Spin the Yarn

I have been a long time user of Google Chrome and I still use it as my primary browser, mostly because of the tremendous number of bookmarks that I have accumulated over the years and the fact that it is synced to my phone’s browser. Even though I feel invested in the Google ecosystem, I will admit that there is one area where the Microsoft Edge browser excels beyond Chrome, and that is with the Edge’s built-in Immersive Reader tools. Immersive Reader is a mode that you can switch the Edge browser into when viewing articles, and what it does is simplify the text of the page by removing almost everything aside from the main body of the text. It also provides access to a suite of tools that includes read aloud, text preferences, grammar tools, and reading preferences. According to the Microsoft support page, Immersive Reader is designed, "to meet the needs of readers with dyslexia and dysgraphia or anyone who wants to make reading on their device easier" ("Use Immersive,&q

Several years ago, while I was working in a café, I was having a conversation with a customer and somehow the conversation drifted to the topic of technology. The gentleman asked me if I had heard of the Oculus virtual reality (VR) headset. I told him that I had and asked him, “Isn’t that for games?” He then told me about how, yes, you could use it for games, but what excited him about the technology was its ability to offer experiences. The example that he gave me was that he had used the headset to virtually climb Mount Everest. While quarantining in 2020, I read an article about the release of the Oculus Quest 2 and I thought a lot about that conversation and the value that existed in being able to have those kinds of experiences in the safety of your own home. With that in mind, I think that VR could be an excellent method for delivering educational experiences. The Oculus Quest 2 headset is a good step toward making VR more affordable in more ways than one. First and foremost, it

I think that it is safe to say that the last two years have been rough. With the lockdown in 2020, a lot of educators and students have had to switch over and adapt to virtual instruction. I know that at least in my county, virtual instruction is still being utilized when a class has to quarantine because a student tests positive for COVID. It can be difficult to keep track of a students progress with these shifting education delivery methods. For the ELA teachers, I think that I have found a tool that can help improve a student’s reading fluency, while also offering a way to keep track of their progress. Located in the Microsoft Teams for Education application is a new tool, aptly titled, Reading Progress. According to the Microsoft Education Center (n.d.), the purpose of this tool is to, “help students build confidence and reading fluency through personalized reading experiences built into Assignments in Microsoft Teams” (para. 1). I learned about this tool from a Joyce Valenza (2021