Try the Fact Check Explorer

Fact Check Explorer is a free tool from Google that anyone can use to explore the veracity of claims made on the Internet. As you can see in my brief video embedded below, on Fact Check Explorer you can enter a topic or name then see a list of articles accompanied by notations about the accuracy of the claims in those articles. You can click through to the source of each article and the fact checker. 

Watch this short video that I made for an overview of how to use Google's Fact Check Explorer. 

Applications for Education

It should be noted that Fact Check Explorer isn't an infallible tool. That said, it could be a good tool to use to help students get a better understanding of the context around claims that they may have heard from other people and or read on the Internet. 

Join my Search Strategies Students Need to Know webinar on July 27th to learn about more tools and strategies for teaching search strategies. 

Webinars This Week and Next

This month I've hosted three webinars and I have two more scheduled before the end of July. By the end of August I'll have hosted seven. 

The next webinar in my summer series is DIY App Creation for the Rest of Us. Join this webinar to learn how you can have your students create mobile apps in your classroom even if you don't have any computer science background.  

Next week I'm hosting Search Strategies Students Need to Know. This is always my most popular webinar of the summer. If you have ever had a student say, "Google has nothing on this," this webinar is for you! In the webinar you'll learn how to get your students to look beyond the first page of Google search results and dive deeper into the online research process.

Both webinars will be held live and recorded for those who cannot attend the live sessions. 

Spot the Differences - Another Founder's Day Lesson

As I mentioned in a blog post yesterday, I'm spending today helping with one of our community's Founder's Day events. The event that I'm helping with is the car show. I'm doing it because I'm friends with care-taker of the collection and because it gives me a chance to look at the cars up close. One of the cars that will be on display today is the 1942 Cadillac that is in the featured picture of this blog post. 

The car isn't just any 1942 Cadillac. It has some features that make it different from any other Cadillac produced in the 1942 model year. If you're looking for a little research challenge for the weekend, see if you can figure what makes this car so unique. (A larger picture is included below). 

If you think you've figured it out, please let me know. If you'd like help, send me an email and I'll give you some hints. And if you'd like to use this picture as part of your own research lesson, please feel free to do so (just credit me for the picture). 

At the end of this month I'm hosting a webinar about teaching search strategies to students. Activities like this one will be included in the webinar. You can learn more and register for the webinar here. 

Authentication, Forms, and Research - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it's going to be a great midsummer weekend! Today, I'm helping with the car show at our community's Founder's Day celebration. And tomorrow we're going to enjoy some time relaxing in our backyard, riding bikes, and picking wild blackberries (yum!). I hope that you have an equally fun weekend planned for yourself. 

This week I hosted two more webinars in my Practical Ed Tech Summer Webinars series. Thank you to everyone who has joined one so far. I'm hosting two more before the end of July. Learn more about them right here.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Reminder - Two-Factor Authentication Saves Frustration
2. Five Google Forms Features Overlooked by New Users
3. Best of 2022 So Far - Custom USGS Maps
4. Boclips for Teachers is Shutting Down
5. How to Restore the Windows 11 Taskbar
6. Best of 2022 So Far - Brush Ninja Updates
7. Common Craft Explains Research Papers to Students

50 Tech Tuesday Tips!

50 Tech Tuesday Tips is an eBook that I created with busy tech coaches, tech integrators, and media specialists in mind. In it you'll find 50 ideas and tutorials that you can use as the basis of your own short PD sessions. Get a copy today!

July and August Webinars!
Starting this week I'm hosting a series of Practical Ed Tech webinars. You can register for one or all of them. Read about them here or follow the links below to register.

• DIY App Creation for the Rest of Us
• Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• To Geography & Beyond With Google Earth & Maps
• Get Organized With Google Classroom, Calendar, and Keep

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 42,000 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.

A Founder's Day Search Lesson - A Classic from my Archives

Tomorrow I am spending the day helping at one of our local Founder's Day events. Our Founder's Day is in celebration of Hannibal Hamlin. Hamlin was one of Abraham Lincoln's Vice Presidents. The picture in this blog post is of his house. If you have followed my blog for a long time and or participated in one of my past workshops, you've probably seen this picture before. I use the picture as part of search challenge activity for students. 

The challenge that I've created based on this picture is as follows:

• This house was owned by one of Abraham Lincoln's Vice Presidents. 
• Your tasks are to identify:
• Which Vice President owned the house.
• Does the sun set on the front of back of house?
• Who owns the house today.
• The famous "movie car"  that is housed at the house today.

If you can answer all of these questions, send me an email and let me know. If you need help answering the questions, email me for some hints. And if you would like to use this challenge in your own classroom this fall, please feel free to do so. Just give me credit for the photograph. 

On July 27th I'm hosting a webinar all about teaching search strategies to students. You can learn more and register here.