Friday, January 22, 2021
Type Studio - A Truly Unique Way to Edit Your Videos
What is a Map? - And a New Crash Course in Geography
What is a map? And why are there so many variations of maps? Those questions and more are answered in the second lesson in a relatively new Crash Course on Geography.
By watching What is a Map? students can learn how maps evolved over time, the political implications of maps, and how maps are used to represent data as well as locations.
Applications for Education
Before showing this video to students ask them what they think the definition of a map is.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
How to Create a Multimedia Timeline With Padlet
In the following video I demonstrate how to use Padlet to create a multimedia timeline that includes pictures, videos, and text. The video also includes a mention of using the Creative Commons filter in Google Image search.
For My Fellow Runners and Bikers...
I'm glad that you asked. Strava is an app for recording your fitness activities including cycling, running, hiking, swimming, yoga, and many other fitness activities. Strava also has a social networking component in which you can give "kudos" to your friends for completing an activity. You can also share pictures of your activities if you wish. There are other elements to it, but the basics are recording activities and giving kudos to your friends.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
ReadWorks Adds an Offline Mode for Students
This week ReadWorks announced a new offline mode for students. This allows students to download articles and assignments while connected to Wi-Fi at school and then use those materials on their laptops, phones, or tablets at places where they don't have Internet access. Here's the official announcement and tutorial that ReadWorks published earlier this week.
It's important to note that the offline mode in ReadWorks doesn't support the audio or paired videos features that are available in the online mode in ReadWorks.
20,000 Teachers Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way
Those of you who read FreeTech4Teachers.com via email will be pleased to know that the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week email is published manually which means that unlike the FreeTech4Teachers.com daily emails, you can read the entire article in your inbox.
Sign up for the Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week newsletter right here.
Six Good Tools for Making Multimedia Timelines
These are my go-to recommendations for creating multimedia timelines. This list has been updated for 2021 because some of my old "go-to" tools relied on Flash and are no longer available.
Timeline JSTimeline JS is a great tool if your school is using G Suite for Education. Timeline JS creates a timeline based on entries made in a Google Spreadsheets template provide by Timeline JS. Your entries can include videos, images, text, and audio recordings. Take a look at this tutorial to learn how to use Timeline JS.
Flippity Timeline Template
If Timeline JS seems a bit too complicated for your students, Flippity.net offers another way to create a multimedia timeline through a Google Spreadsheet. Simply fill in the blanks in Flippity's timeline template to create a multimedia timeline. In the following video I demonstrate how it works.
Google Slides & PowerPoint
Google Slides and PowerPoint both offer templates for making timelines. Using those templates you can create a timeline that includes text, links, images, and video. One of my most-watched videos is this one about making timelines in Google Slides. You can also make animated timelines with Google Slides by following the directions in this tutorial.
Sutori
Sutori is a complete multimedia timeline creation service. Students can build timelines that include pictures, videos, and text. As a benefit for teachers, not only can you include media like pictures and videos, you can also include quiz questions in your timeline. So if you wanted to have students view a few events on a timeline and then answer a few comprehension questions, you can build those questions right into the timeline.
Padlet
Padlet is a tool that I've used for more than a decade to create all kinds of multimedia collages and galleries with students. In the last couple of years Padlet has added a lot of new templates for teachers and students. One of those templates is a timeline template. You can use this template to add events in any date format of your choosing. Padlet supports inclusion of video, audio, image, hyperlinks, and text.
Canva
Canva is one of those web tools that the more time you spend with it the more features you discover "hidden" in it. One of those hidden features is the ability to create timelines to save as images and PDFs. Canva has about a dozen timeline templates that you can modify by altering the text size and style, inserting images, and dragging-and-dropping other design elements. Watch the following short video to learn how to create a timeline in Canva.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
My Favorite Chrome Extensions Right Now - And What They Do
I use OneNote for most my bookmarking activities these days. I particularly like using the OneNote web clipper to save entire articles without saving the related sidebar content or headers and footers from a webpage. Here's a little overview of how I use it.
StayFocusd
StayFocusd (intentionally misspelled) lets me set time limits for accessing the websites that I'm prone to wasting time on (Facebook, Twitter, and CyclingTips). With StayFocusd installed in Chrome I can set a daily time limit for the sites I tend to waste time visiting. When I reach that time limit I'm blocked from visiting that site for 24 hours. A little countdown timer is shown when I do visit the sites on my list. I wrote a bit more about StayFocusd a couple of years ago when I went on a Facebook faste.
