Fresh Takes 4 Teachers
EconEdLink’s Most Popular Economics Games of the Year
Over the years I’ve referenced hundreds of EconEdLink’s resources for teachers. That’s because EconEdLink is a great resource for any teacher who needs ideas, lesson
Where Is That Summer Paycheck Going?
Summer is near and for many high school students that means it’s time to start working at summer jobs. For many students the first real
The Most Popular Posts in May
Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on the month of May. I know that many of you are now on summer vacation.
How to Enable Collaboration on a YouTube Channel
This is the time of year of end-of-year celebrations captured on video. If you have multiple people in your school recording videos to share with
Five Good Resources for Teaching and Learning About Copyright
In no particular order, here are some of my go-to resources for helping students and teachers understand the importance and the key concepts of copyright
How to Add Timestamps to Your YouTube Videos
When you’re publishing videos that are longer than five or six minutes on your YouTube channel it can be helpful to viewers to add some
The Effects of Talking to Yourself
I spend a good deal of time talking to myself. I often do this while riding my bike. Sometimes I do it to motivate myself
A Class for Teachers Who Want to Make More Money
My most popular Practical Ed Tech course this year is How to Create and Sell Your Digital Products in 2023. Now that summer is here (in
57 Google Earth & Maps Tutorials for Teachers and Students
Upon the publication of my latest video about how to add Google Drive videos to Google Earth Pro my playlist of tutorials on using Google
New Microsoft Word Features to Note
Good, old Microsoft Word has come a long way since the days that I used it on a computer lab desktop as an undergrad. Now
Fishing, Takeout, and PD – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining. It’s going to be a great weekend for fishing and riding bikes. My daughters are quite
All About Mars
Earlier this week SciShow Kids published a new video titled Meet the Mars Rovers! The short video explains to elementary school students what a Mars
How to Create Around the World With Google Earth Tours
The Amazing Race is the only reality game show that I’ve watched with interest for as long as it has been on television. Years ago
4,000+ Pages of Walt Whitman’s Papers
This week the Library of Congress announced the addition of more than 4,000 new primary source documents to the By the People website. Those primary sources are all letters,
An eBook for History Teachers and Their Students
Earlier this spring I listed the educational technology topics that I’m still passionate about after all these years. One of those topics is search strategies
How to Add Google Drive Videos to Google Earth Pro Placemarks
Last week a reader emailed me to ask for help inserting videos into placemarks in Google Earth Pro. His students had recorded videos and saved
Ten Ways to Use Adobe Express in School
I’ve made a handful of videos about using Adobe Express in your classroom. Those videos include making videos with Adobe Express and making custom QR
Short Video Lessons About Memorial Day
Next Monday is Memorial Day. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help
A Good Way for Students to Visually Compare the Sizes of Countries and States
My students here in Maine always think of our state as being a big place and it is big in relation to the rest of
Search Options When Your District Blocks Google Search
Late last week I got the following email from a reader: Recently our district blocked Google Search. My teachers are frantic as to what
225 NASA Infographics
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory website contains a large library of infographics that you can download and print for free. The library contains infographics about spacecraft,
Digital Collections of 20th Century World History Declassified
The Wilson Center Digital Archive offers many collections of declassified historical documents. The documents contain memos and transcripts of communications between diplomats and country leaders. The collections
Play Your Dates Right – A History Timeline Game
ClassTools.net has many great online game templates for history teachers to use. Play Your Dates Right is one of the templates that I like to
Bard, Search, and Gardens – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising as I sip my coffee and listen to the birds begin to chirp. The benefit of
Moving Google Drive Files and Chrome Bookmarks
In an earlier post I explained and demonstrated how to use Google Takeout to save all of the data from your Google account. If you
A Better Way to do Summer PD
Picture this: the sun is shining, you’re wearing your favorite summer casual clothes (an old Phish t-shirt in my case), but you’re going to miss
How to Use Google Takeout 2023
It’s that time of year when I start to get lots of questions from readers about what to do with files in their Google Workspace
Breaking News With ClassTools
Breaking News is one of the many great tools available on Russel Tarr’s ClassTools.net. Breaking News is a template for creating fake breaking news screens like
Create Animated Timelines in Google Slides
One of my most popular Google Slides tutorials is a video about how to use Google Slides to create a timeline. A follow-up to that video
Create Animated Simulations With Loopy
Loopy is a free tool for creating your own animated simulations or illustrations of a concept. This free animation tool is designed to showing relationships
Chrome Tip – Quickly Hide or Show Bookmarks
In a webinar I recently hosted I incidentally showed a quick way to show or hide the bookmarks bar in Chrome. The webinar was not
A World of Musical Explorers
I wrote about this neat resource a couple of years ago. A recent post on the Maps Mania blog prompted me to revisit it. Carnegie
