How to Create Your Own Online Connecto Game
Connecto is one of the many online game creation templates that Flippity offers. Flippity calls it Connecto, but the style of game is exactly like the classic Connect 4 board game (I’m sure that for trademark reasons Flippity can’t use that name for their Connecto game template). In a Connecto game students see a question […]
Why That Image Link Won’t Work in a Flippity Template
Earlier this week I wrote about and published a video about making memory games with Flippity. Almost every time I write about Flippity I get an email from someone who has run into a problem with images not rendering. This week was not an exception to that pattern. There are generally two reasons why an […]
How to Create Your Own Online Memory Games
A few years ago one of my students created a memory game app with the MIT App Inventor. It was a great exercise through which she learned about all of the variables and parts of the app that need to be designed. If you’re a little more pressed for time than my student was and […]
Create a Snowman Word Game
Earlier today when I picked up my daughter from preschool she proudly showed me the snowman artwork that she had made during art class. A picture of her artwork is the featured image of this blog post. Seeing my daughter’s snowman art reminded me of the snowman word game template offered by Flippity. Flippity’s Snowman word game […]
Best of 2022 – DIY Online Board Games
As I do at this time every year, I’m taking the week off to ski and play with my kids, shovel snow, and generally not think about work. I have some of the most popular posts of the year scheduled to republish this week. New posts will resume in the new year. Those of you […]
A New Kind of Flashcard – Flexcards!
I started this week by sharing my favorite alternative to Quizlet. To end the school week I have a new kind of flashcard to share with you as an alternative to Quizlet. That new kind of flashcard is called Flexcards by Flippity. Flexcards are multimedia flashcards that can have up to ten sides. You can […]
Three More Ways for Students to Create Flashcards Online
Writing yesterday’s blog post about my favorite alternative to Quizlet prompted me to look back at some other options for creating online flashcards. Should you find yourself looking for some free and easy ways for students to make online flashcards, give the following options a try. Flippity’s flashcard template lets you create multimedia flashcards by […]
Two Ways to Make Your Own Wordle-style Games
Last week I wrote about Strive Math’s new Custom Wordle game creator. That little tool can be used to create Wordle-style games based on words of any length. Flippity.net also offers a free template for making your own Wordle-style games for students to play online. Both are easy to use and don’t require registration in […]
How I Created Outdoor Bingo Boards
In this week’s Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I highlighted some templates for creating in-person educational games. One of the templates that I featured was Flippity’s updated bingo board template. The updated template doesn’t require you to use a spreadsheet in order to create your bingo board. The removal of the spreadsheet requirement makes it easier […]
How to Make Your Own Wordle-style Game
I’ve yet to play Wordle and by the time I do the fad will probably be over. That said, I know a lot of people enjoy the game and are looking for ways to bring it into their classrooms. If that describes you, this blog post is for you. Flippity.net offers more than two dozen […]
21 Activities and Lessons That Have a Winter Theme
Today is the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere. To mark the start of winter I’ve put together a list of twenty-one activities and lessons that have a winter theme. Snowy Outdoor ActivitiesI enjoy winter and my kids do too. We like to sled, ski, snowshoe, and just play outside in the snow. […]
Three Random Name Pickers
From picking a line leader, to calling on a student during a discussion, to drawing a prize-winner there are plenty of times when we all need an unbiased random name selector. Over the years I’ve tried a lot of random name selector tools. I keep coming back to the following three options. Flippity.net offers a […]
How to Create a Random Name and Group Picker
Flippity has gone through some changes over the last few months that were frustrating for users (and the developer). Fortunately, it seems that almost all of the kinks have been worked out and the current version of Flippity is in some ways easier to use than ever before. For example, the random name picker tool […]
How to Turn a Spreadsheet Into Multimedia Flashcards
This fall I’ve answered more questions about creating flashcards than I have in the previous few years. In almost every instance Flippity has been my suggestion for a free tool to create sets of multimedia flashcards. Flippity’s flashcard template lets you create multimedia flashcards by simply entering terms into a Google Sheet. Your flashcards can […]
An Important Update About Flippity
Flippity is one of my go-to resources for making fun things like games and random name pickers with Google Sheets. Recently, some of the Flippity templates stopped working as they originally did. I first experienced this during a live webinar earlier this month. At first I thought it was just a quirk and it would […]
How to Create a Random Question Generator
Earlier this week I shared directions for an icebreaker activity in which students complete the sentence, “where I’d like to go…” with a picture of themselves in front of a place they’d like to visit. That’s a great activity, but it’s not necessarily a quick activity. If you’re looking for a quick icebreaker activity, having […]
How to Make a Connecto Game – Great for Review Activities
Connecto is the latest game template published by Flippity. The template lets you use Google Sheets to create a digital version of Connect Four in which students shave to correctly answer a series of questions to connect a line of grid spaces. I wrote about the game and how it’s played last week. Since then […]
A New Flippity Game Template – Connecto!
