Fiction vs. Non-fiction - A Canva Infographic

This morning I was browsing through Canva's gallery of free design templates looking for one to use for an upcoming course that I'm teaching. That's when I stumbled into a this Fiction vs. Non-Fiction infographic template. As you can see below, the template could be printed as used as is. Better yet, you could have students modify the template to include some of their own examples of fiction vs. non-fiction.

Applications for Education
You can get a copy of this template (in higher resolution than what I've posted) in the infographics section on Canva. I would use this template by having students make a copy to modify. In their modified copies I'd have students include examples from books to explain the differences between fiction and non-fiction books.

5 Free Thanksgiving Lesson Plans You Can Use This Week

Thanksgiving is just a few days away. If you're an elementary school teacher who has school this week, Storyboard That has five free Thanksgiving lesson plans that you can use.

As you might expect, all of the Thanksgiving lesson plans that Storyboard That offers are centered around the use of storyboards and artwork. The five lesson plans are The Story of Thanksgiving, Symbols of Thanksgiving, What Thanksgiving Means to Me, Thanksgiving Cards, and I Am Thankful for... 

The activities in the lesson plans can be completed even if you don't use Storyboard That. But if you do choose to use Storyboard That, watch my video on how to make Thanksgiving Cards that your students can print. 

Disclosure: Storyboard That is an advertiser on this blog. 

17 Lessons in Teaching History With Technology

This coming Monday evening (7pm ET) I am hosting Teaching History With Technology on PracticalEdTech.com. This course meets five times (once per week). There are seventeen concepts that are covered in the course. Each concept can be applied to the creation of technology-infused history lessons. The concepts covered in the course are listed below.

• Using technology to help students analyze historical/ primary source documents.


• Making artifacts interactive.


• Hosting online history discussions


• The importance of structure and expectations.


• Using audio in history lessons


• Recording history with students


• Hearing history


• Creating multimedia timelines with students.


• Simple to complex options for every grade level.


• Creating multimedia maps


• Search Strategies for History Students


• Saving and sharing search results.


• Google Maps and Earth are not your only options.


• Creating videos and teaching with video.


• Making and using virtual tours.


• Virtual Reality tours.


• Augmented Reality tours.

Click here to register for Teaching History With Technology. 

Guests, Snow, and Feedback - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we've had two small snowstorms this week. They haven't been big snowfalls, but they have produced enough snow that all the leaves I didn't rake won't be discovered again until spring. On the upside, ski season is here and I'm looking forward to getting my oldest daughter on skis this winter.

This week I hosted a dozen guest bloggers. I hope you enjoyed their posts as much as I did.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Edji - A Great Tool for Literacy and Critical Thinking
2. Is Your Feedback Really Effective? - This Google Docs Add-on Will Tell You
3. CoRubrics - An Add-on to Facilitate Assessment Among Students
4. Build a Body - An Interactive Biology Lesson
5. 7 Tips for Moving from Decorating to Designing Classrooms
6. A Digital Differentiation Model
7. Apps Day - A Great Way to Learn About Apps

Teaching History With Technology

Teaching History With Technology is a Practical Ed Tech online course starting on Monday evening. This course meets for five Mondays in a row. Some of the things you'll learn in the course include using virtual reality and augmented reality in your classroom, multimedia storytelling, and search strategies for history students. Click here to register.

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. 

How to Create a QR Code for a Voice Recording

Just a few minutes ago I answered an email from a reader named Chris who wanted a recommendation on how to have students create voice recordings that play back when a QR code is scanned. My recommendation was to try Vocaroo. Vocaroo lets you record for free (no registration required) then have a QR code automatically generated for your recording. In the following video I demonstrate how to record with Vocaroo then generate a QR code.


The only drawback to this method is that Vocaroo won't host recordings indefinitely. See the following note from their FAQ page.