Tag: educational technology

47,000 People Get Their Educational Technology Tips This Way

This morning when I checked my YouTube Studio account I noticed that my little channel had passed the 47,000 subscriber mark. Despite publishing videos on YouTube since at least 2009, I’ve never had a viral hit and probably never will. Instead of worrying about that I just try to make as many helpful videos as I can. […]

Audio, Assessments, and Summer Cold – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what should be a great summer day. Fortunately, I’m feeling much better than I did throughout the week as a struggled with a miserable cold that had me sleeping a lot more than normal and exercising a lot less than normal. I did get out […]

Slides, Assessments, and Bikes – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’ve finally had a nice stretch of summer weather, if you ignore yesterday’s rain. This week was full of bike rides, a backyard camping trip with my daughters, and general summer fun. I hope that you’ve had an equally great week.  Besides the fun mentioned above, I spent a lot […]

Canva, Pictures, and Micro:bits – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine were the sun has set on the month of July, 2023. This month I hosted a course on search strategies for teachers and students. If you missed it, I’ll be offering it again soon. Look for an announcement in the next couple of days about that.  Despite being one of the […]

Math, Calories, and Copyright – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising over what should be a nice summer day to play outside. We’re going to ride bikes and play outside at a friend’s birthday party. I hope that you do something equally fun this weekend.  This week I wrapped-up the new version of my search strategies course. […]

Cars, Cards, and LEGOs – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m up early (I’m always up early) and getting ready for my neighborhood’s annual Founders Day events to support our little library. I’ll be helping with the car show. One of my favorite cars that will be on display is the 1934 Packard seen in my photograph above. If you […]

Notes, Magic, and Wings – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where humidity seems to be the order of the day. It felt like I was walking in a rainforest while taking our dogs for a walk this morning.  This week we had family visiting and staying with us all week. It was a fun for all of us, but especially for […]

The Most Popular Posts of the Month

Good evening from New Hampshire where I’m having a little R&R with my family after a very busy week and a busy month. The sun came out just in time for us to enjoy some time outdoors before bedtime. As I write this my kids have just fallen asleep and I will be doing the […]

Novels, Search, Street Views – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where summer weather arrived exactly on the summer solstice this year. After one of the rainiest Junes on record, it was nice to finally see the sun for a whole day! We’re hoping the nice weather continues for one more day as we’re holding a yard sale and lemonade stand today. […]

Milk, Images, and Logo – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re having another overcast morning. For the last month we’ve been stuck in a pattern of having rain for at least part of every day. Fortunately, there have been enough breaks to get outside to ride my bike alone and with my kids. We’re hoping that happens again today and […]

Maps, Novels, and AI Assessments – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the rain keeps coming down. It feels like it has been more than a week since we’ve seen the sun. That’s because it has been that long since we didn’t have a rainy day. We’re going a bit stir crazy, but our dogs are still having fun playing fetch regardless […]

Rebound – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it feels more like late April than early June. After a few days of temperatures in the 80’s (Fahrenheit) I awoke to a damp 47F this morning.  By the time that most of you read this I will be riding my bike on the dirt roads around Mooselookmeguntic Lake. I’m […]

Searching for Images in Google Bard

Last month Google introduced a new Bard feature that makes it easy to copy the text of a chat to a Google Document. To start this month Google has added another new feature to Bard. That feature is the ability to conduct image searches. I gave it a try on Thursday. The results were interesting.  […]

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. I hope you’re enjoying it! The rest of us have another few weeks to go. We’ll make it! A big thank you to the 25 people completed one of my […]

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 Earth and Google Maps grew to 57.  In my playlist of 57 Google Earth and Maps tutorials you’ll find directions for everything from the basics of navigation to creating historic […]

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 excited about using their new fishing poles. That’s what we’re going to do this weekend. I hope that you have something equally fun planned for your weekend. As I do […]

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 having a puppy that wakes up just before sunrise is getting to hear the birds as they wake up for the day. It’s a nice way to start the day […]

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 to emphasize is that Google offers a lot of search tools that students often overlook or don’t even know about. Some of my favorites of those are highlighted and demonstrated […]

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 my second cup. That’s what happens when you have little kids and a puppy. Speaking of puppies, ours has his first meeting with a trainer this morning. We’re all excited […]

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 this posts) so we’re all itching to get outside to play today. We’re going to ride bikes and run in the woods with our dogs. I hope that you have […]

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 making pour-over coffee and sipping it at a leisurely pace. But since I have young kids, I won’t be sipping it at a leisurely pace. Instead, I’ll drink it while […]

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. But this weekend’s forecast isn’t conducive to much bike riding. So after playing with our puppy we’re heading out to see a stage production of Moana today. I hope that […]

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 day. I’ve been riding my bike outside all week and I’ll be doing that again today.  Last week I was sick. This week all the other members of my family […]

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 on the couch, or sick in a recliner. I’m feeling better now and ready for a fun weekend ahead.  Due to my health I didn’t write as many blog posts […]

Weather, Explorers, and Designs – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s a cold and rainy start to the month of April. Normally, we’d be heading outside to play today. The weather is probably going to keep us in. We’re still going to have a fun day anyway because we’re having a family cupcake decorating competition! The best part is that […]

Puppy and Classes – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of March. The month for me can be summarized by “puppy” and “classes.” We got a new dog this month. His name is Rangeley Noodle and he has an Instagram account. This month I hosted a new professional development course on PracticalEdTech.com. Dozens […]

Science, Slides, and History – The Week in Review

Good morning from Connecticut where we’re visiting family this weekend. Yesterday, we had a great time exploring the Connecticut Science Center. We saw big snakes, sloths, and tropical butterflies before heading over the engineering wing where we made and played with all kinds of contraptions. If you ever find yourself near Hartford, Connecticut, go check […]

Pi, Puppy, and AI – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it is going to be a beautiful late winter day. It’s going to be perfect for playing outside with the newest member of our family, Rangeley Noodle! Last weekend we got a black lab puppy and my daughters named him Rangeley Noodle. Rangeley is for […]

Pi, Myths, and Daylight – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and we’re all ready to go out and play in the snow. It’s going to be a great day for late-winter skiing. I hope that you also do something fun this weekend.  This week I hosted a webinar for a school and had a Zoom meeting […]

Math, Chromebooks, and Chemistry – The Week in Review

Good morning from the O’Hare Airport Hilton where I’m hoping to be able to fly home today. Yesterday, after a great day of presenting at the North DuPage Connections Conference I looked at my phone and discovered that my flight home was cancelled. I’m hoping to get home tonight, but there is a lot of […]

Another Tool for Detecting Writing Created by AI

Artificial Intelligence was the theme of February in the educational technology world. That theme is continuing as we begin the month of March. On that note, I’ve found another new tool designed to try to detect writing generated with AI tools like ChatGPT.  Crossplag AI Content Detector is a free tool that you can use […]

45,000 People Get Their Educational Technology Tips This Way

Yesterday morning when I checked my YouTube Studio account I noticed that my little channel had passed the 45,000 subscriber mark. Despite publishing videos on YouTube since at least 2009, I’ve never had a viral hit and probably never will. Instead of worrying about that I just try to make as many helpful videos as […]

AI, Brainstorming, and Authentication – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the wind is howling and the wind chill makes it feel as though it’s -15F right now. It’s no wonder our cat has camped himself in front of the stove this morning. I much prefer he do that than rub his head on my laptop as I type this week’s […]

Brainstorms, Pictures, and Videos – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where winter weather has returned after a brief respite on Thursday. It was sunny, dry, and warm enough to ride my bike outside for the first time since the start of the year. This weekend, I’m back to skiing and teaching skiing. I hope that you have something equally fun planned […]

Feedback, AI, and Language – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is roughly 50 degrees warmer than it was at this time last week! One thing that hasn’t changed since last week is that AI is the still the hot topic in education. I think I’ve fielded more questions related to AI in the last week than I have about […]

Groundhogs, AI, and Cold – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the it’s -17F and windy as I write this blog post. Even by Maine standards it is exceptionally cold. How cold? The ski school where I teach on the weekends is closed today due to the wind and cold. Instead of skiing today we’ll be doing some baking and some […]

The Most Popular Posts of the Month on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of January. It was a busy and fun month for me. I hope it was a good start to the year for you as well.  This month I hosted a new Practical Ed Tech course called How to Create and Sell Your Digital […]

Skeletons, Slides, and Snow – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where there is a lot snow covering the ground. We had two big snow storms this week that cumulatively brought about 22″ of new snow to my neighborhood. So as you might have already guessed, we’re going skiing today! I spent last night sharpening the edges and putting fresh wax on […]

Slides, Apps, and Adventure – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where yesterday’s snow storm has coating the ground with about eight inches of fluffy snow. Everyone in my house is excited to go play in it! We’re going skiing!  Earlier this week my older daughter’s school was closed for the day so we had a little daddy-daughter day in which we […]

Forms, Games, and Images – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what should be a nice winter day. It’s nice to see the sun after a couple of days of clouds, snow, and a bit of rain. We’re headed out to take and teach ski lessons this weekend. I hope that you also have something fun […]

Contests, Maps, and Drawings – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where normal winter weather has returned. It’s cold and clear as I get ready to head out to our local ski area. Last weekend it was warm enough that my family went skiing one day and rode our bikes outside the next. This weekend we’ll be sticking to the snow sports. […]

Skiing, Puzzling, and Overlooking – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s overcast and unseasonably warm. I took most of the week off to ski with my kids, teach some skiing lessons to other kids, and give my mind a little rest from thinking about educational technology. I hope that you have had a great week as well.  As we’re on […]

Generators, Animations, and Snow – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the wind is howling and the temperature is rapidly dropping. We had planned to ski today, but the wind and ice has altered our plans. So instead of skiing we’ll putter around the house making sure everything is ready for Santa to visit tonight. I predict some cookie eating and […]

Slides, Experiments, and Skis – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where everything is covered in snow this morning! The first proper snowstorm of the year rolled in yesterday and it’s still snowing as I write this morning. After I take care of shoveling it will be time for fun in the snow. My oldest daughter has been eagerly anticipating getting out […]

Get Your Free Copy of The 2022-23 Practical Ed Tech Handbook

Near the start of every school year I publish an updated version of The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This year it took me a bit longer than usual to get it done and I didn’t send it out until mid-September. Since then I made a few minor edits to it (mostly to correct grammatical mistakes […]

Canva, Search, and Goodbye – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s a cold and breezy December morning. It was a busy and sad week here at the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters (AKA, my house). This week I hosted or co-hosted a couple of webinars including the last live episode of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share […]

Posters, Pictures, and Leftovers – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where yesterday it felt like winter and today it feels like spring. My family is supposed to go see the Christmas lights display at the Boothbay Botanical Gardens this evening, but the rain might dampen our plans. So we might end up spending the day making Christmas cookies. Either way, we’re […]

November’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of November. At this time of year sunset is a rather early 4:04pm and it feels even earlier than that. Ice is forming on the ponds around my home and I hope that we get some more snow soon because my daughters and […]

Free Webinar Next Wednesday – Best of the Web 2022

  Tomorrow the calendar turns to December and many of us will start to think about the year that was. One of the things that I do every December is take a look back at all of the new and updated educational technology tools that I tested throughout the year. I’ll put all of my […]

Clipart, Maps, and Food – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it feels like winter is here to stay. A couple of the local ski mountains are open, a thin coat of ice appears on a lot of the ponds around my house, and I have to wear a lot more layers to ride my bike outside. Like many of you, […]

Elk, Geography, and Art – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m home after spending most of the week in western Nebraska. It was there that I took the picture featured in this post. It’s a little hard to make it out, but there’s a bull elk in the picture. It was one of three that walked right past me early […]

Keep, Quiz, and Templates – The Week in Review

Good evening from Banner County, Nebraska! I’m here for the next few days to visit my good friends Kris and Beth Still. Those of you who have followed by blog since its early days may recall that Beth is the person who organized the NECC Newbie project way back in 2009. It was through her […]

Documents, Maps, and Clocks – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is unusually warm for November. There have been many years in the past when I have been skiing by this point in the fall. Today, we’re going to the beach! We won’t swim because the water is quite cold despite the warm air temperature. Instead, we’ll have fun exploring […]

Chrome, Crows, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sunrise is still more than an hour away as I drink my first cup of coffee. It’s going to be an exciting day in our house because we’re going to see Disney Frozen on Ice! To say that my daughters are excited about it would be an understatement. They […]

Geography, Monsters, and Drawings – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising and it’s a brisk 29F as I sip my dark roast coffee. It was a busy week here my little part of the world. We had two birthdays in my house, we all fought off little colds, and I announced a new course that I’m super […]

Voices, Search, and Bare Trees – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the leaves are falling faster than ever. A couple nights ago a big rain storm through and some of our trees lost all of their leaves. I love the beauty of the changing leaves of autumn. I don’t, however, enjoy raking all of the leaves that fall as I will […]

Pizza, Cats, and Videos – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re going to enjoy a nice long weekend of riding our bikes, raking some leaves, and visiting Storyland one last time before it closes for the winter. I hope that you have a great weekend! If your weekend plans include catching up on some ed tech news, take a look […]

Videos, Writing, and Pictures – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful autumn day. My kids had soccer practice, we rode our bikes, and I mowed the lawn for what was hopefully the last time this year. And before bedtime tonight we have to get ready for my youngest daughter’s birthday party that we’re hosting tomorrow. It should […]

September’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the week and on the month of September, 2022. I don’t know about you, but for me the month seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. My oldest daughter started Kindergarten, I hosted a bunch of webinars, and tried to enjoy […]

Social Studies, Soccer, and Search – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s going to be a beautiful autumn weekend. As I write this I’m sipping my coffee while the sun is rising on what is going to be a fun and busy weekend for me and my little family. We have soccer practice, fishing, bike rides, and a trip to Storyland […]

Branchiness, Videos, and Archives – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I am not racing my bike this weekend and instead will be enjoying a nice early fall day by helping out at my daughters’ soccer practices. By the way, I finished last week’s race much better than I predicted and ended up fourth in my division despite a flat tire […]

Display Note Broadcast Adds Helpful Features to Improve Screen Sharing

Display Note Broadcast is a tool that I started using last spring as a means for broadcasting my screen to the screens of other people in the room. It provides a simple system in which you click a sharing button, display a join code for your audience, and then they enter it on their computers […]

Flashcards, Games, and Phys Ed – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to be a beautiful early fall day. By the time that most of you read this I’ll be racing my bike on some of the prettiest dirt roads in all of New England. I don’t harbor any illusions of winning the Northwoods Gravel Grind today, I just […]

Games, Analytics, and Tutorials – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s a brisk 47F. It feels like a classic early fall morning in Northern New England. Later it’ll warm up a bit and be perfect for riding bikes and enjoying the long weekend. I hope that you have a great weekend doing something that you enjoy.  This week I held […]

Back to School – The Month in Review

The sun has set on the last day of August. Nearly every school in my area is now back in session. And those few that aren’t in session will be next week. So while calendar says that autumn doesn’t start for a few more weeks, it sure feels like fall around here. I hope that […]

Reading, Searching, and Fixing – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining on what should be a nice and sunny weekend after a few days of much-needed rain. We’re going to have a little backyard camping adventure this evening. Tomorrow, we plan to have a fun day at Storyland! I hope that you also have some fun things […]

Posters, Rhythm, and Joy – The Week in Review

Good morning from Salt Lake City International Airport where I’m waiting for a flight home. Yesterday, had the pleasure of speaking at Mountain Heights Academy where I gave a keynote titled Using Technology to Bring Joy Into Teaching. After more than two years of giving virtual presentations, it was great to give an in-person presentation […]

Airplanes, Screens, and Search – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and cool breeze is blowing while I drink my morning coffee. It was a long week and I’m going to savor one of the last weekends of the summer by spending today exploring a little beach with my little family. I hope that you also have […]

Airplanes, Lesson Plans, and Coding – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re hoping the heat and humidity will break today. I write that sentence knowing full well that in a month I’ll probably be back to wearing flannel shirts and sweaters. Until then we’re going to try to enjoy the last few weeks of summer before school starts.  This week I […]

July’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

The sun is setting on what turned out to be a great last day of July. I spent the last day of the month hanging out at the lake with my kids and going for a little bike ride. I hope that you ended the month in a similarly relaxing way. I say that because, […]

Flip, Focus, and Blueberries – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it’s going to be a great day to play outside. A couple of days ago I went on a bike ride and found a lot of wild Maine blueberries. So just like in Blueberries for Sal, this morning we’re going back with our pails to […]

Math, Sounds, and Baseball – The Week in Review

Good evening from Cooperstown, NY where my brother and I are attending David Ortiz’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame tomorrow. We spent some of today attending a parade of Hall of Famers and earlier in the day I explored the area on my bike. Check out my Twitter or Instagram accounts for some […]

Authentication, Forms, and Research – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it’s going to be a great midsummer weekend! Today, I’m helping with the car show at our community’s Founder’s Day celebration. And tomorrow we’re going to enjoy some time relaxing in our backyard, riding bikes, and picking wild blackberries (yum!). I hope that you have […]

Animals and Reading – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’ve spent most of the week on a staycation taking my kids to the Maine Wildlife Park, visiting York’s Wild Kingdom, and relaxing while watching stages of the Tour de France (I was so hopeful that Neilson Powless would pull on the yellow jersey). This weekend we’ll be hanging out […]

Tomatoes, Templates, and Fireworks – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where sun is rising and it’s going to be a nice summer day to start a long weekend. I’ll be mowing before setting up a water bounce house for my kids to play in. The bounce house is one of the best “pandemic purchases” we made in the spring of 2020. […]

Bikes, Bubbles, and Forms – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on the month of June. Despite some crummy weather to start the month, we’re ending with a great stretch of warm and sunny weather that is perfect playing outside. I hope that you had a great month! This month I hosted my Teaching History With Technology […]

Stories, Studios, and Smoke – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what is going to be a warm and sunny summer day. It was a busy week here that started with Father’s Day for which my family gave me a smoker! Then in the middle of the week we had preschool graduation. And finally I wrapped-up […]

Giraffes, Stories, and Bubbles – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where consistent summer weather seems to be eluding us. As I write this it’s overcast and 50F! I guess we’ll be wearing sweatshirts and fleeces to the graduation party we’re going to this afternoon.  This week I took a day off to take my kids to the Franklin Park Zoo in […]

A New Way to Find Registration-free Tools

No-Signup Tools is a new site that features exactly what its name implies, web tools that you can use for free without having to sign-up for an account. You can browse through No-Signup Tools alphabetically, by ranking, or by category. Browsing the categories is probably the best way to use No-Signup Tools.  The No-Signup Tools […]

Bicycles, Chrome, and Science – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it’s going to be a nice day for outdoor play. Earlier this week we rode our bikes to a little public field near our house and found a bunch of wild strawberries. My daughters want to go back and look for more strawberries so that’s […]

Writing, Typing, and Virtual Tours – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where fog and light rain are making for a less than ideal morning. We have our last Tinkergarten class of the season and we were hoping for some nice weather. We’ll just have to wear our rain gear and have fun in the rain. I hope that you have a fun […]

Menus, Backgrounds, and Videos – The Month in Review

The month of May has come to a close. I can tell by the traffic patterns on my blog that many of you have started summer vacation. And the rest are ready for vacation. I hope that everyone has something fun to do this summer (or winter for my southern hemisphere friends). One of the […]

Menus, Maps, and Broadcasts – The Week in Review

Good morning from western Maine where the warm weather is supposed to returned after a couple of cold and rainy days. We’re planning to have fun enjoying the warm weather with a trip to Storyland! My kids love going there because of all of the kid-friendly rides. I love going there because it reminds me […]

