Fresh Tech for Teachers
More Than 11,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way
Keeping up with changes in the educational technology landscape can feel like a daunting task. Heck, even keeping up with the blog posts that I
Just Beam It – Quickly Share Large Files
Just Beam It is a free service for quickly sharing files up to 2GB in size. To transfer a file to someone else just drag
Purps the Penguin Helped by Kids With a 3D Printer
Image Credit: Charlesjsharp – Dec 6, 2009 3D printers can provide students with a powerful tool to use in developing solutions to all kinds of
SIDLIT Slides – Leading Students #SIDLIT2016
This morning in Kansas I spoke at the SIDLIT Colleague to Colleague conference. The title of my keynote was Leading Students in a Hyper-connected World.
Searching the Deep Web as Explained by Common Craft
When students conduct research on a public search engine like Google or Bing they are only scratching the surface of what could be found on
PingPong – Collect Sketches & Written Feedback from Students
PingPong is a student response system that I recently learned about from Danny Nicholson. Like many similar systems PingPong provides you with a free and
Page Level Permissions & File Cabinets in Google Sites
On Tuesday morning I shared directions for using DropItToMe to collect files from students and have them automatically appear in a designated Google Drive, Dropbox,
Let the Games Begin – An Interactive Map of Issues Surrounding the Olympic Games
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games begin at the end of this week. The lead-up to the games has been full of new stories about physical,
Free Guides to Windows 10 Accessibility and Deployment in Schools
A few weeks ago Microsoft released more than 200 free ebooks. Those ebooks cover everything from Windows 10 accessibility settings to keyboard shortcuts to school-wide
Try DropItToMe to Collect Files from Students and Colleagues
DropItToMe is a free tool that you can integrate with your Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneNote account. DropItToMe lets you collect files from anyone and
The Tricky Thing About Free Gradebooks – And Two Alternatives to Engrade
This afternoon I received an email from a reader who was looking for an alternative to Engrade. Engrade is a gradebook tool that has been
Reminder! TechSmith Is Ending Popular Free Products – Try These Alternatives
Back in May TechSmith announced that they are ending support for some popular tools that they had offered for free for years. This afternoon I
The Month in Review – July’s Most Popular Posts
July has come and gone. In my part of the world the beginning of August signifies the beginning of fair season. And for schools in
How to Move from Zaption to EDpuzzle In Three Steps (Zaption is closing)
A couple of weeks ago when I shared the news that Zaption is closing I also shared some suggestions for alternatives to using Zaption. One
Evernote’s Free Plan Is Almost Worthless – Here Are Two Good Alternatives
At the end of June Evernote announced some significant changes to their subscription plans including the free service that they had offered for years. Last
Owl Eyes Offers a Good Way to Guide Students Through Classic Literature
Owl Eyes is a relatively new tool that provides teachers with a good way to provide students with guidance while they are reading classic literature.
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good evening from Maine where I’m relaxing after a fun day of bicycle riding followed by a nice little concert in Freeport. This week I
Stacked Ball Drop – A Physics Lesson
The Physics Girl is a great YouTube channel that recently appeared as a suggestion while I was browsing the ASAP Science channel. The Physics Girl
Three Good Ways to Use Word Clouds With Students
Last week’s Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week featured two good tools for creating custom word clouds. Throughout the week people have Tweeted suggestions
Why Are Olympic Records Always Broken? – And Other Olympics Resources
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games are just one week away now. From archery to rowing to track and field, over the course of the games
How Does a Canyon Become Grand? – And Other Lessons on the Shaping of North America
Earlier this month TED-Ed published a new lesson about how the physical geography of North America has changed over time. The lesson, titled How North
Some Google Docs Add-ons Now Work on Android Devices
Since their launch Add-ons have provided users with a variety of additional features in Google Documents. Until yesterday, those Add-ons only worked when you were
My SimpleShow Offers a Good Way to Create Explanatory Videos
My Simpleshow is a free tool for creating Common Craft style explanatory videos. The best aspect of My Simpleshow is the emphasis that the developers
Running Reality – Mapping the Rise and Fall of Nations
Running Reality is an ambitious project that is attempting to build an interactive map and timeline of the rise and fall of nations throughout history.
