Fresh Takes 4 Teachers
A Solution to Zoom “Not Responding” on Windows 10
On Friday morning I started having problems with every Zoom meeting that I tried to launch or join on my Windows 10 computer resulting in
How to Collect and Organize Images in Google Classroom
A friend of mine who teaches phys ed had the idea to have his students submit pictures as evidence of doing phys ed activities at
WriteReader Templates Can Help Students Start the Writing Process
WriteReader is a great tool for creating multimedia stories that I’ve featured a half dozen times or more over the years. The last time I
Two Collections of Hands-on Science Lessons Students Can Do At Home
Online lessons and virtual meetings with students and parents can be good, but at a certain point students are going to want to do more
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where school is closed until April 27th and I’m practicing social distancing. On a brighter note, the sun is shining and
Live Weather Lessons for Kids Hosted by a Meteorologist
Mallory Brooke is a meteorologist who lives in and is an active part of my local community. In addition to giving weather forecasts on a
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 39 – We’re All Online
In this week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I share some new resources for teaching online, some upcoming free PD opportunities, and some
Free Online Live & Recorded AP US, AP World, and AP Government Classes
Tom Richey is a name that is probably familiar to history teachers who have followed my blog over the years. Tom is a AP US,
Three Ways to Share Docs in Google Classroom – When to Use Each
As you might guess, I’m getting flooded with requests for help with all kinds of things related to online teaching and learning. I’m doing my
Reminder – Free Webinar About Online Learning Activities – Today at 1pm ET
As mentioned earlier this week, at 1pm ET today Rushton Hurley (founder of Next Vista and all around great guy) is hosting a free webinar
5 Google Classroom Tips for Teachers – Things You Might Have Overlooked or Forgotten
Like I’m sure many of you are, I’m getting lots of requests from colleagues and readers for help with Google Classroom. I have a bunch
Create a Simple Website With Canva and Use It as a Digital Portfolio
Canva has been my graphic design tool of choice for the last five years. Lately, I’ve been using it to create slideshow presentations and videos
Why I Make Video Tutorials
Yesterday afternoon someone wrote on my Facebook page that she was going to stop following the page because I had too many videos and not
How to Create Contact Groups in Gmail
Yesterday I shared the time-saving tip of scheduling emails in Gmail. Today, I have another time-saving Gmail tip. Creating a contact group or a contact
How to Create Annotated Screen Capture Images
This morning I got an email from a reader who was looking for a screen capture tool that included tools for drawing straight lines, arrows,
Free Historical Coloring Pages
If you’re looking for an offline activity that you can recommend to parents for their students to do at home, take a look at the
Three More Free Webinars About Online Learning
Last week Rushton Hurley hosted three webinars about transitioning to online teaching and learning. Those webinars addressed a lot of questions about planning. You can
Create a Consistent Communication Schedule by Using Gmail’s Scheduling Feature – Here’s How To Use It
In my webinar about quickly transitioning to teaching online (recording available here) I mentioned that I would using the scheduling feature in Gmail to send
Webinar Recording – Three Things We Can Do To Quickly Transition to Teaching Online
Last night I hosted a free webinar in which I shared what I’m doing to transition to quickly transition to teaching my high school classes
The Cincinnati Zoo Launches Daily Virtual Zoo Visits
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is closed to the public right now and thousands (millions?) of kids are home from school right now too.
