This year, 2020, has been such a challenging year, and we've gotten some questions regarding the PDF format we tend to use. How might it work with remote students that need to digitally annotate on the PDF files?

Before we talk about options, we want to explain a few reasons we originally decided on the PDF format. The first reason is that they are universal file types: nearly all devices and operating systems can open a PDF without distorting any of the images/text whereas other file types are sometimes only optimized for certain devices or operating systems. The second reason we chose the PDF format is that the format helps protect our images and text on the handouts. We unfortunately have had our illustrations and text taken and used on items that are sold by others on TpT, and the work involved getting those removed online takes away from our time creating. 

Here are some options that we've suggested to teachers regarding digitally annotating on PDFs- as we do want our resources to be useful for educational use.

1. There are several tools available that function as Chrome extensions or apps that allow for direct annotating on PDFs as well as some other forms of interactivity. The ones we list on our website are Kami and DocHub. We have found that a web search of "DocHub for teachers," has pulled up some articles written by educators about how that tool can be useful for writing on PDFs and working with Google products. We know that DocHub has been a popular Chrome extension for this purpose as it allows users to directly annotate on PDFs. However, we do want to emphasize we're not affiliated with Kami or DocHub or any outside edtech tool, so we only know that these are PDF writing tools that have been popular with many teachers. We know it may also depend on whether the district approves of a specific tool.

2. Another option is that the teacher can consider creating a single google form if permitted by the school/district. If just creating one google form, it can work for all students and for multiple of our recap handouts too. The form can ask for the student's first name + last initial, class period, the name of the Amoeba Sisters handout (so the same form can be used multiple times as the teacher can sort responses by handout name), and a space for students to write in their answers when they look at the handout. The results from the form could then be sorted by student or handout.  Our page here has a screenshot at the very bottom  to show an example Google form.  

We think there is quite a bit of room for innovation with PDFs. So far, in addition to Kami and DocHub, we have a few other PDF editing programs and apps on our list to check out that teachers have shared with us including Microsoft OneNote, Notability, PDF Expert app, and Classkick. We have not yet explored these, but they are on our list as we are always searching for better ways for our content to be useful.

How do I get credited with my name as the translator? Or remain anonymous?
We greatly appreciate the volunteers from the community that have spent time translating the video transcript. On our Google Form (the link to it is at the top of this page), you will note that there is an option to remain anonymous or to be credited. If you wish to be credited, the form will ask how you would like the credit to look. We also ask if you would like us to place a credit in the video details (which you can see when you click "show more" under a video) or if you would like to place a credit line yourself in the subtitles you submit (at the beginning or the end), or BOTH.

How do I see what translations exist for one of your videos?
Go to any of our videos on our YouTube channel. Once our video is playing, click the gear icon and click "subtitles" to see all available languages. 

I now made and submitted subtitles on your form linked at the top of this post. What happens now?
Once a week, we go into the form and check to see if there are any contributed subtitles. We scan with Google translate and if they follow along the original script, we publish them on the YouTube video. This will allow anyone viewing the video to see the translated subtitles. If you selected to be credited on the Google form, we will place the credit in the way you listed it on the form. They will be permanently available unless you choose to have us remove them, which you can choose at any time. 

Do you allow dubbing of your videos?
Unfortunately, our videos cannot be dubbed due to our licensing. Our videos can only be hosted on our YouTube channel. Please do not download them and upload them somewhere else as this violates our terms of use as well as YouTube's Terms of Service.

I used YouTube's old community-contributed subtitle feature prior to September 2020, and opted for YouTube to credit my name, and now I don't see my name anymore?
We brought this up to YouTube that the names they had listed with this feature stopped appearing a few months after the feature was discontinued. While only YouTube had access to those names and the feature, please contact us as we can ask YouTube on your behalf. We also can manually type in a credit in our video description if YouTube is unable to restore it.

What about translating your comics or GIFs?
Translating comics or GIFs requires permission; we have to ensure that the translated comics and GIFs will not be used for financial purposes or placed in items that are sold. You can contact us here.

Thank you so much for your help, community! Looking for other ways to support us? Visit our support page.

As lifelong learning amoebas, we find a lot of value from feedback. Feedback helps us grow and improve. Sometimes, it's brought to our attention that we need a clarification note. Sometimes, it is brought to our attention that there is a mispronunciation or mistaken sentence that needs to be corrected. Sometimes, there is updated information. Sometimes, we learn something new and really think it's important to add that detail or exception.

For this reason, we utilize pinned comments. Pinned comments allow us to put important notes about our videos!

To learn more about how we try to make edits on or videos, please check out this post here!

Our most frequent need for a pinned comment though tends to be due to the many AMAZING exceptions and details that we find are difficult to address in such short videos of under 10 minutes. We do like to pin comments about those amazing details and exceptions, and sometimes our description additionally has further reading suggestions where you can learn more about them too!

LAST UPDATED: December 21, 2020

Fellow educators, we hope you are safe and healthy during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know that schools worldwide will be making difficult decisions on whether they open face to face, virtually, or both. We want to be able to support you in this challenging time! We continue to receive a larger volume of emails than typical regarding terms of use and suggested use, so we wanted to try to keep this page as updated as possible. As we start to look at the majority of question types, we thought we could proactively put some of the question types we have been receiving with some helpful suggestions. 

News for Spring Semester 2021:

• We continue to update a dropbox folder you can access at the top of our handout page that has all of our free video recap handouts in one place as we know that offers more convenience. 
• We will be making some update videos this spring including a new updated video on cellular respiration and a new updated video on photosynthesis. It will include improved audio and illustrations! However, we do NOT delete old videos so links and YouTube embeds will still function. We'll only move them out of our playlist and replace them with the updated version.
• Due to popular demand, we are going to be making some more Unlectured topics to create a second series! We'll continue to make sure they use flattened images that will work in a variety of edtech tools that accept .ppt tools. We had previously looked into making Nearpods, but unfortunately the space limit on the free version isn't large enough for our illustrations.
• Please take a look at our frequent questions below during this time!