Welcome to the SchoolCounselor.com eNewsletter which is designed to advance counselors’ level of technological literacy, application, and integration. You will find practical solutions, resources, tools, and answers to technology related problems, especially as they apply to your job as a counselor. If you would like to share a tip or trick, or if you would like to ask a question, email Russ Sabella at news@schoolcounselor.com. SchoolCounselor.com is a participant in the Amazon Services, LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Must See Videos

All “must see” videos are now posted online at http://www.schoolcounselortv.com/ and https://www.guardingkids.com/

Resources, Tools, and Tips

Keeping Kids Out of High Tech Trouble. This site supports Dr. Sabella’s work on educating children, parents, educators and other stakeholders about the responsible use of technology. Included in these pages you will find helpful resources, lesson plans, links, and more. Russ’s workshops and publications are primary resources for meeting this mission.
http://www. guardingkids.com

SchoolCounselor.com eNewsletter. The SchoolCounselor.com e-Newsletter is an electronic publication designed to advance counselors’ level of technological literacy, application, and integration.
http://schoolcounselor.com/newsletter/

Twitter. Postings about all things counseling, life, humor, and more.
http://twitter.com/rsabella

YouTube. Counseling related playlists and more.
http://bit.ly/Sabella-Playlist

New! From Russ Sabella
Solution-Focused School Counseling: The Missing Manual

https://schoolcounselor.com/themissingmanual/

Tech Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts

My main page of resources:
http://schoolcounselor.com/techtips/

Bitmoji Virtual Rooms
They are customizable and include virtual calm down rooms, classrooms, memory games, scavenger hunts, sensory rooms, and more. They can be used for Google classroom headers, assignments, fun activities, presentations, and announcements.

Curated by Rebecca Pianta, Coordinator of Counseling and Student Support, Capistrano Unified School District
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11Bj8BTY92uiGGD2KxQ4XoynL5RoBo64T
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Safe YouTube
Watch and share YouTube videos safely. Simply, put the URL of the YouTube video in the above text field, and enjoy watching and sharing a pure view of YouTube videos.
https://safeyoutube.net/
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Free Add to Calendar Button | Eventable
Share unlimited events in any email, website, or social network with your own link and embeddable button.
https://add.eventable.com/free-add-to-calendar-button
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Command Key Shortcuts
One of the more powerful, and probably least used, set of keyboard shortcuts involves the Windows logo key, which is common on most keyboards packaged with a Windows-based personal computer these days. One of my favorites is Windows key + V which shows me the last 10 items I copied into memory. From here, I can just mouse and click to which one I want. Here are a few others that might be helpful:

Win+D: Show or hide the desktop
Win+left arrow or Win+right arrow: Snap windows
Win+L: Lock your computer
Win+PrtScn: Save a screenshot
Win+X: Open the hidden menu
Win+. (period): Emojis
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Better Than Bullet Points: Alternative Text Slide Designs – Mike Taylor
… real-world examples of converting bullet points into alternative formats that improve the comprehension and retention of the information presented.
https://mike-taylor.org/2018/06/12/better-than-bullet-points-alternative-text-slide-designs/
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Quick Microsoft Word Tips Playlist – YouTube
I bet you find a Microsoft Word trick you didn’t know before!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8T6U_waoRMtPAoFdWjjCX00e9-_caoYO&__s=rnzjd6qit1zmypsdzzpv
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Popular ZOOM keyboard shortcuts
Source: https://thesoftwarepro.com/10-handy-zoom-shortcuts-virtual-learning/

Start/stop video: [Alt] + V
Mute/unmute audio: [Alt] + A
Move focus to Zoom’s meeting controls: [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Shift]
Enter or exit Full Screen: [Alt] + F
Display/hide the in-meeting chat panel: [Alt] + H
Display/hide the participants panel: [Alt] + U
Switch to the active Speaker View in a video meeting: [Alt] + [F1]
Switch to the Gallery View in a video meeting: [Alt] + [F2]

15 More Handy Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts for Your Next Virtual Meeting
https://thesoftwarepro.com/15-more-handy-zoom-keyboard-shortcuts-virtual-learning/
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Remove Background from your Photos
You may remember me mentioning this one:
Remove Background from Image – remove.bg https://www.remove.bg/
Here’s another site that works really well too! PhotoScissors https://photoscissors.com/

Want to remove background from a video clip? Try Unscreen https://www.unscreen.com/
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Google Sheets BEATS Excel with these 10 Features! – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2DxXffRxBM

