Have your computer read to YOU

 

In an earlier post I described how you can talk to the computer for speech to text in MS Word and Google docs, but you can also have the computer read your text to you (text to speech).

Why would you want to do this?  

There are many possible uses for this, but one use for college students is to have your computer read a paper you are writing to you. It can be beneficial to hear your paper to get another perspective on how it will sound to the reader. It can also be helpful if you are stuck, to listen to the paper and see what should come next; or to hear if the points you are making are in the best possible order; or if you have edits you want to make, etc.

To have MS Word read your document:

Open the document.

Go to the Review menu and select Read Aloud.

You will get play controls. Click the play button to hear your paper!

How can Read Aloud help you?

Voice Typing in Google Docs and MS 365

 

Have you ever wished you could just talk and get your brainstorm-y ideas down on paper? 

You can...with voice typing!

Voice Typing in Google Docs

Watch the video below to see how easy it is to use voice typing in Google Docs!

NOTE: This now works in all browsers, in addition to Chrome.

Voice typing in Word (Microsoft 365 only)

Word has two options for converting audio to text: Dictate and Transcribe

Dictate

This is the "classic" voice to text.  

From the home menu in Word, click Dictate.

You will see a microphone waiting for you to record.  Start talking and you will see your words appear on the page.  Click the microphone icon to toggle between recording and pausing.

One tip: you will want to say the punctuation you want included.  

Once you are done recording, you can edit the text as you would with any document.

Transcribe

There are two ways to use transcribe: (1) you can record an audio file with one or more people in Word and transcribe that file or have a link to the audio file pasted into the document. (2) What I think is more common, you can upload an audio file and get a transcript. Here is how that works:

From the home menu in Word, find the Dictate/Voice block, click the down pointing arrow, and select Transcribe.

A transcribe sidebar opens. Select your language if it is not US English. You can Start Recording or Upload Audio.  We are going to Upload Audio.

Navigate to your audio file and open it. Word gives you a message that it is transcribing. 

When it it ready, it will display the transcription in the sidebar. You can use this as a reference when you are typing, or add some/all of the transcription to the document.

How can you, (or others) use voice typing to improve your learning and productivity?

Customizing your browser--Bookmarks

You spend a lot of time in your browser; why not customize it to be as useful as possible!

There are two basic ways to customize your browser: bookmarks and extensions. In this blog post we will look at bookmarks.

Bookmarks are shortcuts to websites that are located on your browser for one-click access to the website.

To create a bookmark in Chrome:

1.  Open the webpage you want to bookmark.

2.  Click on the 3 vertical dots on the far right of your browser (this is your Customize and Control Chrome menu)

3.  Click on the Bookmarks and Lists option. Select Bookmark this tab.

4.  Click Edit to change the name of the bookmark (it is often useful to shorten it so you can fit more bookmarks on your bookmark bar) or click Done to accept the current name.

5. Your bookmark will appear on your bookmark bar.  If you want to reorder your bookmarks on the bookmark bar, click and drag the bookmark you would like to move.

6.  If you want to reorder your bookmarks and you have more bookmarks than display on your bookmark bar, go to the Customize and Control menu (the three dot menu), select Bookmarks and Lists, and select Bookmark Manager. This gives you a list of all of your bookmarks.  Click and drag to order the bookmarks.

7.  To edit your bookmarks: 

• right-click on the bookmark on the bookmark bar and select Edit.
  
  
• if you want to edit a bookmark that is not displayed on the bookmark bar, you can go to the Customize and Control menu (the three dot menu), select bookmark, and then select Bookmark Manager and right click on the bookmark you want to edit.

8.  Now anytime you want to go to a bookmarked website, you can just click on the bookmark!

9. For more information, check out the Create, find, & edit bookmarks in Chrome help page.

To create a bookmark in Firefox:

1.  Open the webpage you want to bookmark.

2.  Click on the star to bookmark the webpage.

     Customize the name of the bookmark. Select where you want the bookmark to appear:

• bookmark toolbar (like the above example)
• bookmark menu 
• other bookmarks (available under the bookmark menu icon, and the bookmark sidebar

    Click Done.

4. To view your bookmarks:

• If you saved your bookmark to the toolbar, you will see it near the top of your browser window.
  
  If you saved your bookmark to the toolbar and it is NOT showing on the toolbar: click on the hamburger menu on the left of the browser bar (the three horizontal lines), select Bookmarks, and select Show bookmarks toolbar. You will only have to do this once!

• To see the other bookmarks, click on the hamburger menu on the left of the browser bar (the three horizontal lines), select Bookmarks, and select Other Bookmarks.
  

5.  To edit a bookmark, right click on it, select Edit Bookmark, make your changes and save it.

6.  Now anytime you want to go to a bookmarked website, you can just click on the bookmark!

7.  For more information, check out the Firefox Bookmarks in Firefox support page.

AI Prompting Resources

There are many models you can use to structure your AI prompting to provide enough information to get you as close as possible to the answer you are looking for from an AI chatbot including Task-Role-Audience-Approach-Tone/Style (Educraft video),  Request-Reference-Format-Framing, Task-Act as if-Output-Audience, Specific-Context-Iterate, Task-Instructions-Context-Parameters-Input, and more! (just search for it!)

But you do not need to go it alone.  There are many prompting resources available for you:

A prompt library is a list of prompts you can use "as is" or use as inspiration and customize.
For example, 

• AI for Education has many great teaching and AI resources for K-12 teachers (and some use for non-k-12 teacher) including a Prompt Library for Educators with  dozens of prompts in the areas of assessment, communication, lesson planning, and more.
  
  
• This blog post from Control Alt Achieve includes several prompt libraries for educators.
  
