The Month in Review - A New Englander's Favorite Season

The end of August is here and that means that this New Englander's favorite season is just around the corner. From leaves starting to change color to Dunkin Donuts advertising pumpkin coffee to back-to-school pictures on Facebook, the signs of Fall are all around us.

As I do at this time every month, I have compiled a list of the most popular posts of the last month. Doing this gives me the opportunity to determine what you like to read and it gives you the opportunity to catch up on anything that you might have missed.

Here are the most popular posts from August 2017:
1. Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate
2. 18 Updates to Google Tools That You Might Have Missed This Summer
3. Ten Things You Can Do With Google Forms
4. A New Google Forms Feedback Feature You and Your Students Will Like
5. Resources for Teaching Digital Citizenship - A PDF Handout
6. 9 Alternatives to Google Image Search - PDF Handout
7. How to Collect Files Through Google Forms
8. Use a Screen Reader With Google Classroom
9. My Go-to Google Tools for Social Studies Classrooms
10. 10 Things You Can Do With Google Sheets


I'm filling in my 2018 workshop calendar. I would love to add your school to my calendar. Click here to learn more about my keynote and workshop offerings. 

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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.
Metaverse enables anyone to create amazing things.
Kids Discover provides fantastic tools for helping kids discover new information. 

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.

Membit - Augmented Reality Photo Maps

Membit is a neat augmented reality app for use on iPhones. The app lets you place view images superimposed over the current backdrop that you see through your phone's camera. For example, you could open the app, point your camera at a building, and then see an image of what the building used to look like. Watch the fifteen second video below to see Membit in action.


Membit offers more than just viewing of imagery. You can create your own simple augmented reality experiences. To do this you need to open the app and take a picture then place it on the map so that others may view it. You can share your Membit images through Twitter and Facebook.

Applications for Education
Membit has potential to be neat app for use in history classes. Students could use the app to place historical imagery on top of current views of a location. For example, I might have students use the app to place historical imagery of Portland, Maine's working waterfront on top of the current view of Portland's waterfront.

I didn't see a way for Membit to be used without an iPhone. So until then I'll give the nod to Metaverse when I want students to create their own augmented reality experiences.

Disclosure: Metaverse is a client. 

How to Use Canva to Create Certificates

Canva is a great service for creating all kinds of graphics including collages, posters, greeting cards, and even certificates to print and give to students. In the following video I provide a demonstration of how to create a certificate by using Canva.


Applications for Education
Whether it is to recognize that students reached a goal or just to recognize that they participated in a special event, we all need to create a certificates at one time or another. Canva makes it quick and easy to create certificates that look great and students will be proud to show to their parents.

Getting Started With Weebly for Education

There are three services that I recommend more than any others when I am asked for a recommendation for a classroom blog or website tool. Those are Blogger, EduBlogs, and Weebly for Education. In the video that is embedded below I provide a short overview of how to get started using Weebly for Education.

Why Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day

Next Monday is Labor Day. For most of us in the U.S. and Canada this marks the unofficial end of summer. If your students are wondering why they don't have school on Monday, consider having them complete the TED-Ed lesson Why do Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day? Through this lesson students can learn about the origin of Labor Day as well as learn a bit about changes in labor regulations over time.

The video from the lesson is embedded below.