Videos, Certificates, and Birds – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we have gone from it feeling like it was barely spring to feeling like it’s the middle of summer in the span of one week. The temperature got up to 86F yesterday and it’s going to be even warmer today. It’s going to be great for playing outside, riding bikes, […]

Drawings, Templates, and Deer – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re recovering from the destruction of our tulip garden at the hooves and teeth of some whitetail deer. We’ll be spending part of the day working on the gardens including planting some marigolds and other plants that are reported to be deer repellents (we’ll see).  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day so […]

The Most Popular Posts in April

April 2022 has come and gone. Where there was snow on the ground at the start of the month there is now some green grass poking up. It felt like a busy month for me as I hosted some webinars and started planning for some summer workshops. Stay tuned for some announcements next week about […]

Badges, Takeout, and Dubbing – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it might get above 60F for the first time in a long time. We’re going to play outside with our Tinkergarten class, ride bikes, and probably do a bit of garden work as well. Our dogs will enjoy lounging in the sun. I hope that […]

Snow, Turtles, and Maps – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining, the grass is starting to turn green, and spring feels like it’s here to stay. It didn’t feel that way a few days ago when we had snow the day after a beautiful Patriots’ Day Monday during which I saw turtles sunning themselves for the first […]

Poetry, Design, and SEL – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where overcast April weather has returned after a beautiful Friday afternoon of riding bikes with my kids. Despite the weather we’re still going to play outside for a little while with our Tinkergarten group. I think some cookie decorating and other fun indoor activities are also on the agenda for the […]

Librarians, Logic, and Learning – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re excited for the first day of Tinkergarten even though the weather forecast has some rain in it. Tinkergarten is a fun program for little kids like mine to have some fun outdoor learning experiences. Classes happen regardless of the weather which is fine because part of being a Mainer […]

Paper, Programming, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it feels like spring this morning. The wind is blowing away the clouds of yesterday and it should be a sunny day to play outside. We’re going to put on our boots and go for a little hike this today. I hope that you do something fun outside today too.  […]

Reading and Games – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the last day of March, 2022. The old saying of “March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb” does not really apply to life in Maine. In our case March came in like a lion, briefly acted like a lamb, and now […]

Games, Teams, and Mud – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where sunny weather has returned after a couple of days of sleet, snow, and rain. That sleet, snow, and rain is part of what makes this time of year Mud Season! How muddy? This week a school bus in our area got stuck in the mud while taking kids home from […]

Chrome, Cookies, and Canva – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where a steady rain is washing away the last of snow that is in my yard. We’re heading into the time of year in Maine that is affectionately referred to as mud season. It’s going to be a good day for catching up on some indoor projects and perhaps making some […]

ICYMI – Two EdTech Guys Take Questions – Webinar Recording

Last week Rushton Hurley and I resumed our Two EdTech Guys Take Questions webinar series. If you missed it, you can watch the recording right here or as embedded below. Rushton does a great job of sharing links to all of the resources that we mention in the webinar. That list of resources can along with the slides from […]

Pi, Clocks, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’ve awoken to rain that is forecasted to turn to snow. We had a couple of spring-like days this week and it was nice to get outside on my bike. But living in Maine means enjoying every season (except black fly season) and I plan to enjoy today’s weather by […]

Games, NASA, and Timelines – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m solo parenting for the first time in a few years. Wish me and my kids luck! I think we’ll do just fine. We have ski lessons, sledding, and eating pizza on our list of fun things for the weekend. I hope you have a list of fun things for […]

Canva, Groundhogs, and Docs – The Month in Review

Good evening from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Maine. The sun has set on last day of February, 2022. As I do at the end of every month I look in my Google Analytics account to find out which blog posts were the most popular during the month. As you’ll see below, […]

Slides, Houdini, and NASA – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where a fresh coating of seven inches of snow is covering the ground. The cold and snow is a stark contrast to earlier this week when it was sunny and relatively warm. In fact, it was warm enough that I was able to ride my bike outside for the first time […]

Cupcakes, Canva, and Docs – The Week in Review

Good morning from Connecticut where I’m visiting family for the first time in two years! My daughters had a blast having a slumber party with two of their cousins. Besides visiting family I’m looking forward to getting some good bagels this weekend. That’s something we just don’t have anywhere near my home in Maine. I […]

I’ll Host Your Next Professional Development Session

Yesterday afternoon I hosted a webinar for an organization that had purchased a bunch of copies of my 50 Tech Tuesday Tips ebook. I would be happy to do the same for your school, department, or organization.  If you purchase ten or more copies of 50 Tech Tuesday Tips I’ll host a custom, one hour webinar for your […]

Puzzles, Hearts, and Sounds – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to a relatively warm (35f) and sunny day. In fact, it’s going to be almost spring-like today before the cold returns tomorrow. We’re looking forward to a fun weekend of skiing and playing outside. I hope that you also have some fun things that you’re looking forward […]

40,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way

Yesterday morning I logged into my YouTube studio dashboard and saw that my little channel of screencast videos now has 40,000 subscribers! My videos aren’t anything fancy. I just write some bullet points on a notepad then record using Screencast-o-matic. I do some light editing (blurring, trimming, and occasionally adding text overlays) and then hit […]

How to Create VR Tours of Local Landmarks

I live near a little ski mountain called Mount Abram that is totally geared toward being family-friendly, affordable (seriously, my kids ski the whole season for $20!), and community-oriented. During the weekends when my kids are in lessons I like to skin up the mountain. By skinning I burn a lot calories and I get […]

Groundhogs, Hamsters, and Snowcats – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where more than a foot of fresh snow has fallen in the last 24 hours. According to the snowcat, we have at least 20″ of snow in our yard. What’s a snowcat? It’s a board that has a ruler on it and has been cut to look like the silhouette of […]

The Month in Review Featuring the Revival of Some Classics

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of January. I hope that the first month of the year was a good one for you and that all of your New Year’s resolutions are still on track.  The first month of the year saw the return or revival of some “classic” […]

Math, Science, and QR Codes – The Week in Review

Good morning from frozen Maine. It’s -5F as I write this. The snow in my yard is so frozen that my dogs and my kids don’t break through the when walking on it. It should warm up a bit today and we’ll go outside to play for a bit. Part of being a Mainer is […]

Cold, Chrome, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is a crisp -7F as I write this. Fortunately, some warm weather is on the way. Today will probably be a day for a lot of games of Memory being played and some LEGO creations being made today. Tomorrow it will be up to 10F when we head out […]

Audio, Buffalo, and Skiing – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we have a fresh layer of snow on the ground. It’s going to be a great weekend for skiing at our favorite little ski mountain, Mt. Abram. One of the things that I like about Mt. Abram is that when it’s closed during the week I can still skin up […]

Buffalo, Sledding, and The Best of 2021 – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we had a great week off. My daughters and I did some sledding and played with new toys. I read a great book titled American Buffalo and started reading a second one, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. I also had some time to work on a couple of […]

Chrome, Canva, and Code – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where it is not only the end of the month, it’s the end of the year! Here’s to a better year in 2022!  In December I released a new ebook titled 50 Tech Tuesday Tips. I created it with busy tech coaches and media specialists in mind. You can get a […]

Winter, Animals, and Fun – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where my daughters are eagerly anticipating Santa’s arrival. Tomorrow morning I won’t be in the mood to write blog posts or even think about my blog. That’s why I’m breaking from my pattern and writing the week-in-review on a Friday evening.  As I look toward the end of the year I’d […]

Voices, Keyboards, and Birds – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is chilly and we’re expecting our first real snowstorm of the year! That means that tomorrow I’ll be shoveling snow and my kids will be making snowmen. We’ll probably do a bit of sledding as well. I hope that you have some equally fun things planned for your weekend.  […]

Chrome, Wheels, and Voices – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where snow is covering the ground as the sun rises. The snow might not last much longer though as we’re expecting sleet and rain today. Rain is a bad word for folks like me who like to ski. On the upside, it’s a great day to make and eat more Christmas […]

Geography, Docs, and PowerPoint – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of November, 2021. It was a busy, but good month for me. I hope that it was a good one for you as well.  As I do every month, I’ve compiled a list of the most popular posts of the last thirty days. […]

Turkey, Docs, and Teams – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where a little dusting of snow and a temperature of 23F makes it feel like winter has arrived. I hope that all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving this week had an enjoyable and restful holiday.  All of the leaves have finally fallen off the trees in my yard and I’ve cleaned […]

Docs, Geography, and Videos – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m home after a great trip to Nebraska earlier in the week. It was great to spend time with my friends Kris and Beth Still, but there’s nothing like being home with my little family. We’re going to make big leaf piles and have fun playing outside today. I hope […]

PowerPoint, PBL, and Mountain Lions – The Week in Review

Good morning from Nebraska where I’m visiting my good friends Kris and Beth Still. Long-time readers of my blog will remember that Beth filled in for me when my daughters were born and before that was responsible for the NECC Newbie Project that sent me to my first NECC (now ISTE) conference way back in […]

Engineering, Games, and Puns – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s a brisk 24F while I wait for the sun to rise. After the sun rises and it warms up a bit, I’m going on my favorite bike route for one last time before cold and snow make it unpleasant, if not impossible, to ride again until spring. If you’re […]

The Most Popular Posts in October

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of  October. Some of the colorful leaves of autumn are still clinging to the trees, but more are on the ground than in the trees now. Hopefully, I’ll get them cleaned up before the snow flies (that could be any day now). But […]

Widgets, Videos, and Maps – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where my kids are eagerly anticipating Halloween! They had a little celebration at their preschool on Friday and now they can’t wait to put on their costumes tomorrow. It’s kind of a bleak and rainy day here so we just might let them wear their costumes for fun today as well. […]

Forms, Earth, and STEM – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is still dark as I draft this blog post. In fact, it will be dark for at least another hour. The late sunrise is the only thing that I dislike about this time of year in Maine. Except for the big oak tree in my front yard, all of […]

Copyright, Handbooks, and Goals – The Week in Review

Good morning from Vermont where in a few hours I’ll be riding in my last bike race of the year, The Hibernator. I still have fitness goals to reach this (riding 7,500 miles in 2021 is the big one), but this is my last event of the year and it looks like the weather is […]

Tasks, Spaces, and Cakes – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we have enjoyed a great week of beautiful fall weather. The nights have been cool, the days have been warm and sunny, and the leaves are turning into vibrant shades of red, yellow, and orange. My daughters can’t wait for me to make big piles of leaves to jump in. […]

Docs, Guesses, and Hats – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it definitely feels like Fall. This week I had to break out my stash of winter hats (my Canadian friends would call them toques). It’s cheaper to put on a hat and sweater than it is to turn on the furnace. Before I had kids I always tried to make […]

Fall, Forms, and Games – The Month in Review

The sun has set on a cool, crisp evening here in Maine. The maple leaves are changing colors from green to amazing shades of red and orange. In short, my favorite season of the year is here!  As September ends and October begins it feels like all of the commotion of the beginning of the […]

Thinking, Blurring, and Coloring – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the humidity is making everything feel wet. That’s okay because I’m going fishing and will get wet anyway. It’s the last weekend of the fishing season on my favorite river and I’m hoping to catch a few landlocked salmon to end the year. I hope that you have something fun […]

Forms, Games, and Files – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to be a great early fall weekend for apple picking, bike riding, and enjoying the great outdoors. I hope that wherever you are this weekend that you also have some fun things planned.  This week I hosted a webinar all about search strategies for students. If you […]

Typing, Blurring, and Captioning – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining on what should be a gorgeous early autumn day. I would be remiss not to mention that today is the 20th anniversary of terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I remember it like it was yesterday, part of what I remember is that the weather was […]

Forms, Music, and Games – The Month in Review

The sun has set on the month of August and now it really feels like summer vacation is over. From racing my bike across Flint Hills of Kansas to explorting the woods and waters of Maine with my daughters to fun trips to Story Land I feel like I soaked up as much summer fun […]

Five Ideas for Using Google Jamboard This Fall

A couple of weeks ago I published an excerpt from The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. That excerpt mentioned a couple of ways to use Google Jamboard in online and in-person classroom settings. This morning I had a reader reach out to me to ask if I had any other suggestions that she could pass along […]

Comics, Docs, and Posters – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re getting ready for a weekend of fun. We’re planning to go for a little hike and do a little fishing. I hope that you have something fun planned for your weekend as well.  This week I hosted a couple of professional development webinars for schools. If you’re interested in […]

Images, Inquiry, and Virtual Backgrounds – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what should be a great weekend to celebrate my oldest daughter’s fifth birthday! I’m sure every parent says the same, but I can’t believe how fast she’s growing. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in the hospital and now she’s asking me […]

Blogs, Books, and Icebreakers – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re hoping that the forecasted rain showers will bring a respite from the high heat and humidity we’ve experienced all week. How humid was it? On Wednesday I leaned my bike against the house while I ran in to get a water bottle. When I came back there was condensation […]

Forms, Books, and Red Leaves – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the first signs of fall appeared this week. Yesterday, while walking past my neighbor’s house I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of two red maple leaves on his lawn. Despite it being 82F and humid while I was walking, those two maple leaves made me think of […]

July’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

July has come and gone. It feels like just yesterday the school year was ending and now it seems we’re seeing “back to school” promotions on every website and in every store. With the exception of a few days at the beginning of the month I’ve been working all summer long on maintaining this blog, […]

Music, Forms, and Elements – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what is going to a great day for outdoor play. We’ll be riding bikes, going on a little hike, and playing in the water today. I hope that you also have some fun things planned for your weekend.  This week I did a lot of […]

Chat, Search, and Puffins – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising and I’m about to head out on an early morning bike ride. Before I do that I have this quick week in review to share with you.  This week I didn’t host any webinars as I spent four days working on developing new materials about search […]

Docs, Slides, and Simulations – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where we had a fun day outside despite the clouds and rain. My mother came to visit and my daughters enjoyed showing her all of the fun things in our yard including wild raspberries and blueberries, our garden vegetables, and their little backyard clubhouse. Getting an ice cream treat was also […]

Passwords, Annotations, and Checklists – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the rain is petering out after two days of solid soaking. Hopefully, we’ll see some sunshine today so that we can play outside. Everyone in my house gets a little stir crazy after more than a couple of days without extended outdoor playtime. I hope that wherever you are this […]

Checklists, Chatbots, and Badges – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where a steady drizzle is providing a little reprieve from the drought conditions we’ve been experiencing for the last few weeks. I’m happy to have the rain even if it makes bike riding a little less fun than in sunny conditions. Speaking of bike riding, this week was the first week […]

Coming Later This Month…

The July session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp begins in eleven days. If you haven’t registered for the session of your choice, you can do so up until the day before it starts. While the early-bird discount has passed, you can still get group discounts.  There is a July session and an August […]

Annotations, Expeditions, and Summer – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where a line of strong thunderstorms is a hopeful signal that our heatwave is about to break. June was the busiest month I’ve had in more than a year. Between end-of-school activities, hosting webinars, training for bike races, and trying to be the best dad I can be it felt like […]

Bikes, Slides, and Summer Reading – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on this summer morning. I’m inside instead of sitting on my porch because I’m eagerly anticipating watching the first stage of the Tour de France. After that we’ll head outside to ride our own bikes. And tomorrow we’re heading to Storyland! I hope that you also […]

Summer, Icons, and Animations – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’ve just woken up from our first backyard camping adventure! Overall, it went about as well as could be hoped for with a three-year-old and a four-year-old in a tent. I think my three-year-old now wants to live in the tent with her stuffed animals and books.  Happy Father’s Day […]

PDFs, Science, and Gravel – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what should be a nice summer Saturday. At this time last week I was riding my bike across the gravel roads of Emporia, Kansas for the Unbound Gravel 200. Today, will be a little less physically demanding. We’re going to the Living Shores Aquarium to […]

Games, Maps, and Pictures – The Month in Review

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 northern New England.  This month […]

Brainstorming, Games, and Flying Teachers – The Week in Review

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, playground visits, and a trail walk and picnic that […]

Maps, Certificates, and Brainstorms – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to be a warm and sunny day. Most importantly, the worst of the black fly (gnats) swarms have passed. And the most exciting news in our house is that we’re going to see my mother for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic reached New England. I […]

Slides, Moving, and Fun – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to be a gorgeous spring weekend! Last weekend we spent a lot of time outdoors and this weekend we’ll spend even more time outside. I hope that wherever you are this weekend that you also get some time for outdoor fun.  This week I didn’t publish as […]

Pictures, Wolves, and Code – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what promises to be a fantastic Mother’s Day weekend. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms that read my blog, especially my mom! We’re doing some gardening this weekend. I hope that you have something fun planned for your weekend as well.  This was another […]

Zoom, Voice, and April Showers – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re hoping for some sunshine after a few rainy days. Either way, I’m going for a long bike ride today as I continue to prepare to ride in the Unbound Gravel 200 in June. I hope that you also have something fun in store for your weekend.  This week I […]

Geese, Comments, and Games – The Month in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is trying to rise through the rain on the last day of April. This month was a busy month at school and on my websites, Free Technology for Teachers and Practical Ed Tech. This month I hosted a couple of webinars, hosted Teaching History With Technology, and announced […]

Writing, Rain, and Logic – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where my school vacation week is winding down with a return to some typical spring weather. Earlier this week I used a vacation day to go for a long bike ride to the Height of the Land overlooking Mooselookmeguntic Lake. It was fun for the first 60 miles, the last 24 […]

Games, Canva, and Comments – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where at this time last week it was sunny and 60 degrees. Today, it’s snowy and 28F. Such is life in the spring in Maine. We’re hoping that it warms up a little bit today because we’re planning to go to the Maine Wildlife Park for opening weekend. If you have […]

Photos, Poetry, and History – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is going to be another gorgeous spring day. We’ve been lucky to have a bunch of nice days this week. My family has been soaking up every minute of nice weather by riding bikes, cleaning out garden beds, and generally playing outside as much as we can. And that’s […]

Games, Transcripts, and Copyright – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful day for bike ride after school. Jumping on my bicycle after school on a sunny spring day always makes me feel like a kid again. I hope that you also have an activity in your life that makes you feel like a kid again. As the […]

Copyright, Transcripts, and Worms – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it feels like spring! All week we had unseasonably warm weather. We even had a thunderstorm yesterday. All that warm weather has made almost all of the snow to melt which has created some big mud puddles. And where there are mud puddles there are worms and my children playing […]

Geography, AI, and Presentations – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a great first day of spring! I went for a bike ride outside then played outdoor bingo with my daughters. We also got started on some yard work that we can do in the few west-facing patches of lawn where the snow has completely melted to the ground. […]

Search, Kahoot, and Phones – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where after a few spring-like days winter is blowing back in with full force. After riding my bike in 60F weather earlier this week it’s a bit of a shock to the system to be back in 20s this morning. At least it’s sunny and the skiing should be good tomorrow. […]

Annotations, Games, and Audio – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on February. It turned out to be a great weekend with snow on Saturday and sunny skies today. Getting outside to play was the perfect way to end what felt like an exceptionally long February.  I’m going to start March with a couple of webinars. On […]

Changes, Chat, and Spring – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where today it’s going to snow, but tomorrow is going to sunny and will be almost spring-like. It’s going to be perfect for skiing today and riding my bike outside tomorrow. I need some time outside after a long week. It clears my head and rejuvenates me. I hope that you […]

Recordings, Whiteboards, and Snow – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where a fresh coat of snow fell last night. It’s just enough to make for good sledding and skiing, but not so much that it’s a pain to clear from the walkways and driveway.  This week I was school vacation week here in Maine. I took most of the week off […]

Music, QR Codes, and Cold – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re going to have another cold and snowy weekend. Every morning this week was below zero (Fahrenheit) when I let our dogs out. This morning is the same. Fortunately, it should warm up to about 20F by the middle of day. It’ll be nice for a little bit of skiing […]

Poetry, Music, and Zoomed-out – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s going to be a chilly and sunny winter day. We had nearly two feet of fresh snow fall this week. Conditions are perfect for sledding, skiing, and making snowmen. After another week on completely online classes, I need some time outside. I don’t know about you, but my students […]

The Most Popular Posts of the Month – Ending With a Flood!

