Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Zoom gets a new feature -- Immersive View

I am so excited that Zoom now has an Immersive View!  Microsoft Teams has had something similar to this and I was always a little jealous.  So quick overview of what immersive view is.  It's a way to bring participants into a virtual room that actually looks like a room.  There are options that look like classrooms, board rooms, picture galleries, and much more.  You'll need to play around with it to see how it works.  To access immersive view, you can click on the icon in the top right where you can change from gallery and presenter view and now there will be a new option for immersive view. 

Some things to note:

  • you have to be on version 5.6.3 or higher (so check for an update and encourage your students to as well)
  • participants with an older version of zoom will see the normal view
  • most views can have up to 25 people shown, but some allow for less (if there are more than 25 the others will appear at the top of the screen)
  • it does not work in breakout rooms
  • a shared screen will take over for the immersive view
  • as of right now, recordings will look as they always do.
Zoom has a help article if you want more information.

Monday, April 19, 2021

Math Solver App

Math Solver is a website and app that will show you how to solve a problem and create practice problems for you.  While I know that many teachers will scoff at a website like this, I think that they can be very helpful. I do think that it is important for students to to know how to solve these problems themselves, this can be helpful when practicing.  This app will show students how to solve problems and define mathematical concepts, graph problems, and allows students to practice.  As I mentioned this is both a website and an app.  The app has OCR and math problems can be scanned in with the camera on the phone.  

I love the simplicity.  Students choose a topic, see sample problems, and then can practice themselves.  In the end, what I like most about this app/website is that gives students the independence to practice on their own.