How to Disconnect 3rd Party Apps from Google Drive

I recently received an email from a reader who was wondering how to disconnect the 3rd party apps that she had connected to her Google Drive account. This is a fairly common question so I decided to make a quick screencast of the process of disconnecting apps from Google Drive. In the video below I demonstrate the process in the old and new Google Drive interfaces.

Common Core Quest Expands to Cover All Common Core Math & Language Arts Standards

A couple of weeks ago I review OpenEd.io's new iPad and Android app Common Core Quest. At that time the app did not offer practice quizzes and review materials for all math and language arts standards. This morning I received the news that it now covers all of those standards.

The free Common Core Quest app gives students access to hundreds of practice quizzes aligned to Common Core standards in math and language arts. Before and after taking a quiz students can watch short video lessons that address the skills needed to master the standards contained in the quizzes.

To use Common Core Quest a student selects his or her grade then selects the math or language arts standards he or she is working toward mastering. (Teachers will probably have to provide directions to students and their parents as to which standards they should be working toward). The student will earn digital badges when he or she shows mastery of a standard through quiz scores.

Click here for the iPad version. Click here for the Android version.

5 Ideas for Using Padlet In School - Suggestions Welcome

Padlet is a great tool that I frequently use in my workshops. One of the reasons that I like it so much is that it is easy to use. I also like it because it can be used for a bunch of purposes. Here are five ways that I like to use it. At the bottom of this post I have included a Padlet wall that I encourage you to use to add your ideas about using Padlet in the classroom.

Padlet as a simple blogging platform:
Padlet walls can be arranged in free-form, grid, or stream layouts. Creating a Padlet page in the stream format could be a good way to create a simple, collaborative blog for students. You could create the page, select "stream" format, and make the page accessible for students to write short posts on. Their posts could include images and videos. If you want to, you can password protect your Padlet pages and moderate messages before they appear on your Padlet page.

Padlet Mini as a bookmarking tool:
Padlet Mini is a Chrome extension that you can use to bookmark websites. When you click the Padlet Mini extension in your browser you will be presented with the option to save to one of your existing walls or create a new Padlet wall. Click here for a video on using Padlet Mini.

Padlet as a KWL chart:
Padlet can be used to create a KWL chart that students can contribute to anonymously (or not anonymously if you want them to sign-in). Create a wall, make it public, and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. If you allow anonymous posting you might get contributions from shy students who might not otherwise speak-up in class. Of course, if you allow anonymous commenting you should have a conversation with your students about what an appropriate comment looks like. (You could also turn on moderation and approve all notes before they appear). Padlet works well when projected on an interactive whiteboard.

Padlet for group research and discussion:
A few years ago I showed my special education students a short (18 minutes) video about cultural changes that took place in the US during the 1920's. After the video we discussed what they saw. Then I had students search online for other examples of cultural change in the 1920's. When they found examples they put them onto a Wallwisher wall that I projected onto a wall in my classroom. The wall started with just text being added to the wall and quickly progressed to YouTube videos being added to the wall. Once every student had added a video to the wall we stopped, watched the videos, and discussed them.

Padlet as a showcase of your students’ work:
If your students are creating digital portfolios, creating slideshows, or producing videos you could use Padlet to display all of your students’ best work on one page. Create the wall, call it something like “my best work this year,” and have your students post links to their works.

Created with Padlet

Kids Can Play the Roles of NASA Engineers on the NASA HIAD Game

HIAD is the name for NASA's Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator technology. In the NASA HIAD game (available online and as mobile apps) students learn to control HIADs to land them safely back on Earth. In the game students have to navigate the HIAD while accounting for velocity of the HIAD, wind speeds, timing of inflation, and shape of the HIAD. Make a mistake and the HIAD could burn up on re-entry or crash when it misses the landing zone. The game has four progressively more difficult levels. The first level teaches students the basics concepts and skills needed to complete the game.

Applications for Education
Playing the NASA HIAD game could be a fun way for middle school students to see how velocity, trajectory, and friction affect spacecraft upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Sources of Free Sound Effects and Music for Multimedia Projects

In a post earlier this evening I shared Josh Wanner's video about the important role of music in video projects. Just as with images, it is important to have students use music and sound effects that they have permission to use. The following resources offer music and sound effects that students can use for free in multimedia projects.

Royalty Free Music hosts music tracks that can be reused in numerous ways. Royalty Free Music charges the general public for their downloads, but students and teachers can download quite a bit of the music for free. To access the free music tracks students and teachers should visit the education page on Royalty Free Music.

Musopen's collection of free recordings contains performances of the works of more than 150 composers. You can stream the music from Musopen for free. You can also download five recordings per day for free from Musopen.

The Internet Archive hosts an extensive collection of music and other audio recordings that you can download for free. You should point out to students that they need to look at the usage rights closely when they find things on the Internet Archive. Not everything that is available to download for free is eligible to be reused for free.

The Free Music Archive provides free, high-quality, music in a wide range of genres. The content on Free Music Archive is used under various creative commons licenses. The New York State Music Fund provided initial funding for FMA. FMA seeks to maintain a high-quality resource through the use of selected curators who approve or deny all submissions to the collection. Anyone can download music from FMA for use in podcasts, videos, and other digital presentation formats. The music collections can be searched by genre or by curator.

Sound Bible is a resource for finding and downloading free sound clips, sound effects, and sound bites. All of the sounds on Sound Bible are either public domain or labeled with a Creative Commons license. You can find sounds for use in podcasts, videos, slideshows, or other multimedia creations.  

The next time you need common sounds like doorbells ringing, dogs barking, or car horns honking to use in a multimedia project you could try to record those sounds yourself or you could turn to SoundGator to find free recordings that you can download. SoundGator offers free sound recording downloads. There are twenty-three recording categories that you can browse through to find the perfect sound for your project. You do have to register on SoundGator in order to download recordings. After registering you can download recordings directly to your computer to re-use in your projects.