Fresh Tech for Teachers
Clarifying Canva
Last week I received an email from a reader who had seen my video about how to use Canva. She had questions about copyright regarding
Two Options for Collecting Students’ Questions to Appear on Review Games
Earlier this week I received the following email from a reader, My desire is to create a database of questions in multiple choice, short answer
These Tools Help Students Compare the Sizes of States & Countries
I’m in Scottsbluff, Nebraska this morning. On Friday I drove from Denver to Cheyenne to Scottsbluff. Making that drive reminds me that Maine is quite
Three G Suite Updates You Might Have Missed This Week
The tools within G Suite for Education are constantly evolving. Sometimes it feels like the updates come in waves like they did this week. These
How to Create Multimedia Timelines on HSTRY.co
HSTRY is a multimedia timeline creation tool that I’ve been a fan of since it launched a couple of years ago. One of the features
11 Video Tutorials About Creating Multimedia Maps
Next week is Geography Awareness Week. That is a great time to have your students create their own multimedia maps. Yesterday, I shared five map
Storyboard That Offers 5 Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
American Thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks away. Many of us are looking for Thanksgiving-related lesson ideas. If you’re looking for some elementary school
A Few Tips on Using Tables in Google Docs & Slides
Sometimes a table is the best way to represent data or to show differences between two or more things. Google Documents and Google Slides make
5 Map Creation Activities for Geography Awareness Week
Next week is Geography Awareness Week. As a social studies teacher I think every week should be Geography Awareness Week, but I digress. Looking at
Twitter Bingo – A Fun Way to Introduce Twitter to Teachers
I spent yesterday working with teachers in Canton, Connecticut. A Twitter Bingo board was one of the first things that I noticed when I walked
Jumble Mode Is a New Way to Play Kahoot Games
Earlier today while creating a chart to compare features of popular quiz game tools I noticed that Kahoot has a new formatting option called Jumble
Six Tools for Creating Classroom Quiz Games – A Comparison Chart
Twice in the last week I have given presentations about tools for creating fun formative assessment activities. The most popular part of that presentation is
Try Quizalize to Run a “Quiz Night” for Students & Parents
Last week in Atlanta a teacher asked me about the possibility of running a “Kahoot night” in which her students and their parents would play
Resources for Teaching About Veterans Day
This coming Friday is Veterans Day and schools across the US will be closed. Try one or more of the following resources to help students
Protect Student Privacy With Face Blurring In YouTube
In the last week I have given a couple of presentations about creating and editing videos in the classroom. In both presentations I shared how
How to Create MadLibs Story Starters in Google Sheets
Last week I wrote about Flippity’s free template for creating MadLibs story starters in Google Sheets. I have received a handful of questions about how
A Lesson on the First U.S. Presidential Election
In my previous post I shared a video from Keith Hughes in which he explains the origins of the Electoral College. It’s a great explanation
5 Videos to Help Students Understand the Electoral College
A new President of the United States will be chosen tomorrow, kind of. The popular vote which in most states determines how the electors in
New Online Course – Getting Going With G Suite
I wasn’t planning to offer a new section of my course on G Suite for Education until January, but I’ve had a lot of requests
Make Beliefs Comix Offers a Free Book of Bilingual Writing Prompts
Make Beliefs Comix is a free web and iOS app that offers a huge collection of comic templates for students. One of the features that
OurStickys – Place Sticky Notes on Webpages
A couple of weeks ago I shared a video about how to add sticky notes to just about any webpage. In that video I used
200,000 Free National Parks Images
The Open Parks Network is a collaborative project created by Clemson University and the U.S. National Parks service. The Open Parks Network provides visitors with
An Easy Way to Find Google Earth Tours
In my presentation To Geography & Beyond With Google Maps & Earth I always share some tips on how to locate Google Earth tours. One
A Handful of Lessons on the Water Cycle
SciShow Kids is quickly becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels for educational videos for kids. The most recent video released on SciShow Kids is
