Weebly by Melaina Y.

Weebly

          Weebly is an app where you can create your own website or blog. It has several cool features so that you can have an amazing website. It is free and very easy to use! You can have a slide show, a survey a gallery, and even make money! You just simply download the app, or go to https://www.weebly.com/ to start.

          For the app, when you first open it up, you need to sign in using an email address, this is to make an account if you don’t already have one. This also allows Weebly to email you when you get a new comment on your blog, new orders that people have made, things like that. But you can always turn this off in the settings if you don’t want all of that. Once you have signed in, you will be at the ‘Home’ page. This is where you can see other articles and websites that can help you get started. There is also a blue button that says, “Start editing your website”. When you click this, it brings you right to a new website, or your own website if you have already started one.

          Once you have chosen your template, you can go anywhere from there. At the top is a ‘plus’ button, so you can add anything with this. Just drag and drop. Right next to that is the ‘page’ button, so you can click which page you want to go to, rather than searching for it on your website. This also allows you to be able to choose your order of pages and lets you add pages. Next to that is a ‘theme’ button, so you can change your theme if you don’t like it, or you can change the font on your website. Next to that is a ‘Preview’ tab which lets you preview what it would look like from another person’s point of view and lets you publish your website to the world!

Editing Your Website

          If you go back to the home page, you will see a bar at the bottom of the page with more buttons. These are the main ones and gives you access to many things. The ‘Insights’ lets you see all of the stats of your website, like sales and marketing insights. Then there is the ‘store’ tab which lets you add items to your website so people can buy them from there. You can add coupons to items and see orders that somebody has made. This does not need a plan so it is free! Then there is the ‘Website’ tab that lets you look at an overall look at your website or blog. It will tell you if it is published or not, how many posts you have on your blog, things like that. You can also edit these from here too, just tap which you want to edit. Then your ‘account’ lets you look at your settings for Weebly. You can choose to have notifications when someone makes an order or comments on your blog. There is also a ‘Support’ help place that lets you get help when you need it. You can also log out of your account or even delete your site so that it is no more.

‘Website Page’

           The main pros for this is that it is very easy to use, and pretty much straight forward. There are hundreds of amazing websites out there made from Weebly, and you can make one too! There are so many great things to Weebly, and the best part is that it is easy to use and mostly free! If you really want to get into it and want to invest a little more into your site, you can get a plans to get an even more advanced website to make it more enjoyable. The problem is that it will cost money and a monthly or yearly subscription, depending on how much you want to get into it. It is not entirely free, but for the majority, it is. Weebly is used all over the world by people and you should try it too!

Google Expeditions by Freyja W.

Hi, today I’m going to talk about Expeditions. Expeditions is an app where you are in a VR like app on an iPad. So, you might wonder why it’s an education app. Well the reason why is because it’s an app where the VR teaches you about a subject. For example, my teacher showed me World War 2. You (students) have to wait for a teacher to get a code and get a subject and then you can get in that VR class and wait for your teacher to guide you. It will show a “waiting for guide” on your screen. For teachers it’s a lot different you have to find the VR that you’re teaching. You have an advantage because if you have 24 kids and only 12 kids are in you can see who is not in the Expedition. You will know if anyone isn’t paying attention. It also gives you questions and answers in case you don’t know much. Here are some steps to use Expeditions.

1. Go to your student App Store. (Teachers in your App Store.)
2. Download the app. (Same for teachers)
3. Go in the app. (Teacher will have to get a subject before class starts.)
4. Type code and wait. (Wait till all kids are in teachers.)
5. Then your teacher will start the lesson. (Teachers will have to press play the students can start looking.)
6. You teacher could ask some questions. (Teteachersachers press a little orange bar at the bottom right of your screen ask and answer questions you ask students.)
7. Your teacher can switch to different VR area. (Swipe to the left and press start.)

This is what your screen will look like when you’re in the Expedition.

This is when a teacher draws on something. For example the gun.

This is a teacher’s point of view and the question and answers. (If a teacher does not know the answer.)

Teachers can see where you are looking.

A teacher is able to draw on Expeditions.

