How to Create a Classroom Blog on Weebly for Education

Weebly for Education offers a good platform for creating a classroom blog. One of the perks of Weebly for Education is that you can create and manage your students' accounts from one central dashboard. Weebly for Education also offers all of the great templates and content management tools that has made Weebly one of the most popular tools on the web for creating blogs and websites.

In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to create student accounts in Weebly for Education and how to create a blog in your Weebly for Education account.


The following video shows you how to create a video blog through YouTube and Weebly.

How to Set a Time Limit on Google Forms

This morning I received a question from a teacher who was looking for a way to impose a time limit on a quiz or test administered through Google Forms. My suggestion was to try using the Google Forms Add-on called Form Limiter. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to install and use Form Limiter.


If you wanted to break your test into multiple sections in Google Forms, you could impose a time limit on each section. For example, let's say that you want to give a 30 question test. You could break that test into three sections of ten questions by making three separate Forms. At the end of each Form include a link to proceed to the next Form in the series. You would place the link in the "response accepted" message at the bottom of the Forms that you publish.

For more Google Forms tips and tricks, check out my playlist of more than 80 Google Apps Tutorials.

Free PowerPoint Templates for Teachers and Students

We've all seen plenty of poorly designed slides that have harsh color schemes, fonts that are too small, or otherwise just don't look quite right. Fortunately, there is help for those of us who struggle with visual design. Sites like SlideModel, SlideHunter, and FPPT offer slide design templates that we can use in PowerPoint, OpenOffice Impress, and Google Slides.

SlideHunter is a free website containing a collection of free slide decks. These slides can be downloaded then imported into PowerPoint, OpenOffice Impress, or Google Slides. Pro tip for Google Slides users, you can import all of the slides or select just the ones that have the layout you want. Once you've imported the slide templates you can modify them to fit your needs. And if you don't need complete slides, but just a piece of artwork or a diagram template, you can find those on SlideHunter too. I'm a big fan of this design that I found on SlideHunter.

FPPT is another site that offers free PowerPoint templates for teachers and students. You can search for templates on FPPT according to category, tag, or even color scheme. There is an education section on the site. In the education section I found this neat template for a history presentation.

SlideModel is a website that offers professionally designed PowerPoint slide templates. When converted, the templates also work in OpenOffice and Google Slides. You can register for a free account on SlideModel to receive their free template of the week. There is also an option to upgrade to plans with unlimited slide template access.

Disclosure: SlideModel is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com

Tour Buckingham Palace In Virtual Reality

Last week Google opened up a beta program for schools that want to use Google Expeditions on Android devices. If you get into that program or if you already have Google Cardboard viewers, you might want to take a look at the latest addition to the line-up of virtual reality expeditions. Students can now tour Buckingham Palace through the Google Expeditions app. You can also view the tour through the YouTube Android app. If you view it through the YouTube Android app you will want to select "cardboard view" to see the video clearly. I've embedded the tour below, but it will look blurry if you don't view it through the app.

Groundhog Day Explained

Next Tuesday is Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is the day that, according to legend, a groundhog will predict how much longer winter will last in the northern hemisphere. Your students might be wondering where this tradition originated. The following two videos provide brief explanations of Groundhog Day's origins.

This video from Storm Shield explains a bit of meteorology that goes into whether or not the groundhog will see his or her shadow.


This video from CGP Grey deals mostly with the origin of the tradition. Like most CGP Grey videos there is a fair amount of snark included in the video so review it carefully before deciding if it's appropriate for your students.