The Week in Review – Hot and Cold
Good morning from Maine where there is a light coat of snow on the ground with more snow in the forecast for this afternoon. I
A Clear Explanation of Gamification
Gamification is one of the trendy words in education right now. In most education conference programs I find at least a couple of workshops or
How to Find Google Docs Published by Others
Earlier this week in my post about finding rubrics to use in JoeZoo Express I mentioned the idea of performing a Google search to find
All of my #GaETC16 Slides
This week I had the privilege to give six presentations at GaETC16 in Atlanta. Earlier today I shared my slides from the Best of the
Best of the Web – Fall 2016 Edition
On Wednesday afternoon at GaETC16 I gave the latest version of my popular Best of the Web presentation. The room filled to capacity almost 20
Create MadLibs Through Google Sheets
Flippity is my favorite place to find templates for creating neat things in Google Sheets. A MadLibs story generator is one of the cool templates
3 Short Lessons About Daylight Saving Time
Where I live there are two clear reminders that winter is coming soon. First, we’ve had a little bit of snow twice in the last
A Schedule of Twitter Chats
Participating in a Twitter chat or simply following a specific hashtag can be a good way to connect with other educators for a great exchange
Avalon Project + Google Docs = Guided Introduction to Primary Sources
Last night in the #SSChat on Twitter I shared one of my go-to methods for introducing students to reading and analyzing primary source documents. That
Student Stories – ClassDojo Portfolios on Chromebooks, Desktops, and Mobile Devices
A few months ago ClassDojo introduced a new portfolio feature called Student Stories. At the time of its launch Student Stories was only available to
The Month in Review – October’s Most Popular Posts
Good evening from Maine where I’m getting ready to fly to the Georgia Educational Technology Conference tomorrow. I’ll be speaking there on Wednesday and Thursday.
How to Share Rubrics in JoeZoo
Earlier today I received an email from a reader who was following up on my recent post about JoeZoo Express. She was asking if it
A Thorough Video Overview of the French Revolution
In my previous post I shared the new TED-Ed lesson about the French Revolution. That video lesson is fine as an introduction in a middle
A Short Introduction to the French Revolution
What Caused the French Revolution? is the title and topic of a new TED-Ed lesson. Like most TED-Ed lessons, the video provides a brief overview
Projeqt – Create Dynamic Presentations
Projeqt is a presentation tool in which you can mix content from the web with your own content to create visual stories about your favorite things.
Literature Map Helps You Find Authors You’ll Like
Finding books that kids will like can be a difficult task. Literature Map is a tool that might make that process easier. Literature Map provides a web of authors
5 Tools Students Can Use to Create Music Online
Online music creation tools can be used by students to make music to use in projects like podcasts and videos. Students can also use online
Canva Can Help You Increase Your School’s Social Media Reach
One of the things that I always talk about in my workshop on Blog & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is using high resolution graphics
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good evening from Maine where I spent most of the rainy day reading to my daughter and playing with my dogs. It was a great
#TeacherDebate – A Live Lesson About the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Next week on Tuesday night Keith Hughes, Tom Richey, and Nicholas Ferroni will be conducting a mock Presidential debate on Google Hangouts. Keith will represent
How JoeZoo Express Can Save You Tons of Time Grading in Google Documents
JoeZoo Express is a Google Documents Add-on that I have been raving about since I first tried it earlier this year. The JoeZoo Express Add-on
Three Good Tools for Collaboratively Creating Multimedia Books
Collaborating to create multimedia books can be a good way to get students excited about writing stories. Students can collaborate with each other and or
Nearly 19,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way
The reason that I read more often than any other for people unsubscribing from Free Technology for Teachers is “too many updates.” That’s why over
How to Add Sticky Notes To Webpages
Note Anywhere is a Chrome extension that lets you add a sticky note to just about any webpage that you have open in your browser.