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the last day of January. The first month of the year went much too fast. And 2021 has been just as challenging as 2020 for me. The capper was a phone call from my school’s director a few hours ago to tell me that my […]

Games, DJs, and Exercise – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s a brisk 4F outside. My dogs wasted no time coming back to the house when I let them out this morning. The good news is that the forecast calls for warmer (relatively) temperatures and snow. I’m looking forward to helping my daughters learn to ski this weekend. I hope […]

G Suite Audio, Accessibility, and Timelines – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we play outside even if it’s cold and snowy. Sometimes that means doing traditional snow activities like skiing and sledding while other times it just means knocking some snow off the swings and having fun in our snowsuits. Whether the weather is hot or cold where you are, I hope […]

Time, Space, and Exercise – The Week in Review

(Not my house).  Good morning from Maine where I’m hoping for snow. It has been a couple of weeks since our last snow storm and I’m worried that our ski season will be too short if we don’t get more snow soon. Either way, I won’t be able to ski today because this afternoon I’m […]

Microsoft EDU – You’ve Got Questions, He’s Got Answers

Many times over the last year I’ve mentioned Mike Tholfsen from Microsoft and his many Microsoft Teams tutorial videos. His YouTube channel is really the place to go for help with Microsoft Teams and OneNote questions. Next week he’s hosting a live AMA (ask me anything) session on his YouTube channel.  At 5pm ET on […]

Annotations, Document Cameras, and Exercise – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s going to be nice day with clear skies and temperatures peaking around 30F. In other words, it’s going to be a good day for playing in the snow with my daughters. I foresee some sledding, skiing, and lots of fun in future. I’m also hoping to get some time […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where my kids are still basking in the glow of Santa’s visit yesterday. We have a full day of unplanned fun ahead of us. I hope that you also have a fun ahead of you.  I didn’t write or publish any blog posts yesterday and I won’t be writing anything new […]

Breakouts, Outages, and Cool Jobs – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is nice and chilly. Okay, chilly is an exaggeration. It’s downright cold! It was another interesting week of conducting hybrid and online classes. More COVID-19 cases in my community meant fewer students in class and more online. If nothing else, this school year has made me more flexible than […]

The Week in Review – Time to Pick Up Sticks

Good afternoon from Maine where I’m spending some of the day cleaning up from last weekend’s snow and ice storm. We had a bunch of branches and one tree snap last weekend. All week long I’ve been picking up sticks and branches but with another storm in the forecast I’m clearing brush in earnest today. […]

The Week in Review – Here Comes the Snow!

Good morning from Maine where, if the weather forecast is correct, by this time tomorrow my cleanly raked lawn will be covered in a foot of fresh snow. It sure feels like it’s going to snow. I’m looking forward to doing some sledding and making snowmen with daughters. I’m not looking forward to shoveling. I […]

The Most Popular Posts of the Month

There’s just one month left in 2020! I hope those of you who had a Thanksgiving break are feeling re-charged and ready for the last month of school in 2020.  As I do at the end of every month, I’ve compiled a list of the most popular posts of the last thirty days. Take a […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where I’m still groggy from all of the turkey I ate on Thursday. It’s either that or my coffee hasn’t kicked in this morning. Like many parents of young children I try get up an hour before my kids do in order to get a quiet moment for coffee and writing […]

The Week in Review – It’s Feeling Like Winter

Good morning from Maine where it certainly felt like winter this week. We had snow flurries every morning and some afternoons this week. My bike riding has become an indoor activity. And all the leaves have fallen from the trees except for some stubborn oak leaves.  This week my school was 100% remote, again. While […]

The Week in Review – Roll With the Changes

Good morning from Maine where it has been a week all about rolling with the changes (insert REO Speedwagon earworm here). On the weather front we went from unseasonably warm temperatures early in the week to cold rainy to end the week. In school we went from hybrid classes to full online classes in the […]

The Week in Review – Heading Into Hibernation

Good morning from Maine where we’re going to enjoy the last warm days of the year this weekend. Warm is a relative term because while those of us here think that 50F-60F is warm many of my southern friends will disagree. Either way, the Maine black bears that my daughters and I saw preparing for […]

The Week in Review – Halloween Edition

Good morning from Maine where it’s so cold you’d think it was the last day of December not the last day of October. It’s Halloween and my daughters are excited even though trick o’ treating is going to be severely curtailed this year. They’re excited to wear the costumes that they’ve been talking about for […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is still an hour before sunrise as I compose this blog post. Next weekend we’ll change the clocks and we’ll be back to at least seeing some sunshine before school begins. Of course, that will also mean an earlier sunset. Such is life in northern New England.  To the […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from rainy Maine. It looks like it’s going to be the perfect kind of day to stay inside to watch movies and read a good book. But I won’t be doing that because I have toddlers, dogs, and an old house that always needs something fixed. We’ll be putting on our wellies and […]

The Week in Review – Maps, Docs, and Games

Good morning from Maine where it is cold, but clear. The leaves are rapidly changing color and falling to the ground. There is a significant amount of raking time in my near future. The only good thing about having to rake leaves is that my daughters love to jump in leaf piles. Earlier this week […]

The Week in Review – Search, Coding, and Microsoft Forms

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising and revealing all of the colors of fall. Fall is my favorite time of year to be outside. Playing outside is what I plan to do with my kids today. My oldest daughter has been asking all week for us to make a leaf pile for […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where colorful leaves and the wind tell us that fall is in full force on the last day of September. On a personal note, it has been a stressful end to the month as my school went from a hybrid model of some students online to a 100% online model in […]

The Week in Review – A Flashback to 2002!

Good morning from Maine where I’m up nearly two hours before sunrise. Yes, I wake up early. But it’s also a sign that summer is nearly over. Fall officially begins next week and soon I’ll be spending part of my weekends cleaning up the fallen leaves on my property. Today, though, I plan to play […]

ICYMI – Episode 18 of Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff

Every Thursday afternoon Rushton Hurley and I answer questions from readers like you during Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions & Share Cool Stuff. We do that at 4pm ET which might not be the best timing for our friends who are not in the Eastern Time zone. That’s why we record it! You can […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is a lovely morning filled with cool air just before sunrise. Sunrise is getting noticeably later these days as summer winds down. Red and orange leaves are starting to appear on the ground around my house. Earlier this week my youngest daughter brought me the red/ orange leaf in […]

The Month in Review – Back to School

Greetings from the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in Maine. It’s a sunny day here in Maine and great afternoon to soak up the last rays of summer sunshine. Leaves are starting to change color on some of the trees around here. The first red leaves of the year provide a small sense of […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where we had a cold and rainy late August day. It was a good day for making cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip) and watching Winnie the Pooh with my kids. After a long first week back at school, it was the kind of day that I needed. I didn’t have students in […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where our recent heatwave has broken and it’s going to be a great weekend to enjoy the great outdoors. I’m planning to have a little backyard camping adventure with my toddlers. I hope that you also have something fun on your weekend schedule. This week I hosted Get Organized With Google […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on a beautiful summer day. I hope that you are having a great weekend! Unlike last week in which I hosted more than a dozen webinars, this week I didn’t host any. I am going to host a few webinars next week. One of them is […]

The Week in Review – So Many Webinars

Good morning from Maine where I’m sitting on my back porch drinking coffee and watching the fog clear out of the valley below me. The scene reminds me of the old saying, “fog in the hollow, good weather to follow.” This week I wrapped up the third session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is pouring rain. It was a busy week here as I hosted the second session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. Today, I’m going to relax a bit by splashing in puddles and doing some arts and crafts with my daughters. I hope that you’re also planning […]

A Dozen Lessons About Inventions That “Changed the World”

It was a hot and humid afternoon here in Maine. In fact, the weather app on my phone said that it was “oppressively humid.” I’d say that was right. The only good thing about the heat and humidity is that it provides the perfect reason to enjoy a popsicle with my toddlers. Having that popsicle […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is a cool and overcast start to the Fourth of July. It has rained almost all week and that’s okay because we needed the rain. I also didn’t mind the rain because I was inside all week working on a big project. Now that the weekend is here, I […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and burning off the last of the overnight fog. It’s going to be a great day for fun things like riding bikes with my kids and not-so-fun things like mowing the lawn. I hope that you also have a fun and relaxing weekend. This week I […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is already hot and the sun has only been up for an hour. My daughters have been enjoying their water table and wading pool all week. I see a lot more of that happening today. I hope that you also get outside for some fun this weekend. This week […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and the air has that perfect early summer feel to it. It’s going to be a great day for riding bikes and doing all kinds of fun things outside. And it’s also a good day for mowing the lawn (something I don’t consider to be fun). […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and my lawn is taller than it should it be. Before I head out to deal with that and about a dozen other home maintenance tasks I have this week’s list of the most popular posts to share with you. I hope that you have a […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

It’s the end of May and sure was a month I’ll remember for a while for a few reasons. First, we had snow on the ground as late as Mother’s Day and then we temperatures in the 90s a couple of days ago. Second, as the weather improved it became quite trying to keep my […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it’s going to be a great day for bike rides, dog walks, and playing outside with my kids. And I also have the lawn to mow 🙁 But I’ll focus on the fun stuff first because it is the weekend after all. I hope that […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it feels like summer! It’s going to be a great weekend to ride my bike, play outside with my kids, and generally unwind after a long week. I hope that this weekend you get some time to unwind too. This week I hosted or co-hosted […]

The Week in Review – A Bunch of Turkeys

Good evening from Maine where today it finally felt like spring. At this time last week the ground was covered in fresh snow. This evening, it was 60F and sunny. We had a fun day playing outside here and I hope that wherever you are this weekend, you got to enjoy some fresh air too. […]

The Week in Review – It’s Snowing!

Good morning from Paris Hill, Maine where it is snowing! Yes, on May 9th I woke up to snow covering everything. And the best part is that when the snow ends it’s supposed to be followed by a day of winter-like temperatures and winds. My three-year-old summarized how most of us feel this morning when […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

It’s the last day of April. In some ways this month seemed to fly by and in others it seemed to drag along. The part that flew by was all work related as I was constantly answering questions from students, colleagues, and readers in between hosting virtual class meetings and webinars. The part that dragged […]

The Week in Review – Could This Be Spring?

Good morning from Maine where the birds are chirping as the sun begins to rise. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 50’s (F) for the second day in row! Could this be the beginning of consistent spring weather? I hope so. We’re all getting a little tired of boots and snowsuits (wrestling toddlers into […]

The Week in Review – Might as Well Eat Cake

Good morning from Maine where the sun is soon to be shining and the snow is gone. At this time last week we were still recovering from the effects of a big spring snowstorm. In the middle of last week’s power outage my friend and colleague Dr. Wendy Robichaud and her husband sent us a […]

Create Online Art Galleries With Wakelet, Padlet, and Google Sites

In last week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I answered a question from a reader who was looking for a way for students to be able to submit examples of their artwork and have them displayed in a public gallery. The suggestion that I made on the podcast was to try using Wakelet […]

How to Use Google Forms With Students Who Don’t Have Email Addresses

This afternoon someone Tweeted at me at to ask how elementary school students who don’t have active email addresses can view the results of quizzes that they take in Google Forms. There are three ways that that can be accomplished. I made a new video to demonstrate how those methods work. In the following video […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the April showers and wind arrived in earnest on Thursday and didn’t stop until late last night. Thankfully, it looks like today will be a nice day for playing outside and doing a bit of spring yard work. The governor of Maine issued a stay-at-home order this week so playing […]

The Month in Review – What a March It Was!

Good morning from Maine where I’m sitting in my home office waiting for students to join into a Google Hangouts Meet for virtual office hours. It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of the month COVID-19 was something that was affecting people “somewhere else” and now has nearly all of us working and teaching […]

The Week in Review – Online Meetings, Baseball Cards, and Forts

Good morning from Maine where the birds are chirping and it feels like spring as I sip my coffee. We’re going to spend the day playing in the yard. Spring has come a little earlier than normal here in Maine otherwise we might be going crazy isolating in the house. Rain is in the forecast […]

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 I’ll be playing outside with my kids today. I’m betting that, like me, many of you had a busy week of trying to quickly adjust to teaching your classes in […]

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 snow in my yard has melted and the stream behind my house is running high. As COVID-19 continues to spread and more schools close, I hope that all of can […]

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 been suspended until the end of April. Almost every ed tech company seems to be making their products free in response to school closures. Those topics and more are discussed […]

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 and dogs. Much of the snow that covered our yard just last week melted away in the spring-like temperatures that we had twice this week. In other words, mud season […]

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 me to get up before 5am. Having two toddlers will do that to a person. Before everyone starts stirring, I have this week’s list of the most popular posts to […]

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 day early. In this episode I highlighted a couple of new resources for pictures, videos, and audio files to use in your multimedia projects. The first part of the podcast […]

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 so I’m planning to get outside to play for a bit more. I spent part of the week working on some long-term projects. But it wasn’t all work all week […]

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 new Google Docs tools, a new way to make videos from text, and a cute app for little kids like mine. As always, I answered a handful of questions from […]

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 it will be windy. In other words, it might be a day for bowling instead of playing outside. My youngest daughter recently discovered that she loves bowling! Well as much […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where it was a good day for being outside skiing and playing. It was a great way to spend the first half of the weekend. I hope that you also had a great start to your weekend. This week I opened registration for the 2020 Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Summer […]

Gmail, Screencasts, and Summer Plans – The Month in Review

The first month of 2020 is at its end. I hope the first month of the year has gone well for you. Did you make a New Year’s Resolution? How’s going? Mine was to cut-out junk food and except for three slip-ups I’ve kept to it. This month I had the honor of speaking at […]

The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode 29 – Video & Standardized Chargers

There were a bunch of neat things related to ed tech that were released this week. And a bunch more will be out next week in conjunction with the BETT Show in London. In this week’s episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I shared a new video tool, an awesome update to a popular […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where we’re anticipating a winter ice storm. I’m trying to get a lot done before the inevitable power outage. One of those things is writing up this week’s list of the most popular posts of the week. This week I hosted the first session of Teaching History With Technology. 31 people […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the snow that blanketed us earlier in the week is still here and will be here until April. I’m not complaining at all because at our house snow equals skiing. And that’s what we’re going to do after the sun comes up and we wrangle our toddlers into their snowsuits […]

Ten Blogging Activities for Kindergarten Through High School Classrooms

Whether your students are just learning how to type or they’re aspiring journalists, there are lots of ways to use blogging as a classroom activity. Edublogs offers a nice directory of active classroom blogs. Take a look through that directory to find some good examples of how teachers are using blogs in all grade levels […]

My Ten Most Watched Ed Tech Tutorial Videos in 2019

In 2019 I created and added more than one hundred new ed tech tools tutorial videos to my YouTube channel. That brought the total for my channel to more 1,000 videos. This morning I sat down and looked at the analytics for my channel. According to the YouTube analytics these were the ten most watched […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it’s cold and dark at the moment. Fortunately, sunshine is in the forecast and we’re going to play outside in some fresh air after a day of being stuck inside because of sleet and rain. There’s nothing worse than a sleeting, raining day during school vacation week. But I probably […]

My Favorite New & Updated Tools in 2019

The end of the year is just five days away so I’ve put together a short list of my favorite new and updated tools in 2019. You can watch my video overview of these tools, take a look at the slides, or read more about them below. This is a highly subjective list not subject […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

My vacation reading list. Good morning from Maine where the ground is covered with snow and it’s going to be a great vacation week for those of us who like to ski. Vacation is also a great time to do some reading. I have a few books that I’ll be trying to read or re-read […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Found on the vending machine in the teachers’ room at my school. Good morning from rainy Maine. Rain in December in Maine is always a bummer because it washes away the know which means we can’t ski, sled, or make a snowman. But we’ll find something else fun to do today. I hope that you […]

The Practical Ed Tech Podcast Episode 22 – Fitness, Code, and Q&A

Last night I published the 22nd episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast. In this week’s podcast I talked about how I improved my fitness in 2019, shared some resources for Hour of Code, and answered some questions from readers, listeners, and viewers like you. One of my favorite questions this week was about what […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from snowy Maine where it is going to be a great weekend for playing outside. When the sun comes up I plan to do some sledding with my kids. Later, we might do a little skiing too. But first I have this week’s list of the most popular posts of the week. Before […]

The Ten Most Popular Posts Last Month

We put up our Christmas tree this weekend (my toddlers “helped” decorate it). Putting up the tree is always a sign that December is here. November has come and gone. As I do at the end of every month I’ve put together a list of the ten most read posts of the last thirty days. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it feels like winter! It’s 4F outside, a lot of snow is in the forecast, and we’re going to get our Christmas tree later today. I hope that all of you had a great week. I spent a lot of the week in Connecticut visiting family and friends for Thanksgiving. […]

12 Quick Thoughts After 12 Years of Free Technology for Teachers

Yesterday marked twelve years since I started this blog. I didn’t have much of clue about what I was doing. I chose the name Free Technology for Teachers because it was the height of the Web 2.0 boom and everything new seemed to be free. I wanted to try it all out. Writing blog posts […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is still below the horizon and the wind is making it feel colder than the thermometer’s reading of 22F. Before the sun comes up and my kids wake up, I have this week’s list of the most popular posts of the week to share with you. Thanksgiving is […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Nebraska where I’m visiting my good friends Kris and Beth Still. Some of you may recall that Beth and met more than a decade ago when she organized the NECC Newbie Project and chose me to be the “newbie.” Since then our friendship has grown and our families have become friends too. […]

The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode #19 – Great Google Slides Update and More

This morning I published the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast. In this episode I shared the exciting, for some, news about Google Slides and some not-so-exciting news about how Google is using health data. The episode also features a handful of other updates from the world of educational technology that is worth […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good afternoon from Maine where all the leaves have turned brown and the air has turned cold. We had our first snowfall of the year this week and the local ski mountain opened this morning. Winter isn’t far away. Staying indoors all day just because it’s cold is a recipe disaster in our house so […]

Formative Assessment, Search, and Listening – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the first Saturday in November. Tomorrow the sun will set an hour earlier after we turn our clocks back tonight for the end of Daylight Saving Time. On that note, here are three short lessons about Daylight Saving Time. My kids, dogs, and I had […]

Slide Tricks, Candy, and Maps – The Month in Review

October has come and gone. As I do at the end of every month I have looked through my Google Analytics account to find the most read posts of the last month. The most popular posts in October centered around Google Slides tricks and tips, making educational games, and a source of historical maps. Take […]

Creativity and Leaf Piles – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and almost every leaf in my neighborhood seems to have landed in my backyard. The only good thing about leaf removal is making big piles for my kids to jump in. They sliding down their Little Tykes slide into the piles. Wherever you are this weekend, I […]

Maps, Games, and SumoBots – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s cold outside and quiet in my house. In other words, I’m up early before anyone else. It’s a perfect time to drink coffee (black, dark roast) and write. This week some of computer science students worked on programming SumoBots to do battle. While SumoBot kits provide a lot of […]

Slides, Forms, and Mountains – The Week in Review

Good evening from Oregon where I had a great day traveling from Portland to Bend for the Oregon SHAPE conference. It was my first time presenting at a conference dedicated to health and physical education. It was great! And the views on the drive from Portland to Bend were extraordinary! These were the week’s most […]

The Week in Review – It’s Pumpkin Season!

