Teaching American History Through Art

Picturing America is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association. Picturing America is an interactive gallery of artwork related to events, people, and themes in American history. You can browse the gallery chronologically or by theme. Click on any image in the gallery to learn about the artist and the artwork itself. Along with the background information for each image, Picturing America provides links to additional resources for learning about the artwork and artists.

Applications for Education
Picturing America's Educators Resource page contains a resource book that you can download for free. The resource book contains printable background sheets about each piece of art in the Picturing America gallery. The resource book includes questions and activity suggestions for using each piece of art in elementary school, middle school, and high school classrooms. The resource book can be downloaded as one file or you can download chapters individually.

Dozens of Online Games and Quizzes About Grammar

Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find grammar quizzes. Most of the quizzes provide students with instant feedback. Part of the feedback that students receive on the quizzes they take includes explanations why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the quizzes visitors can work through a series of practice activities.

Applications for Education
In addition to the resources that students can use individually, Road to Grammar offers some downloadable resources for teachers. Teachers will find the collection of eight downloads offer discussion starters for English lessons, lesson warm-up activities, and some worksheets.

Design a Green Helicopter for Sikorsky's Helicopter 2050 Challenge

For the fifth year in a row Sikorsky is hosting a helicopter design contest for students. The Helicopter 2050 Challenge asks students between the ages of nine through sixteen, to design unique and environmentally-friendly helicopters.

To enter the challenge students should sketch/ illustrate their helicopter designs, how the helicopter will work, the environmentally-friendly aspects of their designs, and what makes their helicopters from others that currently exist. The winner of the design contest receives a scholarship from Sikorksy and a trip to Sikorsky headquarters.

Sikorsky has put together a nice brainstorming page to help students develop ideas for their helicopter designs. For schools and museums Sikorsky has a digital binder of activities designed around the Helicopter 2050 contest.

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).