A Couple of Short Lessons About Changing Seasons

Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Although the five foot tall snowbanks around my house make that hard to believe. Why do we have seasons? What causes the changes in weather patterns throughout the seasons? The answers to those questions and more are found in the following SciShow Kids video and Crash Course Kids video.




Try one of these seven tools for creating flipped lessons out of these videos. 

How to Add Music to Google Slides

Last week a reader emailed me to ask if there is a way to add music to Google Slides. The answer is yes, but it's not as straight-forward as you would hope it would be. To add music to Google Slides you first need to find a YouTube video that contains music that is Creative Commons licensed. The best option, is to use a video that you own and that has music you have the rights to use. Once you've found a video then you can insert it into your Google Slides. Shrink the video to the smallest possible size so that it's hard for viewers to see. Finally, use the video options menu in Google Slides to have the music video automatically start playing when you advance the slide.

In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to add music to Google Slides.


This topic and many like it will be covered in depth at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp on July 20th and 21st. Early registration discounts are still available.

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The Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where today was a great day for a walk in the woods. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you also have time for fun and relaxation.



Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 5 Ways to Show YouTube Videos Without Related Content
2. Google Team Drives Now Available
3. 7 Great Tools for Creating Flipped Lessons from Existing Videos
4. How to Use Zero Noise Classroom
5. Formatically Helps Students Properly Format Essays
6. Create Screencast Videos on Chromebooks - Three Good Options
7. Thunkable - Design and Publish Your Own Apps

Join me this summer for the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp or the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp. Early registration and group discounts are available.

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

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

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

QuickKey saves teachers tons of time when scoring formative assessments.

WriteReader is a fantastic multimedia writing tool for elementary school students.

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.

Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.

EdTechTeacher is hosts workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer.

My Simpleshow provides a great way to create explanatory videos.

YouTube Is Removing Annotations Option - Try This Instead

Earlier this week Google announced that the option to add annotations to your YouTube videos will be going away on May 2nd. This is sad news for many of us who used annotations to create interactive videos through the use of YouTube annotations.

Fortunately, the option to link your videos to other videos isn't completely disappearing from YouTube. You will still be able to use "end screens" to link to other videos and playlists within YouTube.

To use the end screen options in YouTube you must first select "end screen" on one your own YouTube uploads. Then you can choose "add element" followed by "video or playlist" to link your first video to a subsequent video. The steps for this process are outlined in my screenshots included below. (Click the images to view them in full size).

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Yes, You Can Restrict Messages in G Suite

Earlier this week I received an email from a reader who was wondering if it was possible to activate Gmail in G Suite for Education while also restricting who students can or cannot send messages to. The answer to that question was, "yes, you can." The G Suite Administrator help pages outline how a domain administrator can restrict outgoing email messages.


Applications for Education
As is outlined in the help page referenced above, it is possible to set different restrictions for each user group within a G Suite organization. In other words, you could allow school staff members to email anyone they want while restricting students to only sending email messages to other members of the school's domain.