This is one that I just started using last week and I already love it. Mote lets me add voice comments to Google Classroom and Google Docs. It also makes it very easy to add audio recordings to Google Slides. I published a few videos about it on my YouTube channel. You can watch the one about using Mote in Google Slides right here.
Loom and Screencastify
I make the majority of my screencast videos on a Windows 10 computer with Screencast-o-matic's desktop recorder. But when I need to make a screencast on a Chromebook I use either Loom or Screencastify. I publish a comparison of the two here.
Nimbus Screenshot
When I need to create annotated screenshot on a Chromebook, Nimbus Screenshot is the tool that I use. I've been using it for years and it's always worked well. Here's a little overview of how it works.
How to Manage Chrome Extensions
I don't always remember to remove the extensions that I'm not using. I'm going to do it now that I'm thinking about it. From a security standpoint, it's a good idea to remove the extensions that you're not using on regular basis. Here's how to manage Chrome extensions.
How to Quickly Record Audio in Google Slides, Docs, and Classroom
Mote is a Chrome extension that can be used to record audio to insert into Google Slides, into Google Documents, and into Google Classroom. In the following videos I provide demonstrations of how to use Mote in all three of those G Suite tools.
Installing Mote & Using it Google Slides
In this video I demonstrate how to install Mote and how to activate it in your Google account.
How to record audio in Google Docs.
How to record audio in Google Classroom.
Monday, January 18, 2021
How to Check and Edit the Accessibility of Word Documents
The accessibility checker that is built into Microsoft Word can be found under the "Review" tab in the desktop version of Word. The accessibility checker will identify any accessibility problems with your document including missing alt text, problems with headers, and problems related to font choices.
This short video will show you how to use the accessibility checker in Word and how to add alt text to images in Word.
How to Quickly Check and Improve the Accessibility of Your PowerPoint Slides
The accessibility checker is built right into PowerPoint. You'll find it under the "Review" tab in your PowerPoint editor. Here's my short video overview of how the accessibility checker in PowerPoint works. Additionally, the video following video shows you how to add and edit alt text for images and videos within your PowerPoint slides.
Free Webinar This Thursday - Two Ed Tech Guys Take Question & Share Cool Stuff
Just like the title says, during the webinar we answer questions from anyone who attends as well as questions that have been sent to us in advance. You can email me or Rushton with your questions. In each episode we also share a couple of interesting apps, websites, or videos that we've found during the week.
Watch our last episode of 2020 to get a sense of what our first episode of 2021 will be like.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Time, Space, and Exercise - The Week in Review
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(Not my house). |
This time of the school year is often the hardest for me. The fun of the winter holidays is gone, the days are short, and spring break is a long way off. For me the best way to deal with that stress is to go outside and exercise by riding my bike, skiing, or just taking long walks with my dogs. I hope that you also have a fun and healthy way of dealing with the stress of this time of school year.
These were the week's most popular posts:1. Ten Time-savers for G Suite for Education Users
- A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video.
- Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
- New courses coming soon!
- Custom, online PD for your school. Contact me to learn more.
- More than 300 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech course in 2020. Those registrations help keep Free Technology for Teachers and Practical Ed Tech going. I couldn't do it without you!
- BoomWriter is hosting a unique creative writing contest for kids. Check it out!
- Pixton EDU is a great tool for creating comics and storyboards.
- The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
- My YouTube channel has more than 32,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools.
- I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for thirteen years.
- The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week.
- And if you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.
Friday, January 15, 2021
Mote - An Easier Way to Add Audio to Google Slides
To use Mote in Google Slides you first have to install the Chrome extension. Once you've installed the Chrome extension you'll then see a Mote icon near the "Present" button in your Google Slides editor. Click that icon to start recording. The free version of Mote lets you record for thirty seconds. After you stop recording you can then play it back. If you like your recording, just click the insert button on the Mote menu to have it added to your slide. If you don't like your recording, just hit the trash icon and try again.
The first time that you use Mote you will have to grant it access to your Google account. That access will include accessing your Google Drive. That access is necessary because the way that Google Slides handles audio is by playing it back from audio files that are stored in your Google Drive. It's for that reason that you'll find your Mote audio recordings are stored in your Google Drive account.
Just like inserting any other audio in Google Slides, Mote audio recordings can be set to playback automatically when you are presenting. You can also set the recording to play on a loop. More details about adjust audio playback in Google Slides is available here.
Applications for Education
Mote could make it a lot easier for teachers and students to add explanatory audio to Google Slides. Just remember that if you're going to share your slides with students, you'll need to change the access settings for the audio file in Google Drive to "anyone with the link can access" otherwise they won't be able to hear your audio file. I explain and demonstrate that setting in the last portion of the video (about the 3:10 mark) that is embedded above.