The reason why I like Expeditions is because you just get a code wait for teacher and  then your in the Expedition. Teachers have to find a subject and boom you have to wait for the kids to come and get in that Expedition. Oh yes, you can also show students where to look and see if there paying  attention to the lesson or not. I don’t have any reason not to like Expeditions. This is a good app because teachers don’t have to worry about the cost and transportation for a field trip. Students can have a more fun and interesting field trip in a virtual way.

Google Translate by Madison F.

Google Translate

Madison Field

          Hello my name is Madison, and today I will be talking about Google Translate. Google Translate is free and you can get it on Google Play or the App Store. You do not need a google account to use it like almost every other google app. Anyway, let’s get right into it!

What is Google Translate?

          Google Translate is an app where you can translate any language to another language. It’s quite simple actually. There are 5 ways to translate.

1. Press Camera
2. Press Conversation
3. Press handwriting 
4. Press voice

Those are 4 ways to translate and later I will talk about those, but for now we will focus on the simpler one.

Entering A Text

         Entering a text is extremely simple, just open the app and there you are, the picture on the right shows you the screen that will come up. Then, where it says “Tap to enter text” or “Enter Text.” Then type what you want it to translate. A little lower it should have translated to the language you want it to. But if it did not translate to the right language try pressing the language on the top right. That will make a drop down menu come up. Then you can see all sorts of languages, if you were looking for Zulu you would scroll to the bottom. (in alphabetical order) then it should translate to the correct language!

Using the Camera

          The camera button is on the very left! It is very simple, just tap the button. And if you haven’t already allowed the camera, press allow. Also if you have the version I have you may have something else pop up...“New camera features,” press continue and should be taken to the camera feature. Like this picture on the left, just point your phone(or IPad) at the text, and make sure you have changed the languages. This picture on the left shows Russian to English, because that’s the way it has to read it. It can’t be told to read Spanish but have to and read Japanese. And then there are other ways to use the camera. The first one is “Instant” which is the one your on, you know because it is highlighted blue. The next one in the middle on the bottom, is Scan, which is basically a picture you take. Just press the gray circle on the right. It will say “looking for English text,” after about 10 seconds it should find the text. You can also highlight the text if it doesn’t find it. Then it will translate to the language you want it to. To exit this just tap the X at the top left corner. Then the last way to use the camera is using a photo you have already have. A cool sign you saw in Spanish, a text message that’s typed in Italian, etc. just take a picture or take a screenshot and this will help you out! Just make sure the photo is clear and that the font isn’t crazy. Like this font it probably can’t read.

Handwriting, or Finger-Writing?

          Handwriting is what it is called or finger-writing, unless you have a stylus. So just tap “Handwriting” and it will take you to a screen that looks like this photo on the right. Remember to change to the correct languages that  you want to use. (Green) And then we’re it says hello on the picture, that is where the handwriting comes in. (Try to write as neat as possible) And if you put the wrong thing or just want to press the backspace button, that just is the backspace button… It does what a backspace button usually does...(Yellow) And it will usually do the spaces for you, but if it doesn’t put the space in, just tap the space button. (Red) And last but not least, the exit button! Which is just like every other, the X! (Blue)

Conversation!

          Conversation is pretty cool. Just open it, then start talking immediately. It starts recording the second you open it. For example, if you said, “Hello Friends” you would stop the recording, (the red button) then it would repeat back, “Hola Amigos” And that is super simple.This is very Similar to “Voice” and we will get into that soon but let’s stay on topic. Then it will automatically start recording again, you can continue to speak and maybe even learn a bit of that language. Or you can just press the X to exit this.

Lalalala Lovely voice!

          Voice is going to be the shortest paragraph… I can feel it… Just tap “Voice” on the right and it will automatically (just like conversation) start recording. So speak as clearly as you can and just stop talking, and then it will again automatically take you back to the home screen. Super simple and on the left it will come up, and show you what you said, and it translated to the language you chose for it to translate it to.

Overall

          Overall, I think this app is pretty great and there may be a few things wrong with it but I think it works pretty great. They probably in the future will add even more crazy stuff to it! But I think some bad things are, how the voice mode doesn’t always get your correct voice. And they may need to put something in for, “We will not use your voice” and hopefully those are the only things that are bad. Some good things are, there are many ways to translate, there are very many languages. And the set up is neat and very simple to function.

I do recommend this app to people that have family that don’t speak their language or if they have a person at their school that speaks another language, etc. I think this app is quite useful and I hope everyone that reads this agrees with me.