Text Leveling and More with Brisk

The Brisk Teaching Chrome extension integrates AI tools directly into your Chrome Browser, Google Docs, Slides, Classroom, and PDFs. It allows you to adjust reading levels, provide student feedback, quickly check revision history, and more without leaving your browser tab. And we have a student data privacy agreement for it!

How to Get Started

• Install the Extension: Go to the Chrome Web Store, search for Brisk Teaching, and click Add to Chrome.
• For easy access, click the Extensions icon (the puzzle piece) in your browser toolbar and click the Pin icon next to Brisk.
• Navigate to any website with readable content (like a news article), Google Doc, Slide, or PDF. You will see the Brisk icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. 
  
• Click the Brisk icon and choose an action from the menu, such as Create, Give Feedback, or Change Level.

In the example below, I changed the reading level of a website article using the Brisk extension.

Tip

Use the Inspect Writing feature within a Google Doc to view a replay of a student's revision history. This provides a time-lapse of their writing process and helps verify the authenticity of their work. 

Set It and Forget It: Auto-Close Your Google Forms

The Update 

You no longer have to remember to manually "turn off" a Google Form. You can now schedule a specific date and time for your form to close or set a maximum number of responses (like for a field trip sign-up or a limited workshop).

The Why

This is a huge win for teacher efficiency. It prevents students or parents from submitting late work or overfilling an event after your deadline has passed, saving you the headache of managing "extra" data.

How to Get Started

• Open your form and click the Published button at the top right.
• Under the Accepting responses section, click Set close date or response limit.
  
  
  
  
  
• To close by date: Select On a date, pick your deadline, and click OK.
• To close by volume: Select After a number of responses and enter your limit.
• Click Edit under the message section to customize what people see when the form closes (e.g., "Sorry, the workshop is full!"), then hit Save.

Generate Presentations in the Gemini App

Educators can now generate slide presentations directly within the Gemini app through Canvas. This feature is designed to rapidly create a first draft of a presentation, complete with visual aids, allowing educators to save valuable prep time.

Key Capabilities

• Quick Generation: Create a set of slides by providing a simple text prompt detailing the desired topic.
• Source Integration: Upload a source document, and Gemini will use that content to generate the presentation.
• Automatic Formatting: The generated slides include a theme and relevant images to serve as a comprehensive starting point.
• Export and Refine: Presentations created in the Gemini app can be exported directly to Google Slides for further refinement, customization, and/or collaboration.

Getting Started

• Open the Gemini App
• Select "Canvas" in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
  
  
  
  
  
• Ask Gemini to create a presentation using one of the following methods:
• Type a request such as, "create a presentation on [specific topic]."
• Request a presentation and upload the document you wish to use as the source material.

Create Landscape, Vertical and Square Videos in Google Vids

You can create and edit videos in widescreen/horizontal format (16:9), vertical (9:16), and square (1:1) sizes in Google Vids. Not only do these three sizes give you more flexibility to create content that fits the viewing device, it also makes it easy to upload, edit and share through Google Drive vertical videos captured on a cell phone!

To adjust the size of your video:

• On your computer, open a video in Google Vids.
• In the menu bar, click Video size .
• Or, at the top, click File and then Video size.
• From the dropdown menu, select your preferred video size:
• Widescreen (16:9)
• Vertical (9:16)
• Square (1:1)
• Click Apply.

Tips: 

• When you apply the new size, your content automatically adjusts to the new size. But, you might need to manually fine-tune elements.
• When you upload a vertical video from a cell phone, change the size of the Vids video first, then do the upload.