Flippity recently published a new game template for Google Sheets users. The new template is called Connecto. Connecto is probably best described as a digital version of the classic Connect Four game. Connecto lets you create a game board as large as forty-two cells (7×6) and as small as nine cells (3×3). The game template […]
Three Good Ways to Make Online Word Games
As we get toward the end of the school year many of us will be looking for some fun activities for our students to do to review key terms and concepts of the last year or semester. I shared a handful of ideas for doing that in this week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter. Another idea […]
Create Outdoor Bingo Games
I originally shared this video on my Ed Tech Fitness blog. The reaction there has been good so I thought that I should give it a bigger audience by posting it on Free Technology for Teachers. Outdoor Bingo is exactly what the name implies. Kids are given Bingo boards that have things like leaves, squirrels, […]
How to Use Pictures in Flippity Templates
Flippity is a free service for making games, flashcards, and timelines with Google Sheets. I’ve been using and recommending it for years. In fact, my posts about using it to make board games and memory games were two of the most popular posts in all of 2020. That’s probably why I get a lot of […]
Six Good Tools for Making Multimedia Timelines
Creating timelines has been a staple in history teachers’ playbooks since the beginning of history. Writing a timeline is a good way for students to chronologically summarize sequences of events and see how the events are connected. When I was a student and when I started teaching timelines were made on large pieces of paper. […]
How to Create Online Word Games to Share With Your Students
On Wednesday morning I looked out my window and watched the snow start to cover the rock wall in my backyard. Doing that made me think about my kids making snowmen which in turn reminded me of the snowman word game template offered by Flippity. Flippity’s Snowman word game is a game in which students […]
Good Places to Make and Find Story Starters
For some students the hardest part of a creative writing assignment is developing an idea to write about. Fortunately, there are many good tools and websites that teachers can use to generate writing prompts. Likewise, there are lots of good websites that offer creative writing prompts for students. Here’s an updated list of some of […]
A Handful of Games for Fun Typing Practice
Last week I was writing a blog post early in the morning when my three year old came out of her room. She saw what I was doing and wanted to help. Since she can recognize all of the letters of the alphabet I let her type a few letters of each sentence. That little […]
Three New Flippity Templates to Try
Flippity is one of my go-to recommendations for anyone looking to make interesting things with Google Sheets. A couple of days ago I published a video about Flippity’s new board game template. That’s not the only new template recently added to Flippity’s catalog of offerings. The other new templates on Flippity are an updated progress […]
How to Create Your Own Online Board Game
Those of you who have followed my blog for a while probably know that Flippity is one of my go-to recommendations for anyone looking to make games, flashcards, and timelines with Google Sheets. Recently, Flippity introduced a new template for making your own online board game through Google Sheets. With Flippity’s new board game template […]
Create Random Story Starters With Google Sheets
There are lots of neat things that you can do with Google Sheets if you know how to get started. Getting started is often the hardest part. Fortunately, there are sites like Flippity that offer great Google Sheets templates that are easy to follow. The latest template added to Flippity is a random story starter. […]
Two Ways to Create Your Own Online Memory Games
Last week I was asked if it’s possible to use the MIT App Inventor to create a matching game. It certainly is. In fact, I have a student who is working on doing that right now. It’s a great exercise through which she’s learning about all of the variables and parts of the app that […]
Create Random Story Starters With This Flippity Template
This morning I answered an email from a reader named Brian who wrote, “I’m looking for a way to upload photos of my students so I can randomly have the site select a photo. (The students are learning how to use adjectives to describe themselves and I would like to project a face onto the […]
Create Your Own Mobile-friendly Random Name Picker
For many years now Flippity has offered a Google Sheets template that you can use to create your own random name picker. It’s quick and easy to use. You can use it by going to Flippity’s website and making a copy of the template or by using Flippity’s Google Sheets add-on. Either way you simply […]
Flippity’s Quiz Show Template Has Expanded
Flippity is one of five favorite Google Sheets add-ons for teachers because it provides easy-to-follow templates for creating lots of useful things like progress trackers, spelling games, multimedia flashcards, and Jeopardy-style review games. Flippity’s Jeopardy-style game template, called Quiz Show, was recently expanded. The new version lets you have up to eight players or teams at […]
How to Create Individualized Online Spelling Games for Your Students
Last Sunday I published a written overview of how to use Flippity’s Spelling Words template to create individualized online spelling games for your students. The template can be accessed from Flippity.net or through the Google Sheets add-on of the same name. I fielded a handful of questions about the template this week. To answer those […]
Flippity’s Google Sheets Add-on is Back!