Good morning from Maine where it is looking and feeling like fall a little more every day. Last Sunday afternoon I did my first round of leaf removal and I’ll be doing another one this weekend. You have to stay on top of these things when you live in a place where a foot of […]

How to Randomize Question and Answer Sequences in Google Forms

On Tuesday afternoon I published Google Forms Features You Should Know How to Use. That post and corresponding video has prompted a slew of emails from people either asking or suggesting that I make a video about how to have Google Forms questions and answers appear in random order within a quiz. So as a […]

Mind Maps, Rubrics, and Cats – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on a busy month of September. Between webinars, working on a book, and taking over a computer science program the posting here was a little less frequent than usual. I still managed to publish more than 60 new posts. It will get back up to my […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the the air is cool and crisp, the leaves are colorful, and everyone is dressed in their favorite flannel. These are the days that everyone pictures when they think about New England in the fall. I can’t wait to get outside! I hope that wherever you are this weekend that […]

Get Your Copy of the Free Practical Ed Tech Handbook

Last Sunday I published the updated 2019-20 version of my popular Practical Ed Tech Handbook. I started publishing one every school year in the fall of 2015. Each fall since then I’ve published an updated version. All together they’ve been downloaded more than 100,000 times. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can download […]

The Week in Review – Social Studies, Search, and Computer Science

Good morning from Maine where summer is having one last hurrah! After temperatures in the 30’s (Fahrenheit) earlier this week it’s going to be sunny and 80 degrees today. I plan to get my kids outside to play and soak up the last rays of summer today. I hope that you also have time to […]

The Practical Ed Tech Podcast – Episode #5

Yesterday afternoon I hosted the latest broadcast of Practical Ed Tech Live. If you missed it, you can now watch the video or listen to it as a podcast. All episodes of the Practical Ed Tech Podcast are available on this Anchor.fm page. All episodes are also available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, Pocket […]

A Self-paced Course for Learning How to Use G Suite in Your Practice

One of the ways that I have been able to keep Free Technology for Teachers running for the last twelve years is through offering professional development services in the forms of in-person workshops and online courses sold through Practical Ed Tech. The most popular Practical Ed Tech course that I’ve hosted over the last six […]

The Ten Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers – In August

At the end of every month I like to take a look back at the most popular posts of the previous thirty days. I’m a couple of days late this time. I make these lists to get some insights into what readers want to see more or less of. I also do this as a […]

The Week in Review – Icebreakers, Cool Cats, and Pictures

Good morning from Maine where it is a beautiful start to Labor Day weekend. We have family visiting for the weekend so I’m going to quickly write this week’s week-in-review before they everyone wakes up. This week I had the privilege to work with teachers in Saint John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. We worked […]

The Week in Review – Bad News and New Fonts

Good morning from Maine where the 50F air and the appearance of red leaves makes it feels like the end of summer is near. This always leaves me feeling conflicted as I don’t want summer to end, but I also love the arrival of autumn. I’m looking forward to getting outside this weekend and I […]

8 Epic Tools to Try This School Year – A Podcast With Vicki Davis

A few weeks ago I Vicki Davis invited me to be a guest on her fantastic 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. As the title implies, in the podcast I shared an overview of eight educational technology tools that can be used in almost any classroom. You can find the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast on all major […]

The Week in Review – Originality, Audio, and Clocks

Good afternoon from rainy South Paris, Maine. Even though the weather was less than ideal for a bike ride I went out for ride to exercise this morning. Along the way I saw a red leaf on a maple tree. In this part of the world, the appearance of red leaves on maple trees is […]

Rubrics, Whiteboards, and Phys Ed – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is a beautiful morning for a bike ride. That’s what I’m going to do as soon as I finish writing this week-in-review. This week I hosted a professional development webinar all about using Google Classroom, Calendar, and Keep. If you missed it, it will be available on-demand at the […]

Phys Ed, Notes, and Updates – The Week in Review

Good afternoon from sunny Paris, Maine. The summer is passing too quickly now as evidenced by the sudden reappearance of “back to school” commercials on television and on the Internet. If you’re in the northern hemisphere like me, I hope that you’re enjoying the summer as much as you can. To that end, this week […]

Gmail, Posters, and Quizzes – The Month in Review

Good morning from Maine where it’s nice and cool after a big thunderstorm rolled through breaking the heat and humidity we’d been experiencing. We have about four more weeks of summer until people start to complain about seeing the first leaves change and getting their fall clothes out. I plan to enjoy what’s left of […]

Alt Text, Google Keep, and Posters – The Week in Review

Good morning from sunny Paris, Maine where it’s going to be a great day to play outside. Before my kids wake up and and we start our day of play, I have this week’s list of the most popular posts of the week to share with you. Take a look and see if there is […]

Quick Videos, Google Keep, and Camp – The Week in Review

Good afternoon from Everett, Washington where we’re attending a family wedding. It has been a busy week as I hosted the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp at the beginning of the week and then we flew across the country with two toddlers in tow. This year’s Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp was, in my opinion, […]

Gmail, Name Pickers, and Forms – The Week in Review

Good evening from hot and humid Paris, Maine. The first week of July has been a busy one as I wrapped-up a couple of online courses and worked on some of the final elements for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp (there is still time to register). And, as it is now summer, I took […]

Expeditions, Writing Prompts, and Accessibility – The Month in Review

June has come and gone. At the end of every month I like to take a look back and see which blog posts were the most popular of the previous thirty days. The following were the most popular posts in June, 2019. 1. Google Expeditions is Now Available on Chromebooks! 2. Interactive Versions of Aesop’s […]

Resources for Learning About the Tour de France and Science of Cycling

One of these two people has won a Tour de France Green Jersey. The Tour de France starts this coming Saturday. The race always ends in Paris, but it starts in a different place and takes a different route every year. This year’s course starts in Belgium. You can see the whole course here on […]

Expeditions, Search, and 202 Miles on a Bike – The Week in Review

Good afternoon from Maine where today I’m recuperating after riding my bike for 202 miles yesterday. The ride was part of a fundraiser for the Fast Freddie Foundation that gives bicycles and safety equipment to underprivileged kids all over the United States. Fast Freddie Rodriguez (pictured with me) is a retired professional cyclist whose record […]

Immersive Reader, Carmen Sandiego, and Fire Alarms – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful summer day. It was perfect for playing outside and that’s exactly what we did. I hope that you were able to do something fun today too. This week I had the privilege to spend two days with tech coaches and teachers in the Portsmouth, Virginia school […]

Writing Prompts, Beakers, and Fables – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re hoping that the sun will peak out for a trip to the playground. Maine is known for moose and lobster. At our local playground there is a moose carved into boulder. My daughters always want to sit on it. And they’re hoping to do that again today. I hope […]

Geocaching, Green Screens, and Gmail – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a perfect early summer day. It started with a bike ride which was followed by a trip to the playground with my daughters. Our day ended with getting ice cream! It was on the way to get ice cream that I noticed the pictured door that was labeled […]

Copyright, Ethics, and Gmail – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it almost feels like summer. The sun is trying to poke through the clouds and it’s supposed to be 70F today. In other words, it should be a great day to play outside. That’s exactly what I plan to do after publishing this blog post. I hope that wherever you […]

Copyright, VR, and Summaries – The Month in Review

It’s the last day of May. Congratulations to those of you who have just finished the school year! And to those who still have some time to go, you can do it! The end is in sight. As I do at this time every month, I’ve put together a list of the most popular posts […]

How to Make an Animated Timeline in Google Slides

Eighteen months ago I published a video about how to use Google Slides to create a timeline. Yesterday, that video hit 50,000 views. I watched the video again and realized that I could use the animation tools in Google Slides to add animations to my timeline. So yesterday I made a video about how to […]

Digital Maps, Collages, and Legends – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where this week the weather was finally nice enough for bike rides, flip-flops, and lots of yard work. And this weekend’s forecast has lots of sunshine in it which is perfect for Mother’s Day. Speaking of which, happy Mother’s Day to my mom, to Jess (Isla and Emma’s awesome mom), and […]

Forms, Expeditions, and RSS – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m looking forward to a fun day of playing outside with my daughters. Earlier this week I took a day off to take them to the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine. They love seeing all of the animals there so much that we have an annual pass to the […]

DIY Apps, Email Tips, and Video Lessons – April’s Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining on the first day of May. After an extremely stressful five days of dealing with a copyright infringer I’m taking the day off to take my daughters to the Gray Wildlife Park. It’s a wildlife rehabilitation center near our house that has birds, bears, moose, and […]

Mobile Apps, Copyright, and Flipgrid – The Week in Review

Good evening from rainy Maine where I spent part of the day pumping water out of the basement of my 170 year old house. I hope that your day was a little better than mine. This week I had the privilege to speak in Bonner Springs, Kansas to a great group of teachers who welcomed […]

DIY Apps, Patriots’ Day, and Taxes – The Week in Review

Good evening from rainy Paris, Maine. If April showers bring May flowers, I’m going to have a nursery on my hands in a couple of weeks! Ten days ago my yard was covered in snow and today it is resembles a small river. This week I had the privilege of speaking at TLA’s annual conference. […]

Glide – Make Your Own App by Just Making a Spreadsheet

Glide is an amazing free tool that I featured in a presentation during yesterday’s TLA Tech Glamp. Glide enables anyone who can make a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to create his or her own mobile app. If that sounds simple, that’s because it is just that simple. The headers that you put into your spreadsheet […]

Spring, Winter, and a New Look – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re hoping the sun comes out today like it did last weekend. Of course, after last weekend’s warm weather we woke up to six inches of fresh snow on Monday morning. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you can get outside to play too. This week I decided […]

Synth Adds Podcast Moderation Features

Synth is an excellent tool for creating short podcasts. In fact, it’s one of my picks for Best of the Web for the 2018-19 school year. But to call Synth a podcasting tool is a bit misleading because it is more than that. On Synth you can create threaded audio conversations in which people reply […]

Join Me Tomorrow Afternoon for a Live Q&A

Tomorrow at 4pm Eastern Time I’ll be going live on my YouTube channel to answer another round of questions from readers like you. If you have a question about educational technology that you’d like me to answer you can put in the form below or just join the live broadcast and submit your question this afternoon. Subscribe […]

Poetry, Slides, and Interactive Videos – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the spring skiing is awesome! This is a great time of year to be outside in the sun and snow. In fact, that’s what I’ll be doing with my daughters a little bit later today. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you can get outside for some fun […]

Practical Ed Tech Q&A Recording

This afternoon I hosted another live Q&A session on my YouTube channel and on Facebook. If you missed it, the recording of the session is now available as embedded below. The questions that I answered during the broadcast are included below the video. A teacher is using the extension audioplayer for slides with students recording […]

Add-ons, Jeopardy, and Carmen San Diego – The Month in Review

Good morning from Maine where we still have plenty of snow, but it is starting to melt fairly quickly. This month I had the privilege to speak at a couple of conferences and spend a week working with my favorite charter school in Key West, Florida. In April I’ll be speaking at three events starting […]

Cards, Assessments, and Poems – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the April showers have arrived a couple of days early. That’s okay because all week long it was sunny and warm which let my kids and dogs get lots of outdoor playtime. Speaking of outdoor playtime, next week I’m hosting a webinar about how to blend technology into outdoor lessons. […]

Webinar Recording – Best of the Web 2019

This afternoon I hosted a free webinar in which I highlighted some of my favorite new and updated ed tech tools. During the webinar I gave brief demonstrations of Google’s VR Tour Creator, Synth for podcasting, Bouncy Balls for monitoring noise, and programming augmented reality experiences through Metaverse. The webinar also included short demonstrations of […]

Free Webinar Tomorrow – Best of the Web 2019

The last few Wednesdays I have hosted a live Q&A session in which I answer questions from you, my awesome readers. Tomorrow, I’m going to mix it up and instead of hosting a live Q&A I’m going to host a free live webinar featuring the highlights from the latest version of my Best of the […]

Picture Books, Story Maps, and Emojis – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m home after a few days in Detroit for the MACUL Conference. It was great to meet many of you who have been following this little blog of mine for years. Getting to meet teachers all over the world is one of the best things to come from writing this […]

Best of the Web – Spring 2019 Edition

This morning at the 2019 MACUL Conference I gave the latest edition of my popular Best of the Web presentation. It includes some of my old standbys as well as some new tools. A few of the new things in the presentation include YouHue, VR Math, and Bo Clips. Some of the old standbys have updates that I […]

Fast & Fun Formative Assessment – Slides

I ended my day today at the 2019 MACUL Conference by giving a favorite presentation of mine, Fast & Formative Assessment. I always giving this presentation and, based on the level of audience participation, people who come to it enjoy it too. It’s intended to provide attendees with ideas for fun assessment strategies and some […]

5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons – Slides

Today, at the 2019 MACUL Conference I gave three presentations. The second of those presentations was 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons. This is a topic that combines two things that I enjoy, educational technology and being outdoors. You can take a look at the slides as they are embedded below. Some of […]

Recording of Yesterday’s Q&A

Yesterday afternoon I sat down to answer another batch of questions from you, my awesome readers! I broadcast the Q&A on my YouTube channel and on Facebook. If you missed it, the recording is now available here and as embedded below. Here is the list of questions that I answered during the broadcast: How can […]

Join Me Tomorrow for a Live Q&A

Tomorrow at 5pm Eastern Time I’ll be going live on my YouTube channel to answer another round of questions from readers like you. If you have a question about educational technology that you’d like me to answer you can put in the form below or just join the live broadcast and submit your question tomorrow. […]

Carmen Sandiego, Civics, and Sunshine – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I am home after a week of working with some great teachers at the Sigsbee Charter School in Key West, Florida. We capped-off the week by doing an “Amazing Race” activity that was programmed in Metaverse. This week six more people registered for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. If […]

Live Q&A Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 5pm Eastern Time I’ll be going live on my YouTube channel to answer another round of questions from readers like you. If you have a question about educational technology that you’d like me to answer you can put in the form below or just join the live broadcast and submit your question tomorrow. […]

VR, Forms, and Storyboards – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where more snow is in the forecast! If you like to ski, snowshoe, or snowmobile it has been a fantastic winter. If not, you’re probably hoping for it to end soon. This week I had the pleasure of working with some teachers from adult education programs in Cumberland County, Maine. They […]

Weather, Whiteboards, and Adventure – The Month in Review

The end of February has arrived. How did the second month of the year go for you? It was a busy one for me as I did bit speaking at conferences, hosted a few webinars, did some writing that will eventually appear in a book, and planned the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. In there […]

VoicePods Adds a Multiple Voice Option

VoicePods is a text-to-speech service that I started using last fall. It’s a service that will create an MP3 file from any text that you enter or from a web address that you enter. You can listen to your recordings online or download them for offline use. When you listen the recordings online you can […]

Ten Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp

This year’s Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp is designed for two purposes. First and foremost, it is intended to give K-12 teachers, tech coaches, and administrators two days of hands-on learning about educational technology. The second purpose is to provide a professional development experience in a setting that isn’t a generic conference center or uncomfortable […]

Built to Last – A Look at What Works in Ed Tech

This morning I had the honor of giving the opening keynote at the SET-BC District Partner Conference in Vancouver. The title of my talk was Built to Last – What Works in Educational Technology. The purpose of the talk is to provide an overview of what makes some ed tech tools last for many years […]

A Comparison of Blogging Services for Teachers and Students

The Edublogs Student Blogging Challenge kicks-off two weeks from now. You don’t need to be an Edublogs user in order for your students to participate in the challenge. If you’re new to blogging or new to having students blog, Edublogs is a solid choice for a blogging platform. Edublogs isn’t the only option for student […]

Whiteboards, Valentines, and Adventure – The Week in Review

Good morning from Paris Hill, Maine where the snow has stopped and the sun is shining. It’s a perfect day to go snowshoe festival. That’s exactly what one of my daughters and I are going to do as soon as I finish writing this post. This week I had the pleasure of leading an all-day […]

FAQs About the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp

Earlier this week I sent out an email about super-early registration for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Some people have already jumped on that offer and others have emailed me with questions about the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. Here’s a short list of the some of the frequently asked questions and their answers. […]

Search, AR, VR, and Stories – The Week in Review

Good morning from cold and windy Maine. How windy? In the words of my two-year-old, “soooo windy!” Before sharing the list of the week’s most popular posts, I have an update about Free Technology for Teachers that will answer some of the questions that I’ve received lately. The reason for the lighter posting over the […]

Search Strategies, PDFs, and the Super Bowl

Good morning from Maine where I’m not doing anything particularly exciting other than brewing up a batch of chili to have during the Super Bowl tomorrow night. Between stirs of the chili I’m working on materials for a bunch of workshops and keynotes that I have coming up over the next three months. The first […]

Videos, Image Editing, and G Suite – The Month in Review

Good morning from frigid South Paris, Maine. As I posted in an Instagram story, this morning it’s so cold that even in my office I’m wearing a down jacket. Like every January in Maine we’ve had a lovely mix of frigid days and snowy days. I like the winter, but these frigid days just make […]

PhotoScissors, STEM, and BETT – The Week in Review

Good evening from terminal five in Heathrow airport. I’m waiting for my flight home after spending a couple of days in London for the annual BETT Show. For my U.S. readers who might not be familiar with BETT, it’s a bit like ISTE without all of the breakout sessions. Basically, it’s all vendors, all the […]

Remind, Timelines, and Landmarks – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of the biggest snow storm of the year. The forecast for where I live calls for 20″ of snow! As a skier, I can’t wait for it! As the owner of a long driveway and long walkways, I’m not looking forward to shoveling. This week […]

Doodles, Footnotes, and Literature – The Week in Review

Good morning from frigid Maine where it’s -5f and the wind is howling! In other words, it’s a perfect day to shovel snow off my roof. That’s one of the few winter activities that I don’t enjoy. One that I do enjoy is skiing. And with a couple of snow days this week I was […]

Going to BETT? Don’t Miss TeachMeet BETT

One of my favorite events of the year is the TeachMeet that happens at the BETT Show. A TeachMeet is a gathering of educators who give micro (7 minutes) and nano (2 minutes) presentations on work that they have actually done in classrooms. I enjoy this format because a lot of people get to speak […]

Public Domain, Goals, and Fitness – The Week in Review

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in chilly, snowy Maine. I hope that everyone had a great first week of 2019. What’s your New Year’s resolution? One of mine is to improve my fitness. To that end I created a new blog to build some public accountability for my resolution. If […]

The Ten Most Watched Ed Tech Tutorial Videos of 2018

More than 13,000 of you are now subscribed to my YouTube channel. These were the ten most watched videos on my YouTube channel in 2018. Interestingly, despite publishing more than 100 new videos in 2018, nine of the ten most-watched videos of the year were made in 2017 or earlier. How to Add Your Voice […]

Drawings, Emojis, and Passwords – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where Santa is about to visit my daughters, again. We spent actual Christmas day traveling back from Florida where we visited grandma and uncles. So this morning my girls are having a second visit from Santa. (Santa’s reindeer take a long time to go from Florida to Maine, if you ask […]

Best of 2018 – Ten Overlooked Google Docs Features

This week is a vacation week for the vast majority of readers of this blog. As I do at this time every year, I’m going to republish some of the most popular posts of 2018. Here’s one from January. Google Docs has a lot of features that new users often don’t notice. Some these are […]

