by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 7, 2021 | Academic Technology
While getting caught up on my reading in Feedly this morning I came across a new comic from The Oatmeal. The comic addresses the question, “how tall can a LEGO tower get?” (It’s a copyright-protected work so you’ll have to view it on The...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 5, 2021 | Academic Technology
Science in the Classroom is a free resource for teachers from Science Magazine. On Science in the Classroom you will find research papers containing interactive annotations to help students understand the content of the papers. In the right hand margin of each paper...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 5, 2021 | Academic Technology
In last week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter I shared three good options for adding audio comments to Google Docs, Word docs, and PDFs. That prompted a couple of readers to ask me about options for annotating PDFs. I have a few recommendations for annotating...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 5, 2021 | Academic Technology
This blog post was inspired by my mother who asked me how to do this a couple of nights ago. Whether it’s a form for your HR department, permission slips for athletics, or an acceptable use agreement for a school-issued laptop, back-to-school season often...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 3, 2021 | Academic Technology
Today is World Bicycle Day! By the time most of you read this I’ll be on my way to Kansas to participate in Unbound Gravel 200, a 200 mile bike race across gravel roads around Emporia, Kansas. You don’t have to punish yourself like I am this weekend to...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 3, 2021 | Academic Technology
In May I didn’t publish as many videos on my YouTube channel as I wanted to, but still more people subscribed to the channel. There are now more than 36,000 people subscribed to get notified as soon as I publish a new video. My channel contains more than 1,000...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 2, 2021 | Academic Technology
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about new mapping tool called Mult Dev. It’s a free tool that lets you quickly create animated maps. In the time since I wrote about Mult Dev a couple of updates were made to it. The most notable of those being that you now need to...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 2, 2021 | Academic Technology
A few years ago the Library of Congress launched a crowd sourcing project called Crowd. The purpose of the project is to enlist the help of the public to transcribe thousands of primary source documents that are housed by and have been scanned by the Library of...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 2, 2021 | Academic Technology
On Monday I shared directions for moving from Google Drive to OneDrive. I did that to help people who are leaving a school district that uses Google Workspaces for one that is using Office 365. Of course, it also happens that at the end of the school year some people...
by Free Technology for Teachers | Jun 1, 2021 | Academic Technology
Regular readers of my blog probably know that I’m a big fan of Canva. I use it almost daily for making everything from YouTube thumbnails and presentations. And over the years I’ve used for making timelines, simple websites, comic strips, certificates, and...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 31, 2021 | Academic Technology
Good morning from Maine where we’re ending the month with a cold and rainy day. It’s so chilly and damp that we have the heat on! Last week it was over 90F and I was turning getting all of our air conditioners out of winter storage. Such is life in...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 31, 2021 | Academic Technology
Last week a new menu option appeared in Google Slides, Docs, and Sheets. That new menu appears just to the left of the share button in Slides, Docs, and Sheets. It’s icon resembles and upload icon, but it’s not an upload option. The new option is to...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 31, 2021 | Academic Technology
It’s that time of year when some teachers and administrators will be leaving one school district for another. For some that means leaving a district that uses Google Workspaces (formerly known as G Suite for Education) for a district that uses Office 365 and all...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 29, 2021 | Academic Technology
Earlier this week Google finally added the option to overlay text on top of images in Google Docs. Since then I’ve had a few people email me to ask for clarification about how that works. The most important “trick” of the process is to write your...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 29, 2021 | Academic Technology
Good morning from Maine where it is a damp 45F to start Memorial Day weekend. In fact, it’s going to be unseasonable cool all weekend. The cool weather won’t stop us from having fun outside. We have a full weekend planned with lots of bike riding,...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 28, 2021 | Academic Technology
As a history teacher one of my favorite yet challenging things to do was introduce my students to primary sources. It’s great because it reveals to them a whole new world of research opportunities. There’s nothing better than a student saying, “wow!...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 28, 2021 | Academic Technology
MinuteEarth is a popular YouTube channel whose videos I’ve featured a handful of times on this blog. Their short videos provide explanations of interesting science topics like why rivers curve, how some waves get so big, and why it is hot underground. A few...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 27, 2021 | Academic Technology
Dan Russell has provided the inspiration for many of the web research lessons that I have conducted with students over the years. Every week he posts an interesting search challenge for readers then provides the answers a few days later. The challenges vary in...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 27, 2021 | Academic Technology
The first session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp is just a month away. If you haven’t registered for the session of your choice, you can do so up until the day before it starts. However, there are just three days left to complete the early-bird...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 27, 2021 | Academic Technology
Earlier this week I shared five brainstorming warm-up activities and a video about how to use a new online brainstorming tool called Brainstormer. Of course, there are many tools for hosting collaborative brainstorming sessions including good, old physical sticky...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 26, 2021 | Academic Technology
Creating timelines has been a staple in history teachers’ playbooks since the beginning of history. Writing a timeline is a good way for students to chronologically summarize sequences of events and see how the events are connected. When I was a student and when...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 26, 2021 | Academic Technology
If you logged into your Google Slides today, you may have noticed a new option in the “view” drop-down menu. Where there used to be a “master” option there is now a “theme builder” option. This change is purely cosmetic because...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 26, 2021 | Academic Technology
Yesterday morning I published a blog post and video about a new online brainstorming tool called Brainstormer. Writing that post reminded me of a set of brainstorming warm-up activities designed by Ethos3. Ethos3 is a presentation design company that has worked with...
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 25, 2021 | Academic Technology
Brainstormer was my featured “cool share” during last week’s episode of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff. I chose to feature it for two reasons. First, it doesn’t require any kind of registration in order to use it....
by Free Technology for Teachers | May 25, 2021 | Academic Technology
Last week at the end of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff I briefly mentioned a site called CodePen that I’ve been using with my students for the last couple of weeks. CodePen is a site on which students can create web apps or modify...
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