrome Closure Comeback 🗂️

It happens. You close a browser tab and then, oops, you realize you actually wanted to keep that tab open.

You have options to reopen the closed tab.

• Click the File menu and choose Reopen Closed Tab.

• Right-click in the empty part of the tab bar and select Reopen Closed Tab.

• Click the Search tabs button at the top of the window.

• Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-T or ⌘-Shift-T.

Presentation Power-ups 🪄

With Canva's Magic Shortcuts, you can instantly do some cool and useful things with a press of a button.

When in Present mode, press the following keys on your keyboard for fun animations.

• Letter B to blur the current slide

• Letter C for confetti rain

• Letter D for a drumroll animation

• Letter M for a mic drop animation

• Letter O for floating bubbles

• Letter Q for quiet

• Letter U for a curtain call animation

• Any number (0-9) for a timer (1 for one minute, 2 for two minutes, etc.)

You can press Shift + ? on your keyboard to open the Magic Shortcuts menu. Alternatively, you can click the Magic Shortcuts icon in the bottom toolbar when in Present mode.

Padlet’s Potential ⏺️

Flipgrid started in 2014. I happily paid $60 a year to use the video discussion platform with an unlimited number of students.

Microsoft acquired Flipgrid in 2018 and made it free to use. They graciously refunded my previous subscription. Microsoft shortened the name to Flip in 2022.

Sadly, Microsoft is discontinuing the Flip app and website.

Luckily we have alternatives. One of them is Padlet. A teacher can create a padlet with a discussion question. Students can respond with a video using Padlet’s built-in video recorder. Auto-captioning creates subtitles for all recorded videos. Each padlet can be manually or automatically moderated. Students can reply to each other’s posts by recording video or by typing comments.

Here are the steps I take to create a padlet that functions like a Flip topic:

1. Make a new padlet.

2. Choose Blank board.

3. Enter a title and click Done.

4. Click Settings.

5. Enter discussion prompt for Description.

6. Toggle Comments on.

7. Click Post fields.

   1. Enter “Name” for subject placeholder and make required.

   2. Change Attachment field to Custom, checkmark Video recorder, and make required.

   3. Change Color to Hide.

8. Change Moderation to Auto or Manual.

9. Modify any other settings to customize the look of the padlet.

You might consider marking your padlet as a template so that you can easily make new padlets with these same settings.

Padlet’s video recorder is not nearly as cool as Flip’s. You can pause and resume recording an unlimited number of times, and you can review a recording before saving. However, you can’t trim or reorder clips. There are no whiteboards, backgrounds, stickers, filters, or customizable thumbnails.

Padlet limits free users to 3 padlets. Each padlet can have an unlimited number of posts, but if you intend to use Padlet as you did Flip, you’re going to need more. You can upgrade to an unlimited number of padlets for $100 per year. Or, you can get free additional padlets through the referral program.

Ideogram Insights 🌠

I have a favorite AI image generator. It’s called Ideogram. I have several reasons why it’s my favorite.

• I am consistently impressed with its output.

• I can select the output to be square, widescreen, or tall.

• Magic Prompt enhances my initial prompt to “improve image variety and richness.”

• I can prompt it to include specific text in the output, making it great for designing stickers and logos.

Ideogram’s free plan gives you 10 slow prompts a day. You can upgrade to basic for $8 a month and get 400 priority prompts per month and 100 slow prompts per day.

First-Year Faculty Freebie 👩‍🏫

Diffit is an AI-powered platform designed to help teachers create differentiated content for their students.

Diffit’s free tier is limited to saving only basic resources as a PDF. See a comparison chart of Free versus Premium.

First year teachers can get a free year of Diffit Premium (usually $15/month). Premium's big feature is that you can share student activities in Google Slides, Docs, Forms, Word, or PPT.

Suno Song Studio 🎶

Suno is an AI-powered music creation tool. Simply describe a song and Suno generates it for you. I use Suno to generate background music, and I use it to generate songs with lyrics.

I made a short video about Suno where I prompt it to generate “a modern pop song about the life cycle of a butterfly.” You can watch the video on YouTube.

Suno’s free Basic Plan include 50 credits per day, which is enough to generate 10 songs. Teachers and trainers can complete this form to possibly get a bunch of free credits. (You don’t have to be a first year teacher to get free credits from Suno.)

You’ve probably noticed that each section of the Learning in Hand Newsletter has an alliterative title. I use AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude to help me generate these. I usually prompt them with, “Each section of my newsletter has an alliterative title. I've pasted one section below. Please provide 15 possible alliterative titles.”

I hope you enjoy the playful titles, because there will be more next week. 😉

Smiles from Iowa,

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