Lava Lamps and Security
I realize that the vast majority of readers of this blog don't have an obvious use for this video in their classrooms. That said, consider watching it anyway and think about all of the back-end technology that is in place to make it possible for students to safely use web-based tools.
Personal note: When I started this blog 13+ years ago it was to share neat things I was finding and trying in my classroom. Sometimes I just need to go back to those early days.
Flowcharts in my Classroom Today
Recently, my class acquired a bunch of older computers that won't properly start-up. Most of them are sending beep codes indicating errors with their Intel-based motherboards. Before I set my students to attempting to fix these computers they're going to review the steps of the troubleshooting process. To that end, my students will be using Google Drawings today to create flowcharts of the steps that they'll take to troubleshoot based on the beep codes that they hear when they try to start the computers. Intel publishes a list of beep codes. Students will start their flowcharts working from that published list.
There are lots of tools that my students could use to create their flowcharts. Today, they'll be using Google Drawings to create their flowcharts. There are two reasons why I'm having them use Google Drawings. First, Google Drawings has some simple templates that they can modify for today's activity. Second, my students can share their Google Drawings with me via Google Classroom as I've made today's activity an assignment in Google Classroom.
Here's a video overview of using Google Drawings and Google Classroom to distribute flowchart and graphic organizer templates.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
How to Use Your Android Phone as a Document Camera
I use this "goose neck" cell phone holder and ring light combo to hold and position my phone over a document. You could also use a tripod that has a cell phone bracket. I've even seen people use stacks of books to hold and position their phones over a document.
Step 2: Install Vysor
Vysor is software that you can install for free on Windows and Mac computers. Once it's installed you can mirror your Android phone's screen through a USB cable. When you use the camera on your phone, whatever the camera sees will be mirrored to your computer's screen.
Step 3: Launch your Zoom meeting
Start your Zoom meeting then when you're ready to show whatever your phone's camera is picking up, just screen share the camera into your Zoom meeting.
In this short video I provide a demonstration of the steps outlined above.
Microsoft EDU - You've Got Questions, He's Got Answers
Full Episodes of National Geographic Specials
I'm going to advocate for showing hour-long National Geographic specials to your students in lieu of other activities. That said, these episodes surely have segments within them that can be used as part of a lesson.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Doodle for Google 2021 - "I am strong because..."
Just like all previous editions of the contest, Doodle for Google 2021 asks K-12 students to create original artwork that addresses this year's theme. Students then have their artwork submitted on their behalf by their parents or teachers. The contest awards the winner a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant to the winner's school. The deadline for entry is February 26, 2021.
A small change from previous years is that this year's Doodle for Google contest includes a required "artist's statement" about their work.
Teachers who are interested in having students create artwork for this contest as part of a classroom activity should head to the Educators' Resources page on the contest website. On that page you'll find an educators' guide (PDF) that includes lesson plans for incorporating the contest into your classroom.
New Google Meet Tools to Help You Improve Call Quality
Now when you're in a Google Meet call you can click on the little "three dot" menu in the bottom-right corner of the screen and you'll find a "Troubleshooting and Help" menu. In "Troubleshooting and Help" you'll find useful information that you can use to analyze the cause of problems with your Google Meet call quality and get tips to resolve those problems.
Some of the information that you'll find in the Google Meet "Troubleshooting and Help" menu includes CPU usage/ load and tips for improving system performance. You'll also find a live graph of system usage. The "Troubleshooting and Help" menu also includes many of the tips that you probably already know like "close unused tabs" and "move closer to your Wi-Fi router."
The new "Troubleshooting and Help" menu in Google Meet is available now for some users and will be rolled-out to all domains over the next couple of weeks.
Wolfram Alpha for Social Studies
Wolfram Alpha is quite useful in providing students with quick fact sheets about people and places. Additionally, Wolfram Alpha can provide students with side-by-side comparisons of two or more people or two or more places. Those options are more are featured in this short video.
Applications for Education
In the video above I highlighted the graph of Wikipedia hits for topics searched in Wolfram Alpha. As mentioned in the video, this graph could be the starting point for some quick, in-class research into what was happening in the world to cause a spike in interest in a topic and the corresponding spike in Wikipedia traffic for that topic.
Tax Help for High School Students
I'm sure that there many high school students like mine who are also wondering if they need to file a tax return and how to do it. If you have high school students ask you questions about filing tax returns, here are some helpful resources to consider sharing with them.