OpenEd Helps You Find Resources to Share In Your LMS
OpenEd (formerly known as OpenEd.io) offers a huge index of educational games, videos, practice assessments, tutorials, and more. One of the strengths of OpenEd is
One More Halloween-themed Lesson – 4 Fun Facts About Ravens
A couple of weeks ago I shared four Halloween-themed video lessons from SciShow Kids. This morning I discovered another SciShow Kids video that falls into
Choosito & Quick Key Partner to Provide Resource Suggestions Based on Assessment Results
Choosito is a neat search engine for students and teachers to use to find websites based on reading level. It also includes a number of
Try Flippity’s Mix & Match Template to Generate Random Story Starters
Flippity is a great website that provides templates for creating games, quizzes, and flashcards in Google Sheets. Recently, Flippity published a new template that could
7 Halloween Lesson Activities for Elementary School Students
Halloween is less than one week away. Some communities, like mine, are having Halloween festivities this weekend. If you’re in need of some educational activities
Create Location-based Reminders in Google Keep Notes
Google Keep has been my favorite bookmarking and reminder tool ever since Evernote made their free plan worthless earlier this year. I use it on
Great Google Drive Add-ons for Teachers – An Updated Handout
Last year I published a free PDF handout that highlights great Add-ons for Google Docs, Forms, and Sheets. The handout also included a few of
Padlet for Halloween and Thanksgiving
Earlier today Jennifer Casa-Todd asked me if I had a video tutorial on how to use the new version of Padlet. I do have a
A Good Place to Find Free Sound Effects for Multimedia Projects
Whether it is for a podcast, a video, a slide presentation, or some other multimedia project, there will be times when your students need to
Two Helpful Tips for Navigating PDFs
One of the search tips that I often remind students about is, “search within your search results.” In other words, open up a webpage, a
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where the rain we didn’t have all summer has arrived in force today. I have to start this week’s week-in-review on
WriteReader – Collaborative Book Creation for Elementary School Classrooms
WriteReader is a neat multimedia writing platform for elementary school teachers and students. The appeal of WriteReader is found in the collaboration between students and
5 Good Tools for Scheduling Follow-up Meetings After Parent-Teacher Conferences
Parent-teacher conference season will be upon us shortly. Most schools have a system in place for scheduling the conferences so that the burden of coordinating
10 Ideas for Using Comics In Your Classroom
Over the last couple of months I’ve shared a handful of tools that students can use to create comics. I even conducted a webinar on
NATO on the Map – An Interactive Overview of NATO
NATO on the Map is an interactive map of information about about NATO. The map, viewable in 2D and 3D, displays information about NATO member
Mentimeter Adds Options for Image-based Polling
Mentimeter is a convenient service that lets you create and distribute poll questions for an audience to answer during a presentation. Your audience can respond
Improved Voice Typing in Google Docs – A List of Commands
Yesterday, Google released a bunch of updates to G Suite for Education. One of those updates was an expansion of the voice typing commands available in
Name Picker Ninja – A Random Name Picker for Your Classroom
Name Picker Ninja is free tool for quickly choosing names at random. Using Name Picker Ninja is a simple matter of pasting or typing a
Upload Files As Responses To Google Forms – Coming Soon
Earlier today Google announced a handful of new features that are coming soon to G Suite for Education (formerly called Google Apps for Education). The
Jellymetrics Readability Grader – Quickly Determine Readability
Jellymetrics is a company that primarily offers email marketing services. They do offer one service that teachers could find handy. That service is the free
5 out of 5 of These Resources Can Help You Teach Fractions Lessons
In an earlier post I highlighted the Thinking Blocks tools included in Math Playground. Thinking Blocks offers a good way to introduce your students to
Watch & Share Reactions to Presidential Debates Since 1960
Watch the Debates is a PBS NewsHour website that offers videos of the Presidential debate of 1960 and every debate from 1976 forward. The site
How Sea Turtles Find Their Way Home
A few years ago I had the privilege to witness sea turtles nesting in Costa Rica. Since then I have been fascinated by how they
Math Playground – Hundreds of Math Games & Instructional Videos
Math Playground is a great website containing hundreds of mathematics games appropriate for K-8 students. I first reviewed the site back in 2008. Whenever I
ToonyTool – Quickly Create Single Frame Comics
ToonyTool is a free website for quickly creating single frame comics. To get started with ToonyTool simply go to site and either upload a background
A Good Site for Free ACT Prep
On Saturday thousands of high school students will sit down to take the ACT exam. If your students are going to be taking the test,
JoeZoo – Build Rubrics and Streamline Your Feedback Process in Google Docs
JoeZoo Express is a great Google Docs Add-on that lets you insert canned comments into your students’ documents. You can use JoeZoo’s pre-made comments or
5 Quick Key Features That Can Save You Tons of Time
Quick Key is a powerful and popular grading tool developed by a teacher for teachers. The service utilizes the camera on your Android phone or
5 Ways to Use Wikis In Your Classroom
1. As a digital portfolio of student-created videos. 2. As a place for students to share notes on each unit of study in your courses.
