How to Schedule Posts in Blogger and Kidblog

The option to schedule blog posts is one that it often overlooked and underutilized by teachers. Scheduling posts allows you to time your posts to appear exactly when you want students to see them for the first time. In the video below I give the example of scheduling my end-of-day student survey to appear at 3:15pm. Scheduling posts is a great option for those who don't think that they have time to write a blog post every day.  You can  take advantage of scheduling by writing posts in blocks and then spreading them throughout the week.


Learn more Blogger and Kidblog tips and tricks along with strategies for using blogs in your classroom in my Practical Ed Tech course, Blogs and Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders.

Help Students Explore the U.S. Constitution With This Interactive Site

The Constitution Center's website is a great resources for U.S. History teachers that I learned about from Ken Halla. The Constitution Center's website features the U.S. Constitution divided into easily searchable sections. From the main page you can select and jump to a specific article or amendment. What I really like about the site is that you can choose an issue like privacy, civil rights, or health care and see how those issues are connected to the Constitution.

Applications for Education
The Constitution Center offers an extensive list of lesson plans for each of the Constitution's articles and amendments. Select an article or amendment then scroll to the bottom of the page to find the lesson plans. Alternatively, you can find all of the lesson plans listed here.

If you find this resource useful, consider participating in the course Teaching History on the Web that Ken and I will be teaching later this month. 

The NY Times Replica Edition - Free for K-12 Classrooms

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo I just learned that The New York Times provides K-12 classrooms (in the U.S.) with free subscriptions to the Replica Edition NY Times. The Replica Edition is different from NYTimes.com as it does not offer all of additional features of NYTimes.com. The Replica Edition contains all of the articles found in the daily editions of The New York Times.

With the free subscription to The New York Times Replica Edition you can read and search the last 30 days of newspapers, listen to the articles, and print the articles. Click here to learn more and to apply for the free subscription.

Kaizena Adds Built-in Notifications for Voice Comments on Google Docs and Presentations

Kaizena is a fantastic tool for adding voice comments to Google Documents and Google Presentations. The latest update to Kaizena streamlines feedback notifications.

Beginning today whenever a student responds to or acts upon your feedback, you will receive a notification in your Kaizena dashboard. You will also receive an email (you can turn off the email option). Along with new notifications for you, students now receive notifications when you post new feedback for them.

Kaizena notifications are now integrated into the comments section of Google Documents and Google Presentations. When you leave feedback for students through Kaizena a link to that voice comment is added to the comments section of the document or presentation.

Applications for Education
To learn more about how you can use Kaizena in your classroom, check out this great post from Greg Kulowiec.