5 Tips for New Chromebook Users
The new school year isn’t too far away now. For some teachers that could mean it’s time to start getting accustomed to using a Chromebook
Vizia – Create Interactive Video Quizzes
Vizia is a free tool for creating video-based quizzes. On Vizia you an import a video from YouTube or from Wistia and then add questions
How Much Does It Cost to Run for President?
Now that the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign is in full swing it’s a good time to take a look at how much it costs to
Create Animated Videos & More With Animatron
Animatron is a nice tool for creating animated videos and images. I learned about it from Larry Ferlazzo a couple of weeks ago and I
A Glossary of Blogging Terminology
The start of the new school year isn’t far for many teachers now. It is at this time of year that I find myself helping
A Crowd-sourced List of Google Cardboard Apps & Videos
During the ISTE conference this year I met Jack Bosley who is an educational technology teacher in Kentucky. He introduced himself after the panel discussion,
ScratchMath – Great Ideas for Using Scratch in Elementary Math
Last month I received an email from Jeffery Gordon in which he shared with me an online binary calculator that he created for his students.
Running Android Apps on Your Chromebook
Chromebooks and the Chrome OS are constantly improving and offering more features to more students and teachers. An example of this is found when you
Google Apps Terminology – A Short Explanation of Common Terms
Earlier this week I received an email from someone who was looking for clarification on the differences between Google Apps for Education, Google Drive, and
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from Maine where I’m enjoying some coffee on my deck to start the day. This week I hosted the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook
A New Lesson Plan Tool for Google Docs
OpenEd is a service that offers a huge catalog of standards-aligned lesson plans and other resources for teachers. Today, I received an email from OpenEd
Why the Metric System Matters – And How It Confounds Americans
Why the Metric System Matters is the title of the latest TED-Ed lesson. The lesson explains how measurement systems evolved through history including the historical
How to Place an Image-based Quiz in Your Blog
A couple of weeks ago I published a tutorial on how to create an image-based quiz on Formative. The image-based quizzes that you create in
A Convenient Update to Google Drive File Organization
The “make a copy” function in Google Drive is one of the features that I frequently use when teaching multiple sections of a course. Selecting
A Tour of the Geology of U.S. National Parks
This evening while picking up pizza for dinner I ran into one of my old assistant principals who told me about the road trip that
My Favorite Search Strategies – Updated
This morning during the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp I shared some of my favorite strategies and ideas for helping students improve their online research
ImageCodr Helps You Create Correct Image Citations
Creative Commons licensing makes many photos available for re-use that we otherwise could not use. The trouble is properly citing Creative Commons licensed works can
Teach Your Monster to Read
Another question that appeared on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page over the weekend read, Hello Richard, I love your blog and thanks for
Getting Started With Kaizena – Voice Commenting on Google Docs
Over the weekend a reader posted the following message on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page, Hey Richard, would you be able to recommend
How to Track Changes to Google Sites
This afternoon during the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp Beth Still and I shared some ways to use Google Sites with students. One of the
Digital Dialects – Games for Learning a New Language
Digital Dialects offers a nice selection of educational games and activities for learning more than 50 different languages. Most of the games are designed to learn
Quick Current Events Activities from KQED Education
KQED Public Media’s website has a small section of its Ed Space pages dedicated to short current events-based Do Now activities that teachers can use in their classrooms.