On Monday I shared an update from Flippity about their Google Sheets add-on being broken and taken offline because the deprecation of the Goo.gl service. This morning I woke up to the news that Flippity’s Google Sheets add-on is back. Not only is it back, it’s better than ever before! Flippity’s updated Google Sheets add-on […]
Important Information for Fans of Flippity
Flippity is one my favorite Google Sheets add-ons. I probably refer people to it more than any other individual Google Sheets add-on. I do that because Flippity’s Google Sheets add-on provides twenty templates for making useful things within Google Sheets without having to be a scripting master. Some of the things Flippity can be used […]
Create Digital Scavenger Hunts With Flippity’s New Google Sheets Template
Flippity is a site that offers great Google Sheets templates that you can use to make flashcards, timelines, and games. The latest game template added to Flippity is a scavenger hunt template. Flippity calls it a scavenger hunt but it is more like a series of trivia questions that students answer to open digital locks. […]
Flippity Fun With Words
In my excitement about Flippity’s Google Sheets Add-on working again I forgot to mention that they have new template available for all Google Sheets users. The latest template in Flippity’s gallery of Google Sheets templates is called Fun With Words. The Flippity Fun With Words template creates printable word art from the words that you […]
Flippity’s Google Sheets Add-on is Working Again!
Back in May I started to get a bunch of messages from readers who were experiencing trouble with the Flippity Add-on for Google Sheets. The trouble was that after years of successful use, people were getting a warning message from Google that said the Flippity Add-on was unverified and not recommended for use. I reached […]
Three Random Name Selectors
If your students are like mine, at one point or another you’ve asked for volunteers and not had any students raise their hands. In that situation using a random name selection tool is an easy way to choose students to call on. And for those times when all of your students raise their hands for […]
What’s Going On With Flippity? – I Found Out for You
A few weeks ago I was giving a presentation that included a demonstration of Flippity’s Google Sheets Add-on. A few minutes after the presentation a bunch of people told me that they received a security warning when they tried to install the Add-on. (I hadn’t seen the message because it was a new development since […]
How to Generate Random Story Starters In Google Sheets
Flippity offers great Google Sheets templates that can be used for all kinds of things from random name selection to progress tracking to generating random story starters. Flippity’s Mix & Match template can be used to create image-based and text-based random story starters. Watch my video that is embedded below to learn how to use […]
Create Your Own Typing Games
Two of the most popular posts of the month so far have included typing games. One of those posts featured ABCya’s free typing games and the other one featured TypeTastic’s collection of free typing games. But you don’t have to rely on other people making typing games for your students. You can use the Flippity […]
Create Custom Typing Tests With This Google Sheets Template
There are many things that can be done with Google Sheets besides just sorting and analyzing data. One of those things is creating games like word searches and Bingo or creating typing tests. The Google Sheets Add-on called Flippity includes a template that makes it easy to create your own custom typing tests. In the […]
Use Google Sheets to Create Online Bingo Boards With Pictures
Flippity is one of my favorite Google Sheets Add-ons because it gives you direct access to sixteen templates that you can use to create games, progress trackers, and random name selectors. One of Flippity’s most popular templates, the Bingo template, was recently updated to allow you to include pictures in your Bingo games. Flippity’s Bingo […]
5 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2018
Earlier today I went on live on my YouTube channel to share five ed tech tools that I recommend trying in 2018 if you didn’t try them in 2017. Watch the video for my explanations of my recommendations then jump to the list to find tutorial videos for my recommended tools. 1. Flippity.net 2. Toontastic […]
How to Use Google Sheets to Create & Print Word Searches
