Readers' Choice Winners

Last week I posted the final nominations for the Free Technology for Teachers Readers' Choice awards. The final voting closed over the weekend and the results are in.

2018 Free Technology for Teachers Readers' Choice awards. 

Best Virtual Reality App

• Google Expeditions

Best Augmented Reality App

• Anatomy 4D 

Best Digital Portfolio App/ Website

• Google Sites

Best Video Creation Tool

• WeVideo

Best Podcast Recording and Editing App or Service

• Spreaker Studio

Best Formative Assessment Tool

• CoRubrics

Best Blog or Website Creation Tool

• Google Sites

Favorite Chrome App/ Extension

• CoRubrics

Favorite Google Docs/ Sheets/ Slides Add-on

• CoRubrics

In the interest of transparency, I should have required email addresses for voting. Here's the spreadsheet of final votes. 

Six On-demand PD Webinars in One Bundle

Throughout the year many of you participated in one of my Practical Ed Tech professional development webinars. Thank you so much for helping to keep FreeTech4Teachers.com running by registering for those webinars.

If you missed one of the Practical Ed Tech webinars this year, you can now get the six most popular of 2018 in one convenient bundle. This bundle will be available until midnight (ET) on December 31st. The bundle includes the recording of the webinars and their corresponding digital handouts.


The webinars included in this package are:

• Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• Getting Organized With Google Classroom, Calendar, and Keep
• Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners
• 5 Video Projects for Almost Every Classroom
• Introduction to AR & VR in Education
• 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons

Videezy - Free Video Clips for Multimedia Projects

Last week I shared a video overview of three great places to find free video clips to use in classroom projects. Videezy is another good site to add to that list. Videezy offers more than 1,000 video clips that you can download for free. The videos are organized into twelve categories. Within each category you'll find subcategories that make it easy to find the perfect video clip for your project.

Videezy does require you credit them for any other their video clips that you use unless you purchase a license to reuse the videos.

Applications for Education
Videezy could be a good option for students who need some short clips to include in larger video projects like school newscasts or mini-documentaries.

Learn more about student video projects in my upcoming course, Video Projects for Every Classroom. 

Vacation Project - Build the Coolest Machine Ever!

I know that the vast majority of you are on vacation right now. I also know that many of you have children who will be looking for fun things to do during vacation days. SciShow Kids has a couple of videos about hands-on science projects that kids can do at home. The first video is The Coolest Machine Ever! In this video students learn how to build a Rube Goldberg machine. They also learn who Rube Goldberg was.


SciShow Kids also recently released Make Your Own Cartoon! In that video students learn how old fashioned cartoons were made by using a series of drawings that are displayed in rapid succession. The real purpose of the video is to show students how to create a zoetrope to play a cartoon. That's something that kids can do at home with parents.

Canvas - A Good Alternative to Google Drawings for Tablet Users

Canvas is a new drawing tool from Google. Canvas is a great alternative to Google Drawings for iPad and Android tablet users. Canvas lets anyone create a drawing in his or her web browser by simply going to Canvas.apps.chrome. Once there you can start drawing on a blank canvas. There are four drawing tools that you can use to draw in a wide array of colors.

Canvas doesn't have to be used to create a drawing from scratch. You can upload a picture and draw on top of it. Either way, when your drawing is complete you can download it as a PNG file. All of your drawings are also stored in your Google account at canvas.apps.chrome. Watch my video that is embedded below to see Canvas in action.


Applications for Education
Canvas could be a good little tool for students to use to create mind maps on their tablets, phones, or laptops. It could also be good for annotating diagrams and pictures.

H/T to Chrome Unboxed.