Readers’ Choice Winners

Last week I posted the final nominations for the Free Technology for Teachers Readers’ Choice awards. The final voting closed over the weekend and the results are in. 2018 Free Technology for Teachers Readers’ Choice awards.  Best Virtual Reality App Google Expeditions Best Augmented Reality App Anatomy 4D  Best Digital Portfolio App/ Website Google Sites […]

Pins, Maps, and Grids – The Week in Review

Good morning from Florida where we’re visiting family for Christmas. Flying with two toddlers was a “fun” new experience. A couple of fun iPad apps, a pair of toddler headphones, and lots of snacks made the experience go relatively smoothly for everyone involved including the passengers near us. If you’re traveling this week, I hope […]

Free Technology for Teachers Readers’ Choice Awards Voting is Open

Last week I asked you to nominate your favorite educational technology tools of the year. The nominations are in and the final voting is now open. Voting is open now through Sunday night (11:59pm ET). You can vote for one or all categories. You can vote for your favorites in the form embedded below. In […]

Trash, Math, and Expeditions – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a balmy 43F today. It was a perfect day for a hike in western Maine. There’s something about the fresh air that invigorates my body and mind. A walk in the woods almost always inspires new blog post ideas in my mind. Today, was not an exception to […]

Gradebooks, Flipgrid, and Voicepods – The Week in Review

Good morning from chilly Paris Hill, Maine where it’s a crisp 7F as write this. In the category of “things I never did before having kids” today we’re going to look at a big Christmas tree display and to see Santa. It should be fun even if it takes thirty minutes to get the kids […]

QR Codes, Music, and CoRubrics – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where I’m home after a great few days at the LACUE conference in New Orleans. November was a busy month as I hosted three professional development courses through Practical Ed Tech and was a featured presenter at two conferences. Thank you to everyone who participated in one of my courses or […]

Slides and Notes from LACUE

I’ve just wrapped-up two days of giving presentations at the LACUE conference in New Orleans. A huge thank you to the conference organizers for inviting me and to everyone who came to my presentations. If you’re curious about what I spoke about at the conference, my slides and brief notes are included below. Best of […]

11 Years Later…

On this day eleven years I published my first blog post here on Free Technology for Teachers. I had a little bit of an idea of what I wanted to do and no idea that eleven years and nearly 14,000 posts later I would still be doing it. Some of you have been with me […]

Backchannels, Sounds, and Thanksgiving – The Week in Review

Good morning from snowy Maine. I hope that all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving this week had a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Based on the number of “out of office” emails I received this week, a fair number of you were off all week. Earlier this week I hosted the first night of […]

Guests, Snow, and Feedback – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’ve had two small snowstorms this week. They haven’t been big snowfalls, but they have produced enough snow that all the leaves I didn’t rake won’t be discovered again until spring. On the upside, ski season is here and I’m looking forward to getting my oldest daughter on skis this […]

Music, Feedback, and Flowcharts – The Week in Review

Good evening from Nebraska where I’m visiting my good friends Kris and Beth Still. Some of you may remember that Beth was the person who organized the NECC Newbie Project back in 2009 to get me to the NECC (now called ISTE) conference. We were relative strangers before then but good friends since then. Wherever […]

Captions, Dice, and Ninjas – The Month in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re ready for some Halloween fun. Last year we had more than 600 trick o’ treaters come to our house! And if the weather is nice we’ll have that many again this year. But Halloween isn’t the only thing happening today. It’s the end of the month and as I […]

Guest Bloggers Wanted

Once a year I host guest bloggers for a week. This year I’m doing that during the week of November 11th. In past years I have had some awesome guest bloggers who went to to boost their own blogs by having their work appear on Free Technology for Teachers. If you would like to be […]

Storyboards, Pictures, and Classics – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it should be a nice morning for playing in leaf piles before the snow flies this evening. But before we go outside to play the sun needs to rise and I need to finish writing this week’s week-in-review. I started this week by speaking at the CECA/CASL annual conference in […]

VR, Certificates, and Google Earth – The Week in Review

Moose Tracks Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful fall day. It was a perfect day for playing outside which is what we did to celebrate our youngest daughter’s first birthday. I hope that you had a great Saturday too! Tomorrow I will be speaking at the CECA/CASL conference in Connecticut. I will […]

Animations, Screencasts, and Podcasts – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m home for a while after nearly four weeks of speaking at conferences and consulting with schools. When I started my little tour there were leaves on all of the trees in my yard. This morning I woke up to discover that one of those trees is completely bare. In […]

YouTube, Math, and Media – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where I was home for the day before having to fly back to Florida tomorrow morning. Next week I’ll be finishing up my third week working with the awesome teachers at Sigsbee Charter School in Key West. If you would like to have me work with your school this year, please […]

Classroom, Math, and Instagram – The Month in Review

It’s the end of September. By now everyone has been back in school for at least a month. I hope that the start of school year has gone well for you. As we head into October here’s a look back at the most popular posts of September, 2018. A quick reminder, in October I’m hosting […]

Sheets, Math, and Timelines – The Week in Review

Good morning from Key West, Florida where I have spent the week working with the great staff of Sigsbee Charter School. And while it is great to be in the sunshine state, it’s also hard to be away from my little family for so long too. Thanks to Skype we’re able to see each other […]

Facebook, Backchannels, and Math – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it feels like fall. Starting on Monday week I’ll be working with the Sigsbee Charter School in Key West, Florida for most of the next few weeks which means that I’ll miss a good chunk of my favorite season here in Maine. That’s why today I plan to soak up […]

Math, Instagram, and Civics – The Week in Review

Good afternoon from Maine where it is a beautiful late summer day. We just got back from a great morning at the Oxford County Fair where my girls enjoyed seeing pigs, goats, sheep, cows, horses, and even an emu! While my daughters nap I am working on some new blog posts. This week nearly 500 […]

Poetry, Google Classroom, and Twine – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it is a crisp, cool early fall evening. The change of seasons is one of my favorite things about living in northern New England. Yesterday afternoon I had a great time walking in the woods with my dogs. Today, we had fun taking our kids for a walk along a […]

Twine – Write Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Stories

Twine is an open-source program for writing choose your own adventure stories. You can use Twine online or you can download the software for Mac or Windows. I used Twine online to create a short story. To write a choose your own adventure story with Twine online start by giving your story a title. After titling your story […]

18 Great Cartoons That Teach Cyber Safety Lessons

Planet Nutshell is a video production company that produces short, animated videos to explain products, services, and concepts. Within their education section you will find videos addressing topics in  mathematics, physics, climate science, and cyber safety. Their series of videos about Internet safety consists of eighteen videos for K-12 students. The series is called NetSafe and it has eighteen episodes […]

Image Search, Posters, and Buttons – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine on the first day of September. September in part of the world is the start of fair season. I can almost smell the Oxford County Fair by just thinking about walking through the animal barns with my daughters to see the piglets, lambs, and calves. Or as my older daughter will […]

Classroom, Games, and Books – The Month in Review

Good afternoon from Maine where it is a beautiful late summer day. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like August passes too quickly. At the beginning of the month it feels like, “hey, it’s summer!” and by the end of the month it feels like, “back to school, already?” I hope that […]

Get Your Copy of the 2018-19 Practical Ed Tech Handbook

Last night subscribers to the Practical Ed Tech Newsletter were sent copies of the 2018-19 Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This annual publication is a free, 36 page PDF that highlights my favorite educational technology sites and apps. The Practical Ed Tech Handbook is organized into nine sections. Those sections are: Communication tools and strategies.  Search […]

Emojis, Citations, and Tech Fails – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where a few more red leaves are appearing every day. As the summer winds down I’ve take a couple of afternoons off to go fly fishing and to spend more time with daughters before my schedule gets busy with fall commitments to schools and conferences all over the U.S. If you […]

What To Do When Your Classroom Technology Fails

In my previous post I highlighted five things that you can do to make sure that your classroom technology is ready for the new school year. But even if you do all of those things, there will still be times when things don’t go as expected. Here are a few things that you can do […]

5 Back-to-School Tech Tips for Teachers

The new school year has now started for almost everyone. And if it hasn’t started in your area, it will be starting soon. In the last few days before school starts take some time to make sure that your tech is in order just like the rest of your classroom. Here’s my back-to-school tech checklist […]

Fake News, Books, and Audio Slides – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it is good to be home after two weeks of travel for back-to-school workshops. Nothing says “back to school” quite like seeing a couple of leaves that have changed color. Yes, that happens early here in northern New England. But there is still plenty of warm weather left and my […]

Best of the Web Summer 2018

This morning I had the privilege to visit the Lewis County C1 School District in Missouri. One of the presentations that I gave there was the latest version of my popular Best of the Web presentation. The presentation is broken into four sections. Those sections are creating and remixing, workflow and classroom management, exploring and […]

Google Classroom, Jeopardy, and Scratch – The Week in Review

Good evening from Paris Hill, Maine where I’m home after a week on the road in which I facilitated professional development for teachers in Kansas and Illinois. Next week I’ll be in Missouri. If you would like to have me visit your school in the new school year, please get in touch. I only have […]

Videos, Scratch, and Fly Fishing – The Week in Review

Good evening from rainy Paris Hill, Maine where I’m home after a few days of fly fishing. It was nice to get away and recharge offline before a busy few months of workshops and conference keynotes starts on Monday when I fly to Kansas. I’ll probably be offline most of tomorrow too as I soak […]

GIFs, Forms, and Math – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on July. As I do at the end of every month I’ve put together a list of the ten most read posts of the previous 30 days. It’s interesting to note that not all of the posts in the list were published in July. In fact, […]

GIFs, Whiteboards, and Slides – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the heat, humidity, and rain combined to cancel our morning plans. Mason doesn’t even want to go outside. In the picture to the left he had just looked at me as if to say, “I’m not leaving the air conditioning?” Hopefully, we can all get outside to play a bit […]

Feedback, Focus, and Cars – The Week in Review

Good morning from Paris Hill, Maine where today is Founder’s Day. This is an annual event in our historic neighborhood that is highlighted by a library fundraiser in the form of a public viewing of an extensive antique car collection at the former home of Hannibal Hamlin. Some libraries sell old books, ours sells tickets […]

Forms, Games, and Timers – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we have a busy Saturday ahead of us. Our little Tinkergarten class starts up again this morning. It’s a fun time of exploring and learning with friends in an outdoor setting. If you have kids between ages 18 months and six years, consider joining a Tinkergarten group in your area. […]

Math, Forms, and Images – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the steamy weather has finally cooled off a bit. While it’s still cool we’re going on one of our favorite outings. We’re going to the Maine Wildlife Park to feed the ducks and see the baby moose including this one that was befriended by a German Shepherd. Wherever you are […]

June’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good morning from hot and steamy South Paris, Maine. As the calendar flips from June to July the weather flips from pleasantly warm to hot! Fortunately, “hot” in Maine doesn’t last too long and is still not all that hot compared to many places. For example, it was much hotter when I visited South Carolina […]

Google Classroom, Flipgrid, and SeeSaw – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it is a perfect day to play outside with daughters and my dogs. Before they’re awake and we’re bounding out the door, I have this week’s week-in-review to share. This week the annual ISTE conference was held in Chicago. I wasn’t able to attend this […]

Flipgrid, Forms, and Accessibility – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on a nice summer day. The week was full of great summer weather and none better than the actual first day of summer on Thursday when my daughters and I played outside all day except for nap time. I hope those of you in the northern […]

Where You Can Follow My Work

If you’re reading this, the numbers say that you found my blog through one of the following methods: Facebook referral – Here’s the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. Email referral – Join the daily email list. Organic search  Twitter referral – Follow me on Twitter. Pinterest referral – Follow my primary board.  There are […]

Games, Screencasting, and Ducks – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where we had a great day exploring the Maine Wildlife Park. My older daughter loved feeding the ducks! And we all enjoyed seeing the deer, moose, lynx and bears up close. It was a great way to relax after a long week on the road during which included seven workshops in […]

How to Automatically Forward Your G Suite Email to a Personal Gmail Address

This is the time of year that I always get a bunch of questions from folks who leaving a school and want to take some emails with them from their old accounts. That can be done by just forwarding those messages from your old account to your personal account. But if you’re not leaving your […]

Cheese, Teams, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine. By the time that most of you read this I will be fly fishing on my favorite lake in Maine, Kennebago. After a busy and stressful week I need a break. That means fishing and not going online until the weekend is over. And if you follow on my Twitter and […]

Forms, Augmented Reality, and Games – The Week in Review

Good morning from hot and humid South Paris, Maine. The warmth and rain have made our flowers bloom which is a nice sight to see to after a long winter. My toddling daughter is certainly happy about this weather as it she loves to play outside and sniff the flowers. And that’s what we’re going […]

Forms, Videos, and VR – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has just set on the month of May. It was a busy month for me as I worked on developing a new course that will be available through the Teaching Channel later this summer. I also hosted a few webinars and conducted some on-site workshops in May. June […]

Geography, Portfolios, and Programming – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where I’m home after spending a few days in Key West, Florida where I had the privilege to work with some energetic teachers at Sigsbee Charter School. The trip laid the groundwork for some exciting work we’re going to do in the fall. As much as I enjoy traveling and working […]

How to Include a Flickr Slideshow in Google Sites

This afternoon I spent time working with teachers to develop new websites through Google Sites. One of the things that many wanted to include was a slideshow of pictures from classroom activities and field trip activities. One way to do this is to embed a Google Slides presentation into a page. Another way is to […]

Virtual Reality and Black Flies – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we have entered everyone’s least favorite season, Black Fly Season. The sequence of rainy days followed by warm sunshine is the perfect recipe to bring out swarms of blood-sucking insects. But those moments when the bugs aren’t swarming are soooo nice after a long winter so we’ll be trying to […]

How to Install and Manage Chrome Extensions

From time-to-time the icons in my Chrome browser prompt questions from viewers of my YouTube videos. Usually, the questions are about which extensions I’m using. Today, I was sent this question: Do you ever worry that by having so many extensions installed you have more risk for security breaches? My answer was that I do […]

Forms, VR, and Animations – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and flowers are blooming. It’s looking like it is going to be great weather for Mother’s Day. Speaking of which, happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who follow my blog including my mom. Hi, Mom! This week I was supposed to launch The Complete Guide […]

Video Guides to Common Fallacies

The Guide to Common Fallacies is a resource that I wish I had back when I was teaching ninth grade students to recognize bias, propaganda, and logical fallacies. The Guide to Common Fallacies is a series of nine short videos from the PBS Idea Channel. Each video covers a different common fallacy. Some of the fallacies explained in […]

Certificates, Quests, and Comics – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining, my lawn is turning green, and we’re all going to play outside today. I have a couple of things to do before the kids wake up including finishing this blog post. This week I spent a lot of time dealing with a change in my hosting […]

Only Five Openings Left

Over the years I have been fortunate to visit hundreds of schools to help teachers use technology to create better learning experiences for their students. Sometimes that means helping people get up to speed on G Suite for Education. But I also do a lot of work with teachers on topics related to coding, media […]

Padlet, Spark, and PhET – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the snow that coated my yard on many mornings in April now all gone. Another sign that spring is here can be found in my TV viewing habit of quickly jumping between three channels to watch the Bruins, Celtics, and Red Sox play on the same night. Two of the […]

Google Tasks – A Very Simple Task Management App

On Wednesday Google announced a bunch of updates to Gmail. That story was covered by every blog under the sun and garnered lots of commentary on social media. What didn’t get nearly as much attention was Google’s launch of a new task management app called Google Tasks. Google Tasks is a free app that is […]

Sympathy for Padlet

Last week when Padlet‘s founder and CEO Nitesh Goel announced the changes to Padlet’s pricing model the online ed tech community was upset. Some of the Tweets and Facebook posts that I saw about it were a bit harsh to say the least. I’m sure that Nitesh saw much worse in his inbox than I […]

Padlet, QR Codes, and Body Odor – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on a productive day. Today, I was able to pack up the tools that I’ve been using to convert old barn space into my office space. Some of you have been following this project since I started it late last summer. Now when you join me […]

Math, Newspapers, Animations – March in Review

March has come and gone. Today was a nice Sunday to play outside with my older daughter. In walking the back edge of our property we found the interesting cluster of trees seen in the picture. I hope that you had a nice Sunday and nice start to your month too. Every month I put […]

Food, Timers, and Search – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine from where the wind is howling and the sun has not yet risen. Why am I up so early on a weekend? Because I have two little kids and this is the quietest time of the day. It’s perfect for drinking coffee and writing things like this week’s week-in-review post. This […]

Everything That Apple Announced Yesterday – In Under Three Minutes

In case you missed it yesterday, Apple had a big marketing education event in Chicago. MacRumors made this video to summarize all of the things that Apple announced during the event. As with any shiny new hardware or new software, I always ask: How can it be used? Does it enable students to do things […]

Three Search Tools Students Often Overlook

Google is the default search engine for many students. In fact, if your students have Chromebooks and the school has set Google as the default search engine, they may not even realize that there are search engines other than Google. Here are three search tools that students often overlook. Bing Sure this seems obvious and […]

5 Online Collaborative Whiteboard Services

An online, collaborative, whiteboard can be a great tool for hosting a quick review session for your students. Your students can also use these tools to conduct online study sessions with each other. Yes,  this could be done with something like Skype, but having a built-in whiteboard is particularly useful when having a review session […]

Images, Videos, and Snow – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’ve cleared out the snow just in time for another snow storm. We’ve had 30″ of new snow fall in just over a week. As a skier I love the snow. My friends who don’t ski are ready for the end of winter. How do you feel about winter? Do […]

Quizzes, Syrup, and Public Domain Videos – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where the winter keeps on going. This week we had lots of new snow fall. As a skier, I love the snow. But many of my friends were not so happy about the latest snowstorm. In other news from Lake Wobegon Paris Hill, this week I scheduled a new webinar for […]

Check Out My Redesigned G Suite for Teachers Course

Back in January I released my popular Getting Going With G Suite course in an on-demand version that I called G Suite for Teachers. Dozens of people have taken the course in the last two months. Based on the feedback that I have received, I recently made a couple of updates to the course. The […]

Puzzles, Rockets, and Podcasts – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the rapidly shifting weather of March has arrived in full force. I helped my daughter learn to ride a bike in the driveway on a sunny Thursday afternoon and then yesterday it was too cold and windy to play outside. I hope the weather is better for playing outside wherever […]

Science and Games – The Month in Review

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of February. As I do at the end of every month I’ve compiled a list of the most popular posts of the month. This month the bulk of the most popular posts were related to science and or games. Take a look at […]

Science, Wikispaces, and Timelines – The Week in Review

Good morning from the almost completely renovated Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Paris, Maine. If you have followed my week-in-review posts since last fall you know that I have been converting some space in a barn into office space. I’m in the home stretch now as I just have bit more painting to […]

Loom Adds Options for Grouping and Sharing Videos

Loom is a free tool for creating screencast videos in your web browser. Loom even has an option to create screencasts directly from your inbox to use as responses to emails. Today, Loom announced two beta features. The first new feature allows you to organize your Loom screencast videos into groups. The second new feature […]

Math, NASA, and Bingo – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where by the time most of you read this I will be on my way further north to Moosehead Lake. As long time readers of this blog know, President’s Day weekend is the weekend that I always go to Moosehead to ice fish with about two dozen other teachers and principals. […]

Last-minute Collection of Valentine’s Day Resources

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. If you’re looking for some last minute activities to do in your classroom, take a look at these resources that I featured earlier in the month. Storyboard That offers templates for designing and printing Valentine’s Day cards. To do this your students will first have to create a simple three-frame storyboard. Then […]

Olympics, STEM, and Quizzes – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m sitting inside my newly heated barn which is becoming office space, slowly. Getting the heat working was the most important step in the process because now I can finish mudding, taping, and painting the walls. I’ll be spending the day working on that project. It’s not exactly fun, but […]

