The Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Woodstock, Maine where the last of the ice is melting from the pond near my house. My dogs and I had a full day of visiting the vet's office, walking in the woods, and doing some early spring landscaping. It was a relaxing way to spend the day. I hope that you had a relaxing weekend day too.

More registrations for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps arrived this week. One month is left to grab your seat at the discounted rate. If coming to Maine isn't an option for you, take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Skip the Spreadsheet, Use This Add-on to Create Google Docs Word Clouds
2. Ten Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp
3. By Search Request - Bibliography Tools for Students
4. Try the New Padlet Android App
5. A Mapped & Searchable Archive of American Newspapers
6. Six Tools for Creating Videos on Chromebooks
7. Storyboard That Offers Earth Day Lesson Plans

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. 

Cloudschool is a great online LMS and course creation tool. 

Google Forms in the Classroom is a good book on all things Google Forms. 

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.

Try the Google Newspaper Archive to Locate Old Articles and Images

Earlier this week I shared the U.S. News Map which is a database of newspapers that displays search results on a map of the United States. The U.S. News Map is limited to the years of 1836 to 1925 and is limited to U.S. newspapers. The Google News Newspaper archive offers a larger selection of newspapers both in terms of years and geography. In the Google News Newspaper archive you can search for a specific newspaper, search for article titles, or as demonstrated below you can search for a topic.

XtraMath Helps Teachers Help Students Learn Math in ASL

XtraMath is a free service designed to help teachers and parents help their students learn basic mathematics skills. The service provides an online environment in which students complete practice activities that are recorded and shared with their teachers and parents. The lessons provided by XtraMath come in video format. Recently, XtraMath added support for ASL. This is in addition to the six other languages previously supported by XtraMath.

Learn more about XtraMath in the videos below.


XtraMath Overview from XtraMath on Vimeo.



XtraMath in the Classroom from XtraMath on Vimeo.


Applications for Education 
XtraMath does not remove the need for students to learn directly from teachers and parents. It's not trying to be like Khan Academy. The purpose of XtraMath is to help teachers and parents monitor the progress that their students are making and prepare lessons that meet students where they are.