Tech Tidbits March 08, 2022

 TECH TIDBITS

March 09, 2022

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by Sandy Blanc                          

Tip of the Week: Kami Updates and Toolbar! 

Kami is one of my favorite tech integration tools (especially for chromebooks)! If you have not used it, you need to try it out! Kami is a .pdf annotator with so much more! 

You can upload images, text, .pdf's, and create interactive, collaborative assignments for students. Kami offers the ability to split and merge .pdfs, insert YouTube videos (on the main page or as a comment), leave personalized video comments, voice comments, screen capture, and has text to speech. We also have Kami integrated with Canvas!

Before I get into some of the exciting updates that are coming to Kami, I wanted to make sure you know how the toolbar in Kami works! There were a few features in here that I was not aware of! 

This is an excellent video created by Kami to explain each tool and how it works. 

NEW FEATURES AVAILABLE NOW! 

• NEW Graphic Organizers!     

 One of the new features is NOT shown in the video above. It was just recently released. If you go to "Add Media" and select "Stickers" you will now see some graphic organizers ready to go! You can quickly insert a graphic organizer to make it part of your lesson! Students can annotate over it, add text, images, etc. 

TIP! Create the assignment in Kami first (with graphic organizers, instructions, etc.) then FLATTEN the Annotations (select "Download- Google Drive- with annotations- Name file- Flatten annotations- then "begin export"). 

In Canvas, create an assignment- use "External Tool" select "Kami Google Drive Assignment", then choose "Google Drive".

This brings me to the next;

•  NEW FEATURE... Feature Controls! 

When you are uploading the Kami assignment through Canvas, using External Tool, you will now see the ability to limit the tools available to students when they create the assignment. Select "Control Features" as you see in the below image (bottom right). 

You can click on or off what features you want available to students. 

• NEW FEATURE- Open Dyslexic font! 

Kami now offers Open Dyslexic font as a text option for students who may need this additional support for text. 

• NEW FEATURE- Read Aloud Update!

The "Read Aloud" feature will read anything written in a Kami text box as well as any text highlighted. 

NEW FEATURES COMING SOON!!

Some of the features coming in the very near future are;

• Closed Caption Support- This new feature (which should be available in about a month) will create closed captions automatically when playing back video, voice comments, or screen capture. 

• Grade by Page- You will be able to pull up one page from a multi-page assignment to see all of your students work and grade by that page! This will roll out to Canvas, last (first rolling out to Google Classroom then Schoology), but will be coming! 

• Assessment Mode- Kami will be removing "share" and only having a "turn in" option. They will only allow a student to submit once. They will add a timer (with extra time option) and a feature that will automatically submit when the time runs out! Students will not be able to get back to their assignment once it is turned in. 

• The "BIG" new update - coming in a few months (early to mid-March it will start to roll out)... is THE KAMI LIBRARY! 

The Kami Library will offer free, ready to use, educational resources for all subject areas. They will continuously be adding content to this library too!