Autumn Timelapse - Updated for 2017

At about this time a few years ago I was walking in the woods with my dogs when I got the idea for a timelapse of autumn video project. The idea was to take one picture every day to document the changes in the foliage as we progress through autumn from the first few orange leaves to full-blown New England fall foliage colors to the drab brown we see after all of the tourists leave.

Here's how your students could create their own autumn foliage timelapse videos.

1. Take one picture per day of the same view or of one singular tree. 
Using a cell phone is probably the best tool for this because students rarely go anywhere without one.

2. Upload the pictures to a Google Drive folder. 
It only takes one tap to move photos from a phone phone to a Google Drive folder labeled "Fall foliage." If This Then That has a recipe for doing this automatically from Android phones and from iPhones.

3. After four to six weeks, upload photos to JellyCam or Stop Motion Animator and create your timelapse. 
JellyCam is a free video editing program for Windows and Mac users. You can easily adjust the duration of each frame and easily add a soundtrack to your video. Click here for a video about using JellyCam. Stop Motion Animator is a free tool for creating stop motion movies on Chromebooks.

5 Tutorials on Mapping Stories

In Wednesday's broadcast of Practical Ed Tech Live I answered a question from a reader who was looking for advice on how to have students create maps based on stories that students read. The person had seen it done at a Google Apps Summit but couldn't remember the name of the tool(s) that was used. My hunch is that the person saw a demonstration of Google Lit Trips which is a collection of lessons and Google Earth files that are based on stories. My second guess is that this person a demonstration of Timeline JS. And my third guess is that she saw a demonstration of Google Earth Tour Builder. Google Earth, Timeline JS, and Google Earth Tour Builder could all be used by students to create maps with date-stamped events on them. Tutorials for all three tools are embedded below.

Google Earth Tour Builder Tutorial. Note that this will only work on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.


Timeline JS tutorial. This will work on any computer provided that you have a Google Account.


Tutorial for creating tours on the desktop version of Google Earth.


Tutorial for creating placemarks in the new web-based version of Google Earth.


You can also create collections of placemarks by using Google's My Maps tool.


Finally, to create maps without the need for a Google Account or any email address at all, you can use Scribble Maps.

51 Resources for Constitution Day

This coming Sunday is Constitution Day in the United States. That means that schools have to include some type of lesson related to the Constitution either today or Monday. Last week I shared a few resources for Constitution Day lessons. If you're still looking for some Constitution Day resources, take a look at the collection of resources available on DocsTeach.

DocsTeach has sixteen pre-made Constitution Day activities that you can use today. An additional 35 documents and artifacts about the Constitution can be found through a quick search on DocsTeach.

About DocsTeach
DocsTeach provides you with tools to create online history lessons that are based on primary source documents, images, and videos. There are thirteen templates that you can use to create lessons on the DocsTeach platform. My favorite template is the analysis template that you can use to create lessons that help students learn to analyze documents and images.

The lessons that you create on DocsTeach can be shared with your students through the DocsTeach online environment. You can also share your lessons with colleagues by publishing your lesson to the DocsTeach library.