The Ed Tech Starter Kit

Throughout the year I host I many professional development webinars on Practical Ed Tech. Recently, I bundled some of the most popular of those webinars into one package that I call the Ed Tech Starter Kit. The webinars selected for inclusion in this package cover topics and skills that can be applied to almost any […]

These Google Docs Add-ons Make It Easy to Find Public Domain Images

Whenever I talk about copyright I always encourage teachers and students to use their own images when they need to include visuals in a paper or presentation. If you don’t own an appropriate picture then look for images that are in the public domain. While Google Docs does have a built-in image search tool, Google […]

Docs, Games, and Expeditions – The Week in Review

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Paris, Maine. Those of you who have been following the saga of my office renovation should note that it is once again functional except for the lack of heat which will be fixed on Thursday. In the meantime, this hardy blogger is making do […]

Slides, Mount Rushmore, and Tours – The Week in Review

Good evening from terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport where I’m waiting for a flight home after attending the BETT Show in London. It was a whirlwind trip to catch up with some friends and colleagues based in Europe while also seeing some of the new offerings of some of the ed tech industry. I am […]

Best of the Web 2018

This morning I had the privilege to give a presentation for the 2018 Wild Wisconsin Web Conference. They asked me last fall to give a Best of the Web presentation and I was happy to oblige. Until this morning I hadn’t given a Best of the Web presentation since last March so I spent last […]

Mentimeter Adds a New Q&A Feature

Mentimeter, one of the tools that I often mention for conducting formative assessments, has just released a new Q&A feature. The new feature will let your audience submit questions that they want you to answer. Additionally, members of the audience can vote for the questions that they want you to answer. The new Mentimeter Q&A […]

Music, Doodles, and Forms – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where I am getting ready to watch the Patriots play their first playoff game on their way to the Super Bowl. Before I enjoy the game and some delicious chili, I have this week’s post popular posts to share with you. This week’s list features some Google Slides and Forms tricks, […]

Use Google Drawings as an Alternative to Thinglink

Thinglink recently made some changes to their free plans that further limited access for students. Because of those changes, a few days ago I received an email from a reader who was looking for an alternative to Thinglink. One of my suggestions was to try using Google Drawings to create hyperlinked images. In the following […]

Getting Out of Your Ed Tech Rut

For the last seven weeks I’ve been making it a point to try out the features of Microsoft’s offerings for teachers and students. See yesterday’s post about Microsoft Forms as an example of that. I have been doing this because it is forcing me to take an honest look at the competitor to G Suite […]

New Workshops and Keynotes for 2018

Facilitating on-site workshops and giving keynotes at conferences is one of the ways that I am able to fund Free Technology for Teachers and, in turn, future college tuition costs for my daughters. For 2018 I have developed some new standard offerings to go along with the custom workshops that I am always happy to develop […]

Three Classic Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2018

Over the last decade I’ve reviewed thousands of free educational technology tools. Some have been a hit, some haven’t, and some have stood the test of time to become “classics” in the world of educational technology. Here are three classics with which every educational technology specialist should be familiar.  Scratch Scratch is a is a free […]

Certificates, Rocks, and Wicked Cold – The Week in Review

Good morning from Paris Hill, Maine where wind chill is currently -27F and it’s only going to get colder as the sun comes up and the wind picks up. Usually, I like to go outside and do something fun with my dogs and kids on a snowy day. But today is going to have to […]

How to Maintain a Blog in 2018

As the new year begins you might have set a goal for yourself to blog more consistently than you did last year. Or perhaps your goal is to start a blog. If so, I have some simple advice that I give every time that I am asked, “how do you do it?” That advice is […]

Goals, Wishes, and Cold – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re experiencing a stretch of cold days that hasn’t been seen since the 1970’s. How cold is it? Earlier this week I referred to Tuesday’s high temperature of 7f as a “warm day.” I took advantage of that warm day by going out to hike up and ski down Saddleback […]

The Things I Wish Every Teacher Knew About Technology – Best of 2017

As I do during this week every year, I am taking some time off to relax and prepare for the new year. Every day this week I will be featuring the most popular blog posts of the year. This is a post from February. On Friday morning I had the idea to write a list […]

How Machines Learn – And What Facebook Knows About You

Machine learning is a hot topic in the ed tech start-up community. You may have heard of an ed tech start-up or two that is touting how machine learning and or artificial intelligence will help them help students. But what is machine learning? CGP Grey recently tackled that topic in a new video. After you […]

Image Search, Science, and Math – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re going to have a white Christmas. Eight inches of snow fell last night and more is on the way. That means it’s time for me to get to shoveling just as soon as I finish writing this week in review. This week more people joined the 2018 Practical Ed […]

Classmint – Online Flashcards With Annotated Images

Classmint is an online flashcard service. Like other services similar to it, Classmint can be used to create and share sets of flashcards. A couple of aspects of Classmint make it different from some other flashcard services. First, Classmint will read your flashcards to you. Second, in addition to supporting the use of images in your […]

Three Good Sources of Fun and Interesting Math Challenges

“When are we ever going to use this?” Raise your hand if you have ever heard that question from a student in the middle of a math lesson or any other lesson. Giving students some clever math problems that tie-in a “real world” situation can go a long way toward helping them see how math […]

About Hardware Recommendations…

I love receiving questions from readers of my blogs and newsletters. There is one type of question that I generally refrain from answering. That type of question is about hardware. (Just to clarify, I do respond to emails with hardware recommendation requests, I just don’t make a recommendation). This afternoon I went live on Facebook […]

A Powerful Blogging Activity for Almost Any Classroom

A question that often comes up in my workshops about blogging is, “what should I have my students write about?” There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of possible answers to this question. The suggestion that I often make is to start with a simple reflection activity. Set aside time in your Friday schedule to have your students sit […]

Animations, Organization, and Music – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where I’m preparing to undertake another DIY home improvement/ maintenance project. One of the perks of owning an old house is getting to develop all kinds of handyman skills that I never knew I had. For example, today I am going to attempt to put new insulation under my dining room […]

Three Good Ways to Create Instructional Animations

Earlier this week I shared five ways to create animated movies on Chromebooks. Creating animated movies can be a lot of fun for you and your students. But sometimes you just need a short animation to get your point across or to remind students about an important point. That’s when the following three tools are […]

Geography, eBooks, and Nature – The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where we’re anticipating our first significant snowstorm of the year. As a skier, I cannot wait for the fresh snow. As a Dad, I’m excited to show my older daughter the joy of making snow angels. But as the owner of a long driveway, I’m not so excited about the snow. […]

My Favorite Resources In One Place

Last week during Practical Ed Tech Live I was asked if I had one place that people could go to see an organized collection of my favorite resources. I was happy to answer that I do have just such a collection. It’s found in my Practical Ed Tech Handbook. You can find it on my […]

Promoting School Events Through Social Media

My personal Facebook and Instagram feeds are starting to be filled up with pictures from holiday concerts that my friends’ kids are performing in. Seeing those pictures reminded me of a blog post that I wrote a couple of years ago in which I outlined strategies for promoting and sharing school events through social media. […]

FAQs About the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group

Last weekend I announced the launch of the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group. The first members have already registered. Many of you who have emailed me for more information about membership in the group. Yesterday afternoon I went live on my YouTube channel to answer those questions. If you missed the live broadcast, you […]

Join the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group

Throughout the year I host at least two professional development webinars every month. For 2018 I am making it easy for you to register for all of them in one fell swoop. Enroll in the the 2018 Practical Ed Tech Coaching Group and you will be registered for 24 webinars plus an additional live Q&A […]

But I Gave You Credit… Lessons About Copyright

The blog post that I published yesterday in which I listed people and organizations who have recently stolen my work has elicited quite a few responses already. A couple of those responses have included, “you were given credit at the end.” That comment shows a baseline misunderstanding of copyright. Copying and pasting entire blog posts […]

How to Livestream From the YouTube Android App

In a blog post that I published a couple of weeks ago I mentioned using the YouTube Android app to broadcast review sessions for your students. In the time since I published that blog post I have have had a handful of people ask me for more information about livestreaming on YouTube. The best way […]

The Month’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where the month of November is coming to a close with a few snow flurries in the air. I have to close this month by once again thanking Beth Still for doing an outstanding job of keeping the blog running for half of the month while I was taking some paternity […]

Ten Years of Free Technology for Teachers

Ten years ago I hit “publish” and sent the first Free Technology for Teachers blog post into the wild. 12,593 posts and 72,056,319 pageviews later, I’m still here. I never had plans to publish that many posts, review that many resources, or to be doing this for ten years. But, as it turns out, if […]

The Week in Review – Running With Christmas Trees

Good evening from Maine where we’re happy to be home after a great couple of days visiting family for Thanksgiving. For 30+ years on Thanksgiving I’ve gone to watch the road race in my hometown of Manchester, Connecticut. This year was no exception. The race is one of the only ones in the world where […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Episode #20

Yesterday, I hosted the twentieth episode of Practical Ed Tech Live. If you missed it, you can now watch the recording as embedded below. The questions that I answered in the video can be seen here. Information about the webinars that I mentioned in the video can be found here.

How to Copy Comments in Google Docs

Earlier this month Google added a new option for copying comments in Google Documents. The new option lets you include comment and suggestions when you make a copy of an existing Google Document. I’ve had a few questions about how the new feature works so I made the following video to show how copying comments […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where the first snowflakes of the 2017-18 winter have started to fly. Whether they love the snow or they hate the snow, everyone around here has a comment about it. I’m in the “love snow” camp and I’m excited that the local ski resort opened this week. The snow reminds me […]

Recording – 7 Ways to Help Kids Discover & Analyze New Information

Last month I hosted a free webinar titled 7 Ways to Help Kids Discover & Analyze New Information. The recording of the webinar, sponsored by Kids Discover Online, can now be viewed on my YouTube channel or as embedded below. The seven points covered in the webinar: Developing search terms and phrases. Charting and tracking […]

Lesson Planning, Keyboarding, Breakouts – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where all of the leaves have changed to brown and we’re now just waiting for winter to begin. In my mind I’ve always thought that Halloween marked the end of beautiful part of fall and the transition to the browns of late fall before the snow arrives. This year fall out […]

October’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where we just finished giving out candy to more than 500 trick o’ treaters. Halloween marks the end of October and as I do at the end of every month, I have compiled a list of the most popular posts of the month. Take a look and see if there are […]

How to Create a Digital Breakout Game

Breakout EDU has been a breakout hit in classrooms over the last couple of years. The success of the physical Breakout EDU games has spurred the creation of many digital versions built on everything from Google Forms to full-fledged online game environments. Metaverse recently published a tutorial on how to make your own digital breakout […]

The Week in Review – Leaves Everywhere!

Good evening from Maine where the leaves that are still on the tree are beautiful. The leaves on the ground, however, are just a nuisance that I had to spend all morning moving into piles for removal. As I shared earlier on Facebook, my record with small engines is not good as evidenced by my […]

Harnessing Technology to Unleash Student Creativity

This is a guest post from Beth Holland, Doctoral Candidate at Johns Hopkins School of Education and educational advisor at Book Creator Over the past several years, the idea of using technology to unleash student creativity has appeared in blog posts and conference sessions more times than I can count. For this reason, imagine my […]

Google Classroom, Grants, and Feedback – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where it was a perfect autumn day for apple picking. Isla thoroughly enjoyed her first trip to the orchard. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you had time for outdoor fun too. This week I hosted a webinar on how to create a great classroom blog. If you missed […]

Grids, Timelines, and Goals – The Week in Review

Good evening from Maine where I spent the majority of the day hanging drywall on walls that are far from square. Those of you who watch my Practical Ed Tech Live episodes have seen some of the space in my barn that I am trying to convert into office space. The project seemed simple enough, […]

Kahoot, Copyright, Drive – September in Review

Good evening from Montgomery, Alabama where I am preparing to give a couple of presentations tomorrow at the Alabama Independent Schools Association conference. I’m looking forward to meeting many teachers tomorrow. That’s my favorite part of speaking at conferences. If you’d like to bring me to your conference, please click here for more information. The […]

Blogging, Math, and Character Scrapbooks – The Week in Review

Good evening from chilly Paris Hill, Maine. The falling leaves, shorter days, and cooler weather remind me of all the chores I need to do outside before the snow flies (the local ski resort made snow this week). One of those chores is touching up some paint around my window dormers. So that’s how it […]

Avoid This Common Google Forms Mistake

New users of Google Forms often think that if students are in the same domain as the teacher, student information is automatically collected. That is not the case. Here’s how to make sure that you do collect student names and email addresses when giving a quiz through Google Forms. Learn more about Google Forms and […]

Kahoot, Fractions, Copyright – The Week in Review

Good afternoon from Maine where it is a gorgeous late summer day. I started the day with a fun hike with my daughter and dogs. These days my hikes are little slower than they used to be, a 30lb child on your back will do that, but they are sweeter because I enjoy them with […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine. By the time that many of you read this, I will be fly fishing for landlocked salmon on one of my favorite rivers, the Magalloway River. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you also get some time for a favorite hobby. And my sincerest thoughts and best wishes to […]

The Practical Ed Tech Handbook for 2017-18

For the last couple of years I have published a free PDF titled The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. Over the weekend I updated it to include some new resources, remove some older ones, and edited it to reflect recent updates to some favorite tools. Subscribers to the Practical Ed Tech newsletter received a copy on […]

Get to Know Free Technology for Teachers

On a fairly regular basis I get comments on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page and in my email that read something like this, “do you guys have anything about X?” or “can someone on your team help me with X?” My answer is usually, “yes, I can help you.” You see, the Free […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good afternoon from sunny Paris Hill, Maine. It was a busy week here and I’m sure it was for you too. As I mentioned earlier in the week, autumn is in the air around here. I found myself grabbing a knit hat and putting on a fleece earlier this week. That just serves as a […]

The Month in Review – A New Englander’s Favorite Season

The end of August is here and that means that this New Englander’s favorite season is just around the corner. From leaves starting to change color to Dunkin Donuts advertising pumpkin coffee to back-to-school pictures on Facebook, the signs of Fall are all around us. As I do at this time every month, I have […]

Reminder – Searching is a Thinking Skill

Have you ever had a conversation with a student that went like this? Student: “Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on my topic.” Mr. Byrne: “What is your topic?” Student: “The Civil War.” Mr. Byrne: “Are you sure that Google has nothing about the Civil War?” Student: “Well I looked at a bunch of links, but […]

The Week in Review – Back to School Webinars

Good morning from Maine where we’re waiting for the sun to poke through the clouds so that we go enjoy a nice walk in the woods. But until that happens I’m going to work on some blog posts and work on some webinar materials. This week I hosted Google Forms & Sheets for Beginners. The […]

The Week in Review – Soaking Up Summer

Good morning from Maine where despite seeing a few maple leaves already turning from green to red, we’re still soaking up summer. Last weekend Isla and I hiked a local mountain and enjoyed the views from the top. This weekend, we’re doing the same. I hope as she gets older she enjoys the outdoors as […]

Free Solar Eclipse Glasses in Your Community

In 15 days a solar eclipse will cover a large portion of the United States. Star Net, a production of Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning, has partnered with American Library Association, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the Afterschool Alliance to provide more than 2 million free eclipse glasses to public libraries […]

The Week in Review – It’s Only August

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining on nice August morning. It’s only the first week of August, but I have already spotted a couple of leaves changing color. That’s always my visual reminder that my favorite season is just around the corner. I’m not sure if it is because my birthday is […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where the sun has set on the month of July. Mason and I sat out on the deck enjoying the last rays of sunshine then came inside to write this review of the month. This was a busy month as I spoke at the Upstate Technology Conference in South Carolina then […]

A Game for Learning About International Trade

This post contains content that I originally published a couple of years ago. An email from a reader who was looking for suggestions on activities for teaching global trade prompted me to pull these resources from my archive. The multimedia library on The Economist contains a set of cartoon videos explaining some big concepts in […]

The Week in Review – New Headquarters

Good evening from the new Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in Paris, Maine. Today, we moved into a home in the Paris Hill historic district. It’s most notable resident was Hannibal Hamlin who was Abraham Lincoln’s first Vice-President. As a lover of history, I’m excited to dig into more of the local history in […]

The Week in Review – Fun and Learning at UTC

Good evening from Maine where I’m wrapping up a busy week that included hosting four webinars and two days of presenting at the Upstate Technology Conference in Greenville, South Carolina. UTC was a great event. It was a pleasure to meet so many new people including YouTube sensation Tom Richey and to reconnect with old friends. If […]

The Week In Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and I’m ready for a bike ride with some old friends that I haven’t seen in about twelve years. Even if I wasn’t riding with friends, it would still be a great day to get outside for fun exercise. In my life there is an amazing […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

It’s the end of the month and as I always do, I’ve put together a list of the most popular posts of the last 30 days. Take a look at the list and see if there is anything neat that you missed this month. The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp starts in three weeks. There […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Episode 10 – ISTE Recap + Q&A

Just a few minutes ago I wrapped-up the tenth episode of Practical Ed Tech Live. Most of the time was spent on my ISTE recap, but I did answer a couple of reader questions at the end. Next week I will cover more questions. The video of the episode is embedded below. You can get […]

Two Programs Providing Internet Access to Low-income Homes

Today at the ISTE conference I attended the morning TeachMeet ISTE session. At the end of the session Jay Eitner took the stage and shared information about two programs that provide affordable Internet access to low-income homes. The first program that Jay shared was the FCC Lifeline Program. The program provides significantly mobile and fixed […]

eduClipper Was Acquired by Participate – What That Means for Teachers

The popular social bookmarking and digital portfolio tool eduClipper has been acquired by Participate. Fortunately, teachers and students who currently use eduClipper won’t notice any changes. Participate’s commitment to maintaining eduClipper’s free service for teachers was reiterated to me many times in the conversation that I have with eduClipper’s founder Adam Bellow and Participate’s CEO […]

The Week in Review – The ISTE Prelude

Good afternoon from San Antonio, Texas where I have just checked-in at the ISTE 2017 conference. The conference doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow, but there is already plenty of activity around the convention center. When I checked-in I was asked, “what are you looking for at the conference?” My answer was, “things that empower students […]

The Not at ISTE 2017 Survey

The annual ISTE conference starts on this coming Sunday. I’ll once again be attending with a media credential. While I already have a list of interviews that I’ll be conducting, I am also looking for input from those of you who aren’t able to attend the biggest ed tech conference of the year in North […]

The Week in Review – The Recombobulation Area

An appropriate sign after TSA in Milwaukee.  Good morning from Maine where I’m enjoying a nice cup of coffee while my dog sleeps next to me on the couch. It’s a nice way to start a summer day. Put another way, drinking coffee at a leisurely pace feels like I’ve entered a recombobulation area. That’s […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Episode 9

Yesterday afternoon I hosted the ninth episode of Practical Ed Tech Live in which I answered some of the questions that I get from readers every week. I also answer any questions that are sent in live on YouTube or Facebook. Episode #9 is embedded below. The questions answered in the video can be read […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is starting to feel like summer. Some of us were starting to go a little nutty with the constant rain and cold. The sunny, warm weather has me thinking forward to July when I’ll host the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. There are some seats available for both the […]

The G Suite Newsletter – What’s New In G Suite

There are times when it seems that keeping up with the updates in G Suite can be a full-time job in itself. Fortunately, at then end of every month Google publishes a newsletter that highlights the updates made in the previous month. You can find this month’s G Suite Newsletter here. Highlights from the May […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from rainy Maine. I’m not complaining too much about the rain today because I’m inside spending today working on developing and editing materials for the workshops and webinars that I’m leading this summer. One of those webinars, From Blog to Job, is starting tomorrow night at 7pm EDT. In my typical pattern of […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Episode 7

Earlier today I hosted the seventh episode of Practical Ed Tech Live. In today’s episode I answered five questions from readers and put out a call for help with one question. The video of today’s episode of Practical Ed Tech Live is embedded below. The list of questions answered in the episode can be seen […]

May’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Maine where we’re having our first thunderstorm of the year on the eve of June. Earlier today I hosted Teaching History With Technology and I’m looking forward to teaching more professional development classes throughout the summer. You can learn more about those course offerings on this Practical Ed Tech page. As I […]

Practical Ed Tech Handbook 2017 – From the Archive

Due to an injury and some pressing personal matters requiring my attention, posts for the rest of the week will be favorites from the archive. In 2015 and 2016 I published a 30 page PDF that I called the Practical Ed Tech Handbook. Those have been accessed more than 100,000 times. Today, I revised the […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining, the grass is finally green, and pollen is coating any car left outside overnight. I hope that it is equally nice wherever you are this weekend. As the weather turns decidedly toward summer many of us are thinking about professional development opportunities. I’m going to a […]

The Week in Review – Sunshine!

