GMail Changes & Online Privacy

Changes in GMail

​Google has made some pretty significant changes to GMail. This will give you a list, or you can listen to Matt Miller and Kasey Bell tell you more about it in their GTribes podcast.

---

Online Privacy? 

There has been a lot of discussion in the aftermath of Facebook exposures, credit data exposures, etc... I see two things that need clarification. 

One- personally: "Free" is NOT FREE. You are paying for the use of websites by giving them access to your data, be it personal data: lists of friends, preferences or commercial data: what you tend to buy or look at online. Each of us deals with this in our own way. You can read more about this here. Remember that Google tracks your entire search history. Some other search engines supposedly do not do this, for example Duck Duck Go.  When you are using a managed machine at school, the IT department can pretty much track and/or control everything you do.

---

As an educator, one of the concerns I hear is about is Google's compliance with COPPA and other rules to protect our student data. Some of the websites we have traditionally used in education, such as Today's Meet will no longer be available because of new GDPR. While data protection regulations are necessary, I am sorry to see some of the useful websites close their doors. If you're wondering about Google and chromebooks in schools- here's a nice article that I hope answers your questions and puts your mind at rest.
 "Should I be concerned that my kids' school uses Google Chromebooks?

---

Online Safety Magazine

This is a free ~monthly magazine that you can download.
Articles this month include:

• Privacy vs Free
• Skin Gambling
• Challenges
• Risky Behaviour
• Gaming – have the talk
• Fortnite

​Click HERE to download the April edition.

---

New Feature in Book Creator

For those of you who have yet to try Book Creator, it is now on chrome, as well as iOS and is super easy to use.

​The new feature that I am excited about is Read to Me. Here's the blurb from the blog:
 "With this great new feature your books can be read aloud using your device’s text-to-speech capabilities. Book Creator can highlight the words as they are read and turn the pages automatically."

 Check it out yourself ​here. 

---

Jo Boaler on Math

For all the "I'm not a math person" folks out there... Jo Boaler wants everyone to love math. She has a great new article in Stanford Magazine. Check out the write up here. If you have not visited youcubed.org- amazing ideas there. There are tasks, challenges, resources for students, parents and teachers. Check it out. Jo also posted her new math mindset guide as well. Check out the hexagons below...

I am so excited to share our new interactive mindset guide https://t.co/p1JuG89ydA. Ideas on how to teach for a mathematical mindset culture, with each idea illustrated with a free teacher video. Click on the hexagons to see a video. What do you think youcubians? pic.twitter.com/hOEbDSBppu

— Jo Boaler (@joboaler) April 23, 2018