Sunday, September 30, 2018

Classroom, Math, and Instagram - The Month in Review

It's the end of September. By now everyone has been back in school for at least a month. I hope that the start of school year has gone well for you. As we head into October here's a look back at the most popular posts of September, 2018.

A quick reminder, in October I'm hosting two professional development courses. Getting Going With G Suite starts on Tuesday and Teaching History With Technology starts on Thursday.

These were the most popular posts in September:
1. Two New Google Classroom Features That Everyone Has Been Asking For!
2. Math Playground - Hundreds of Math Games & Instructional Videos
3. ReadWorks Now Integrates With Google Classroom
4. 250 Google Tools Tutorials for Teachers
5. Share Math Playground Activities to Google Classroom
6. If You Manage a School Facebook Page, Watch Out for This Scam
7. Poetry 180 - A Poem for Every Day of the School Year
8. A Parent's Guide to Instagram - Including a Glossary and Discussion Questions
9. 5 Ways to Use Google Sheets in Your Classroom
10. 5 Ways to Use Google Slides Besides Making Presentations

Book Me for Your Conference
I’ve given keynotes at conferences from Australia to Alaska for groups of all sizes from 50 to 2,000+. My keynotes focus on providing teachers and school administrators with practical ways to use technology to create better learning experiences for all students. I like to shine the light on others and so I often share examples of great work done by others as well as my own. Send an email to richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com book me today.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
TypingClub offers more than 600 typing lessons for kids. 
Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards.
Book Creator is a great tool for creating multimedia books.
Kami is a great tool for annotating and collaborating on PDFs. 
University of Maryland Baltimore County offers a great program on instructional design.
Seterra offers a huge selection of geography games for students. 

Seterra Offers Science Quiz Games

Disclosure: Seterra is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com

A couple of weeks ago I featured Seterra's hundreds of geography quiz games that are available in more than thirty languages. But geography isn't the only subject that Seterra offers quiz games about. Seterra also offers games about human anatomy, plant cells, animal cells, and microscopes.

Just like the geography games, Seterra's science games can be played in four modes. You can play them in pin mode, type mode, and labeling mode. In the simple "Pin" mode students simply click on the locations of the parts of the cell or parts of anatomy that they're asked to identify. The type version of a game is found by selecting "type" mode below the game. In that mode students have to type on the diagram to identify parts of a cell or parts of human anatomy. And in the matching mode called "place the labels" students have to match labels to the diagram parts indicated by pins on the diagram.

Seterra's science games can be played in your web browser or as free iOS and Android apps.


Saturday, September 29, 2018

Planning a Student Video Project? - Don't Forget the Storyboards

Earlier this week I shared details of Next Vista for Learning's Creative Storm student video contest. One of the rules of that contest is that videos have to be 90 seconds or less. That's generally a good guideline of classroom video projects too. Even though 90 seconds might not seem like a long time, it can be plenty of time if students plan their videos well. To plan a good video students can create storyboards.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image has an excellent overview of storyboarding for beginners. The ACMI overview of storyboarding includes suggested activities for learning how to create storyboards. Included in those activities is a storyboard template that beginners can download and duplicate. Watch this video from the ACMI for an explanation of what a storyboard is an how it is used in the video creation process.


If you don't want to use ACMI's storyboard template you can make your own in PowerPoint or in Google Slides. Watch my videos embedded below to learn how to use PowerPoint and Google Slides to make printable storyboards.

How to create a storyboard template in PowerPoint.

How to create a storyboard template in Google Slides.

A Rubric for Digital Portfolio Assessment

Next week I am working with a group of teachers to help them start creating digital portfolios with their students. After we decide what we want students to include in their portfolios and the platform for the portfolio we'll start looking at the assessment aspect. To help get that conversation started we'll be looking at the electronic portfolio rubric created by Joan Vandervelde at the University of Wisconsin, Stout.

We probably won't use the rubric created by Joan Vandevelde exactly as written. Instead, we'll use it as a way to get the conversation rolling about what aspects of a digital portfolio are important to these particular teachers and their students.

The teachers with whom I am working use G Suite for Education so we'll eventually use Google Sheets to create the final draft of the digital portfolio rubric. The Online Rubric add-on for Google Sheets makes it easy to format a rubric. Watch my video to learn how to make a rubric in Google Sheets.

Sheets, Math, and Timelines - The Week in Review

Good morning from Key West, Florida where I have spent the week working with the great staff of Sigsbee Charter School. And while it is great to be in the sunshine state, it's also hard to be away from my little family for so long too. Thanks to Skype we're able to see each other every morning and at bedtime. But it's not quite the same and I can't wait to give them hugs. In the meantime I'll take advantage of being in Key West and enjoy the sunshine. I hope that wherever you are this weekend that you get outside for fun in the sun too.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. 5 Ways to Use Google Sheets in Your Classroom
2. Math Playground - Hundreds of Math Games & Instructional Videos
3. 5 Ways to Use Google Slides Besides Making Presentations
4. 5 VR Projects for Students
5. 10 Good Templates for Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts Lessons
6. 5 Ways to Use Comics in Social Studies Lessons
7. 8 Tools for Making Multimedia Timelines

Professional Development Courses Starting Next Week!
In October I am hosting two online professional development courses. Getting Going With G Suite starts on Tuesday. That course is designed for those who are new to using G Suite for Education. Teaching History With Technology starts on Thursday. That course is designed to help you use technology to create engaging social studies lessons.

Book Me for Your Conference
I’ve given keynotes at conferences from Australia to Alaska for groups of all sizes from 50 to 2,000+. My keynotes focus on providing teachers and school administrators with practical ways to use technology to create better learning experiences for all students. I like to shine the light on others and so I often share examples of great work done by others as well as my own. Send an email to richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com book me today.

Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.
Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.
TypingClub offers more than 600 typing lessons for kids. 
Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards.
Book Creator is a great tool for creating multimedia books.
Kami is a great tool for annotating and collaborating on PDFs. 
University of Maryland Baltimore County offers a great program on instructional design.
Seterra offers a huge selection of geography games for students. 

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