How to Create Video Lessons Without Making Your Own Recordings
In the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I mentioned that EDpuzzle recently updated their user interface and that I was going to make
How to Schedule and Host Google Hangouts Meet Events – Video
Last week I published a series of screenshots illustrating how to schedule and host Google Hangouts Meet events. For those who would like to see
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where the wind is howling outside. Spring seems to be coming a little early this year as almost all of the
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 37 – More Online Teaching
More schools are closing every day, my superintendent told us to make two week’s worth of online lesson plans, and school sports in Maine have
MonkeyLearn – A Neat Word Cloud Generator
MonkeyLearn is a new tool for creating word clouds from text that you supply. As you can see in my video that is embedded below,
Reminder – Free Webinar on Remote Learning – Today at 1pm ET
There are tons of free webinars about remote learning that have been offered in the last week and are scheduled for the coming days. Many
Cisco Makes Webex Free and Publishes Guides for Teachers and Students
In amongst a wave of email related to COVID-19 I found a message from my local Cisco contact (my school licenses their NetAcad program) that
Slido for PowerPoint – Create and Run Polls Within Your Presentation
Slido for Google Slides was one of my favorite new tools in 2019. That’s why I’m excited that it’s now available for PowerPoint and Zoom
Save and Use Multiple Signatures in Gmail
Google has introduced a new Gmail feature that could be helpful to anyone who has ever struggled with choosing what to put in his or
Now You Can Fix Images in Google Docs
Google Docs has offered handy image editing tools for years. But until this week Google Docs hasn’t offered a good way to fix images in
Teamimg – Collaborate to Make Interactive Images
Teamimg is a free tool that is a bit like Thinglink and Classtools’ Image Annotator without the hyperlinks. Teamimg lets you upload an image and share
How to Use Watch2Gether to Host Live Online Discussion About Shared Videos
As I wrote on Saturday, Watch2gether is a nice tool to use to have students share observations, ask questions, and answer questions while watching video
Three Free Webinars About Transitioning to Teaching Online
In my previous post I mentioned Rushton Hurley’s Emergencies and Switching to Online Learning. Later this week Rushton is going to host three free webinars
Two More Guides to Transitioning to Online Instruction
Last week and again this morning I published my top tips and tools for teaching remotely if your school closes due to COVID-19 outbreak. And
5 Topics for Student Podcasts
Podcasting can be a great way to get students to record their own thoughts and to record conversations with other people like classmates or community
How to Host an Online Meeting With Zoom
In my recent post titled Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely I mentioned using Zoom to host online classes if Google Hangouts Meet or Microsoft Teams
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast Episode 36 – Teaching Online and More
This episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast is a bit longer than the usual weekly episodes. The first ten minutes of this episode is
Watch2Gether – Host Live Online Discussion About Shared Videos
Watch2Gether is a service for sharing videos that I’ve used off and on since 2011. When I first started using it you could share YouTube
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where I’m up before the sun to get a little work done before starting a day of play with my kids
Classroom Podcasting 101
Podcasting is more popular than ever and growing every day. If you have thought about trying to make a podcast of your own, join me
Ugh! It’s Time to Spring Forward – Here’s Why We Do It
As I Tweeted earlier today, it’s a deflating feeling when you realize that you have to move your clocks forward this weekend. That’s especially true
Sweet Lessons on the Making of Maple Syrup
This week we had a couple of relatively warm days here in Maine. In fact it was so warm (40F) that I rode my bike
How to Schedule, Host, and Customize Google Hangouts Meet Events
Last night I published Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely. This morning I had an email from someone who read that and wanted to know
Tips and Tools for Teaching Remotely
Over the last week I’ve received a bunch of emails and Tweets from people looking for my suggestions on tools and tactics for teaching online
Unscreen – Remove and Replace Video Backgrounds With Just a Click
In the last few months I’ve shared a some good tools for quickly removing the background from images. I even made a video about how
How to Measure, Share, and Download 3D Models from the Smithsonian
Last week the Smithsonian launched a new collection of nearly three million digital artifacts that you can download and reuse for free. I published a
Gribrouillon – Freehand Drawing on Online Maps
For many years I’ve recommended Scribble Maps as a no-account-required alternative to Google’s My Maps. Scribble Maps lets create freehand drawings on digital maps. Today,
Quillionz – Quiz and Discussion Questions Automatically Generated from Documents
Quillionz is a neat service that uses AI to automatically generate questions from documents that you provide. Enter a block of text of at least
An Easy Way to Create Your Own Online Jigsaw Puzzles
Jigsaw Explorer is a free site that hosts tons of online jigsaw puzzles. It also offers a free tool for creating your own online jigsaw
The Tower of Epiphany – A New “Think Like a Coder” Lesson
A month ago I wrote about how much my freshmen computer science students are enjoying TED-Ed’s Think Like a Coder series. The latest installment in
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where I’m up before most reasonable are awake on a weekend. Getting a few minutes alone to think and write requires
How to Search the Smithsonian’s Open Access Collection
Earlier this week the Smithsonian launched a new open access collection. Smithsonian Open Access contains more than 2.8 million digital artifacts that you can view
How to Use Mixkit to Find Free Audio and Video Clips for Your Projects
Mixkit is a good place to find free video clips and audio clips to use in your multimedia projects. I wrote about it earlier this
Join Me This Summer for Two Days of Hands-on PD
The days are getting longer and even though we had a snow day yesterday, today is a beautiful day here in Maine. Before we know
Google Earth Now Works in Firefox, Edge, & Opera!
