May's Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the first day of June made it feel like summer has almost arrived. At the end of every month I take a look at the posts that received the most views. The ten posts below were the most popular posts in the month of May.

1. Read & Write - A Great Chrome App That is Now Free for Teachers
2. Project Based Learning - An Explanation and Model Rubrics
3. Four Ways for Students to Create Multimedia Magazines
4. Three Good Pieces of Google Apps News
5. Twelve Good Tools for Building End-of-year Review Activities
6. Quill - Writing Worksheets Made Interactive
7. 7 Ideas for Implementing Technology For A Purpose
8. By Request - Good Alternatives to Google Image Search
9. 7 Web-based Tools for Creating Short Video Stories
10. Guided Reading in Google Apps for Education

Five seats are left at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Click here for registration information.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
IXL offers a huge assortment of mathematics lesson activities.
Typing Club offers free typing lessons for students.
Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.
MasteryConnect provides a network for teachers to share and discover Common Core assessments.
ABCya.com is a provider of free educational games for K-5.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.
Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.
EdTechTeacher is offers professional development workshops in Boston and Chicago.
StoryBoard That is a great tool for creating comics and more.

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Grammar Bytes is a Great Site for Developing and Testing Grammar Skills

Grammar Bytes is a great website for teachers of Language Arts to share with their students. Grammar Bytes offers teachers and students a glossary of terms, handouts, interactive exercises, and slide show presentations. Instructional slideshow presentations are available to free download from Grammar Bytes. Each slide show is accompanied by a handout for students to complete as they view each presentation.

The interactive activities on Grammar Bytes require students to do more than memorize the rules of grammar. The Grammar Bytes interactive activities require students to read sentences and identify errors. In some of the activities students have to correct errors in a sentence. Each interactive activity is accompanied by a handout on which students can record their scores and measure their progress.

Applications for Education
The design and content of Grammar Bytes makes it a good resource for students and teachers. If I was responsible for teaching grammar I would use Grammar Bytes by having the students complete the interactive activities independently. I would follow-up the interactive activities by collecting my students' results sheets to select the slideshow that I would use in the next day's lesson.

Essay Map - Provides Step-by-Step Help for Constructing Essays

Over the years I've written about a lot of tools from Read Write Think. This one has received more views than any other that I've featured.

Essay Map is a handy tool from the folks at Read Write Think. Essay Map provides students with step by step guidance in the construction of an informational essay. Some of my students seem to struggle most with constructing an introduction and conclusion to their essays. Essay Map is particularly good for helping students visualize the steps needed to construct good introductory and conclusion paragraphs.

After students complete all of the steps in their Essay Map, they can print their essay outline. I have included a blank Essay Map outline in the image below.

Applications for Education
Essay Map is a convenient tool for anyone that teaches writing informational essays. Essay Map is probably too basic for most high school students, but it is definitely a good tool for middle school and elementary school students.

A Short Example of the Benefits of Classroom Blogs

Six years ago I created a short slideshow featuring cartoons that I made to explain the benefits of having a classroom blog. That slideshow focused on the benefits to teachers. Today, I used Storyboard That and Google Presentations to create a new slideshow about the benefits of having a classroom blog. This slideshow is focused on the benefits to parents.


Each of the frames in the slideshow were created by using Storyboard That. Storyboard That offers more than 40,000 pieces of clipart that you can use to create comic strips.

If you need help developing a blog for your classroom, check out my free 90 page guide to using Blogger in school. In June I am offering a three week webinar series on blogging and social media. You can learn more about that webinar on PracticalEdTech.com.

Disclosure: Storyboard That is an advertiser on Free Technology for Teachers. 

The Week in Review - The Leaves Have Arrived

Clouds over the valley
 of Bryant Pond.

Good evening from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Woodstock, Maine where spring seems to have turned into summer almost overnight. I went away for one night to give a presentation and when I came back I noticed far more full leaves than when I left. In fact, it is so summer-like this evening that I am writing while sitting on my deck in the sun. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you're having a nice weekend too.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 7 Ideas for Implementing Technology For A Purpose
2. The Importance of Teaching Digital Citizenship
3. ParticiPoll - Add Interactive Polls to PowerPoint
4. Listen to, Compose, and Play Music on SFS Kids
5. Science Friday - Science Lesson Plans and Interesting Science Videos
6. Five Mathematics Glossaries for Kids
7. Good Ideas for Using Augmented Reality in Elementary School Math and Reading

Five seats are left at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Click here for discounted registration.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
IXL offers a huge assortment of mathematics lesson activities.
Typing Club offers free typing lessons for students.
Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.
MasteryConnect provides a network for teachers to share and discover Common Core assessments.
ABCya.com is a provider of free educational games for K-5.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.
Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.
EdTechTeacher is offers professional development workshops in Boston and Chicago.
StoryBoard That is a great tool for creating comics and more.

How to Subscribe to Free Technology for Teachers. 
Subscribe via RSS. Subscribe via Email.
Like Free Technology for Teachers on  Facebook.
Find me on Twitter, on Google+, or on Pinterest.