Why Should You Read Moby Dick - A New TED-Ed Lesson

A couple of years ago TED-Ed started producing a series of video lessons titled Why Should You Read... The videos in the series feature classic works of literature explained in about five minutes. The videos are more high level overviews of the books than they are book trailers. What I like best about the videos in the series is that they explain the historical context of the when the books were written. Case in point, in the latest installment in the series, Why Should You Read Moby Dick, viewers learn that the book was written during the height of the whaling industry in New England.

You can find the entire Why Should You Read Moby Dick TED-Ed lesson here or watch the video as embedded below.


Here are a few other Why Should You Read... TED-Ed lessons.

Why Should You Read Hamlet?


Why Should You Read Crime and Punishment?


Why Should You Read Fahrenheit 451?


Feature Image by David Mark from Pixabay

Google Has Introduced a New Sharing Option in Shared Drives

Shared Drives in G Suite for Education are great for distributing things like staff handbooks, templates for permission slips, and media assets like pictures from school events. This week Google announced a beta program for those G Suite for Edu domains that would like to test a new option for sharing in shared Drives.

The new shared folders in shared Drives beta will let G Suite for Edu domains set folder permissions within shared Drives. This is a change from the current options of setting permissions on a whole Drive level or on a single file level. G Suite for Edu domain managers can apply for the beta program through this form.

Applications for Education
In the announcement of this new shared folders in shared Drives feature Google gave examples of how a business might use the feature to give different departments different access levels for folders. The same could be done in a school setting to create folders for entire departments within the shared Drive. 

Webinar Recording - Intro to Teaching History With Technology

Yesterday afternoon I hosted a free webinar titled Intro to Teaching History With Technology. This webinar featured my Discovery, Discussion, Demonstration framework in the context of history and geography lessons. As the name implies, the webinar provides an introduction to some of the key topics in my online course, Teaching History With Technology. If you missed the webinar, you can now view it here or as embedded below.


Here are the key sections of the webinar:

• Three goals
• Three agreements
• The DDD framework
• Using Google Books for research
• Exploring Google Earth
• Threaded audio discussions using GoSynth
• Create a multimedia timeline
• Discounts for the full course

The slides that I used in the webinar can be viewed here or as embedded below.

Intro to Teaching History With Technology by richardbyrne

How to Create an Audio Slideshow Video in Canva

Canva is a graphic design tool that I've used for years to create blog post and social media graphics. In the last year I've started to use it more and more for developing presentations and creating short videos. Canva offers a library of music that you can easily incorporate into your presentations. Those presentations can then be exported as video files to play wherever you like. In the following short video I demonstrate how to create an audio slideshow video in Canva.


Applications for Education
Audio slideshow videos are a popular thing to make at this time of year to recap the school year. If you're looking for a quick and easy way to create this style of video for an end-of-year event, give Canva a try.

Ten Topics in Teaching History With Technology

This summer I'm hosting two sections of my popular Teaching History With Technology course. The first section meets every Monday afternoon in June. The second section will be conducted on five consecutive days in July. Both sections will cover the same material. There are ten big topics that will be covered in the course. All of the lessons in the course can be applied to elementary, middle, and high school settings.

These are the ten big topics in the course:

• Search Strategies & Organization
• Video Projects & Video Lessons
• Making History Podcasts
• Google Earth & Maps
• Multimedia Timelines
• Digital Portfolios
• AR & VR in History Lessons
• Making Virtual Tours
• Making History Apps
• Tips for Remote Teaching

Register by June 1st and use the code THWT2020 to save up to $30 on registration. 

Register Here

Register Here