I shared this news in my podcast earlier today, but just in case my podcast isn’t the first thing you listen to in the morning,
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 35 – Snow Day!
School was cancelled yesterday (our 98th snow day, or so it felt) so I recorded my weekly installment of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast a
Three Good Ways to Create Rubrics – Tutorials Included
In my previous post I highlighted the University of Wisconsin Stout’s collection of rubrics for multimedia projects. At the end of that post I mentioned
Rubrics for Videos, Podcasts, Blogs, and More
Over the years I’ve referenced the University of Wisconsin Stout’s collection of rubrics for multimedia projects. It has been a few years since I last
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 34 Featuring Dr. La’Tonya Rease Miles
This evening I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. La’Tonya Rease Miles and recording our conversation for The Practical Ed Tech Podcast. LT Rease
The Google Keep Chrome Extension is Back!
Last week the Google Keep Chrome extension stopped working. After five days of no responses from Google on the support page for the extension, the
Join the Student Blogging Challenge in March
Every year Edublogs hosts a couple of student blogging challenges. The next one begins on March 15th. The challenge is open to all K-12 classrooms.
Mixkit – Hundreds of Free Music and Video Clips for Multimedia Presentations
Mixkit is a website that offers hundreds of free music files and videos that you can download to use in your multimedia projects. The licensing
Ten Fun and Challenging Geography Games for Students of All Ages
Over the years I’ve tried dozens of online geography games for students of all ages. Many have come and gone over the years but the
How to Quickly Turn a Blog Post Into a Video
Last week I published 5 Ways to Create Social Videos. In that post I included a neat tool called Lumen5 that can be used to
Oshi – File Sharing With an Expiration Date
Oshi is a free file sharing service that doesn’t require you to create an account in order to host and share small files. What makes
How to Quickly Turn a Podcast Into a Video
Earlier this month I shared Headliner as an alternative to using Adobe Spark to make videos. One of the features of Headliner that I didn’t
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising and it’s a balmy 10F outside. This is the last weekend of my school vacation week
Four Videos Explaining Leap Year
This year is a Leap Year and Leap Day is just a week away. Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo I recently learned about this new video
It’s Not Just You – The Google Keep Chrome Extension is Broken – Update! It’s Back!
