Add Narration and More to Your PPT Files With PresentationTube

Disclosure: PresentationTube is currently running an ad campaign on FreeTech4Teachers.com

PresentationTube is a free service that teachers can add narration to their PowerPoint presentations. In addition to adding narration to your slides, PresentationTube can be used to add whiteboard drawings, webcam images, and webpages to your presentations. Completed presentations are displayed with a slide in the center of the screen and the slide navigator to the right. The slide navigator allows you to skip forward or backward in presentations with the narration in sync.

To use PresentationTube you do need to download the PresentationTube Recorder (Windows only). The Presentation Tube recorder automatically synchronizes your PowerPoint slides with your voice. The free recording tool allows you to record for up to 15 minutes. Your completed recording can be uploaded directly to Presentation Tube or to YouTube.


Applications for Education
Dedicated PowerPoint and Windows users may find PresentationTube to be a good tool to use in the creation of flipped lessons.

You could have students use PresentationTube to practice speaking on camera about a topic that they're going to present to their classmates.

January's Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Woodstock, Maine where I'm getting ready to watch the Super Bowl. I'm also ready to get back to riding my bike outdoors inside of on the trainer you see pictured to the left. But that's life in Maine and I wouldn't have it any other way.

At the beginning of every month I like to take a look back the previous month's most popular posts. Doing this gives me the opportunity to see what I should write about more frequently. It also gives you a chance to catch up and see if you missed anything on this blog in the previous month. I don't expect that anyone, not even my mother, reads every daily post that I publish.

Here are the most popular posts from January, 2015:
1. 10 Charts Comparing Popular Ed Tech Tools
2. Google Launches Google Classroom Mobile Apps
3. Three Efficient Ways to Keep Parents Informed About Your Class and Their Children
4. 100 Word Challenge - A Fantastic Blogging Activity for Students
5. Seesaw - Students Build Digital Portfolios on Their iPads
6. How to Create a Jeopardy-style Game in Google Spreadsheets
7. Chromebook Creation: Slides, ThingLink, & Snagit
8. CommonLit - Thematic Discussion Questions Paired With Interesting Texts
9. Students Can Build and Launch Virtual Rockets on Rocket Science 101 from NASA
10. Read and Download 250+ Art Books from the Getty Museum

Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference this year? Click here to learn more about professional development services.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
Versal is a great tool for building interactive online course components.
MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.
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.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.
Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.
EdTechTeacher is hosting iPad Summit San Diego in February.

How to Adjust Blogger Column Widths

Earlier today I received an email from someone who was having trouble with sidebar content not displaying correctly on his Blogger blog. I have had a similar problem in the past too. The solution for me was to adjust the widths of my center and sidebar columns. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to adjust the widths of your columns on Blogger blogs.


This is the 60th video in my Practical Ed Tech Tips playlist.

Google Earth Pro is Now Free for Everyone

Google Earth Pro has been available for free to teachers with GAFE email accounts for quite a while. Now it is available for free to anyone who wants to upgrade to Google Earth Pro. Google announced this yesterday on the Google Lat Long blog. To get a license key for Google Earth Pro you just need to complete the form found here.

Google Earth Pro offers at least nine features that are not available in the standard version of Google Earth. Those features include importing GIS data, mapping multiple points at once, measuring areas of polygons and circles, and automatically geo-locating imported GIS images.

Applications for Education
While Google Earth is clearly a great fit in social studies classrooms, it can also be used in language arts, math, and science classes. In this post I assembled a list of some of my favorite uses of Google Earth and Maps for settings outside of social studies classrooms.

The Week in Review - A Blizzard of Popular Posts

Good morning from snowy Woodstock, Maine where we've had two snow storms in the last five days and school was closed was for three days. My dogs and I love to play in the snow so we're happy whenever it snows. In fact, as soon as this post is finished we'll be romping around in the snow. I hope that you have something fun planned for the weekend too.

Before I jump into this week's list of the most popular posts I want to remind you about the Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter. I started the Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter at about this time last year. On Sunday evening I send out an email with my favorite tip of the week along with a summary of the post popular posts of the week from FreeTech4Teachers.com. You can subscribe here.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. CommonLit - Thematic Discussion Questions Paired With Interesting Texts
2. How to Search Twitter for Educational Content
3. Three Platforms for Writing Choose Your Own Adventure Stories - A Comparison
4. Twine - An Open-source Program for Writing Choose Your Own Adventure Stories
5. Four Ways to Create Digital Records of Physical Items Your Students Create
6. Read and Download 250+ Art Books from the Getty Museum
7. What the World Eats - A Comparison of Diets

Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference this year? Click here to learn more about professional development services.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
Versal is a great tool for building interactive online course components.
MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.
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.
The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.
Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.
EdTechTeacher is hosting iPad Summit San Diego in February.