  
• AI Prompt Library for Educators includes assessments, lesson plans, slide outlines, rubrics, and more (AIPromptLibrary.org)
  
  
• Prompt library for Training & Development (AI Innovation Lounge)
  
  
• 25+ Best ChatGPT Prompts for Instructional Designers (thinkific.com)
  
  
• A few Prompts for Leadership (Content at Scale. There are many categories of prompts in addition to leadership in the left side menu.)
  
  
• 100 ChatGPT Prompts for Leaders (tasko.ai)

A Few More Prompts for Fun!

• AI Prompts for Career Development (Griffith University) 
  
  
• 20+ ChatGPT Prompts To Discover Your Leadership Style in 2024 (Forbes)
  
  
• 5 ChatGPT Prompts to Change Your State of Mind (and Get More Done) (Forbes)

(Forbes has a lot of prompt articles)

You can also prompt your Chatbot to create (or improve) your prompts!

Example 1: Creating prompts

I want you to become my Prompt Creator. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The prompt will be used by you, [name of chatbot such as ChatGPT]. You will follow the following process: 1. Your first response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual iterations by going through the next steps. 2. Based on my input, you will generate 3 sections a) Revised prompt where you provide your rewritten prompt. It should be clear, concise, and easily understood by you, b) Suggestions where you provide suggestions on what details to include in the prompt to improve it, and c) Questions where you ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt. 3. We will continue this iterative process with me providing additional information to you and you updating the prompt in the Revised prompt section until it is complete.

Example 2 (from @evolving.ai): Rewriting prompts

You are Prompt Professional, the most advanced [name of chatbot such as ChatGPT] prompt writer in the world. I will provide you a prompt. Today, your job is to rewrite the prompt again in 10 different and creative ways. Now ask me what prompt to rewrite.

Example 3: Teaching support

I am a trainer who needs to teach [content] in [business/setting]. My students are [describe students]. The level of this training should be [beginner, advanced, suitable for new leaders, etc.] The training will be [duration] and be [face to face, online, self-paced, etc.]. Possible challenges of teaching these students are [challenge 1] [challenge 2]. I enjoy teaching because [reason 1] [reason 2]. Generate 20 ChatGPT use cases that could help me enhance my effectiveness as a trainer and improve my student's engagement and learning.

Alternative for red text above:

Generate 10 objectives for this training with two activity ideas for each objective.

Substitute whatever instructions will be useful for you in place of the red text.

Have fun creating and editing prompts!

(All images created with Microsoft CoPilot.)

Technology Tools from our blogs this semester (so far!)

 

We have made a lot of wonderful blog posts in this class (so far!) including:

• blog posts related to your PLN and profession. 
• blog posts on ideas related to technology and learning. 
• blog posts that are an introduction to technology tools (free and commercial). 
• blog posts about tips to use some technology tools in ways you might not have previously known!

If you have only read the blogs of your group members you may have missed some of these posts, so here are some of our class blog posts introducing (free) technology tools and tips.

Take a look and see which of these tools and tips you can use!

Learning-Related Tools

Genially (Andrea)

Cerego (Vaughn)

Pressbooks (Myia) 

Kahoot (Kaden) 

Image Creation

Powerpoint: shape, icon, 3D model (Kashia)

Canva (Andrea)

Pixelcut: AI image editor (Tony) 

Snip & Sketch, GIMP (Tony) 

Other Cool Tools

Screencastify (Estee)

 

Word Clouds!

Word Clouds allow you use words and create a visual display. Words used more often are displayed larger in a word cloud and words used less often are displayed smaller in a word cloud. Word clouds can be used to display your own list of words, or to display the information you gather from other sources such as through a survey or other types of comments.

There are many websites to help you create word clouds. Some word cloud websites require you to install free plug-ins (like java, silverlight). Once you find a word cloud generator, they generally work the same: type or upload your text or word list, and generate your word cloud. You can regenerate your word cloud until you find one you like, and can often change the color, font, shape and more for your word cloud. Once you have your word cloud you can sometimes save or download it, but you can always capture it with a screen capture tool such as the Microsoft Snipping Tool (windows_key+shift+S)

Here are a few free word cloud generators for you to try out! (just ignore any options to put your word cloud on merchandise or sign up for a paid subscription.)

WordItOut.com Click the green "create your own" button to get started. 
WordClouds.com  I like this one because it lets you pick a shape to force your word cloud into such as a heart, arrow, checkmark, lightning bolt, etc.
WordArt.com also gives you a lot of control over the shape of your word cloud (it is "art" not a cloud!)
Jason Davis' word cloud generator
WordSift.org uses a list of words or you can paste in text and it will take the common words from text, an article, or a speech and creates a word cloud.

And you can search to find even more word cloud generators!

How might you be able to use word clouds?

This might be my new favorite QR code creator!

One of the challenges with many of the free QR Code generators that I wrote about previously, is that they have restricted the free QR code features to only linking to websites. I recently came across the free QR Code generator, Me-QR that generates a QR code and lets you link to many types of media with the free version.

Once you get to the Me-QR website, you will need to sign up for a free account.  After that, it's just three simple steps to generate your QR Code.

Step 1: Select what your QR Code will link to

You can link your QR Code to a website, but you can also link to all of the following (and more):

I particularly like being able to link to a PDF document (an article, work document, or PDF of a PowerPoint presentation, etc.) and to link to text or an image with contact information, etc.

Step 2: Select your content and create your QR Code

Add the link or upload the content from your computer and click: Customize & Download QR.

Step 3: Customize and download your QR Code

Your QR Code is generated and you have the option to customize the look of your QR Code with frames based on pre-made templates, themes, holidays, and events. Once you have a design and color customization that you like, you can download your QR Code and use it in documents, slide decks, presentations, posters, and more!

What are some ways you can integrate QR codes linking to all these options into your profession?