Bicycles, Chrome, and Science - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it's going to be a nice day for outdoor play. Earlier this week we rode our bikes to a little public field near our house and found a bunch of wild strawberries. My daughters want to go back and look for more strawberries so that's probably what we'll do after breakfast. I hope that you have something equally fun to do this weekend. 

Speaking of bikes, last Friday was World Bicycle Day and my blog post about was the most popular thing that I've published in the last week. That post and others are included below. 

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Lessons for World Bicycle Day
2. Five Great Chrome Extensions for Teachers
3. A TED-Ed Lesson for Every Element on the Periodic Table
4. Ten Ways to Use Adobe Creative Cloud Express in School
5. Five Fun Science Games for Kids
6. A Lesson About Money for Students Getting Summer Jobs
7. How to Record Screencasts on Chromebooks Without Extensions

Webinars for Your School
I conduct professional development webinars throughout the year. I'll host a free one-hour webinar for any school or group that purchases ten or more copies of 50 Tech Tuesday Tips.

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.
• My YouTube channel has more than 41,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fifteen years. 
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• 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 Icons Daily and Daily Dose. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

45 Canva Tutorials for Teachers and Students

Aside from Google Workspace, Canva is the tool that I've published the most tutorials about on my YouTube channel. In fact, with the publication of my latest video I've now published 45 tutorials about using Canva's many features for making videos, presentations, timelines, posters, greeting cards, worksheets, and many other graphics. This morning I finally put all of those tutorials together in one playlist. 

You can find my new Canva tutorials playlist right here. A handful of highlights from the playlist have been embedded below. 

How to Create a Video With Canva

How to Create an Audio Slideshow Video in Canva



How to Import PowerPoint Slides into Canva

How to Create & Publish Comics With Canva

Try the Game Templates in Canva

How to Add Narration to Canva Presentations

Earlier this week I published a video titled What's the Best Way to Share Tech Tips With Staff? That video was based on my blog post about newsletters, blogs, and social media for tech coaches. One astute viewer noticed that I used a slightly different format for that video than I usually use. That's because I recorded the entire video in Canva. After I explained that he wanted to know if the same thing could be done without including a webcam view. Yes, you can record a video in Canva without enabling your webcam. 

In this short video I demonstrate how to add narration to a Canva presentation by using the built-in recording tools. 

Applications for Education
Recording voiceover narration for your presentations is easy to do in Canva. It can be a good way to make a short video lesson. I should emphasize short! If you try to make a video longer than about a minute that is just your slides and your voice, you will probably bore your students to tears. So if you're recording for more than a minute, turn on your webcam and include your face in your video lesson.

How to Take a Screenshot on a Chromebook

Yesterday I shared directions about using the new screencast recording tool that is built into the latest Chromebooks. While screencast videos are great for providing directions and teaching lessons, sometimes all you really need to is just an annotated screenshot to make your point. Fortunately, taking a screenshot and editing it on a Chromebook is easier than ever. 

In this short video I demonstrate how to take screenshot on a Chromebook, edit it, and share it. 

How to Record Screencasts on Chromebooks Without Extensions

A couple of days ago Google announced some new Chromebook features for teachers and students. One of those features is a new screencast recording tool that is built into the latest version of Chrome OS. 

The new screencast recording tool built into Chromebook OS removes the need to use third-party extensions like Screencastify or Loom to record a screencast video on your Chromebook. You can record all of your screen or part of your screen. If you like to include your webcam in screencasts, you can do that with the built-in recorder in the latest version of Chrome OS. The recorder includes some handy tools for drawing on your screen while recording. 

When you create a screencast using the built-in recorder on your Chromebook the recording is automatically saved to your Google Drive account. Once the recording is saved you can share it much like you would share any other file in your Google Drive account. 

Automatic Transcription! Perhaps the best feature of the new screencast recorder in Chrome OS is that it automatically generates a written transcript of your video. You can edit the transcript if you find some inaccuracies in it. 

Watch my new video to learn how you can record screencasts on your Chromebook without using any third-party extensions. 

Important! Update your Chromebook to the latest version of Chrome OS to access the new screencasting tool to record a screencast on your Chromebook.