A New Google Bard Feature
Bard is Google’s alternative to ChatGPT. If you haven’t tried it yet, watch this video that I made in March and then give it a
Scholar, Books, Datasets, and More – Google Search Tools Students Overlook
In last week’s episode of Two EdTech Guys Take Questions Rushton and I answered a question about alternatives to using Google search. What we failed
How to Add Excel to Your Mac
After a decade of using Windows as my primary operating system, I recently switched back to using a MacBook Air as my primary computer. Making
Bugs, Brass, and Gardens – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining as I sip my second cup of coffee of the day. Yes, at 5:07am I’m drinking
This is Why We Make Irrational Decisions
The Psychology Behind Irrational Decisions is the title of a TED-Ed lesson that I needed to rewatch this morning. The lesson focuses on the role
Here’s How Hard It Is To Get Sites to Stop Stealing My Work and for Namecheap to Stop Hosting It
Today, I will probably get nothing done because I have to spend hours getting the website DoMyPaper.club to stop stealing my work. I’ve sent multiple
The Science of Gardening
Every year we plant a small vegetable garden in our backyard. Some years it does better than others. There was a year when it seemed
Three Self-paced Courses You Can Take Now or This Summer
It has started to feel like summer is right around the corner here in Maine. Twice this week I’ve sat outside on our picnic table
Alternative Search Engines Discussed by Two EdTech Guys
Yesterday afternoon Ruston Hurley and I got together to record another installment of our Two EdTech Guys Take Questions series. In the episode we answered
How to Add Voice Notes to Pictures in Google Keep
Google Keep is the app that I probably use more than any other on my Pixel 5. It’s an app that does everything I need to
How to Create Custom Route Maps in Google My Maps
In a few weeks I’m participating in a global bicycling challenge that asks participants to complete 100 miles of biking on one Saturday. I’m going
Here’s How to Blend Images in Google Slides
The image that you see to above was used in a blog post that I wrote years ago. It recently surfaced again when I was
How Sound Is Created Through Brass Instruments
Music is my oldest daughter’s favorite special class at her elementary school. The other day when I picked her up from school we talked about
Seven Simple Steps for Creating Videos In Your Classroom
On page 76 of Invent To Learn Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez write, “The movie can be done without a storyboard or script, the 3D object
A Fun Augmented Reality App for Spelling Practice
My daughters really enjoy the PBS Kids show called Word World. In each episode of the show the characters build a new word. As I
Six Interesting Things You Can Add to Google Sites
Last week I shared a playlist of Google Sites tutorials that I’ve made over the last few years. Some of those tutorials focus on the
Slideshows, Maps, and Other Things – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining! We had exactly two hours of sunshine all week (that’s when I took the picture in
A Geography Lesson About Strange Borders
Belgian Farmer Accidentally Moves French Border is a fun little story and geography lesson in one. It’s almost exactly what the title says. A farmer moved
Fun With Augmented Reality in Search
Thanks to where I live and the amount of time that I’ve spent hiking, camping, fly fishing I have slightly more experience seeing wildlife like
Three Online Courses You Can Start Today
As the school year starts to wind-down you might find yourself looking for some new project ideas to keep your kids (perhaps yourself) interested and
Blurring Faces and Two Dozen Other YouTube Tips for Teachers
Earlier this week I took a few hours off from work to go see a play at my daughter’s elementary school. Doing that reminded me
How to Customize Page Headers in Google Sites
Yesterday morning I answered an email from a reader who was looking for advice on how to make the page titles stand-out on her Google
25 Gmail Tips for Teachers
If answering email takes up way more time in your day than you would like it to, take a look at my playlist of 25
If You Have a YouTube Channel, Watch Out for This Email Scam
Last fall I wrote about and made a short video about a phishing scam in which the sender pretends to be from YouTube support. Yesterday,
48 Digital Mapping Tutorials
Even though I write a lot about Google Earth and Google Maps, there is more to digital mapping than just using those tools. In fact,
DOGOnews and Free Comic Book Day
DOGOnews is a student news site offers features articles for K-8 students. DOGOnews covers current events stories in the areas of science, sports, entertainment, and variety
71 Google Slides Tutorials for Teachers and Students
Over the last decade I’m made more than eighty Google Slides video tutorials. Some of them are a bit outdated now, the rest are still
Join Me for a Search Strategies Webinar Tomorrow
Do you teach middle school or high school social studies classes? Have you ever had a student say to you, “Google has nothing on this”
23 Other Things I Wrote in April
In addition to publishing here on Free Technology for Teachers, I also publish on two other sites that I maintain. Take a look at the
66 Canva Tutorials for Teachers
Other than Google Workspace tools, Canva is the tool that I’ve published the most tutorials about on my YouTube channel. In fact, with the publication of my latest Canva
Rain, Maps, and Slideshows – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the clouds have returned after yesterday’s reprieve from what feels like a month of rain. It’s a great morning for
47 Google Forms Tutorials
In a video that I published earlier this year I mentioned that the vast majority of my videos don’t get more than a few hundred views.
