Crowdsourcing Advice for New Teachers

Every year new teachers join our profession not knowing what they don't know. To help new teachers, five years ago I crowdsourced advice for new teachers. It's time to update that list of tips for new teachers. I put together this simple form for veteran teachers to submit their best advice for new teachers. If you have been teaching for five or more years, please take a moment to complete the form. Next week I'll publish the advice in a slideshow format with credit to each contributor. There is a place in the form to include a link to your Twitter profile and or blog.

Practical Ed Tech Live - Episode 15

On Thursday morning I hosted another episode of my fairly regular Practical Ed Tech Live series. In each episode, hosted on YouTube and on Facebook, I answer a handful of questions that I have received from readers during the previous week. The questions that I answered in yesterday's episode can be seen here. The video is embedded below.

One More Round-up of Solar Eclipse Resources

Throughout the last month I have shared some resources for teaching and learning about the solar eclipse that is passing over the United States this coming Monday. Here's one last round-up of resources related to the solar eclipse.

The Solar Eclipse Computer is a free tool from the Astronomical Applications Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The Solar Eclipse Computer lets you enter a city and state to determine the time the eclipse will start and end in that location. It will also provide you with the level of obscurity at a chosen location. For example, Portland, Maine will only experience 58.8% obscurity.

Earlier this week Steve Spangler went on a rant about schools that are keeping kids indoors during the eclipse. Thankfully he didn't just rant, he offered some suggestions on safe ways to experience the eclipse. Steve Spangler's video is embedded below.


In his video above Steve mentioned making eclipse viewers. Here's an article from Time about how schools made viewers in the 1960's. The same process still works. (Thanks to Bethany Virginia Norris Smith for sharing the article on Facebook).

This video from Physics Girl explains the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse.


Star Net, a production of Space Science Institute's National Center for Interactive Learning, has partnered with American Library Association, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the Afterschool Alliance to provide more than 2 million free eclipse glasses to public libraries across the country. You can use this Star Net interactive map to find a library near you that is hosting an eclipse viewing event and is offering free eclipse viewing glasses.

On Thursday SciShow kids released a new video about making eclipse viewers (AKA pinhole projectors).


If you're not in the "path of totality," you may want to check out Exploratorium's live stream of the eclipse. Exploratorium has additional resources on their streaming page.

Finally, National Geographic offers Solar Eclipse 101.