Word Tamer Helps Students Write Stories
Word Tamer is a neat site for learning the process of developing characters, settings, and plots in creative writing. Word Tamer is set up as
A Compare & Contrast Essay Map for Young Students
Read Write Think’s Compare & Contrast Map is a template for creating a comparative essay. Using the template students are guided through writing three styles of
The Week in Review – Camp Week
Good morning from Maine where my friends Kris and Beth Still are visiting for the week. Beth, a Google Certified Teacher, will be helping me
ABCD Wordie Analyzes Text and Creates Vocabulary Lists
ABCD Wordie is a handy tool for evaluating the level of the vocabulary in a passage of text. To use ABCD Wordie you simply paste
Three Good Options for Creating eBooks in Your Web Browser
Creating a multimedia ebook can be a great way for students to showcase examples of their best work. Writing a multimedia ebook can also be
How to Create Custom Word Clouds
Word cloud generators provide students with a nice way to visualize the most frequently used words in a passage of text. There are plenty of
Handy Web Tools That Solve Three Problems for Every Classroom
Whether we teach seven year old students or seventeen year old students there are some universal problems that we all have to handle in our
Two Easy Ways to Add Accent Marks in Google Documents
One of the things that I was asked about during the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp on Monday was, “how can students write in two
Lessons on Critical Thinking & Logical Fallacies
Many of the students in my social studies classes over the years have enjoyed a good classroom debate. I am sure that as the 2016
Zaption is Closing – Try These Alternatives
At the end of June Zaption announced that they had been acquired by another company and would be shutting down at the end of September.
Alphabetimals – A Dictionary of Animal Sounds
Alphabetimals is a nice website on which you will find some nice resources for helping young children learn the alphabet. The primary feature of Alphabetimals is
Sugar Scanner Shows You How Much Sugar You’re Consuming
Over the years I’ve shared a bunch of resources addressing the topic of sugar consumption. Some of those resources include a video about why we
Adobe Spark Guide for Educators
In late May I published a video about how to use Adobe Spark. Since then I’ve showcased it in a couple of my workshops. In
Character Scrapbook – A Template for Reflecting on Stories
Scholastic’s Character Scrapbook provides a nice template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories.
Splash – Create Event and RSVP Pages
Splash is a service that you can use to create great-looking event announcements and collect RSVPs. Using Splash you can create a one page announcement
7 Free Timeline Tools Compared In One Chart
Earlier this year I published a chart in which I compared the core features of six online timeline creation tools. The History Project is a
How Playing Sports Benefits the Brain and Body
How Playing Sports Benefits Your Body and Your Brain is the title of a recently released TED-Ed lesson. The video in the lesson teaches viewers
How to Create a KWL Chart in Padlet
One of my favorite ways to use Padlet is to have students collaboratively create multimedia KWL (Know, Want, Learn) charts. To provide students with guidance
How to Create Multimedia Timelines
Late last week I wrote a blog post about The History Project which is a site for collaboratively creating multimedia timelines. The History Project includes
The Week in Review – A Little Break
Good evening from Maine where I’m getting ready for the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp that starts on Monday morning. Earlier this week, for the
Collect, Customize, and Share Resources from Smithsonian Learning Labs
Late last year I wrote a post about The Smithsonian Learning Lab which is a fantastic tool for organizing the thousands of digital resources available through the various
Mission Mapquest – Create a Map Game That Can Be Played on iPads
Mission MapQuest is a great map game creation tool developed by friend Russel Tarr for his ClassTools.net website. The concept behind Mission Mapquest is rather straight-forward one. On Mission Mapquest
How to Create Image-based Quizzes on Formative
Last week I shared a post about some of my favorite features that the folks at Formative are working on for the fall. While we
CK-12 Concept Maps Show Kids Connections Between Math and Science
The CK-12 Foundation recently released a new feature that should help students see the connections between topics in science and mathematics. CK-12 concepts maps are
The History Project – Like Storycorps With Timelines
The History Project is a new multimedia timeline tool funded in part by The New York Times. Larry Ferlazzo tipped me off to The History
Wizer.me Adds Folders for Sharing Resources With Colleagues
Wizer is a neat tool for creating a variety of interactive assignments including writing assignments, multiple choice quizzes, and labeling assignments. You can distribute your
