Stockio - Free Images, Icons, Fonts, and Videos

Atlantic Puffin Pair -
Ray Hennessey via Stockio. 

Stockio is a website that offers free images, icons, fonts, and videos to download and re-use in your own projects. According to the notices that accompany each file on Stockio, attribution is not required but is appreciated.

To download an image, an icon, or a font set from Stockio you do not have to register on the site. Simply browse or search then hit the download button when you find something that you like. You have to be a registered user (registration is free) in order to download videos from Stockio. Update: you no longer have to register to download videos.

Applications for Education
I always recommend that students use their own pictures, sounds, and videos whenever possible. However, it is not always possible for students to use their own creations in multimedia projects. That's when I will have them turn their attention to a site like Stockio to search for images and video clips that they can download and use for free.

Every Kid in a Park - Free Admission to National Parks

In yesterday's week-in-review post I mentioned that I hope my daughter grows up to enjoy the great outdoors as much as I do. Then almost as if she was reading my mind, my sister tipped me off to a U.S. National Parks program called Every Kid in a Park. The program offers free admission to students in fourth grade. But not only does the fourth grader get in for free, his or her family does as well (provided the fourth grader is present at time of visit).

f there aren't any national parks near you, you can still explore them through some nice online resources. National Parks virtual tours are available in the Google Arts & Culture apps for Android and iOS. If you have VR headsets available to you, take a look at Google Expeditions virtual tours of the "hidden treasures" of National Parks. 

Over the years PBS has produced many videos about the National Parks. You can view some of those videos in their entirety on the PBS video website. Search on the site for "national parks" and you'll have a big list of videos to view. Here's a list to get you started.

Web Rangers offers seven categories of games about different subjects related to the National Parks. The game categories are people, animals, parks, science, history, nature, and puzzles. Each category contains games of varying difficulty rated from easy to difficult. Some of the game topics include dendrochronology, animal tracking, animal identification, fire fighting, and map reading. Students can play Web Rangers games as visitors or as registered users. Registered users can track their progress and earn virtual rewards. Registered users can also create their own customized virtual ranger stations

The National Parks Service's Digital Image Archive is an excellent place to find images of U.S. National Parks. You can search the archive by park and or subject. All of the images are free to download as they are in the public domain. The National Parks Service also offers a b-roll video gallery. The videos in the galleries are in the public domain. The b-roll video gallery can be searched by park, monument, building, or person. All of the videos can be downloaded. Some files are quite large so keep that in mind if your school has bandwidth limits and you have all of your students searching for videos at the same time.

Google Earth offers a great way for students to view national parks in the United States and beyond. Your students can explore imagery in Google Earth to learn about the topography of a national park. In a lot of cases there is Street View imagery available within national parks and UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Your students might also benefit from viewing tours within Google Earth.To locate a tour you can refine a Google search by file type to .KMZ and then launch the tours that appear in your search results.

The Week in Review - Soaking Up Summer

Good morning from Maine where despite seeing a few maple leaves already turning from green to red, we're still soaking up summer. Last weekend Isla and I hiked a local mountain and enjoyed the views from the top. This weekend, we're doing the same. I hope as she gets older she enjoys the outdoors as much as I do.


Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Ten Things You Can Do With Google Forms
2. My Go-to Google Tools for Social Studies Classrooms
3. Flip Anim - Quickly Create Animated GIFs
4. Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate
5. Alternatives to YouTube's Video Editor - It's Going Away
6. Free Solar Eclipse Glasses in Your Community
7. Ten Things Students Can Do With Google Keep

Are you looking for keynote speaker or workshop facilitator? If so, click here to learn more about my services. 

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.

SeeSaw is my favorite digital portfolio tool.  

University of Maryland Baltimore County offers a great program on instructional design.

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.

My Simpleshow provides a great way to create explanatory videos.

417 History and Civics Lessons In One Place

On Friday I featured Tom Richey's YouTube channel which is full of great content for Advanced Placement U.S. and European History students. Today, I want to point out or remind you about the excellent videos that Keith Hughes produces.

Keith has at least 417 video lessons about a wide range of topics in U.S. and world history. Some of the lessons that I've enjoyed over the years include his series on every presidential election in U.S. history and his lessons on The Federalist Papers. All of Keith's history lesson videos are listed alphabetically in this document. Don't forget to use "CTRL + F" to search through the document.

In addition to his history lesson videos, Keith offers some tremendous videos for teachers new to the profession. The latest video in that series is Don't Assume: 5 Assumptions to Avoid as a Teacher.

Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners - A Practical Ed Tech Webinar

Throughout the year I host many professional development webinars at PracticalEdTech.com. The next one in my Tech Tuesday series is Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners. In this webinar on August 15th you will everything you need to know to get started using Google Forms and Google Sheets to streamline your workflow in grading quizzes, emailing parents and students, and keeping track of classroom materials. You will also learn how to build self-guided video review activities for your students. Finally, we'll tackle any questions that you have about Google Forms and Google Sheets.

This webinar will be held live at 4pm Eastern Time on August 15th. Register here. A recording will be available to those who register, but cannot attend the live session. The cost for this webinar is $20. Your registration includes access to the live webinar, live Q&A, unlimited access to the recording of the webinar, and a PD certificate.

In this webinar you will learn:

• Two ways to create self-grading quizzes.
• How to create self-paced guided video review activities.
• How to develop Jeopardy-style games and flashcards in Google Sheets. 
• A great method sending personalized emails to parents and students from one spreadsheet.
• How to easily keep track of classroom materials through the use of Forms and Sheets.

Register Today!

This live webinar will held on August 15th at 4pm Eastern Time.

The cost for this webinar is $20. Your registration includes access to the live webinar, live Q&A, unlimited access to the recording of the webinar, and a PD certificate.