The Week in Review - It's Pumpkin Season!

Good morning from Maine where it is looking and feeling like fall a little more every day. Last Sunday afternoon I did my first round of leaf removal and I'll be doing another one this weekend. You have to stay on top of these things when you live in a place where a foot of snow in October isn't unheard of. The other sign of fall is that my daughters have been decorating pumpkins all week.

In business news, this week I published six on-demand webinar options over on Practical Ed Tech. And I planned a live webinar for later this month. Stay tuned for details about that.

 These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Google Forms Features You Should Know How to Use - Video
2. How to Randomize Question and Answer Sequences in Google Forms
3. Get Your Copy of the Free Practical Ed Tech Handbook
4. Math & Science Halloween Lessons
5. Creative Bridge - A Next Vista for Learning Video Contest
6. Common Craft Explains Incognito or Private Browser Windows
7. A Halloween-themed Physical Education Program

I'll come to your school or conference. 
I'm already booking my 2020 workshop and conference schedule. This will be my tenth year of speaking at schools and conferences. Click here to learn how to bring me to your school or conference.

Thank You for Your Support!

• More than 400 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech webinar this year. Thank you!
• Book Creator is my favorite tool for making multimedia ebooks.  
• PrepFactory offers free, personalized SAT and ACT prep. 
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County has been supporting this blog for many years.

Other Places to Follow My Work

Besides FreeTech4Teachers.com and the daily email digest, there are other ways to keep up with what I'm publishing. 

• Practical Ed Tech Newsletter - This comes out once per week (Sunday night/ Monday morning) and includes my tip of the week and a summary of the week's most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com.
• My YouTube Channel - More than 15,000 are subscribed to my YouTube channel for my regular series of tutorial videos including more than 300 Google tools tutorials. 
• Facebook - The FreeTech4Teachers.com Facebook page has nearly 450,000 followers. 
• Twitter - I've been Tweeting away for the last twelve years at twitter.com/rmbyrne
• Instagram - this is mostly pictures of my kids, my dogs, my bikes, my skis, and fly fishing. 

Win Chromebooks and ISTE Registration in Book Creator's "A Better Future" Contest

Book Creator is a popular tool for creating multimedia ebooks on an iPad or in the Chrome web browser. Students can use Book Creator to create ebooks that include pictures, text, voice, video, maps, and drawings. I have a couple of tutorials on it here.

Earlier this week Book Creator announced a contest through which schools can win Chromebook tablets, registration to the annual ISTE conference, and more. The competition is open to schools anywhere in the world. The theme of the competition is "A Better Future." The contest asks students to create short ebooks (minimum 3 pages, maximum 11 pages) that address the following questions:

• What are the issues facing the world today? 
• How can we address them? 
• What will the future look like? 
• How can we make the world better for everyone?

There is a category for students ages 4-11 and one for students ages 12-18. The contest submission deadline is January 10th. Read the complete contest rules and FAQs here. 

Disclosure: Book Creator is currently an advertiser on this blog. 

Book Review Videos Made in the Common Craft Style

Years ago I came across a video in which someone reviewed The Art of Explanation by making a video in the Common Craft style. The Art of Explanation is a book that was written by Lee LeFever who is the voice behind all of the Common Craft videos. The producer of the video, Bruce Herwig, wrote a blog post explaining the lessons he learned in the video production process.

I've written about book trailers video projects many times in the past. Usually those projects are focused on having students produce videos that will get other students interested in a book. The approach that Bruce Herwig uses is slightly different as it focuses more on providing a clear overview of the book rather than just trying to hook viewers into reading the book. That approach could be a good one for high school students to use as a means to providing reviews of non-fiction works that may not have the entertainment value of fiction works.

Bruce Herwig's video is embedded below.


My video on how to make Common Craft-style videos with Google Slides and a screencasting tool is embedded below.