Flippity is a service that I have been writing about for a few years now because they provide teachers with easy-to-use Google Sheets templates. The latest template released by Flippity enables you to quickly create a word search activity in Google Sheets. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Google Sheets to […]
How to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets – 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. New posts will resume on Monday. Flippity provides a handful of great Google Sheets templates. I’ve featured their Random Name Picker, Flashcard, and Jeopardy templates in the past. The latest […]
Quickly Create Bingo Boards In Google Sheets
Flippity provides teachers with easy-to-use Google Sheets templates. A bingo board generator is the latest template added to Flippity’s catalog of offerings. The bingo board generator lets you quickly create sets of unique bingo boards that you can print or have your students use online during a game of bingo in your classroom. You can […]
How to Quickly Access Ten Google Sheets Templates for Teachers
Flippity is a great resource for G Suite users that I have been sharing with readers for a couple of years now. Flippity provides teachers with handy Google Sheets templates for creating things like quiz games, audio flashcards, and progress trackers. Recently, Flippity released a Google Sheets Add-on that makes all of their templates available […]
Track Progress Toward Goals With This Google Sheets Template
This morning I received an email from a subscriber to the Practical Ed Tech newsletter. She had read my tip of the week about using Google Keep to set goal reminders, but she needed something that would be easier to manage with a large group of students. My suggestion was to try Flippity’s Progress Indicator […]
How to Create MadLibs Story Starters in Google Sheets
Last week I wrote about Flippity’s free template for creating MadLibs story starters in Google Sheets. I have received a handful of questions about how to use that template. This evening I made the following short video to address those questions. Applications for Education Using your MadLibs-style stories could be a fun way for your […]
Create MadLibs Through Google Sheets
Flippity is my favorite place to find templates for creating neat things in Google Sheets. A MadLibs story generator is one of the cool templates you’ll find on Flippity. Flippity’s MadLibs template lets you create a series of MadLibs-style stories for your students to complete online (see a demo here). To create a MadLibs-style story […]
Try Flippity’s Mix & Match Template to Generate Random Story Starters
Flippity is a great website that provides templates for creating games, quizzes, and flashcards in Google Sheets. Recently, Flippity published a new template that could be great for creating random story starters. The latest Flippity template is called Mix & Match. Mix & Match lets you create an online grid that features random bits of […]
How to Create a Progress Chart in Google Sheets – Best of 2015-16 School Year
All of this week I am on the road working with teachers in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Rather than scrambling to write blog posts at the end of each day, I’m taking this time to feature some of the most popular posts and new tools of the 2015-2016 school year. Flippity provides a handful of […]
How to Create a Jeopardy Game in Google Sheets – Best of 2015-16 School Year
All of this week I am on the road working with teachers in Texas, Kansas, and Arizona. Rather than scrambling to write blog posts at the end of each day, I’m taking this time to feature some of the most popular posts and new tools of the 2015-2016 school year. Around this time last year […]
10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice
Last night I watched the conclusion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. A recap of the finals is available on the Associated Press YouTube channel. Like many others who watched the finals, I have to admit that there were some new-to-me words in the final rounds. That reminded me that I have a bunch of sites […]
How to Use Flippity and Flickr to Create Sets of Image-based Writing Prompts
Flippity is a great service that offers a handful of templates for creating flashcards, random name selectors, Jeopardy games, and progress trackers in Google Sheets. This morning I was thinking about ways to create writing prompt generators when I realized that Flippity’s flashcard template could be used to create sets of image-based and text-based writing […]