Your Local Public LibraryIn non-pandemic times, my local public library and many others around the United States have hosted volunteers to help people like my student file their federal and state income tax forms for the first time. Check with your local public library to see if and when they're hosting volunteers to help students file tax forms.
Free File Alliance
The Free File Alliance is a public-private partnership of the IRS and leading tax preparation/ online accounting services that provides free federal tax return filing to those who have an adjusted gross income of less than $72,000. More information including how to get started is available here on the IRS' website.
This video from Practical Personal Finance offers clear guidance on the whole process of gathering the information needed to file a tax return and then completing the proper forms.
Monday, January 11, 2021
How Many People Does it Take to Make a Cup of Coffee?
The Life Cycle of a Cup of Coffee details the steps from coffee being grown and harvested through being turned into a beverage for our enjoyment. There are two aspects of the video that I particularly appreciated. One of those is a mention of the warehousing and customs processing of imported coffee beans. The other is at the end of the video when the faces of coffee farmers are featured along with a note to not value the end product more than the people who make it possible. The lesson page also contains a question designed to get students to think about the pros and cons of locally grown versus globally sourced products.
I drink my coffee without sugar, milk, or cream so this TED-Ed lesson is reflective of the process to created the beverage that's in my cup. The process would have many more elements if I included sugar or milk in my coffee. Researching the entire process to create a cup of coffee that has milk and sugar could be a good continuation of the TED-Ed lesson, The Life Cycle of a Cup of Coffee.
Nine Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers - Updated
The NASA Special Items program lets schools acquire things like old shuttle tiles, meteor strike test plates, shuttle thermal blankets, and food packets from the space program. The Special Items program seems to be the easier of the two programs to navigate as it does have an itemized list of what is available and what it costs to ship the items to schools. The steps required to acquire items through the Special Items program are outlined in this PDF.
The NASA Artifacts program is the program that offers the more unique items from the space program for schools and museums to display. The documentation required for participation in this program is much more complex than the Special Items program. And applications appear to be reviewed in greater detail than the Special Items program. The requirements and procedures for the NASA Artifacts program are outlined in this document.
With Spacecraft AR installed and open on their iPads or phones, students can select a spacecraft or mission then point their iPads or phones at a flat floor or wall see the spacecraft appear. Once the spacecraft appears on screen students can move to see other angles of the spacecraft and move the spacecraft. Students can also pinch and zoom to change the size of spacecraft they're looking at.
Spacecraft AR reminds me of NASA's previous AR app, Spacecraft 3D. The key difference between the two is that Spacecraft 3D required students to scan a printed target in order to make spacecraft appear on screen. Spacecraft AR does not have that requirement, but it does require that you have a fairly recent iPad or Android device that has either Apple's ARKit or Google Play Services for AR (formerly known as ARCore).
Sunday, January 10, 2021
New Microsoft Teams Features for 2021
- 5 minute warning for the Teams Meetings.
- New background options in Together Mode
- Putting Teams apps into their own window
- Changes to Teams video and call icons.
- Creating a Team directly from a SharePoint Site
- Updated SharePoint tab app
- Updated SharePoint Pages tab app
- Teams mobile Meet Now for chat.
- Updated iOS Meet app
- Teams family and friends desktop and web app
Four At-home Science Experiments for Kids
Last week SciShow Kids released a new compilation video that explains four fun science experiments that kids can do at home with their parents. I'm going to try the blubber experiment with my kids. The other three experiments are making balloon rockets (I that one with my kids a few weeks ago), making secret/ invisible ink, and making a visual illusions with cardboard and paper. The whole video is embedded below.
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Annotations, Document Cameras, and Exercise - The Week in Review
This week was my first week back at school after winter break and I still managed to create some new blog posts and videos this week. Some highlights of this week in blogging include annotating your screen in Google Meet, a neat writing contest for kids, and turning your iPhone into a document camera.
These were the most popular posts of the week:1. Video - How to Annotate Your Screen in Google Meet
2. How to Create Your Own Online Board Game
3. Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom
4. Seven Apps and Sites to Encourage Healthy Diet and Exercise Habits
5. Boomwriter's Writing Bee - A Unique Creative Writing Contest for Kids
6. How to Add an Announcement Banner to Google Sites
7. My Favorite Feature of OneNote's Chrome Extension
- A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video.
- Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
- New courses coming soon!
- Custom, online PD for your school. Contact me to learn more.
- More than 300 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech course in 2020. Those registrations help keep Free Technology for Teachers and Practical Ed Tech going. I couldn't do it without you!
