How to Map Spreadsheet Data on Felt

Felt is a multimedia mapping tool that I started using late last year and it has quickly become one of my favorite mapping tools. With Felt you can create everything some simple directions maps to maps that have historic overlays to maps of animal migrations and much more. The latest update to Felt makes it easy to quickly create a map from a spreadsheet. 

In your Felt account you can upload a CSV or Excel file and have the data within the spreadsheet distributed as placemarks and or polygons on a map. After the data is initially loaded you can then customize the design of your map by altering the color, size, and shape of the placemarks and polygons. You can also customize the size and color of the labels on your map after the spreadsheet data has been imported onto your map. Watch my video below to learn how to display your spreadsheet data on a Felt map. 

Video - How to Map Spreadsheet Data on Felt

Applications for Education

Mapping spreadsheet data is a great way for students to see the distribution of people, animals, and plants in a state, province, country, or region. A tool like Google's Dataset Search is a good place to find spreadsheets that students can then import into Felt to create a map. 

Skeletons, Slides, and Snow - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where there is a lot snow covering the ground. We had two big snow storms this week that cumulatively brought about 22" of new snow to my neighborhood. So as you might have already guessed, we're going skiing today! I spent last night sharpening the edges and putting fresh wax on all of skis my family owns. We're ready to go! I hope that you have something equally exciting in store for your weekend. 

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. 27 Google Drive Tips and Tricks
2. Dozens of PowerPoint Tips & Tricks
3. eSkeletons - Digital Comparisons of Mammal Skeletons
4. 45 Digital Mapping Tutorials
5. Using Google Slides to Organize Research
6. A Classic Search Lesson from My Archives
7. How to Find the Source for Images in Google Slides

Workshops and eBooks

If you'd like to have me speak at your school or conference, please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com or fill out the form on this page. Book me for this school year and I'll include copies of my eBook for all of the teachers in your school. 

50 Tech Tuesday Tips!

50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook that I created with busy tech coaches, tech integration specialists, and media specialists in mind. In it you'll find 50 ideas and tutorials that you can use as the basis of your own short PD sessions. Get a copy today!

Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
• My YouTube channel has more than 44,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fifteen years. 
• I update my LinkedIn profile a time or two every week.
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• If you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

How to Add Footnotes to Your Google Documents

When it comes answering tech support questions it is often easier to show the solution with a screencast video than it is to write directions. That's why I made this screencast video when earlier this week I was asked "how can I add footnotes into my Google Documents?" In the video I show where to access the footnote tools and a handy little feature of the footnotes tool in Google Docs. 

Video - How to Add Footnotes to Google Docs

How to Create a YouTube Channel

If you're looking for a little weekend project, starting a YouTube channel could be a good one for you. Whether you make a YouTube channel simply to share instructional videos with your students or you make a YouTube channel with the hopes of becoming rich and famous, the process of getting started is the same. In the short video that is embedded below I demonstrate how you can start your YouTube channel in five minutes or less. 

Video - How to Create a YouTube Channel

After you've started your YouTube channel you'll probably want to take advantage of some of the editing tools available to you in your YouTube Studio. Here are three YouTube Studio settings you should know how to use.

Video - Three YouTube Studio Settings You Should Know How to Use



To grab the attention of potential viewers you will want to create custom thumbnails for your videos. Here's a tutorial on how to do that.

Video - How to Create a Custom YouTube Thumbnail

Create Writing Prompts With Spinner Wheel

In reviewing my Google Analytics earlier this week I noticed that "writing prompts" was one of the most frequently searched terms on FreeTech4Teachers.com in the last month. That was the inspiration for a new video about how to create a random writing prompt generator. 

In this new video I demonstrate how to use Spinner Wheel to create random writing prompts. In the first part of the video I use Spinner Wheel to simply select a writing prompt from a list that I've given it. In the second part of the video I use Spinner Wheel to randomly select a noun, a verb, and an adjective to use in the creation of a writing prompt. 

Video - Create Writing Prompts With Spinner Wheel

Applications for Education

When it comes to creative writing assignments, the hardest step for many students is coming up with things to write about. Using a Spinner Wheel to randomly select a noun, a verb, and an adjective could give students some fun combinations of words to get them started on a creative story.