As a means of increasing security and safety for students on their platform, Canva will automatically begin restricting sharing capabilities for students only on October 27, 2023.

Students should expect the following changes:

1. Students will no longer be allowed to share a project outside of their school email domain.
2. Students can no longer create a “Anyone with the Link” permission for sharing a project.
3. Public view links or published websites will no longer be an option for student projects.

Educators can request the disabling of this feature for a collection of school teams by contacting Canva at edu-experts@canva.com, if their district admin allows them to make changes to Restricted Sharing.

For additional details about Restricted Sharing and this change, visit the Canva Help Center online.

If you’re an educator looking to up your technology game in the classroom, then EdTech Shorts is the podcast for you! Join us on each episode as we work to find ways to help you work smarter, not harder.

As educators we often encounter those times when multiple students across the classroom have their hand up waiting for assistance. It is extremely hard at times to keep track of whose hand went up first or even what order they all went up over all. ClassroomQ is a product that helps to eliminate this problem from your classroom.

Teachers simply signup, login, create a session, and share their class code with the class. Student head to classroomq.com/students and enter their name and the class code. Now they simply press the button on their screen when assistance is needed.

There are both free and paid versions of ClassroomQ. The free version allows up to five students to be waiting in the queue at a time. The paid version ($19.99/year) ups this to unlimited and allows you to export the session data at the end to help with understanding student participation and success along with your own classroom management. There is also a school version available for purchase as well.

Head over to their website and try out this tool in your classroom. Also give them a follow on Twitter @theclassroomq.

If you are looking for a simple, easy to use, free place to design, publish, and host a website then you need to check out IM Creator.

IM Creator makes is really simple to design a website from one of their many free templates that are responsive and intuitive. They provide free, premium, and commercial accounts all with free hosting, unlimited bandwidth, access to their full library of templates and 100% ad free.

Big shoutout to Chris Nesi and the House of #EdTech for sharing IM Creator on episode #131 of his show.

With Flipgrid’s recent addition of Guest Mode, Kristin and Joe Merrill, Flipgrid Ambassadors from Florida, shared some fantastic ideas for using Guest Mode in their classrooms that I wanted to highlight on EdTech Shorts.

1. Speak To An Expert
2. Family Homework
3. Schoolwide Challenges
4. GridPals
5. Thank a Veteran

You can check out the blog post where they share these ideas here: Welcome to Flipgrid, Guest Mode. You can find Kristin and Joe both on Twitter, and I would recommend adding them to your PLN if you have not already.

This past summer Flipgrid introduced the Grid Launchpad and it allowed users to tailor their grid security settings to be unique to their own learning community. Parents have wanted to see what their students were doing on Flipgrid, but could not do so in a way where the educator still had control. Now Flipgrid has introduced Guest Mode to help with this problem.

Guest mode can be turned on within the topic settings for any topic. Guest mode is granted with a unique guest code. Educators can control whether guests can have view-only access or the ability to view and respond. Educators can share out that code however and to whoever they want and can revoke that code at anytime to remove guest access. A QR code can also be generated to allow guests to scan and have access.

If an educator allows guests the ability to respond they will be prompted to enter their first and last name. They also have the option to require an email address be provided as well. Once that information is entered they will be launched into the same recording interface that students know and love.

Microsoft has now integrated their Immersive Reader into Flipgrid. The Immersive Reader is a part of Microsoft’s Learning Tools accessibility tools for the classroom. It allows you to break down a text for students with learning difficulties. Students can begin using the Immersive Reader immediately on any topics. They simply click on the Immersive Reader icon (it looks like a book with a speaker on it) and press the play button to hear any text of the topic played back for them.

Today’s EdTech Shorts features Kasey Bell ( Twitter, Website) sharing her 4 C’s Learning Menu. This is a tremendous tool for helping your students share their learning while exploring the 4 C’s (Creativity, Communication, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking). You can quickly access the 4 C’s Learning Menu at http://shakeup.link/4cmenu. Give Kasey a follow on Twitter, check out her website, and be sure to listen to her on The Google Teacher Tribe podcast with her co-host Matt Miller