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Worthy Websites and Apps

Firefox Send is a free-to-use, online file-sending service, able to handle files up to 2.5 GB. There are plenty of services that let you send files for free but you often run up against small file sharing sizes or have to deal with links that don’t expire, leaving your information online indefinitely. Many of these tools can provide extra control and privacy, but only after you pay for a subscription. If what you need is just to send large files to share with others quickly without the requirements of signing in, use Firefox Send. Firefox Send is accessible via the Android app or any web browser, not only Firefox. Users can indicate for how long the link will work and also include a password if they want.
https://send.firefox.com/
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Paperless Post Flyer – Free, easy, customizable event pages
Discover a new way to get together. Create, send, and manage straight from your phone. No ads, ever!
https://www.paperlesspost.com/flyer
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How to enable Microsoft Office 365 Dictate – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6F-cSWbJYE

Also see Dictate your documents in Word – Office Support
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dictate-your-documents-in-word-3876e05f-3fcc-418f-b8ab-db7ce0d11d3c
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Focus at Work • Relax at Home • Sleep at Night | myNoise ®
The idea behind myNoise is to use the noises you most enjoy to mask the noises you don’t want to hear: chatty colleagues, your tinnitus, or even your inner voice when you can’t shut it down! The concept is simple, works extremely well, and doesn’t require expensive noise-cancelling headphones. Thanks to its sound quality and unique audio engineering, myNoise sets the standard among online background noise machines.
https://mynoise.net/
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eLearning Tips
This handout is available online: https://bit.ly/elearning-sabella
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SlidesMania
Free templates and themes for Google Slides or PowerPoint made by Educators for Educators.
https://slidesmania.com/by-educators-for-educators/
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School Counselor Side Hustle Online LINKS
We’ve received a few emails from people who have purchased our book to let us know that they wish they could more easily access all the amazing online resources and tools that are included. Well, we heard you and we are pleased to give you our latest handout! You can download this directly at https://bit.ly/sidehustle-links
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PNGTAB
Free transparent PNG images for everyone.
https://pngtab.com/
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Wordnik shows definitions from multiple sources, so you can see as many different takes on a word’s meaning as possible.
https://www.wordnik.com

Also see Idioms and phrases https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/
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Slidesmania has over 200 Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that you can download and use for free in all your projects. By Edu for Edu is a special section with templates that are useful for educators. Looking through the categories you’ll find templates for resumes, planners, celebrations, choice boards, games, notebooks, infographics, and more.
Source: Gizmo’s Freeware
Direct link: https://slidesmania.com/

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Web Captioner
Web Captioner makes your event, speech, classroom lecture, or church service accessible with real-time captioning.
https://webcaptioner.com/
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Online Word Counter
Wordcounter is a tool that facilitates the task of counting characters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages in real time, along with grammar and spelling checking. Among its benefits is the analysis of the density of words, where you can see what terms you are repeating more throughout the text and, in particular, a stopwatch to control how long it lasts. It is also capable of telling you how many times the words of your text are repeated, as well as the constructions of two or three most common words. Finding patterns in large sets of writing can be hard to do by hand, but computers can help. Word Counter helps you start to analyze text quantitatively but showing you the most commonly used words and phrases.
https://www.wordcounteronline.net/
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Office Lens trims, enhances, and makes pictures of whiteboards and docs readable. You can use Office Lens to convert images to PDF, Word and PowerPoint files, and you can even save images to OneNote or OneDrive.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/office-lens/9wzdncrfj3t8?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

Also see Microsoft Office Lens – PDF Scanner – Apps on Google Play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.officelens&hl=en_US

‎Microsoft Office Lens|PDF Scan on the App Store
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-office-lens-pdf-scan/id975925059
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Illustrations
Large set of open source illustrations. You can use it completely free and without attribution.
https://illlustrations.co/
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Free Online Image Cropping – AnyCrop
https://anycrop.com/en
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JUST FOR FUN

Omni Calculator
“In a surprisingly large part, our reality consists of calculable problems. Should I buy or rent? What’s my ideal calorie intake? Can I afford to take this loan? How many lemonades do I need to sell in order to break even?” They have a calculator for that!
https://www.omnicalculator.com/
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Money in Excel
Introducing Money in Excel, an easier way to manage your finances. Excel can securely connect to your bank and automatically import all your transaction information into a dynamic, smart template, assuming you trust Microsoft to keep your banking details secure.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/06/15/introducing-money-excel-easier-manage-finances/
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Koji
Create interactive posts to share on social media. Pick a template and remix it to create something new.
https://withkoji.com/create
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Sabella@Schoolcounselor.com

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• Cyberbullying
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• Developing, Maintaining, and Repairing your Digital Reputation
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