The Month in Review - February's Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where while the month of February is coming to a close I am getting ready for my favorite March event, the NCTIES conference. As I do at the end of every month, I have compiled a list of the most popular posts of the month. The list is based on the number of views for all posts on the blog. You might notice that one of the items in the list was originally published in 2014 yet it was one of the most popular posts this month.


Here are this month's most popular posts:
1. 7 Tools for Creating Multimedia Quizzes Compared in One Chart
2. Click to Spin - A Fun and Free Random Name Picker
3. 7 Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked
4. 13 Google Forms Tutorial Videos
5. Six Timeline Creation Tools for Students Compared In an Updated Chart
6. 5 Good Google Tools for Social Studies Students
7. History in Motion - Create Multimedia History Stories
8. 35 Permission Slip Templates
9. Quizalize - Create Interactive Review Games to Play Synchronously or Asynchronously
10. How to Blur Faces & Objects in YouTube Videos

Professional Development Opportunities!

There will be two Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps this year. There will be one tailored to schools that have 1:1 Chromebook programs and one for everyone else. Both Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps will be held in July. You can learn more about them here. Discounted early registration is available now. The Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp has sold out every year for the last three years.

Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference?

Click here to learn about my professional development services. 

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. 

SlideModel offers great PowerPoint templates for teachers. 

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.

Three Free Tools Students Can Use to Dictate Notes

Food speech recognition software can be very pricey, but it doesn't have to be. If you're looking for some free speech to text options for your students consider trying the following three options.

Mic Note is a free Chrome and Android app that allows you to create voice recordings, text notes, and image-based notes on one concise notebook page. The notes that you record with your voice can be time-stamped by clicking on your Mic Note note page while you're recording. You can also take notes without recording any audio. All notes support inclusion of images and links. The best part of Mic Note is that you can sync all of your notes to your Google Drive or Dropbox account. Watch the video below to see how you can create notes in Mic Note.



Google recently updated the voice command features in Google Documents. You can now use voice commands to do things like add and edit tables, select and highlight text, and format text. A complete list of voice commands can be found here.



Evernote users can make audio recordings on iOS and Android devices. Follow Evernote's directions available here to learn how to dictate a note on an iOS device.

Two Last Minute Lessons on Leap Year

Today is February 29th. My friend Rod's son is turning sixteen or four depending upon how you look at it. Why? Because there won't be another February 29 for four years. If you have students wondering why February 29th occurs only once every four years, share the following short videos.

The first video addresses the history and evolution of calendars. The second video deals purely with the mathematics of leap year.