Magic Gopher – A Math Game
Magic Gopher is a fun little game in which students select a two digit number, add the digits together, subtract the new number from the original,
The National Archives’ Today’s Document Offers Good Lesson Ideas
The US National Archives is a great resource for history teachers to keep in their books. I’ve written about some of their services in the past
How to Create Twitter Moments
A few weeks ago Twitter started to allow anyone to create what Twitter calls Moments. Moments are collections of Tweets organized around a hashtag, an
Credo Reference – Research Starters for Students
Credo Reference is a good reference site for students that I recently learned about from David Kapuler. Credo Reference provides students with reference articles from
The Week in Review – Last-Minute Projects
Good morning from Maine where we have frost on the ground outside of the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters (AKA my house). The frost
Four Halloween-themed Lessons from SciShow Kids
SciShow Kids is a YouTube channel produced by the same folks behind the massively popular SciShow. SciShow Kids offers short video lessons on a variety
TinyTap Courses – Create Interactive Lessons for iPad & Android
TinyTap is an excellent tool for creating your own educational games that your students can play on their iPads, Android tablets, or in the web browser
Kudoboard – Create Digital Group Greetings
Kudoboard is a platform designed to help you create and send digital greetings from a group of people. Kudoboard will remind some people of Padlet
Ingredients – A New Series About the “Stuff Inside Your Stuff”
Ingredients is the title of a new National Geographic video series about the ingredients that go into creating common products like toothpaste, nail polish, and
CS First – Lesson Plans for Teaching Computer Science
CS First is an initiative from Google to promote computer science classes and clubs in schools. CS First features computer science lesson plans based on
5 Ways Students Can Find Free Images
Google’s recent introduction of the “Explore” tool in Google Slides retained the option for students to find images for their slides, but removed the option
A Note for Email Subscribers
I publish new posts on Free Technology for Teachers nearly every day of the year. If you subscribe to this blog through email, you might
Four Social Studies Lessons You Can Update With Comics
Through the course of a school year I field a lot of questions that go something like this, “I need to use technology in my
GameOn World – A Fun Geography Game
GameOn World is a free geography game system developed by a teacher and his student here in Maine. GameOn World is played in a manner
A Nice Way to Share Bundles of Links With Your Students
Sqworl is a free bookmarking tool for teachers and students. In Sqworl you can create groups or bundles of bookmarks to share with your students
MySimpleShow Adds a Convenient New Way to Create Flipped Video Lessons
MySimpleShow is a great tool for creating explanatory videos. I’ve been raving about it since I first tried during the summer. It has also been
A Thanksgiving Lesson for the Whole Family
Last year StoryCorps launched a new initiative that they called The Great Thanksgiving Listen. The purpose of the project was to get students to interview
Planning on Paper – The Material, Not the App
One of the things that I mention in my keynote Leading Students In a Hyper-connected World is the need for teaching students to have some time
Three Lessons About the Sound of the Human Voice
“I hate the way my voice sounds,” is often said by students and teachers the first time they hear their own voices on a podcast
16 Things You Can Do To Add More Functions to Your Classroom Blog
After you have identified some goals for your blog and created its basic framework, you’ll might find yourself asking, “what else can I do with
Harvest of History – The History of Farming in North America
Harvest of History is a website produced by the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, New York (also the site of the Baseball Hall of Fame). Harvest
Electoral Decoder Shows Students the Math of Presidential Elections
Throughout 2016 PBS has been steadily adding more features to their Election Central website for students. Electoral Decoder is one of the recent additions to