How to Use Diigo in Firefox

This is a post for a friend of mine who will remain nameless who recently shared on Facebook how stressed she was when her bookmarks disappeared from Firefox. My suggestion to her was to start using Diigo or Evernote to bookmark her favorite websites and video clips. In the video below I provide directions for using Diigo in Firefox.

Use This Interactive Map to Discover Artifacts Used in Ken Burns Productions

On Sunday evening I found myself immersed in watching the new Ken Burns series The Roosevelts (the episodes are available online until September 28th). Watching the series launched me into a search to find more Ken Burns materials online.

On the Ken Burns America website there is an interactive map and timeline featuring images, videos, and audio files that have been included in various programs produced by Ken Burns. You can filter the display according to media type, era, theme, location, and Ken Burns film title.

Applications for Education
Most of videos and images that you find through the Ken Burns America interactive map include a link to related lesson plans. You can also just jump to the classroom resources page to find lesson plans.

If you don't need a full lesson plan, but want a to find a short video clip or a visual aid, then you may find the interactive map on Ken Burns America to be handy.

How to Use Weebly to Create a Website

Whenever I am asked for recommendation for a first step on the road to technology integration, I suggest creating a classroom blog or website. You can accomplish a lot of things by creating and maintaining a classroom website. You can use it to keep parents updated about what is happening in your classroom, share hand-outs, and use it as a place to showcase your students' best work. One of the services that I like to use for building websites is Weebly. In the the videos you can learn everything you need to know and more for getting started with Weebly.

Weebly Beginner's Guide (this video is an hour long).


How'd they do that? - A playlist of quick tips about Weebly.



Applications for Education
Weebly for Education includes all of the intuitive website-building and blogging tools found on Weebly plus features built specifically for education. Weebly for Education offers bulk creation of student accounts which teachers can manage and moderate. Students can create their own websites and blogs using the accounts that you create for them.

How Do Cold Packs Work? - A Chemistry Lesson

The Chemistry of Cold Packs is a new TED-Ed chemistry lesson. In the short lesson students learn how those cold packs, prevalent in every high school athletic trainer's kit, go from room temperature to near freezing so quickly. The lesson includes explanations of exothermic and endothermic reactions. The questions that follow this lesson are a bit more detailed than those found at the end of many other TED-Ed lessons. The video is embedded below.

How to Create Custom Maps on My Maps (Formerly Google Maps Engine Lite)

As I shared here yesterday, Google Maps Engine Lite has been renamed to simply My Maps. In the three videos embedded below I provide an overview of how to create custom maps on My Maps. In the first video I cover the basics of creating placemarks on your maps. In the second video I demonstrate how to map spreadsheet data. The third video covers embedding maps, printing maps, and adding drawings to your maps.