Good evening from Maine where we finally had a sunny day after what has felt like weeks of clouds and rain. As I shared on my Instagram account during the week, I still rode my bike and walked my dogs in the rain, but it’s always better do those things in the sunshine. Wherever you […]

7 Ways to Use Google Keep in Your Classroom

This week’s Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week featured a demonstration of how to use Google Keep to annotate images. That is just one of many ways that you and your students can use Google Keep. G Suite for Education users, remember that Google Keep is now a core product in G Suite. 1. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Connecticut where we’re visiting my brother and my newest niece. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon attempting to get a picture of my daughter and my niece looking at the camera at the same time. We were unsuccessful in that effort, but we had fun trying. Wherever you are this […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Tomorrow at 3:30pm EDT

Every week I receive a dozen or more emails from folks who have all kinds of questions about educational technology. Those that I think have broad appeal I include in my weekly Practical Ed Tech Live broadcasts. You can also ask questions during the live broadcasts and I’ll answer them on the spot. So send […]

The Month in Review – April’s Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where it’s nice to be home after a few days on the road. We enjoyed New Orleans, but this northerner is happy to be back in the cool, crisp weather of spring in Maine. Earlier this week I literally watched the ice go out. As I do at the end of […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from New Orleans where my daughter and I have been spending time exploring while mom is at a conference here. This is a completely new-to-me travel experience as we’re up early and wandering the city before almost anything is open. This morning we were the first in line to buy tickets for the […]

Create Your Own Google Classroom – G Suite Not Required

Last month Google began allowing anyone who has a Gmail address to join Google Classroom classrooms. This week that option was extended to allow anyone who has a Gmail address to create his or her own Google Classroom online classroom. Teachers who are already using Google Classroom within a G Suite for Education account already […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – Tomorrow Morning With a Special Guest

Tomorrow morning at 9:30 EDT I am hosting another edition of Practical Ed Tech Live in which I will answer your questions about all things ed tech. This week’s episode will be coming to you live from the waterfront in New Orleans with a special guest. That guest is my daughter Isla Quinn. Why we’re […]

Practical Ed Tech Webinar FAQs

Starting in May and running through the end of August I will be hosting five different professional development webinars for teachers and school administrators. I recorded the video embedded below to answer some of the questions that are most frequently asked about my Practical Ed Tech webinars. Watch the video and you’ll get the discount code […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from rainy Maine. The rain doesn’t stop us from playing outside, but it’s not quite as fun as playing in the sun. I am hopeful that all of our April showers will soon be replaced by May flowers. Speaking of things happening in May, next month I’m kicking off my summer schedule of […]

The Week In Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Connecticut where I’m visiting family for Easter weekend. It was a big day for me and my daughter as it was our first long trip alone to drive down here. And other than one side-of-the-road emergency diaper change, it was a smooth trip. Check my Instagram tomorrow for a cute picture of […]

Quick Key’s New Google Forms Add-on Makes It Easy to Send Grades to PowerSchool

Earlier this year Quick Key added a Google Classroom integration. Recently, Quick Key took that integration deeper by introducing a Google Forms Add-on. Quick Key’s Google Forms Add-on lets you take the quizzes that you create in Google Forms and have them automatically scored for you. You can then use those scores in Quick Key […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from gray and rainy Maine. It appears that we’re into the “April showers” portion of the “April showers bring May flowers” adage. On the upside, this crummy weather has made it feel a little easier to stay inside and work. I have some new projects in the works that I think you’re going […]

5 Considerations in BYOD Schools

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) environments are becoming increasingly more common in schools. For teachers and students BYOD can be a good thing as it allows students to work with a computer, tablet, or phone with which they are familiar. On the other hand, BYOD can be frustrating to teachers and students if school leadership […]

Practical Ed Tech Live – This Thursday at 4pm EDT

Last Thursday I hosted the first Practical Ed Tech Live session simultaneously on Facebook and YouTube. During the 25 minute session I answered questions that were submitted live and some questions that had been submitted in advance. I’m going to do the same thing again this Thursday at 4pm EDT. You can join Practical Ed […]

Don’t Forget the Greater Context on Your VR Trip

During last week’s Practical Ed Tech Live episode (join me this Thursday at 4pm EDT) I was asked about virtual reality, specifically Google Expeditions. The point that I tried to emphasize in my response was that it’s important that we don’t lost the greater physical geographic context when we take students on virtual reality trips. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is snowing. No, that’s not an April Fool’s joke. It really is snowing. The weather forecast calls for ten inches of snow. There’s nothing to do but put on snowshoes and take the dogs for a walk. Which is what I’ll do right after publishing the list of this […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where it is a great day for a walk in the woods. On a walk earlier this week the signs of spring were all around us as we saw frozen streams starting to melt and more birds than we’ve seen in months including a Great Horned Owl. Here’s a little video […]

What Makes a Poem?

April is Poetry Month. As you start to plan poetry lessons, consider that many students will first wonder, “what makes a poem?” A new TED-Ed lesson addresses that question. In watching What Makes a Poem? students can learn the origins of poetry, the characteristics traditionally associated with poems, and the format of a haiku. The […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where today was a great day for a walk in the woods. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you also have time for fun and relaxation. Here are this week’s most popular posts: 1. 5 Ways to Show YouTube Videos Without Related Content 2. Google Team Drives Now Available […]

The Week In Review – The Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

This week’s week in review comes to you from the new Byrne Instructional Media, LLC office in Yarmouth, Maine. For a number of reasons, I have moved out of a home office and into a workspace at Think Tank Coworking in Yarmouth, Maine. I was initially hesitant to make the move because I thought I […]

The Week In Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where I am home after another great trip to North Carolina for the NCTIES conference. Thank you to everyone who came to my workshops and presentations. A special thank you to those who supported me with nice messages about my presentations, came to multiple presentations, and or asked for selfies with […]

RefME is Becoming Cite This For Me – Changes to Free Plan Coming

RefME is a great service for organizing your research and creating bibliographies out of your collections of online and offline resources. I’ve been a supporter of the service since I first tried it a few years ago. It appears that I’m not the only one who likes RefME because it was recently acquired by Chegg. […]

The Week in Review – Back from Vacation

Good morning from Maine where I am back to work after my annual ice-fishing vacation on Moosehead Lake in Rockwood, Maine. While it wasn’t the best fishing we’ve ever had, we still had a great time unplugging and relaxing. This year I was even captured some great footage of bald eagles circling over our heads. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where I’m getting ready for my annual ice fishing trip on Moosehead Lake. Every year during the February vacation week I join 15-20 other teachers for a few days of ice fishing and relaxing at a camp that doesn’t have Internet access or reliable cell phone coverage. In other words, it’s […]

The Snowy Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from snowy Maine where we’re getting ready for the third snowstorm of the week. “Getting ready” for a snowstorm for me means making sure the snowshoes and skis are ready to go. Whether you’re preparing for a snowstorm, basking in warm sunshine, or somewhere in between, I hope that you have a fun […]

21 Tools for Conducting Digital Formative Assessments

Conducting simple formative assessments is one way to measure what your students do or do not understand from the lessons that you have taught. There are many ways to conduct formative assessments. They can be in the form of fun games, in a video format, or in a quick quiz. The following tools all provide […]

The Week in Review – California, Here I Come

Good morning from Logan International Airport where I’m waiting for a flight to San Francisco. Tomorrow, I will be giving the closing keynote at the California School Library Association’s annual conference. I always enjoy school library association conferences and I’ve heard great things about this one. If you’re going to be there tomorrow, please say […]

The Best of Free Technology for Teachers in January

Sunset over Casco Bay. Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on the first month of 2017. It has been a busy month here at the Byrne Instructional Media, LLC World Headquarters. Besides the usual blogging activities that you see here, I hosted a series of Wednesday afternoon webinars, taught a course, spoke […]

The Week in Review – The Texas Edition

When it Texas, wear cowboy boots. Good evening from Fort Worth, Texas where I am relaxing after a great day at the Fort Worth ISD Technology Conference. I had the honor of giving the opening keynote and the privilege to see some other great presenters including Hall Davidson and Maggie Elliott. The conference had a […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is trying to poke through the clouds. As I do every week, I have created a list of the most popular posts of the week. I think it is fitting that in the week in which the last man to walk on the moon, Eugene Cernan, passed away, […]

The Week in Review – Wacky Weather and Popular Posts

Good afternoon from the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in frozen Woodstock, Maine. It was a crazy weather week here as we went from sub-zero to 45F to sub-zero again in three days. The wacky weather provided a great excuse for me to take my daughter on her first visit to Cabela’s. She was […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the air is cold, the snow feels crisp, and the sun is shining. In other words, it’s a perfect winter day to go outside and play. I hope that everyone had good first week of 2017. Some of you even started 2017 with a professional development session on Wednesday afternoon. […]

The Week in Review – Christmas Eve Edition

Good morning from Maine where vacation will begin when this post is complete. This week was full of my typical scramble to buy Christmas presents at the last minute. But I still made plenty of time to take my dogs for fun walks, play with my daughter, and lead a couple of webinars. Now it’s […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the snow is falling and my dogs and I couldn’t be happier about it! This is the second snowstorm that we’ve had in less than a week. As you can see in the picture to the left, Mason loves the snow. Max likes it too although his short hair doesn’t […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Woodstock, Maine where we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the mountains. While it was a cold day, it was still a nice day to go look for a Christmas tree on my land. The search for a Christmas tree was abandoned when my dogs decided to run off in pursuit […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where an inch of fresh snow is coating the woods around my house. The fresh snow provides a great canvas on which various animals to leave their tracks behind. It’s fun to find discover the various animals that come so close to my house. Over the years I’ve seen moose, deer, […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and I’m looking forward to a day of walking in the woods around my home (with orange clothing on because it is hunting season). Snow is in the forecast for later this weekend. As a skier I love the snow even though I have to shovel […]

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 love this time of year in Maine! Earlier this week I was in Atlanta for three days for the Georgia Educational Technology Conference where there was no threat of snow […]

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 minutes before the start time and unfortunately many people who wanted to see it were not allowed into the room due to fire code restrictions. While you don’t get my […]

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. If you’re going too, please say hello. Next week I’ll be speaking at an event near my hometown in Connecticut. At the end of every month I post a list […]

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 way to spend a day. Looking at my Facebook feed today I saw lots of parents preparing their kids for Halloween activities. We went to a little town celebration of […]

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 a somber note as this afternoon I am going to the memorial service for my friend and former colleague, Steve Ray. Steve and I team taught a couple of courses […]

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 is a visual reminder that I have some outdoor projects that I need to finish before the snow flies. As soon as those chores are done I’m going for a […]

The Week in Review – Feels Like Fall

Good morning from Maine where it looks and feels like fall. This week we were blessed with great weather to enjoy the outdoors. This was a busy week of online instruction. On Monday and Tuesday nights I started new professional development courses. This week I also provided webinar instruction for two schools during the day. […]

The Week in Review – A Costume Wedding

Good morning from Maine where I’m getting ready for my friend Josh’s wedding later today. Since Josh and his fiance are fun-loving people and it’s October, they’ve turned their wedding into a costume party. It should be fun for everyone. As I do every weekend, I’ve put together a list of the most popular posts […]

The Most Popular Posts of the Month on Free Technology for Teachers

The end of September is here and by now we’re settled into the the new school year. I hope that the first month or so of the new school year has gone well for you. As I do at the end of every month, I have compiled a list of the most popular posts of […]

Practical Ed Tech Handbook – Updated for 2016-17

Last year I published a 30 page document that I called The Practical Ed Tech Handbook. This week I spent some time revising that document and updating it the 2016-17 school year. The Practical Ed Tech Handbook isn’t just a list of my favorite resources. I’ve included ideas for using these resources and in many cases […]

The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where it certainly feels like fall. This week my daughter turned one month old. The time is flying. As you can see in the picture to the left, she’s already helping me in my office. She already has her own email address, just like her big dog brothers do. You can […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where it was a beautiful day for walking in the woods and along the water. Max and Mason were very happy to get outside for long walk on a new trail. We saw plenty of colorful foliage throughout our walk. It was a nice reminder to enjoy the change of seasons. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Woodstock, Maine where as I look out from my deck I can see some leaves starting to turn red and orange. This is my favorite time of year. I plan to get outside this weekend to bike, walk with my dogs and my daughter, and maybe even go fishing. Wherever you are […]

Three Google Forms Add-ons To Help You Manage Parent Volunteers

Google Forms offers a great way to collection information from parents when you’re seeking parents to volunteer to chaperone a field trip, help out in your classroom, or bring in supplies for a classroom party. The problem that you might run into is having too many volunteers or too many people volunteer to do or […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

It’s the end of a busy month for me and I’m sure a busy month for everyone reading this blog who started the new school year this month. If you’re trying to get caught up on some ed tech news that you might have missed over the last month, take a look at the list […]

The Week in Review – A New Team Member

Good morning from Maine where I’m writing my first blog post since Tuesday morning (yes, I write and schedule posts in advance). I haven’t written a post since Tuesday because I’ve been a bit busy as my partner Jess and I welcomed our daughter this week. Isla was born on Tuesday evening. The room that […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where we’re still enjoying summer even if there are a few leaves starting to change. One of the hallmarks of late summer in Maine is the surplus of tomatoes that you see people trying to give away or trade away. I don’t grow any myself and I don’t trade for them. […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from Maine where I’m having a relaxing morning while watching the Olympic cycling road race. I’m looking forward to watching the archery team matches later today too because 20 years ago I trained in that sport at the USOC training center California. Reading NBC’s webpage about archery reminded me that you should always […]

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 problems. Read Write Web recently featured a fantastic example of students using a 3D printer to solve a problem. With the help of their school’s library media specialist, Sue Prince, […]

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 much of the world the beginning of August means that school will be starting soon. As you start to think about the technology that you might use in your classroom […]

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 wrapped up my online course Teaching History With Technology. As always I enjoyed teaching the course and I learned a few things that I’ll be implementing when I teach the […]

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. When I asked him for more information about the calculator and what he was teaching in general, he shared another cool resource with me. That resource is ScratchMath. ScratchMath, written […]

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 Camp in Portland, Maine. 35 of use had a nice couple of days of learning from each other. Some people attended for the second and third time. I’m already starting […]

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 with the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp that starts on Monday. Yesterday, we went on an unsuccessful back roads drive to look for a moose. We’ll try again this evening […]

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 first time in years, I went consecutive days without publishing a blog post. I did that because I needed a little brain break after weeks of being on the road […]

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 last week. To answer many of those questions I created the short video that you can see embedded below and or on my YouTube channel.

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 so many passionate educators. At the same time there never seems to be enough time to soak up all of the learning opportunities at ISTE. A happy belated Canada Day […]

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 flight for a month. June was a fantastically busy month as I had the pleasure and privilege of working with teachers at ten events spread across five states. But now […]

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 aisle of the expo and at the end I published my summary of the vendor hall in this Tweet: #ISTE2016 vendor floor summary: data, maker, VR, Google, damage control. — […]

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 of updated features of SeeSaw’s free product as well as the new analytics options within SeeSaw Plus (a subscription service). One of the best features of SeeSaw’s free service is […]

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 the 2015-16 Innovative App Challenge. The top app was created by middle school students in Michigan. Their app provides a way for the public to alert local government to safety […]

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 and reconnect with those I’ve met before. This year I’m on a couple of panel discussions and I’ll also be visiting with a couple of companies with whom I have […]

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 the flight I ran into my friend Kelly Hines from Discovery Education. I’m sure there are plenty of other excited educators on the flight too. If you are going to […]

The Week in Review – A Few Days at Home

Good morning from Maine where I have a few days at home with my dogs before going back on the road for the rest of month. Next week I’ll be just outside of Nashville then I’ll wrap-up the month at the ISTE conference in Denver. If you’re going to ISTE too, please say hello. I’m […]

A Good Example of a Student & Teacher Blog – And How to Make Your Own

On Monday afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing Elisabeth Alkier give a presentation about the book review blog that she developed with her students and her school’s librarian Dlo Duvall. The Bode Book Review is a blog authored by students in Elisabeth and Dlo’s school. The purpose of the blog is to provide other […]

The Week in Review – On the Road

Sketch notes about my video workshop. Good evening from Arizona where I’m relaxing after a great week of speaking at conferences in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Today, I had the honor of giving the closing keynote at the Native Innovation Education Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. That conference was the second one this week that offered […]

5 Things We Can Do to Help Students Learn & Work Independently

This morning I gave the opening keynote for the Collaborate2Create conference in Glendale, Arizona. The title of my talk was Preparing Students to Work Independently. The slides from that talk are embedded below. If you would like to have me speak at your school or conference, please send me an email at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com […]

A Great Video Explanation of Onomatopoeia

Next Vista for Learning recently wrapped-up a student video contest. One of the winning videos was Demonstrating Onomatopoeia. The video does a fantastic job of explaining what onomatopoeia is while also demonstrating how its proper use can enhance your writing. The video is embedded below. The video can be downloaded on Next Vista for Learning. […]

The Month in Review – The Most Popular Posts

It’s the end of the month and as I do every month I have compiled a list of the most frequently read posts of the last 31 days. May seemed to zip along quickly. This list offers an easy way to quickly see interesting and useful posts that you might have missed. Here are the […]

How to Customize Background Scenes in Storyboard That Frames

Earlier this week Storyboard That introduced customizable background scenes for all users. I’ve had a few emails this week about how to change the colors and other elements in Storyboard That scenes so this morning I created the following short demonstration video. Applications for Education Watch this recent webinar recording to learn more about the […]

The Week in Review – A Leisurely Breakfast at Home

Good morning from the Byrne Instructional Media, LLC headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. As I sit on my deck I can tell that it is going to be a beautiful weekend to play and relax in the outdoors. In fact, my dogs and I are going to do just that by going camping this weekend. Before […]

The Week in Review – The Lilacs Have Arrived

Good morning from the temporary Byrne Instructional Media, LLC office in Connecticut. I’m working in Connecticut this morning because I’m down here to see the hooding ceremony for my friend of 20+ years who has just completed her Doctorate of Nursing Practice. Meanwhile back in Maine the lilacs in my meager garden have started to […]

How to Use JoeZoo Express – A Google Docs Add-on for Grading Writing

JoeZoo Express is a powerful Google Docs Add-on that can help you more efficiently comment on your students’ writing in Google Documents. JoeZoo enables you to give feedback on students’ Google Documents by simply highlighting text then selecting feedback statements from a huge menu of feedback statements. You can use standard feedback statements provided by JoeZoo […]

