Coming Soon! PowerPoint Will Coach You Through Presentation Rehearsals

Thanks to a Tweet from Mike Tholfsen this afternoon I learned about an exciting new feature that is coming soon to PowerPoint. That feature is called Presentation Coach. Presentation Coach is a rehearsal mode that you can use in PowerPoint (web version only, it appears) to get instant feedback on your presentation including your pacing, redundant use of words, and use of filler words and noises like "um" and "ah."

Presentation Coach will give you suggestions on how to replace filler words and how to alter your pacing. Presentation Coach will alert you if you're just reading from your slides instead of speaking from your memory. And when your rehearsal is completed Presentation Coach will give you a report about your presentation.


Applications for Education
Presentation Coach should be a PowerPoint feature that students and teachers will embrace when it rolls-out later this summer. Students will be able to practice and revise their presentations with the assistance of Presentation Coach as many times as they need to before speaking in front of their classes.

An updated presentation theme design tool is coming to PowerPoint later this summer too. You can read more about that update here.

Writing Prompts, Beakers, and Fables - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we're hoping that the sun will peak out for a trip to the playground. Maine is known for moose and lobster. At our local playground there is a moose carved into boulder. My daughters always want to sit on it. And they're hoping to do that again today. I hope that you have something fun that you're looking forward to doing this weekend too.

If part of your weekend plans include learning some new things about educational technology, take a look at this week's most popular posts.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. 500 Creative Writing Prompts
2. Interactive Versions of Aesop's Fables - And Dozens of Other Classic Works
3. Beaker - Virtually Mix Chemicals on Your Phone or Tablet
4. 5 Time-savers for Teachers Using G Suite for Education
5. Moving From Google Drive to OneDrive
6. An Update to Five Directions for AR in Education
7. Teaching With Historical Newspapers - An LOC Webinar Recording

Thank You for Your Support!

• More than 250 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech webinar this year. Thank you!
• Six of those webinars are available on-demand at 50% off right now. 
• Only two seats remain for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Join us!
• Fishbowl is a professional network for educators that is unlike any other social network you've tried. 
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County has been supporting this blog for many years. 

Turn Blog Posts and Newsletters Into Videos With Lumen5

For the last few weeks I've been posting on Twitter and on Facebook videos based on blog posts that I have written. To do that I have been using a service called Lumen5. Lumen5 is a service that will produce a video for you based upon your written work.

To create a video with Lumen5 you can enter the URL of your published work or paste in the text of your blog post. Lumen5 will then select highlights from your writing to feature in a video. The video will always begin with the title of your blog post. From there it will use any subheadings or section headings that you have in your blog post to create sections of your video. If you don't have subheadings or section headings in your blog post, Lumen5 will attempt to pull the keywords or phrases from each paragraph.

Lumen5 generates a preview of a video for you based on the title, keywords, and key phrases in your blog post. The video will consist of images and video clips matched to the words in your blog post. If you don't like the words or images that Lumen5 chose for you, you can edit the words and swap the images and video clips with others from Lumen5's huge media library. Finally, once you are happy with the visuals of your video you can pick a free audio track to use in your video.

Completed Lumen5 projects can be shared directly to Facebook. You can also download your video to use on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and anywhere else that you like post short videos.

Applications for Education
If you have been writing blog posts or newsletters and you feel like none of your students or parents are reading them, try turning those posts or newsletters into a short video. You can't include every word of the post or newsletter, but you can include the highlights which be enough to entice students and parents to read the full text of your post or newsletter.

500 Creative Writing Prompts

Back in April I featured a neat creative writing tool called The Most Dangerous Writing App. Since then The Most Dangerous Writing App has changed to The Most Dangerous Writing Prompts. The service now includes 500 writing prompts to help you get started on your next great work of creative writing.

The concept of The Most Dangerous Writing Prompts is the same as it was when it was called The Most Dangerous Writing App. You have to write for a minimum amount of time or minimum words without stopping for more than a few seconds or all of your work is lost. If you do reach the minimum (you choose what the minimum is), you can download your writing as a Word doc to continue the writing and editing process.

Watch my new video below to learn how to use The Most Dangerous Writing Prompts.

How to Set a Vacation Responder

For the last week my Facebook feed has been filled with posts from friends who are celebrating the last day(s) of the school year. This is a good time to set a vacation responder in your email. If you use Gmail (either consumer or G Suite for Education), watch my video below to learn how you can set an automatic vacation responder.


Applications for Education
Even though you might be on summer vacation, there are parents and students who might email you and except a response just as quickly as during the school year. Setting a polite vacation responder message can remind those parents or students that you might not be available to respond as quickly as they would like.