The Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from an airplane somewhere over New England. I'm currently on my way to the annual ISTE conference in Philadelphia. It should be a great few days of connecting and re-connecting with other people who are passionate about teaching and educational technology. If you're going to be there too, please say hello. If you're not attending ISTE and you have something that you would like me to report on, please complete the one question survey here.

Next week, after ISTE, I will be starting new section of my online course Getting Going With GAFE. A few seats are still available. Graduate credit is available for the course. Click here for more information. 

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 10 Important Google Search Strategies for Students - A PDF Handout
2. 11 Helpful Hints for Combining Google Drive With Symbaloo
3. Three Helpful Gmail Settings for Students and Teachers
4. 5 Online Tools for Creating Picture Books
5. 10 Good Apps & Sites for Creative Writing Projects
6. Active Reading Strategies Using the DocHub Chrome App
7. Video - Three Google Docs Formatting Tips

Summer PD Opportunities With Me.

Teaching History With Technology begins in July.
Getting Going With GAFE is offered in June and July.
Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is offered in July.

Would you like to have me visit your school? Click here to learn about my PD services.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.

Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.

BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. 

Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.

MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.

HelloTalk is a mobile community for learning a new language.

Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.

PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.

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 host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.

SeeSaw is a great iPad app for creating digital portfolios.

#NotatISTE Survey

The LEGO Liberty Bell in PHL
terminal A.

Tomorrow morning I am traveling to Philadelphia for the annual ISTE conference. I know that a lot of you would have liked to attend this year too. And while nothing can fully replace being there, I will try my best to share with you my big take-aways from the conference. I'll share on Twitter, Instagram, and here on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If there is something that you have a particular interest in learning about from the ISTE conference please complete the short survey below. I'll do my best to cover the most popular selections on the survey.


If you are going to be at ISTE, I would love to meet you. On Monday afternoon I'll be speaking on a panel discussion about professional development. On Tuesday morning you can find me in the Storyboard That booth in the exhibit hall. The rest of the time I'll be popping into presentations and hanging out in the Blogger's Cafe (open to everyone). Please stop me and say hello. (I look just like I do in my pictures except I won't have my dogs with me).

Otus Releases an Updated Online Learning Environment

Last summer I reviewed an excellent online learning environment called Otus. The first time that I saw it I was impressed by the functions that it offered. Since then Otus has steadily added more features and this week released a completely revamped web interface for teachers.

In addition to a more intuitive user interface some of the features of the updated Otus platform that jumped out to me include real-time analytics updates, third party app integration, easier seating chart movements, and easier recording of information. The improved analytics menu updates and recalculates as you record information about your students. This is true whether you're recording behavior and attendance information or you're recording scores from assessments.

Admittedly, it had been a while since I tried to update my student roster in Otus. When I went to update it today I found it was easier than before as I simply dragged and dropped student names into place on my seating chart.

Otus now allows you to integrate select third party applications into your account. A couple third party applications of note are Khan Academy and OpenEd. OpenEd offers thousands of math and language arts practice assessments aligned to Common Core standards.

If you're looking for a new online course management system to use in the next school year, give Otus a try. I think you will be impressed by the capabilities it offers.

Projection Wizard - Which Kind of Map is Best for Your Project?

Projection Wizard is an interesting tool developed by Bojan Šavrič at Oregon State University. The purpose of Projection Wizard is to help cartographers select the best map projections for their projects.

To use the Projection Wizard select a distortion property from a menu appearing to the left of the map. Then use the highlighting tool to select the portion of the map that your project focuses on. After you make your map and menu choices you'll be shown a list of the projections that are appropriate for your project.

Applications for Education
Projection Wizard is a more advanced tool than most high school geography courses would need. That said, I would use the Projection Wizard to have students discuss the flaws of  various map projections. We'd also talk about why a particular type of projection is better than another for different types of projects.

H/T to Maps Mania.

Three Tools to Help Students Find Books to Read This Summer

Summer is here (in the northern hemisphere) and it is a great time to dive into some good books. If your students need help finding a new book to read, the following three websites will provide recommendations based on their interests. Of course, they can always ask their local librarians for recommendations too.

The Book Seer is a neat book recommendation engine that I discovered few years ago through Kristen Swanson's Teachers as Technology Trailblazers blog. The Book Seer is very easy to use. To get a book recommendation just type in the title and author of a book that you've recently read and the Book Seer will spit out a list of related titles and authors that you might enjoy. I tested the Book Seer with four different titles. The more obscure titles that I searched for, Snow in the Kingdom, and A Good Life Wasted didn't yield any recommendations. When I searched for The World Is Open and Hatchet plenty of recommendations appeared.

Your Next Read is a neat little site that provides you with a web of book recommendations based on the authors and books you already like. Here's how it works; type in the title of a book you like or author you like and Your Next Read will provide you with a web of books that might also enjoy. Click on any of the books appearing in the web to create another new web.

Compared to the Book Seer and Your Next Read 2Titles takes a slightly different approach to making book recommendations. On 2Titles you answer a series of eight questions about your personality and interests before answering questions about books you've previously read. 2Titles will try to prompt you to create an account, but that is an optional step that you can skip if you can find the "skip" link.