Daylight Saving Time is Coming! Here are Some Explanations of It

At this time next week many of us will be moaning about our "lost" hour of sleep resulting from moving our clocks forward. That's right, daylight saving time begins next weekend! I never liked moving my clocks forward in the spring before I had kids. And now as the tired dad of two little kids who don't like to sleep, I really don't like moving the clocks forward.  

If you or your students are wondering why we have to change our clocks next weekend, here are few short explanations.

Daylight Saving Time Explained

Daylight Saving Time 101



Daylight Saving Time Explained



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.

Two Webinars Coming Up This Week

As I shared in this week's Practical Ed Tech Newsletter, this week I'm hosting two webinars. 

On Wednesday I'm hosting a webinar for everyone who has recently purchased a copy of my ebook, 50 Tech Tuesday Tips. The webinar is titled A Framework for Technology Integration. In it I'll share my framework for helping teachers use technology in meaningful ways in their classrooms. I'll also provide some examples of how I've done it in the past and how you can replicate them in your school. Get more details about the ebook and webinar here. 

On Thursday at 4pm ET/ 1pm PT Rushton Hurley from Next Vista for Learning and I are hosting the latest installment of our Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions series. We'd love to have you join us! You can register for the session right here.

Five Ways to Create Online Drag-and-Drop Activities

Last week I wrote about TeacherMade's new drag-and-drop online activity creation tool. It's a nice tool for turning documents into online sorting and matching activities for your students. Of course, there are other ways to create online drag-and-drop activities for your students to complete. I've written about a handful of them over the last couple of years. Those are highlighted below.

Google Drawings
I've created drag-and-drop activities for geography lessons by using Google Drawings. To do that I put a map in Google Drawings then created a bank of labels that students drag onto the map. I share the activity in Google Classroom with the "make a copy for each student" option so that students aren't affecting each others' work. Watch this video to see the whole process.



Google Jamboard
A couple of years ago a reader named Chuck asked me for suggestions on how to create a virtual philosophical chairs activity. My suggestion was to try using Google Jamboard. The idea is to have students move their avatars around the Jamboard to indicate their positions on a given discussion topic. Here's a video explanation of how the activity works.



Wizer.Me
Wizer.me is a tool that I've used periodically over the last half-dozen years. In Wizer you can create online worksheet activities that include drag-and-drop activities. This tutorial is a little bit dated now, but it gives you an idea of what's possible in Wizer.

TinyTap
I recently wrote a lengthy post about using TinyTap to create online puzzle games for students. Those puzzles are all solved through the use of drag-and-drop. Watch this video to learn more.



TeacherMade
TeacherMade's latest feature lets you create drag-and-drop activities based on your existing PDFs and Word docs. Read my full post about it here or watch the tutorial video as embedded below.



Disclosure: TinyTap and TeacherMade are advertisers on FreeTech4Teachers.com

How to Make Your Own Wordle-style Game

I've yet to play Wordle and by the time I do the fad will probably be over. That said, I know a lot of people enjoy the game and are looking for ways to bring it into their classrooms. If that describes you, this blog post is for you. 

Flippity.net offers more than two dozen templates for creating all kinds of online activities including a Wordle-style game called WordMaster. You can see a live demo of a WordMaster game right here. The template for creating the game is available here and is very easy to use. All you need to do is enter a list of five-letter words and Flippity will handle the rest. Your game will be assigned its own URL that you can share with your students via Google Classroom, via QR code, via email, or any other means that you typically use to share resources with your students. 

In the following short video I demonstrate how to create a Wordle-style game with Flippity's WordMaster template. 

Games, NASA, and Timelines - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I'm solo parenting for the first time in a few years. Wish me and my kids luck! I think we'll do just fine. We have ski lessons, sledding, and eating pizza on our list of fun things for the weekend. I hope you have a list of fun things for your weekend too. 

This week I didn't host any webinars. I'm making up for that by hosting two webinars next week. The first one is on Wednesday and is for people who have recently purchased a copy of my 50 Tech Tuesday Tips ebook. More details about that webinar can be found here. Then on Thursday I'm co-hosting Two EdTech Guys Take Questions. That webinar is open to all who wish to join. You can get more details about it here. 

These were the week's most popular posts: 

1. Try the Game Templates in Canva
2. How to Use Canva Designs in Google Slides
3. eStory - A New Multimedia Timeline Creation Tool
4. MHDL Lantern - Media History and Lesson Plans
5. A Dozen Neat NASA Resources for Students and Teachers
6. Use TinyTap to Create Online Courses Featuring Your Favorite Games
7. Winter Scavenger Hunts and Bingo

Thank you for your support!
Your registrations in Practical Ed Tech courses and purchases of 50 Tech Tuesday Tips help me keep Free Technology for Teachers going. Purchase ten or more copies of my ebook and I'll host a free one-hour webinar for your school or organization. 

On-demand Professional Development

• Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video
• A Crash Course in Google Earth & Maps for Social Studies

Other Places to Follow Me:

• 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.
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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 Icons Daily and Daily Dose. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.