Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Google is removing the notifications widget March 7, 2019


What does this mean for WECDSB users?

The Widget in the upper right corner of the Chrome Browser that looks like a Bell is going to disappear.  This widget has provided notification updates for Google+, Google Photos and Google Apps Marketplace.  The disappearance of this widget is not a major issue since you will still be able to manage web and app notifications inside of each individual Google product.

Chrome Browser freezing when you select Bookmarks?

Problem: The Chrome Browser is very slow or freezes up when Bookmarks are selected.

This problem may have been caused by a bug in a Chrome Browser update that replicates the user's bookmarks so many times that they could end up with well over 100000 bookmarks! The large number of bookmarks causes long load times and slows the Chrome Browser down to the point where it will freeze up. Fixing this problem will cause the user to lose all of their bookmarks!

The solution requires deleting the local profile on the computer. If this is a WECDSB school computer, the School Technician will need to be involved as Deepfreeze should be in a "Thawed" state before proceeding.

With Deepfreeze in a "Thawed" state, find the location of the local profile by opening the Chrome Browser and login to the user's Google account. In a new Browser Tab visit the following URL: chrome://version

Look for the Profile Path in the output page; copy the actual Profile Path to the clipboard.
Logout of the user's Google account and close the Chrome Browser.
Open Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder and paste in the Profile Path you previously copied to the clipboard.
Backup one directory level and then delete the entire Profile directory.

Open the Chrome Browser again and login to the user's Google account.
Visit the following URL: https://chrome.google.com/sync
Notice the number of Bookmarks stored in the Cloud, the number is probably very large.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Reset Sync button.

That should get rid of all Bookmarks and make Chrome response much quicker.

You will most likely need to log the user back into the Chrome Browser and in settings force the browser to once again sync.

Friday, February 15, 2019

Creating a Digital Guess Who? Game

You may have played the game Guess Who? as a kid. In it, each player was given a bank of 20 or so faces. You each had to choose one and then take turns asking each other yes/no questions until you could guess which person your partner picked. We have the ability to create a similar game but with images related to our subject areas. For example, consider these 16 images of famous art pieces. Students in an art class could practice their knowledge of both art related knowledge and terminology while asking questions.

To create these games we use a software app called Desmos Activity Builder. This app was developed as a companion to Desmos' free graphing calculator and was used primarily to create activities related to math. In this case, the Desmos version of "Guess Who?" is called Polygraph. And even though this app was developed for mathematics, this Polygraph activity creator can easily be used to create these "Guess Who" type games for any subject area. The hard part, really, is just coming up with 16 related images for your students to look at and describe. Watch the video below to see how to create your own.

To help out, I have created some for a few subject areas

Canadian Landscapes: Desmos Polygraph

Identifying Art: Desmos Polygraph

The Periodic Table: Desmos Polygraph

Canadian Iconic Symbols (for French): Desmos Polygraph

And, of course, There are a pile of them created for math: Desmos Polygraph


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