Join Me for a Hangout On Air About Ed Tech Blogging

 Every week I get lots of questions from people who want to know how I started FreeTech4Teachers.com, how I maintain it, and, of course, how it helps me make a living. I'll answer those questions and any others that you have during a Google Hangout On Air on Sunday at 7pm EST.

This is informal. There won't be slides or handouts, but it will be posted on my YouTube Channel.

Join me! at 7pm EST on Sunday. You might even get to see my loyal assistants on air.

Aurasma Studio - Create Augmented Reality In Your Web Browser

Earlier this morning I received an email from someone who is coming to the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp for the third time. She was looking for ideas on creating augmented reality layers without using an iPad. My first thought went to Aurasma Studio.

Aurasma Studio is developed by the same people that launched the very popular Aurasma iPad app three or four years ago. Aurasma Studio lets you create augmented reality layers of information within your web browser. Within Aurasma Studio you can upload trigger images that will result in an animation or video being displayed when someone views that image in the Aurasma apps. In the Aurasma Studio you specify which animations or videos will be displayed by the trigger image. You can upload your own animations and videos. To make your augmented reality trigger images more accurate, Aurasma Studio lets you set location parameters.

The video below provides an overview of Aurasma Studio.


I've been playing with Aurasma Studio for a little while. One of the things that you should note is that it can take a long time for your videos and or animations to upload and process. In fact, the last one that I made took almost 30 minutes to fully process. So if you're going to use this in your classroom, plan your time accordingly.

How to Create Bookmarks & Reminders With the New Google Keep Extension

Google Keep is a handy tool to taking notes in your web browser, on your Android phone, or on your iPhone. I've previously featured ten ways that students can use Google Keep. This week Google announced some updates to Keep.

The latest version of the Google Keep Chrome extension and the Google Keep Android app enables you to create bookmarks and notes while browsing any webpage. One of the neat things about the extension is that in addition to applying labels and notes to your bookmarks you can also set reminders to share your bookmarks with someone else at a later time.

In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Google Keep to create bookmarks, notes, labels, and reminders within the Chrome web browser.


Applications for Education
As I demonstrated in the video above, creating a reminder to go along with a bookmark could be a good way to time when you share resources with your friends and colleagues. Rather than sharing as soon as you make a bookmark you can time when you want share by using the reminders feature in Google Keep notes. For example, rather than sharing this article on a Friday afternoon when many of my colleagues aren't going to pay much attention to a new bookmark that I've shared (I can't blame them for that), I'll create a reminder to share it on Monday morning when it is more likely to be seen by them.

Kaizena for iPad - Add Voice Notes to Students' Printed Documents

Kaizena is a great tool for adding voice comments to your students' documents and slides. When Kaizena originally launched it was designed for adding comments to Google Documents and Google Slides in the Chrome web browser. It then expanded to add support for Word files and PDFs. The latest update to Kaizena introduces support for commenting on physical documents through iPhones and iPads.

Kaizena's free iPad app and free iPhone app allows you to take a picture of a document, scan it, and upload it to Kaizena where you can then add voice comments to it. Of course, Kaizena's free iOS apps also support voice commenting on Google Documents, Word documents, and PDFs too.

Applications for Education
The latest update to Kaizena's iPad app could provide you with a good way to give students feedback on handwritten work. If you collect exams that have lengthy handwritten responses, Kaizena's iPad app could help you digitize those exam responses and speed up your process of providing students with feedback on their responses.

Why Do Price Tags End In .99? - A Psychology and Consumer Education Lesson

Take a stroll through any supermarket or browse your favorite online retailer and you'll see prices ending in .99 more often than not. Why is that? What's the psychology behind that kind of pricing? BrainStuff has the answers to those questions and more in a new video Why Do Price Tags End in .99? The video introduces viewers to the retail psychology concepts of bargain signalling and rounding off.


Check out the notes on YouTube below BrainStuff's video to see the sources and studies they used in making the video.

This video is a good companion to The TED-Ed lesson Why do competitors open their stores next to one another? in which students learn why retail stores are found next to each other.