Must Read Educational Sites for Summer
This is a guest post from Jennifer Carey (@TeacherJenCarey) of EdTechTeacher – an advertiser on this site. There are a lot of resources on the
A Free Activity Book from NOAA
Discover Your World is a free activity book produced by NOAA. The book is available as to download as a complete package in one PDF
How Fireworks Work
Fireworks are popping around my little town of Woodstock, Maine this evening. To my dogs the sounds of fireworks are the sounds of the sky
How to Enable Automatic Grading in Google Forms
The new automatic grading function in Google Forms seems to be a hit with many readers. I’ve received a bunch of questions about it in
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good evening from Maine where I’m relaxing after a long, fun, and tiring week at the ISTE 2016 conference. It was energizing to be around
GeoQuiz – A Talking Map Quiz
There is certainly not a shortage of map quiz on games on the Internet. GeoGuessr and Spacehopper have been two of my favorites for a
Flubaroo Compared to the New Google Forms Auto-grading Feature
On Monday Google Forms received an update that allows you to create automatically graded multiple choice and true/false quizzes. To do this just go into
Educational Resources About the Tour de France
My local cycling club. (We won’t be challenging for the Yellow Jersey). The Tour de France begins on Saturday. Check out this animated video to
The Month in Review – Heading Home
Good afternoon from an airplane somewhere over upstate New York. I’m my last flight heading from the ISTE 2016 conference. This is also my last
7 Word Summary of ISTE 2016
As the ISTE 2016 conference was winding down yesterday I took one last long walk through the vendor hall. I went up and down every
Three Interesting Studies on Virtual Reality in Education
This week at ISTE 2016 Google and Samsung had large booth displays devoted to virtual reality headsets. The proliferation of virtual reality headsets has been
5 Features to Look for on Formative in the Fall
Earlier this week at the ISTE 2016 conference I had a nice meeting with the founders of the popular assessment tool, Formative. Formative is hard
Connect Your Classroom Through SeeSaw Connected Blogs
On Tuesday morning at the ISTE 2016 conference I sat down with the founder of the popular digital portfolio tool, SeeSaw. He showed me some
Evernote Shrinks Free Plan – Here’s What I’m Using Now
For a long time I have used Evernote as my primary tool for personal bookmarks. That’s about to change because today Evernote announced that their
Apps Made by Students – And a Challenge for Your Students
For the last few years Verizon has hosted the Innovative App Challenge for students. Verizon recently published the list of the best apps developed in
Digital Storytelling With the Latest Version of Buncee Edu Mobile
Buncee is a nice tool that makes it easy for young students to craft digital stories. Recently, Buncee updated their iOS app to optimize for
Google Forms Can Now Automatically Grade Quizzes Without an Add-on
For a long time Flubaroo has been one of my go-to recommendations for easy scoring of quizzes created in Google Forms. Today, Google made it
Google Cast for Education Gets Your Students on the Same Page
This morning at the ISTE 2016 conference Google announced some great new features for teachers. One feature that immediately jumped out at me is the
The Classroom Bookshelf – A Blog of Literature Lesson Ideas
This afternoon at ISTE 2016 I met with Kathy Ishizuka who is the editor of School Library Journal. Kathy shared with me her excitement about
The Best Ways to Use Padlet – Examples from Teachers
This afternoon at the ISTE 2016 conference I had a nice meeting with Melanie Broder from Padlet. She told me about some of the things
The Not at ISTE 2016 Survey
The last two posts that I’ve written have referenced the ISTE conference. I realize that I am fortunate to be able to attend to the
Where I’ll Be During #ISTE2016
The annual ISTE conference is less than 24 hours away now. One of the best parts of the conference is getting to meet new people
The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts
Good morning from an airplane somewhere over the North Carolina/ Tennessee border. I’m headed out to Denver for the ISTE 2016 conference. As I boarded
Handy, Overlooked YouTube Features
YouTube offers a bunch of handy editing tools that often go overlooked by users. One of those is the option to rotate videos that have
Ed Tech Start-ups, Please Don’t Do This At #ISTE2016
Dear Ed Tech Start-up Marketing Directors: ISTE 2016 is just a couple of days away. Everyone who is going is excited about it. Teachers and
Three Good Apps for Creating Videos on Android Devices
Creating videos is one of my favorite activities to do with students. I never get tired of seeing what students create and I never tire
Stop Motion Studio Offers a Great Way to Make Videos
Stop Motion Studio is a great app for creating stop motion videos. The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac operating systems. The