Good Reminders About Password Security

The mot recent Facebook hoax making its rounds has prompted me to remind everyone about the importance of using strong and varied passwords (don't use the same password for Facebook as you do for your bank account).

Creating a strong password is a just the first step in protecting your email and social media accounts from hackers. To really protect your account there are some additional steps you should take like using two-factor authentication. In their most recent video Common Craft explains how to protect your online accounts. Click here to watch the video or you can view it as embedded below.


Applications for Education
The tips in the video may be old news to some, but they're still worth being reminded of and sharing with those who might not have heard them before.

For help in creating a strong password consider using a tool like Wolffram Alpha's password generator.

Common Craft videos can be reviewed online for evaluation purposes. To use embed them into a blog as I've done requires a membership (which are very reasonably priced).

Disclosure: I have an in-kind relationship with Common Craft.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in Canada. As an American I was relatively ignorant of this holiday until about six years ago. If you're an American or your just generally curious about the differences and similarities between American and Canadian Thanksgiving, watch the following videos. Both of the following humorous videos that explain the differences between Thanksgiving in Canada and Thanksgiving in the United States.



Just a reminder, you should always preview videos before showing them in your classroom. I know many high school teachers who will not have a problem sharing these, but teachers of younger students may want to proceed with caution.

YouTube, Math, and Media - The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where I was home for the day before having to fly back to Florida tomorrow morning. Next week I'll be finishing up my third week working with the awesome teachers at Sigsbee Charter School in Key West. If you would like to have me work with your school this year, please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com or click here for more information.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Ten Tools for Teaching With YouTube Videos
2. Virtual Dice and Random Number Generators
3. Seven Good Places to Find Writing Prompts
4. Seterra Offers Science Quiz Games in Many Languages
5. Math Playground - Hundreds of Math Games & Instructional Videos
6. Mind Over Media - New Resource for Teaching Propaganda and Media Literacy
7. A Fantastic Virtual Tour of the Houses of Parliament

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. 

ytCropper - Share a Section of a YouTube Video

This week I answered an email from someone who had read my article 10 Tools for Teaching With YouTube Videos and wanted to know if there was a tool for sharing just a portion of a YouTube video. I used to recommend TubeChop but while that tool is still online it doesn't consistently work as it should. Now I recommend trying ytCropper.

ytCropper lets you share just a portion of a YouTube video by specifying the start time and end time of the video that you want others to see. To do this simply go to the ytCropper site then paste in the URL of the YouTube video that you want to share. Once you have done that you can specify the start and end time of the portion of the video that you want people to watch. ytCropper will generate a link to the cropped version of the video. Share that link to have people watch your specified portion of the video.

Applications for Education
ytCropper could be a good tool to use if you want your students to watch just a section of a video. However, if you want them to watch a section and then answer questions about that section, then tools like Play Posit and EDpuzzle are a better choice.

VR, AR, Video, and the Best of the Web - Slides from Today's Presentations

Good evening from the Pittsburgh International Airport where I'm about to board a flight home after a great day presenting in Morgantown, West Virginia at the Archdiocese of Wheeling-Charleston's Teachers Convention. I had the privilege to give three presentations there today and meet some fantastic teachers too. The slides from the presentations that I gave are embedded below.

5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom

Worlds are Colliding! Intro to AR & VR in Education

Best of the Web - Fall 2018


If you would like to have me speak at your next conference, please send me a note at richard(at)byrne.media