Google Keep is a great tool that can be used for all kinds of things including setting reminders, taking notes, and bookmarking websites. The Google
How to Annotate Videos With Timelinely
Timelinely is a free service for adding annotations to YouTube videos. You can use Timelinely to add text, image, and video annotations to any public
GoSoapBox – Quickly Poll Your Class
GoSoapBox is a student response system that I’ve used off and on over the years. It offers a few ways to conduct online polls for
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 33 – Larry Bird
In this week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I’m back from the flu and from a short vacation. Highlights of this episode include
Volcanoes 101 – Updated
A few years ago National Geographic published a video titled Volcanoes 101. Last month they published a new video with the same name. The new
5 Ways to Create Social Videos
Yesterday, I wrote about a new video creation tool called InVideo. InVideo is one of many tools to emerge in the last couple years that
Quickly Turn Articles Into Videos With InVideo
This morning I was browsing Product Hunt when I saw a new product that was promoting itself as a way to create “insanely good social
Convert PDF to Word and More
I don’t get nearly as many requests for help with file conversion as I did 5-10 years ago, but I still do get them from
5 Google Slides Features New Users Should Know – Updated
One of the things that I’ve been reminded of a few times in the last month is to revisit the basics even if you’re working
Write Faster With These Two New Google Docs Features
Two new Google Docs features are rolling out to all G Suite users beginning today. Today, Google announced the addition of Smart Compose in Google
The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 32 – Back from the Flu
Last week I had the flu and lost my voice so I wasn’t able to record the Practical Ed Tech Podcast. But after a week
Animate Anything With Cloud Stop Motion
Cloud Stop Motion by ZU3D is a new stop motion animation tool that I recently learned about from Danny Nicholson’s The Whiteboard Blog. Cloud Stop
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where it is a crisp -9F! Unfortunately, the forecast indicates that it’s not going to get much warmer than 0F and
DNS & IP Explained
One of the things that quickly became clear when I started teaching an introduction to computer science course for high school freshmen was that while
Local vs. Online Documents
I’ve been a Google Docs user longer than most middle schoolers have been alive. I don’t need convincing that online documents are great. But not
How to Get Reminders Based On Your Location
Without using reminders in Google Keep, I’d forget half of the things that I’m told asked to do every day. I use time-based reminders and
Kissing, Love, and Math – Three Valentine’s Day Lessons
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. It is also day of the Winter Carnival Dance at my school. In short, love and hormones will be flying all
Fifteen Digital Citizenship Resources for K-12
As it is Safer Internet Day it’s a good time share the following excerpt from my free Practical Ed Tech Handbook. Common Sense Education (often
A Few Good Reminders for Safer Internet Day
Today is Safer Internet Day. As Google is reminding people when who visit Google.com today, it’s a good day to perform a little check-up on
Headliner – A Good Alternative to Adobe Spark Video
In the last episode of the Practical Ed Tech Podcast I answered the following question from a reader, “I was wondering if I may ask
Three Easy Steps to Encourage Technology Integration
This afternoon I hosted a short webinar titled Three Easy Steps to Encourage Technology Integration. I recorded the webinar for those who couldn’t attend the
The Electoral College Explained by Common Craft
We still have a long way to go in the party primary and caucuses before the Democratic nominee for President will be chosen. And then
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from cold and dreary Maine. It seems like forever since we’ve seen the sun. To add insult to injury what was supposed to
Do Politics Make Us Irrational? – A TED-Ed Lesson
As the 2020 Presidential primaries and caucuses roll on more there is no avoiding political advertising unless you shut off your television, your radio, and
Four Tips for Facilitating Classroom Arduino Projects
This year I have been doing a lot of Arduino projects with students in my Intro to Computer Science Principles course. Some of the projects
ClassDojo Adds an Events Feature
This week ClassDojo introduced a new feature that, according to Twitter responses, seems to be exciting for many teachers who use ClassDojo. The new feature
10 Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp
Snow and sleet is falling here in Maine, I’m on the second day of a brutal chest cold, and 25% of my students were absent
Adobe Spark Adds a New Way to Manage Your Projects
Last year Adobe finally added a collaboration option to Adobe Spark. That enabled students to remotely work together on video projects and graphic design projects.
Google Publishes 15 Favorite Street View Images
Google Maps turned 15 today. To celebrate, Paddy Flynn (Vice President of Geo Data Operations at Google), published Street View’s 15 Favorite Street Views. Notably,
Short Lessons on Colds and Flu
Well it’s that time of year when classrooms aren’t full because kids have a cold or the flu. 25% of my students were out today.
Two Ways to Create Your Own Online Memory Games
Last week I was asked if it’s possible to use the MIT App Inventor to create a matching game. It certainly is. In fact, I