Friday Digital Notes: Viral Texts, Google Photos, Charity Miles & More

Here we are on the last Friday of May with the latest tech news!

Apple News: Effective Power Text.

This viral text message is definitely making its rounds at Blake. Still waiting on Apple to come up with a fix which would require students to update their iPad's OS software. Until then, tell students to turn off iMessages to avoid this problem.

Settings >Messages> slide or disable iMessage. 

And/OR turn off notifications either by using Do Not Disturb or disable iMessage Notifications.

*In actuality, these are probably good practices to have during the school day anyways.

If their iMessage app is crashing, here are a list of solutions from MacRumors.com:

"Apple is aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update. Until the update is available, you can use these steps to re-open the Messages app. 

1. Ask Siri to "read unread messages." 

2. Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you'll be able to open Messages again 

3. In Messages, swipe left to delete the entire thread. Or tap and hold the malicious message, tap More, and delete the message from the thread."

Google News

In Google Drive, have you noticed Google Photos appearing in the lefthand menu? It’s on your iPad and on the web. This is Google’s efforts to make storing and backing up photos easier for you, which is perfect timing now that you can add images from the iPad camera roll into Google Docs and Slides. Read more: How does Google Photos work with Drive

There is also a new, separate Google Photos app that holds those same photos with editing, cropping and filters.

Wounded Warrior Project (video)

With next week’s student efforts to raise money for the Wounded Warriors Project, think about using the Charity Miles app too. It combines fitness (walk,run or bike) with raising money for a number of charities with the Wounded Warrior Project included!  For every mile walked or ran, you can easily raise 25 cents (x the # of miles) for the Wound Warriors Project. Free. Fitness. and Good Cause! It’s a win-win!

Blake's Digital Citizenship Team

Thanks to the parents who attended Blake's Overview of 2014-15 Digital Citizenship Pilot as we discussed the topics covered this year (cyberbullying & digital footprints), the structure of directed lessons, extensions and the student discussion panel as well as goals/expansion for next year. You can view the resources and presentation slides here.

Fun Adobe PhotoMix App

…brought to you by our creative Art Teacher, Christina Delaney.  Adobe has probably 20 free apps that all do some pretty neat things. Christina’s artists made use of the Photomix App’s ability to cutout an image and layer an image on top of a background image-along with applying the typical edit and filter tools. It’s a simple, clear cut app that is worth a look. Check out what they did with their sculptures!