Tools and Tips to Help Students With the Writing Process

There are so many tools that will help students with the writing process. Some of these tools help organize research while others help students organize their thoughts or locate grammatical errors.

Resouces and Tools
Grammarly- Detect spelling, context, and grammatical errors.

EasyBib- Generate citations and see the credibility of sites you are using.

Diigo- Collect, organize and annotate resouces. Create an outline using the resources you have gathered.

Cite This for Me- Automatically create citations in the most popular citation styles.

Highlight Tool- This is an add-on for Google Docs that can be used to organize essays, categorize facts, and emphasize different sections of a document.

Tips and Ideas
If your students are writing in Google Docs, why not have them engage in some peer revision? Students can either leave comments or make suggestions using features that already exist in Google Docs.

The comments feature is a great place for teachers to leave feedback for students as well. Instead of waiting until a student is finished with a long project like a research paper, you can begin leaving comments right away so students can fix errors before they submit their final draft.

Create voice comments for using the Talk and Comment extension. This is a great way for students to provide feedback to their peers as well as teachers to provide feedback to students.

Read previous posts about Diigo and other citation tools.

Creating Folders and Subfolders to Organize Chrome Bookmark Bar

The Chrome bookmark bar can be an incredibly useful tool to help you get organized, but it can be your worst enemy if you don't take steps to tame it. Just a couple of weeks ago, I shared some ideas for how to use favicons to reclaim space on your bookmark bar. The video below walks you through how to create folders and subfolders on your bookmark bar to reclaim even more space. I have found that by taking control of my bookmark bar and using it to help me get organized has saved my sanity! I no longer waste time searching for digital resources and documents because I have a system for how to organize them. I hope these tips will inspire you to develop your own system of organization.

The Week's Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

This week was another busy week in the world of Free Technology for Teachers. At the beginning of the week I had the pleasure of working with teachers in Albemarle County schools in Virginia. Then on Wednesday evening I hosted Intro to Teaching With Video with Keith Hughes and Tom Richey. If you missed it, you can watch that presentation here on my YouTube channel.


Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Collection of Google Drive Templates
2. Science Journal App from Google
3. Using the About Tab in Google Classroom
4. AutoMastery Google Forms Add-on
5. Using Icons to Help Organize Google Drive Folders
6. Blended Play: New Website for Creating Online Games
7. Comparison of Screencasting Tools

Professional Development Opportunities
Three Practical Ed Tech professional development courses are starting in two weeks. How to Teach With Video starts on November 27th. To Geography and Beyond With Google Maps & Earth starts on November 30th as does Getting Going With G Suite.

Last week Teaching History With Technology rolled out to more people. You can still join and complete the course at your own pace. Learn more here.

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.
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.

Using Icons to Help Organize Google Drive Folders

Remember what your Google Drive looked like when you first started using it? It was neat, organized, and free of clutter. As you began to use Drive more frequently, you probably started creating folders and perhaps you are now looking for a way to organize them. In addition to color coding your files, you can add emojis and other symbols to your folders to help you identify them quickly and easily.

The first thing you need to do is open your Drive and identify a folder that you would like to add a symbol or emoji to. Make sure the symbol you select is something that helps you remember the contents of the folder. Maybe you use a snowflake for activities that pertain to winter or a test tube for chemistry lessons. All that matters is that your icon makes sense to you. Once you have selected your folder, navigate to one of the sites below, select the symbol you want to use, copy it, edit the name of the folder then paste the icon into the box where the folder name appears.

Symbol and emoji sites:

• Get Emoji
• Emoji Copy
• Copy and Paste Emoji

Math Games and Resources

There are so many fun and exciting resources available to help you engage students in your math classroom. These are some of the most popular math resource posts from Free Technology for Teachers from the last couple of years.

• Math Playground and Hundreds of Math Games and Videos- Games and videos for students in grades 1-8. This site has been around since 2002!
• More Than 100 Math Games for Elementary and Middle School Students- Find online math games that allow students to practice basic arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and probability. Keep track of your students' scores.
• 5 Free Resources for Math Teachers Using Chromebooks- Check out Desmos , Graph.tk, Geogebra, Math Vocab Cards, and Geoboard.
• 10 YouTube Channels for Math Lessons- Ten channels that will help your students learn about anything from basic mathematics to calculus.
• 21 Real World Math Lessons for High School- This collection of math lessons helps students learn how to apply concepts to real life situations.
• Great Ideas for Using Scratch in Elementary Math- Learn about a binary calculator and ScratchMath.
• Fraction Mash- iPad app for elementary school math lessons
• Using Google Apps in a Math Classroom- Tips, ideas, and best practices for using Google Apps
• Five Good Math Sites and Apps for Elementary School- List of five different apps that can be used with elementary students.