Annotable your pictures... just the bad parts

Check out some of my personal family pictures below. Do you notice anything about them?

Have you had that amazing picture to post or share, but there was some little part that needed to be 'blurred' out?  ....a face, a word, a logo.... Check out the iPad/iPhone App called Annotable.  It is free on the iTunes Store (but is not yet available in Self Service).  Blur those pieces that you want to take out.

The blurring tool is free and easy to use.  There are several other add-on tools that have to be purchased.  You can disregard them if you would like.

After the app is installed, open the picture you want 'blur' in Photos.  Select Edit from the upper right corner.

Then simply select the 'blur' tool and drag across the intended area.  

Click on 'done' when you are finished.

Here is a little screen recording of one example of how to 'blur' an image:

Let me know if you have any questions.

Are you tired of being a Guest?

Do you (or your students) have a laptop that goes automatically to the Guest wifi instead of the Staff wifi?

A quick fix should take care of this.

Go to.....
System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced

Look to see if 'Staff' is higher on the list than Guest.  Just drag 'Staff' to the top of your list (or drag Guest to the bottom of your list.  Click OK. Click Apply, and you're done.  That should fix it.

See video below for a reference.

Apple Classroom BIG news

Apple recently made a big update to Apple Classroom.
It is now available for iPads AND Macs.
         So why should that matter to you? ...

Our district has supported the Classroom App for iPads for the last two years.  It is a wonderful engagement application.  With it, teachers can quick engage learners by

     -quickly 'sharing' a student screen on their classroom projector
     -opening the same application on every student's device
     -opening a shared Pages/Keynote/Numbers/Book on every student iPad
     -quickly navigate all of your students to the same website
     -create classrooms 'groups' where you can do any of the above with classroom subgroups
...and more.

Apple Classroom is very quick and intuitive to use.  Classes are synched with Infinite Campus, so every student with a device, whether an iPad or laptop should be on your list.  Click here for a link to the Apple Classroom user guide.

Requirements:
- All students and teachers will need to update their laptops to MacOS Mojave, version 10.14.4.
         *Student devices will be updated before the start of the 19-20 school year.
         *Teachers who have not updated to Mojave yet will need to coordinate with tech staff to get this done.
- Bluetooth will need to be turned on
         *This means that only students within about 30 feet of your computer will be 'visible'. 
- Wi-Fi will need to be turned on

Quick Notes:
It is best practice to use this first as an Engagement resource and not as a Management tool.  A bonus is that you can 'see' what is on your students' screens while they are in your classroom.  Use Classroom to keep learning moving forward.

If you are listed as a teacher in Infinite Campus and have students, you will have a class in Classroom.

This is not like Google Classroom.  It complements very well though.

This works via iPad-iPad, iPad-Mac, Mac-Mac, Mac-iPad, or any combination.

Apple Classroom will be available soon in Self Service for you to download to your iPad and Mac.  (Students do not need to download Classroom for this to work)

Click here for a link to the Apple Classroom user guide

See my previous blog posts about Apple Classroom to learn more.