Videos, Writing, and Pictures - The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful autumn day. My kids had soccer practice, we rode our bikes, and I mowed the lawn for what was hopefully the last time this year. And before bedtime tonight we have to get ready for my youngest daughter's birthday party that we're hosting tomorrow. It should be a fun day. I hope that you have had a good weekend so far. 

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. My Updated Big List of Tools for a Variety of Classroom Video Projects
2. The Writer's Workshop - 29 Videos That Can Help Students Improve Their Writing
3. A Great Alternative to Quizlet
4. How to Find TED-Ed Lessons by Grade Level
5. My Top Ten Tools for Social Studies Teachers and Students
6. A Great Place to Find Free Images for School Projects
7. Five Time-saving Ways for Teachers to Use Technology

I'll Come You!

If you'd like me to come to your school or conference, please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com or fill out the form on this page. 

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!

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 43,000 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 Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

An October Video Project - Halloween Safety

Halloween is thirty days away. My kids have been planning their costumes since last November or so it seems because they're very excited about it. Last fall I shared a list of Halloween-themed activities and resources. In that list I included playing a Halloween safety review game from Kahoot. Keeping with the idea of Halloween safety, consider having students create a short video about trick o' treat safety. 

There are a lot of tools and ways that student could create a short video about trick o' treating safety. They could make a quick one-take video in Microsoft Flip in which they share a Halloween safety tip. Another option is to use Adobe Express to make a little audio slideshow about Halloween safety. And my favorite option would be to use Canva's video editor to make a little animated video about Halloween safety. 

A quick search for "Halloween" in Canva will provide you with templates for making Halloween-themed videos and lots of Halloween-themed animated GIFs and drawings. Here's a demonstration of how to create an animated video by using Canva's video editor. 

Applications for Education

Making Halloween safety videos could be a good way for elementary school students to show what they know about being safe on this fun day. Creating Halloween safety videos could also be a good exercise for middle school and high school students to do to practice video editing skills while creating PSA-style videos for younger kids. 

September's Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the week and on the month of September, 2022. I don't know about you, but for me the month seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. My oldest daughter started Kindergarten, I hosted a bunch of webinars, and tried to enjoy some cool autumn evenings. I hope that the first full month of the 2022-23 school year went well for you. 

As I mentioned above, I hosted a bunch of professional development webinars in September. I'd be happy to host one for your school or library. I'm also have some limited availability for in-person events this year. Please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com to learn more about those opportunities. 

At the end of every month I take a look at my Google Analytics account to find the most popular posts of the month. Take a look and see if there's something interesting that you missed in September. 

These were the month's most popular posts:
1. A Great Alternative to Quizlet
2. My Top Ten Tools for Social Studies Teachers and Students
3. Quizalize Games - Turn Any Quiz Into an Epic Game
4. A Great Place to Find Free Images for School Projects
5. Two Tips to Make Chrome Run a Little Faster
6. A Free STEM Toolkit for Librarians
7. A Short Overview of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine - And How I Use It
8. 5 Little Things You Can Do To Improve Your Videos
9. How to Create PDFs in Google Classroom
10. The Physics of Soccer Kicks

I'll Come You!

If you'd like me to come to your school or conference, please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com or fill out the form on this page. 

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!

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 43,000 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 Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

Significant Changes to Screencastify's Free Plan Take Effect on Monday

Those of us who are using Screencastify's free plan will have some choices to make on Monday when the changes that Screencastify announced back in August take effect. 

What's Changing?

Starting on Monday, October 3rd Screencastify's free plan will limit you to having just ten videos in your account at a time. Previously, you could have as many videos as you wanted in your account as long as they were each less than five minutes. The new free plan limits you to ten videos, but the videos can now be up to 30 minutes. 

You can still export your videos, but not as MP4 files in the free plan which limits what you can do with the exported video file. So if you find that you bump up against the ten video limit, you can export one or delete one to get back under that limit. But bear in mind that Screencastify is also now limiting you to 30 minutes of export time in the free plan. That's a change from the previous unlimited export time. 

Screencastify vs. Chrome OS Screencasting

Screencastify built its reputation by being one of the first companies to offer a screencasting tool for Chromebooks. Then in June of this year Google added a screencasting tool to the Chrome operating system. In doing so it appears that Google is going after some of Screencastify's market share. 

The free version Screencastify still has more editing options than the Chrome OS screencasting tool. That said, if you don't need all of those options and just need some basic editing functions, the Chrome OS screencasting tool is probably going to be your better choice now because it offers unlimited video storage (via Google Drive). 

Five Ways to Use Screencastify in Your Classroom

• Build Interactive Questions Into Your Videos
• Blur Faces and Objects in Your Videos
• Add Comments to Google Docs
• Create Common Craft-style Videos
• Record Virtual Tours

A Quick Way to Check the Safety of Links

One of the best ways to protect your computer and network from malicious software is to simply avoid opening links that appear in your email from unfamiliar senders. Additionally, you should avoid clicking on links that you weren't expecting and those that just set off your spidey senses. When you do come across a link that you think might be okay, but you're not entirely sure it is okay, you can check its safety with Google's Transparency Report Site Status tool without having to open the link your computer. 

In this short video I demonstrate how to use Google's Transparency Report Site Status tool to check the safety of URLs. 

Applications for Education
Over the years I've helped countless colleagues and students with problems on their computers. The vast majority of those problems can be traced back to malware or spyware that was installed by clicking on nefarious links. Using a tool like Google Transparency Report Site Status can help students avoid accidentally installing malware. Of course, the bigger solution is to teach students to be wary of clicking on links that they don't expect or don't trust.