The Cat In That Hat Knows A Lot About That - Educational Activities Inspired By Dr. Seuss

Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss. If he was alive he'd be turning 114. Here's a set of fun, online activities that you could use to celebrate the work of Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That is produced by PBS Kids and features online games, videos, puzzles, and printable materials based on the stories of Dr. Seuss.

Applications for Education
If you're an elementary school teacher looking for some puzzles or games that your students can use both offline and online, take a look at The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That. If you're an iPad user, you'll be happy to know that some of the activities are iOS-friendly.

Writing lessons inspired by Dr. Seuss:
The Seussville Story Maker helps kids write a Dr. Seuss style story. To create their stories students select backgrounds and characters then write their stories.

Read Write Think has a good lesson plan based on the book Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? The lesson plan is designed for K-2 students to practice observing sounds and creating words from what they hear.

This Is Why I Share Interesting Videos

I share interesting videos on this blog on a regular basis because I always found that a good, short video can be an good lead-in to a lesson or discussion. This morning I woke up to this nice Tweet from Vilma Manahan that confirmed for me that other teachers feel the same way.

Thank you @rmbyrne for posting “Why February is shorter than every other month?” It sparked a conversation in our class. pic.twitter.com/Nfabkstv4A

— macfanatic (@VilmaManahan) March 2, 2018

This is the video referenced in the Tweet.

5 Tools for Creating Multimedia Books - Comparison Chart

Developing a multimedia ebook or magazine can be a to get kids excited about writing. Incorporating pictures, videos, and audio can be a good way for students to illustrate and or further explain portions of fiction and non-fiction stories that they write. The five tools featured in the chart embedded below enable students to create multimedia publications. There are links to tutorials for each tool included in the chart.


Click here if you cannot see the embedded chart.

The Ten Individual Author Blogs That I Read First

Earlier this week someone taking my From Blog to Job on-demand course asked me if I still use Feedly to subscribe to blogs and which blogs I read first.

Yes, I still use Feedly to subscribe to blogs because I find it to be the easiest way to scroll through the latest entries from my favorite blogs. Feedly works equally well on my Windows laptop, on my Android phone, and on my iPad. If you've never tried Feedly, I have a video overview here.

Here are the individual author blogs that I read first in my Feedly account:
1. Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day
2. Engage Their Minds - Terri Eichholz
3. Cool Cat Teacher - Vicki Davis
4. The Whiteboard Blog - Danny Nicholson
5. History Tech - Glenn Wiebe
6. Maps Mania - Keir Clarke
7. CogDogBlog - Alan Levine
8. Hack Education - Audrey Watters
9. Stager-to-go - Gary Stager
10. Technology Tidbits - David Kapuler

5 Audio Recording & Editing Tools - Feature Comparison Chart

A few years ago I put together a series of charts that provided quick overviews of the features of popular ed tech tools. Since then some favorite tools have changed features, changed business models, or went out of business. So I've decided to update all of those charts. Here's my updated comparison chart of the features of five free audio recording and editing tools. The updated version includes links to video tutorials on each of the five tools included in the chart. The chart is embedded below.

Click here if you cannot see the embedded chart.