- Pixton EDU is a great tool for creating comics and storyboards.
- Wakelet is a great tool for making collections of resources, recording video, and more!
- The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
- My YouTube channel has more than 32,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of edtech tools.
- I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for thirteen years.
- The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week.
- And if you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.
Daily Artifacts of U.S. History
Applications for Education
When I was teaching U.S. History I used both of the resources on a regular basis. Sometimes I'd use, with modification, the lesson plans associated with the artifacts. Most of the time I just used the featured artifacts to spark little discussions about moments in history.
Friday, January 8, 2021
Ten Time-savers for G Suite for Education Users
If you use Google Classroom to give Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets assignments to your students, create and use a comment bank to speed up the process of giving feedback to your students. Watch my video below to learn how to do this.
Use Google Keep to Add Comments to Students' Work
Google Classroom is great for giving feedback on final drafts of students' work. But if you don't use Google Classroom or you want to give students feedback on early drafts of their work, then the following method of using Google Keep to add comments to your students' Docs, Slides, and Sheets can be a time-saver.
Self-grading Quizzes
If you give multiple choice, true/false, or short-answer quizzes use automatic grading options that are available to you in Google Forms. In the following video I demonstrate how to create a self-grading quiz in Google Forms.
Set Default Point Values and Requirements in Google Forms
Almost everyone who has made created a Google Form has at one time or another forgotten to set a point value for a quiz question or forgot to require a response to a survey question. You can avoid doing that and having to go back and fix the error by creating default point values and a default question requirement for all of your Google Forms. Watch my video below to learn how to do that.
Copy and Reuse Questions from One Google Form to Another
How to Give Self-grading Quizzes to Students Who Don't Have Email Addresses
It is possible to create self-grading quizzes with Google Forms and have your students complete the quiz even if they don't have email addresses. The key to doing that is to make sure that in the settings for the quiz (click the gear icon on the Google Form) you have unchecked "collect email addresses" and unchecked "restrict to users in domain." With those options unchecked you can then share your Google Form in Schoology, Canvas, or any other learning management system.
Microsoft Forms can be used in a very similar manner to Google Forms to create self-grading quizzes. Just like with Google Forms, you'll need to make sure that your Microsoft Form isn't restricted to users within your organization.
In the following video I demonstrate how to create self-grading quizzes in Google Forms and Microsoft Forms and distribute them to students who don't have email addresses.
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Every U.S. Election Through 2012 Explained
For additional resources for teaching about the events of the last 24 hours in Washington DC I recommend taking a look at the following collections of resources:
- My awesome curriculum director, Heather Manchester, stayed up late curating this list of resources for staff.
- Carolyn Foote assembled a good Wakelet collection of resources.
- Larry Ferlazzo has also assembled some good resources and archived some Tweets from teachers sharing ideas about teaching about the events of the last day in Washington DC.
Overviewer - Turn Your iPhone or iPad Into a Document Camera in Zoom
Here's an overview of how Overviewer works.
Unfortunately, there isn't a similar Android app available right now that I'm aware of. However, I have been successful in sharing my Android screen through a USB cable with a free desktop program called Vysor.
Applications for Education
This could be a great app for anyone who has an iPhone or iPad and needs a document camera for online instruction. I haven't had a chance to try it yet this morning, but my plan is to use the Zoom annotation tools to highlight while using the Overviewer app in a remote lesson.
Virtually Explore America's Quietest Roads
It's important to point out to students that the data is representative of state and federal highways. I'm sure that you can find quieter roads in your state, I know I can, than what is represented on the map. None-the-less, America's Quietest Roads does provide a nice way to virtually explore scenic and quiet roads around the United States.
When you click on a road on the America's Quietest Roads map you'll see a pop-up window that includes a Google Street View image of the road and some basic information about the length of the road. You can click through the Street View imagery to explore more of the road or click on the Google Maps link to view the road in a larger context.
Applications for EducationAmerica's Quietest Roads could be a fun map for students to explore to see the scenery of various parts of the United States. I'd also consider having students think about and investigate what makes a road more or less traveled than another.
H/T to Maps Mania.
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Google Docs Comments Now Include Autocorrect and Smart Compose
Autocorrect is also going to be available soon in Google Docs comments. Instead of just indicating that word is misspelled with a red underline, Google Docs will now just correct the spelling.
According to Google's announcement, Autocorrect and Smart Compose will be on by default for all users. Autocorrect and Smart Compose can be disabled by individual users.
As is usually the case with updates to Google Docs, these new features are available now for some users and will be rolled-out to all users over the next few weeks.