The Week in Review – The Overseers

Good evening from Maine where I am home after a couple of days in Pennsylvania for PSLA 2016. It was an honor to give the keynote at the conference full of enthusiastic teacher-librarians. On Thursday evening I gave the opening keynote. Before I took the stage there was a short ceremony to install the new […]

Nearly 5,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way

About eighteen months ago I started to make a stronger effort to include video tutorials in more of my blog posts. At first I used Wistia to host those videos but the bandwidth costs became too high so I switched them to YouTube. Now I have more than 250 ed tech tools tutorial videos on […]

4 Google Apps for Education Updates You Might Have Missed This Week

It seems like this spring Google is rolling out three or new Google Apps features every week. Last month they added 11 new features. This week three new features were added and one big feature was teased. This week Google added an awesome Q&A feature to Google Slides. The Q&A feature is found in the […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good morning from sunny Woodstock, Maine where I am about to head out on group bicycle ride. Winter ended early this year so we’re taking advantage of the nice weather by going biking. This week more registrations arrived for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Both of them are now more than 50% full. I […]

Aurasma Studio – Create Augmented Reality In Your Web Browser

Earlier this morning I received an email from someone who is coming to the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp for the third time. She was looking for ideas on creating augmented reality layers without using an iPad. My first thought went to Aurasma Studio. Aurasma Studio is developed by the same people that launched the […]

Now You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline Access

For years now we have been able to sync Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets for offline access on our laptops and Chromebooks (learn how). That was great, but it didn’t typically sync your all of your older files. Soon that will change as Google has announced an update to Google Drive that will allow you […]

Scrible Edu Helps Students Organize Research

Scrible is a free service that offers a nice tool to help students organize their online research efforts. Scrible offers a Chrome extension that includes tools for highlighting, creating sticky notes, and altering the font on any webpage that you save in your Scrible account. Scrible also offers an option for formatting bibliographies while you bookmark. And to help you organize […]

Quizlet Live Offers an Easy Way to Turn Vocabulary Lists Into Team Games

Quizlet has long been a great website and app for students to use to create and review flashcards. Teachers can also use it to create flashcards to share with students. Last week Quizlet added a great new feature called Quizlet Live. Quizlet Live allows teachers to select a set of vocabulary words in Quizlet and […]

The Week in Review – Transitions

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and the forecast calls for temperatures above 60f for the first time this year. One of the great things about Maine in the spring is that I can ski, bike, garden, and walk my dogs all in the same day without having to wear a heavy […]

Kahoot Adds a Team Mode

This week Kahoot, the wildly popular quiz game platform, released a new team mode. The new team mode is designed to be used with students who are sharing computers, tablets, or phones. In team mode students arrange themselves in teams around a shared computer or tablet. When you start a Kahoot game you’ll now choose […]

How to Create a Vocabulary Sorting Game on Classtools

Classtools.net, developed and maintained by history teacher Russel Tarr, offers lots of great templates that you can use to create review activities for your students. Recently, I received an email from a reader who was having trouble with the Dustbin game template on Classtools.net. To help her out I created the video that you see […]

How to Use Facebook to Bookmark Links

Almost every day I see a Facebook friend or two tag herself/ himself in the comments on a Facebook post purely for the purpose of “saving for later.” Perhaps you have a friend that does the same. There is an easier way to save items in Facebook. That is to simply open the drop-down menu […]

The Week in Review – A Walk in the Woods

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. It’s a beautiful early spring morning for walking in the woods with two loyal dogs. As the sun is rising earlier now so too are my dogs rising earlier in the morning. We’ve already had one short walk this morning and we’ll […]

Poetica is Shutting Down – Try These Alternatives for Delivering Document Feedback

When it launched in 2014, I raved about Poetica’s capacity to help you give feedback on digital documents in a manner very similar to writing on paper. Unfortunately, this week the Poetica team announced that they’ve been acquired by another company. At the end of May the service will close entirely. Poetica was great because […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Woodstock, Maine where the last of the ice is melting from the pond near my house. My dogs and I had a full day of visiting the vet’s office, walking in the woods, and doing some early spring landscaping. It was a relaxing way to spend the day. I hope that you […]

The Month in Review – #Masonshome

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on the month of March. The highlight of the month for me was bringing home a new family member. Three weeks ago I adopted Mason from Harvest Hills Animal Shelter. He’s a nine year old German Shepherd and Golden Retriever mix and he is an awesome […]

Ten Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp

Chromebooks are quickly becoming the preferred choice of computer for 1:1 programs in schools. Chromebooks are reliable, inexpensive, and versatile tools. That said, teaching with Chromebooks may require you to learn some new tricks to make the experience great for you and your students. At the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp on July 18th and […]

Try the New Padlet Android App

Just a little more than twelve hours ago I received an exciting email from Padlet in which they announced the launch of their new Android app. Padlet has long worked well in the web browser  on Android phones and tablets, but this is the first time that there has been a dedicated Padlet Android app. […]

The Week in Review – 50 Million Page Views

Good afternoon from sunny Woodstock, Maine where my dogs and I have just returned from a great morning of walking in the woods. The end of winter and beginning of spring is referred to as “mud season” around here and my boys made sure to find all the mud that they could walk and roll […]

JoeZoo Express Makes It Easy to Grade in Google Docs

JoeZoo Express is a free Google Docs Add-on that could change the way that you grade students’ work in Google Documents. JoeZoo enables you to give feedback on students’ Google Documents by simply highlighting text then selecting feedback statements from a huge menu of options. For example, in my sample document I highlighted text then […]

5 Settings You Should Know for School or Classroom Facebook Pages

As I mentioned yesterday, maintaining a Facebook fan page for your school or classroom can be a good way to keep parents informed of upcoming events. When you create a Facebook fan page for your school or classroom there are some default settings that you will want to change in order to keep the page […]

10 Somewhat Interesting Things About Me and Free Technology for Teachers

Over the last few months there have been a lot of new visitors and subscribers to FreeTech4Teachers.com and the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. Welcome and thanks for joining me here. And thank you to long-time followers who have helped this blog and the corresponding Facebook page grow. Whether you’re new here or you’ve […]

What is BYOD? And Why Do Schools Opt for It?

Last week I wrote a post about some of the things that will be taught during the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp on July 11th and 12th. As has been pointed out to me by a handful of people, one thing that I didn’t do in that post was explain what BYOD is and why […]

FreshGrade Now Offers an Android App for Teachers

FreshGrade is a free digital portfolio service that launched last year and has quickly become popular in some schools. The service allows teachers and students to create portfolios containing video and audio files, pictures, and text files. Recently, FreshGrade introduced an Android app for teachers. FreshGrade’s Android app for teachers essentially brings all of the […]

5 Ideas for Using Google Sites in Your Classroom

Google Sites is a versatile and core aspect of Google Apps for Education. At first glance you might think that it is just a website creation tool. The more time you spend using Google Sites the more you’ll discover about how it can be used in your classroom. Here are five ways that I’e used […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts of the Week

Good morning from the FreeTech4Teachers.com World Headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. A week of 50f weather had me thinking about the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. A few more early bird registrations came in this week. These are going to be great days of hands-on learning with small groups of dedicated teachers. I hope you can […]

Three Google Drive Features That Impress New Users

I’m currently working with a school that is making the transition to Google Apps (click here for information on bringing me to your school). Last week we started to explore the many features of Google Drive. Within the group there were many first-time users of Google Drive. Like other groups they were amazed by some of […]

The Week in Review – A New Family Member

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. It’s a beautiful late winter morning here. The sun is shining and the temperature is climbing. In other words, it’s a great day to play with the newest member of my family. Mason is a nine year old German Shepherd and Golden […]

Perspecs Shows Students Three Sides to Every Story

Perspecs is a new app that aims to provide users with three sides to every news story. On Monday through Friday the free Android and iPhone app offers a selection of articles about current topics in the news. The topics could be breaking news or they could be topics of a more evergreen nature like […]

How to Refine Google Searches by File Type & Domain

Two of the simple, but powerful Google search strategies that I often share in my workshops are searching by file type and searching by domain. Refining a search by file type and by domain can help students discover content that they might not otherwise discover through a typical Google search. In the video embedded below […]

The Week in Review – Home With Max

Good evening from Maine where I’m home after a great week in North Carolina for the NCTIES 2016 conference. Many thanks to everyone who came to my presentations and workshops at the conference. It was great to see new faces and reconnect with friends I’ve made at NCTIES over the last five years. I’m always […]

Great Tools for Creating Backchannels & Informal Assessments

Yesterday at the NCTIES 2016 conference I hosted a three hour workshop on creating and using backchannels and informal assessments in the classroom. The tools that we used are featured in the slides below. Videos and the group’s discussion posts are available on this Practical Ed Tech page.

Best of the Web – Spring 2016

This afternoon at the NCTIES 2016 conference I had the privilege to once again give my Best of the Web presentation to a packed room (conservative guess of 350 people). The presentation features short overviews of my favorite new and or updated ed tech resources of the last year. Almost all of today’s presentation featured […]

The Month in Review – February’s Most Popular Posts

Good evening from Maine where while the month of February is coming to a close I am getting ready for my favorite March event, the NCTIES conference. As I do at the end of every month, I have compiled a list of the most popular posts of the month. The list is based on the […]

200+ Practical Ed Tech Tutorial Videos

Over the last fourteen months I’ve steadily created screencast videos for my Practical Ed Tech Tips playlist. That playlist now contains more than 200 tutorial videos. In the playlist you will find videos about tools for flipping your classroom, videos on managing workflow, social media tips, search strategies, and media production. The playlist also contains videos about […]

The Week in Review – The Most Popular Posts of the Week

Good evening from the Free Technology for Teachers World Headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. This week Max and I had two visitors to my office. My friend Sam’s dog named Humbird has stayed with us all week. Yesterday and today we’ve also hosted my friend Jess’ puppy named Fionn. Max has been a good dog host […]

Open eBooks – Thousands of Free eBooks for Students and Teachers

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo this morning learned about a new program that will provide Title I schools with access to thousands of free ebooks. Open eBooks is a program organized by the White House’s ConnectED initiative. Through the program Title 1 schools as well as libraries, preschools, and community programs serving populations that have 70% […]

Padlet Adds Helpful New Attachment Previews

Padlet is a fantastic tool that I have used and recommended countless times over the years. My tutorial video about it is the most viewed video in my YouTube channel. This week Padlet introduced some improvements that might not jump out at you right away, but will be helpful to you in the long run. […]

Wizer – Create Interactive Writing Activities to Share Through Google Classroom

Wizer is a free service that bills itself as a tool for creating “blended worksheets.” While that is a fine a description I think it doesn’t tell the whole story of what can be done through Wizer. On Wizer you can create interactive writing assignments in a couple of ways. You can create fill-in-the-blank activities […]

Newsela Offers Text Sets About the 2016 Election

Newsela is a popular service that aims to help teachers find current events articles that are appropriate for their students’ age and reading abilities. For the 2016 presidential campaign Newsela is offering a section devoted just to news about campaigns, primary election results, and caucus outcomes. The articles in the campaign 2016 collection come from Newsela’s […]

The Week in Review – Thinking About Summer on the Coldest Day of Winter

Skiing across Moosehead Lake. Good morning from Maine where the snow flurries are reminding us that winter is still here. Last Sunday we had the coldest day of the year at -17F! It was on that day that I announced that there will be two Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps this year. There will be […]

The Instructional Technology Tool I Recommend in Email More Than Any Other

Every week I receive at least a handful of emails from readers who have watched one of my Practical Ed Tech tutorial videos and wanted to know how I created the video. Often those people want to know how I get the yellow circle to appear around my cursor in my videos. The answer to […]

The Week in Review – Snow and Ice

Good morning from snowy Woodstock, Maine where I’m getting ready for a fun weekend of skiing and ice fishing on Moosehead Lake. As it is a holiday weekend for most of us in the United States I’m sure I won’t be the only person out there. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you […]

How to Mix Privacy Settings on Google Calendar – And a Handful of Other Google Calendar Tutorials

This afternoon I facilitated a short workshop on using Google Calendar in school settings. One of the things that I shared in that workshop was the idea of putting lesson outlines in calendar events then making the calendar public so that parents could see what was happening in your classroom. Someone in that workshop raised […]

5 Good Google Tools for Social Studies Students

This evening I gave a short webinar presentation on my five favorite Google tools for social studies teachers and students. The webinar was hosted by the New England ISTE group. The content of key elements of the webinar are outlined below. Besides what you see featured below we also looked at Google’s Ngram Viewer. 1. […]

Complete This Free Course and Become a Power Google Searcher

Power Searching With Google is a MOOC that Google initially offered nearly four years ago. The course is facilitated by Dr. Daniel Russell whose work I’ve featured many times over the years. The latest version of Power Searching With Google opens today and runs for two weeks. I went through Power Searching With Google the […]

The Week in Review – A Week in Texas

A Padlet of stories. Good afternoon from Austin, Texas where I’m waiting for a flight home after a great week here in Texas. This week I had the privilege to speak at TCEA and at Texas A&M. The highlight of the week for me was speaking to and working with undergrads at Texas A&M who […]

More Than 4000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This Way

Over the last 20 months I’ve made a concerted effort to consistently update my YouTube channel with at least one new tutorial video every week. This morning while uploading my video about making screenshots with Evernote I noticed that there are now more than 4,000 people subscribed to my YouTube channel. If you would like […]

How to Clip & Share Sections of Google Books

Earlier this week at the TCEA conference in Austin, Texas I ran a short workshop about Google Books. One of the things that we did in that session was clip and share sections of free Google ebooks. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to clip and share sections of free Google ebooks. Applications […]

Three Examples of Students Creating Real-World Products to Solve Problems That Mattered to Them

In many of my presentations I try to make the point that “real world” problems are whatever problems that matter to students. That problem could be figuring out how to get into college, how to earn some money, or how to better prepare for an exam that feels important to them. In my presentation Leading […]

The Month in Review – January’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers

Good evening from Woodstock, Maine where we had a beautiful sunset on the last day of January, 2016. As I do at the end of every month, I’ve assembled a list of the most popular posts. The list is based on views and shares of posts throughout the previous 30 days. Here are the most […]

Create a Single Dashboard for All of Your Cloud Storage Accounts

If you’re like me, you might have utilize more than one cloud storage service. I use Google Drive most often, but I also use Dropbox and Box too. MultCloud is a service that allows me to tie them all together in one place. MultCloud does more than just provide a single log-in for all of the […]

Two Easy Ways to Create QR Codes to Use In Your Classroom

QR codes make it easy to quickly share important information with students. Through a QR code you can share links to websites and Google Documents (provided you have set sharing permissions to “anyone with the link”) for your students to open on their tablets or phones. You can share links to Google Calendars or to […]

The Week in Review – A Week at Home

Good afternoon from sunny Woodstock, Maine where I’ve had a nice week at home with my dog Max. Max was very happy to have me home for the whole week after being on the road the previous two weeks. Next week I’ll be Texas for the TCEA conference and to speak to at Texas A&M. […]

How to Create a Multiple Part Test in Google Forms

Yesterday, I posted a video in which I demonstrated how to impose a time limit on a Google Form. In response to that post someone on Facebook asked me if there was a way for students to save their progress on a Google Form and come back to finish it later. Unfortunately, there is not […]

How to Use Choosito’s Reading Level-indexed Search Tool for Free

On Wednesday I published a post about Choosito that spurred a lot of questions in email and comments on Facebook including some not-so-pleasant comments that I deleted. Choosito is a search engine that offers a reading level index for results. You have to register on Choosito even if you just want to use their free […]

Tour Buckingham Palace In Virtual Reality

Last week Google opened up a beta program for schools that want to use Google Expeditions on Android devices. If you get into that program or if you already have Google Cardboard viewers, you might want to take a look at the latest addition to the line-up of virtual reality expeditions. Students can now tour […]

Choosito – A Search Engine With Reading Level Index

Ever since Google removed the reading level option from their advanced search menu I’ve received at least one request per week from readers looking for alternative options. Recently, I have started to suggest trying Choosito. Choosito is a search engine that offers a reading level index for its search results. When you search on Choosito […]

Plickers Now Offers Scoresheets for Reviewing Students’ Progress

Plickers is my favorite student response tool for classrooms in which not every student has his or her own tablet or laptop. Plickers makes it easy to semi-anonymously gather feedback from students. Students simply hold up a card with a QR code to vote and you scan the cards with your phone or tablet. You […]

How to Create a Classroom Blog on SeeSaw

A couple of weeks ago SeeSaw introduced an option to create a classroom blog within your SeeSaw account. SeeSaw’s blogging tool allows you to create public or private blog to share with students and their parents. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create a blog on SeeSaw.me The videos below demonstrate how […]

Test the New Google Expeditions Android App

Two of my favorite new Google products of the last nine months are Google Expeditions and the Cardboard Camera app. This week at BETT Jim Sill introduced me to the beta version of the new Google Expeditions Android app. The Expeditions Android app will bring much of the imagery and experience of Google Expeditions to […]

Quill – Packs of Interactive Writing Lessons

Quill is a free service that puts a new spin on the old writing worksheets that most of us used in middle school. The service offers more than just the writing practice activities, but that is its core feature. There are three activity categories within Quill. Those activities are Quill Proofreader, Quill Grammar, and Quill […]

4 Free Tools for Creating & Playing Interactive Quiz Games

Earlier this week I wrote about “ghost mode” being the talk of the Future of Educational Technology Conference in Orlando. That post prompted a few people to ask me about other quiz game platforms. I’ve used a bunch of them over the years. The following are interactive quiz game tools that I’ve used with great […]

The Week in Review – Heading Out

Good morning from snowy Woodstock, Maine where I’m getting ready to spend the majority of the next two weeks on the road. Next week I’ll be at FETC in Orlando, Florida and the following week I’ll be at BETT in London. If you’re going to be at either of those conferences, I would love to […]

Three Neat Features of Buncee – Create Multimedia Stories

Buncee is a great tool for creating multimedia stories. Earlier this week two of Buncee’s team members gave me a tour of all of the features available to teachers and students within the Buncee platform. Three features stood out to me during that tour. Those features are animations, integrated image search and citation, and hyperlinked […]

Classkick Introduces Viewer Mode – Parents Can View Students’ Work on Any Device

Classkick is a free service for creating, distributing, and assessing students’ work. Originally, the service was only available on iPads. It is now available to use on any device that has an updated web browser. The latest update to Classkick brings a feature called Classkick Viewer. Classkick Viewer allows parents, teachers, and students to view assignments […]

PBS World Explorers – The Lives & Journeys of Famous Explorers

PBS World Explorers is a new collection of videos from PBS Learning Media. The PBS World Explorers collection includes sixteen short videos about famous explorers throughout history. Some of the explorers featured in PBS World Explorers include Leif Ericson, John Cabot, and Zheng He. You’ll also find the usual suspects in the collection including Marco […]

How to Create & Run Review Games on Triventy

Triventy is a free quiz game platform that I wrote about at the end of December. The concept behind Triventy will feel familiar to anyone who has tried Kahoot or Quizizz. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create and run review activities through Triventy. Applications for Education One of the best features of […]

The Week, Month, and Year In Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining over a crisp winter morning. It finally feels like winter here. I have a special edition of the week-in-review to share before I head out for a few runs on the local ski mountain. This week I took some time off to visit family and friends […]

You Can Write Music in Google Docs

As I do every year, I am taking this week to relax, recharge, and ski with friends. While I’m away I will be re-running the most popular posts of the year. This was one of the most popular posts in October, 2015. VexTab Music Notation is a Google Documents Add-on that lets you write music […]