Search Tools Your Students (And You?) Are Probably Overlooking
AI search tools like ChatGPT infused into Bing and Google’s Bard are getting a lot of attention right now. But when it’s time to search
Three Self-paced Courses You Can Start This Weekend
Spring in Maine means a lot of cold and wet weather. We have a bit of a reprieve today, but tomorrow we’re back to cool
More “Color Our Collections” Collections
Back in December I shared the Smithsonian Learning Lab’s Color Our Collections collection. That’s a collection of coloring pages based on portraits in the National
Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions Again
Yesterday, Rushton Hurley and I recorded the latest installment of our Two EdTech Guys Take Questions series. In the episode we answered questions about introductions
GE Teach – Make Side-by-Side Map Comparisons in One Browser Tab
GE Teach is a great map tool that is developed and maintained by a high school teacher in Texas named Josh Williams. GE Teach has gone
A Round-up of 15 AI Resources Created Without Using AI
For the last four months anything that I’ve published about AI (artificial intelligence) has vaulted to the top of the list of the most popular
Five Good Collections of Historic Maps for Classroom Use
Last week I wrote a blog post featuring the newly published historic map collection hosted by the Internet Archive. That collection, the David Rumsey Historical
Search Strategies Webinar Next Tuesday
Do you teach middle school or high school social studies classes? Have you ever had a student say to you, “Google has nothing on this”
Ten Google Earth and Maps Activities for Math Lessons
Last week I shared directions for measuring perimeter and area in Google Earth. Doing that is one of many ways to incorporate Google Earth into
Seven Google Scholar Features You Should Know How to Use
In this week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter I made the case for using Google Scholar as part of your research process. In the newsletter I
Forms, Citations, and Maps – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where an overcast and relatively warm day awaits. I’ve put away our skis for the season. We’re in biking mode now.
New eBook – Teaching Search Strategies to History Students
Earlier this week I listed the educational technology topics that I’m still passionate about after all these years. One of those topics is search strategies
How to Create a Podcast With Spotify for Podcasters
Even though it was acquired by Spotify a few years ago, Anchor.fm remained it’s own platform until March of this year. Back in March Anchor
Four Easy Ways to Make End-of-Year Slideshow Videos
Even though the cold and rainy weather we’re experiencing here in Maine makes it feel like summer is a long way off, it’s not. I
Reminder: Take Out the Trash
About a month ago I got a new MacBook Air. It has been about a decade since I last used a Mac as my primary
How to Measure Perimeter and Area in Google Earth
As I mentioned in this week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter, Google Earth and digital mapping is an area of ed tech that I still get
How to Add Collaborators to Google Calendar
As I’m sure many of you do, I often play the role of “tech support person” for friends and family. That was the case a
How to Impose Time Limits on Google Forms – And 46 Other Tutorials
Over the weekend a reader reached out to me for help with Google Forms. Specifically, he wanted to know how to impose a time limit
Create Historic Map Overlays With These Free Tools
Yesterday morning I shared a collection of more than 100,000 historic maps for classroom use. In that post I mentioned using those maps to create
MLA and APA Provide Guidance for Citing Content Created by AI
It’s a bit of an understatement to say that the rapid growth of AI-powered writing and drawing tools is raising many questions for teachers and
More Than 100,000 Historic Maps for Classroom Use
Credit: David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries. Source 1. Source 2. In this week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I mentioned that
Five Things You Can Teach Through Geocaching
Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar about
Birds, Turtles, and Bikes – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where spring has finally sprung! All week the weather has been fantastic and today is forecasted to be another gorgeous spring
Resources for Teaching and Learning About Earth Day 2023
Next Saturday is Earth Day 2023. Here’s a handful of resources to consider using if you find yourself looking for some resources to help your
How to Find Image Metadata and More
A couple of years ago I published a video and blog post about how to find image metadata. Since then the tool that I featured
Webinar – Blending Technology Into Outdoor Learning
The last two days have been the first truly warm and sunny spring days of the year here in western Maine. While playing with our
Three Helpful Google Sites Updates
Earlier this year I published 29 Google Sites tutorials. I’ll soon need to add a 30th tutorial to that list because this week Google released
Don’t Miss This Webinar! – Coding in the Age of AI
On Wednesday I passed along a great resource that Gary Stager shared with me. Today, I have another announcement from Gary that you should note
This AI Tool Generates Reading Comprehension Questions for Any Article
QuestionWell is a new AI tool that will generate reading comprehension and guiding questions for just about any article that you specify. Questions created by
Get a Free Turtle Art Tiles Project Guide
Pratyeka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Many moons ago when I was in elementary school, using Logo Writer on an Apple IIe was my introduction
Lesson Plans and Videos About Patriots’ Day and the American Revolution
As I wrote in my previous post, there are two things that I write about at this time every year. One of those is income
Good Resources for Teaching and Learning About Income Taxes
There are two things that I always write about at this time of year. One of those is Patriots’ Day and the American Revolution. The
Free Webinar – Using Rockets to Investigate Forces and Motion
The Smithsonian Learning Lab hosts a regular series of free professional development webinars for teachers. The next one is titled Using Rockets to Investigate Forces
Rest, Search, and Finance – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining on an early spring day. I spent most of the week either sick in bed, sick
Propello – A New Science Teaching and Learning Platform
Propello is a new service that offers a free and customizable science learning platform. Propello provides teachers with core science curriculum that is recommended for