27 Ideas for Teaching With & About Topographic Maps

The USGS offers free topographic maps for most of the United States. The maps can be downloaded as PDFs through the USGS store. The maps can be used in the 27 suggested topographic maps lessons found in the USGS education site. All of the lessons are rated by grade level and time required for completing the activity. In the list of lesson ideas you will find suggestions for lessons about typical geography topics like coordinates, scale, and map projections as well as lesson suggestions for less common things like analysis of stereo aerial photographs and analysis of humans and hydrography.

The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it certainly feels like fall.
This week my daughter turned one month old. The time is flying. As you can see in the picture to the left, she's already helping me in my office. She already has her own email address, just like her big dog brothers do. You can email her and or the dogs, but it might be a while before they get back to you. In the meantime, you can always email me at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com with your ed tech questions.


Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Five Good Digital Exit Ticket Tools
2. 7 Good Tools for Creating Timelines
3. How to Create Comic Strips in Google Slides
4. Try My Simpleshow for Creating Explanatory Videos
5. How to Create Simple Comics on Pixton
6. Draw and Tell: Create Animated Screencasts with Elementary Students
7. 5 Common Classroom Blog Mistakes

Online PD Opportunities

Getting Going With GAFE, Teaching History With Technology, and Blogs & Social Media for Teachers will start in October. Graduate credits are available. 

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

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

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

Haiku Deck offers the best alternative to PowerPoint.  

Pixton provides a create way to create comics. 

SeeSaw is the best platform for creating digital portfolios with K-8 students. 

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.

Buncee offers a great tool for creating visual stories.

My Simpleshow provides a great way to create explainer videos.

MIT + K12 = Science Videos for K-12 Students

MIT + K12 is an MIT project that features MIT students explaining math and science concepts for K-12 students. The website isn't a collection of Khan Academy-style videos, it's a place where you will find videos featuring real MIT students explaining concepts while showing them as hands-on demonstrations or experiments. Watch one of the featured videos below.


Applications for Education
MIT + K12's library is fairly limited. It consists of a few dozen videos, but the concept of the MIT + K12 is promising. If you have an idea for a video, you can suggest it on the site.