The Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. The sun is shining and the temperature is cool, but not cold. In other words, it's a perfect day for a walk in the woods with Max as we search for a "Charlie Brown Christmas tree." But before we do that, I have this week's list of the most popular posts.



Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 15 Good Tools for Quickly Gathering Feedback from Students
2. EDPuzzle Now Has a Google Classroom Integration
3. Chronas - Interactive Historical Map and Data Sets
4. Fake or Real? - A Fun Google Search Challenge
5. Four Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed This Week
6. A Great List of Web Tools That Don't Require Registration
7. Create Interactive Year-in-Review Timelines

By popular request, I am offering a new section of my online course Getting Going With GAFE. The course carries a graduate credit option. The first meeting is on January 5th. All registration information can be seen here. Remember, subscribers to the Practical Ed Tech newsletter receive a discount on courses.

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Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.

Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.

BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. 

Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.

Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.

PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.

The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.

Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.

EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.

SeeSaw is a great iPad app for creating digital portfolios.

Lesley University offers online education programs for teachers. 

Southeastern University offers online M.Ed programs.

Three Customizations You Should Know How to Apply to Your Classroom Blog

Creating a blog is one of the first things that I recommend to teachers who are looking to improve the way that they distribute information to students and their parents. I also frequently recommend using blogs to have students share their writing as well as audio and visual projects. Once the basic blog is created using Blogger or WordPress (including platforms like Edublogs which are powered by WordPress) then we'll start to look at ways to customize the blog. There are three customizations that I often recommend. Those are scheduling blog posts, pinning or featuring blog posts, and restricting access to posts. The three videos embedded below demonstrate how to do those things.

How to schedule blog posts to appear on a later date and time:


How to create pinned or featured blog posts:


How to restrict access to blog posts: