Disclosure: Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com
Samsung's Solve for Tomorrow contest is a STEM project contest that awards large educational technology prizes to public schools in the United States. As I outlined a few weeks ago, the contest places a premium on student-teacher collaboration as well as project effectiveness.
It takes just a few minutes to make your initial entry into the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. The initial entries are used in selecting state finalists who receive prizes and go on to compete in the national competition which awards a prize of $100,000 in classroom technology.
The deadline for initial contest entries has been extended to November 15th! Enter here!
Google Books is one of my favorite search tools. Unfortunately, students often overlook it as a research tool unless they've been shown how it works. In this short video I provide a demonstrate of the key features of the current version of Google Books.
In the video you'll see how to:
Search for a book.
Refine search according to publication date.
Use Google Books to find books in your local library.
Use Google Books to search within a book.
Create an online bookshelf to share with others.
If you just want to see how to use Google Books to find libraries near you that have house rare books, watch this short video that I posted on Instagram last Friday morning.
It seem like every week I find something new and interesting that can be done with Canva. Last Friday I discovered that you can embed working Google Forms and Microsoft Forms into your Canva designs. This works with Canva's website templates as well as presentation and infographic templates.
In this short video I demonstrate how you can create a simple website with Canva and include a Google Form or Microsoft Form in that website.
Applications for Education
Canva's website templates are great for making simple websites that accomplish a singular goal like attracting interest in an upcoming school event. By putting a Google Form or Microsoft Form into website you can collect RSVPs to your upcoming event. You could also include a form so that people can contact you with questions through the website.
Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of October. Some of the colorful leaves of autumn are still clinging to the trees, but more are on the ground than in the trees now. Hopefully, I'll get them cleaned up before the snow flies (that could be any day now). But I do have some other projects and fun things planned for the last two months of the year. I hope that you do as well.
As I do at the end of every month, I've compiled a list of the most popular posts of the month. Take a look and see if there's something interesting that you missed earlier in the month.
These were the most popular posts in October:
The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
My YouTube channel has more than 38,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools.
I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fourteen years.
If you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.
This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin and WayBetterSite. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.
Daylight Saving Time ends today for many of my friends in Europe and it ends next Sunday for those of us in North American states and provinces that observe Daylight Saving Time. As someone who gets up early and lives in a northern state, I welcome the change as I'll see the sun an hour earlier. And hopefully, my kids will take advantage of the "extra" hour of time for sleeping next Saturday night. Like I do almost every time Daylight Saving Time begins or ends, I have gathered together a handful of short video explanations about why we have Daylight Saving Time. Take a look and see if there is one that can help you explain Daylight Saving Time to your students.
National Geographic has two videos titled Daylight Saving Time 101. The first one, published in 2015, is a bit more upbeat than the second one that was published in 2019. Both versions are embedded below.
CGP Grey's video explanation of Daylight Saving Time is still a good one even if it isn't as succinct as the videos above.
TED-Ed has two lessons that aren't specifically about Daylight Saving Time but are related to the topic. First, The History of Keeping Time explains sundials, hourglasses, and the development of timezones. Second, How Did Trains Standardize Time in the United States? explains the role of railroads in the development of the timezones used in the United States (and most of Canada) today.
