5 FAQs About 25 Search Strategies You Need to Know
Last Saturday I announced the launch of a new course titled 25 Search Strategies You Need to Know. In the five days since then a bunch of you have registered for the course, thank you! Even more of you have sent me questions about the course. Here are the answers to some of those questions. […]
A New Course to Start 2023
Last week I hosted a webinar about creating and selling digital teaching materials. After the webinar a handful of people reached out to ask if I could go into more depth on the topics covered in the webinar. I certainly can, but it’s hard to do in just one webinar. Therefore, I’ve created a new […]
Two Resources to Help Make Virtual & Hybrid Learning More Equitable & Effective
This is a guest post from Dr. Beth Holland (@brholland), Research & Measurement Partner at The Learning Accelerator (TLA) – a national nonprofit. As the school year ramps up again, teachers and leaders have to confront the same challenge that has been plaguing schools since the start of the pandemic: how to develop more effective, […]
Focusable Looks Like a Promising New Approach to Online Instruction
Focusable is a new service from the same people that brought us Swivl and Synth. Focusable is currently in a private beta (public beta to launch in August) so there isn’t a lot of information available about it. That said, what I’ve seen so far makes Focusable look like a promising new approach to online […]
A Teacher’s Guide to Creating Common Craft Style Videos
Yesterday, I published a post about a live course that I’m teaching in June. If you’re looking for something that is self-paced, Common Craft offers an interesting course about making videos. For years Common Craft videos have been used by teachers to help students understand topics including digital citizenship, personal finance, and many big technology concepts. One […]
A Few Good Resources for Learning How Blockchain Works
For the last year or so whenever I watch a sporting event on television there are advertisements for cryptocurrency exchanges. It has even pervaded niche sports like professional cycling (here’s one story about a particularly dodgy instance in cycling). Last year one of my students even set out to try to mine Bitcoin. Another of […]
Three Ways to Use Lumio for Collaborative Learning Right Now
Disclosure: Lumio is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Now more than ever many students are suffering from “device-o-lation.” “What is that?” you ask. It’s what happens when students are given an activity to do on a computer, phone, or tablet and while they may be physically in a room with other people, they’re actually isolated […]
Ten Cool Things You (And Your Students) Can Do With Lumio
Disclosure: Lumio is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com. Advertisers help keep the lights on here. Lumio was one of my favorite new tools in 2021. I wrote about it back in November, but I don’t think I fully captured everything that makes Lumio great. And since Google Analytics tells me that people prefer articles that […]
Three Tips for Getting More Out of Webinars
I love webinars. They’re a convenient way to learn from experts that I otherwise wouldn’t get to interact with. But not everyone enjoys them like I do. In fact, I didn’t always find them enjoyable. Then about ten years ago I made some simple, almost “duh,” discoveries that helped me get more out of each […]
Old School Meets New School in Volley for Education
Last week I wrote a lengthy blog post and shared a few videos about an exciting new messaging platform called Volley. Even though I spent a long time dabling in Volley and setting up some spaces in it, I never really settled on a great, quick description of it. Then on Friday afternoon as I […]
Volley – Video, Audio, and Text Messaging for Learning
Disclosure: Volley is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.comAt the end of 2021 an old friend from the early days of Free Technology for Teachers introduced me to a new conversation platform called Volley. I liked it so much that I included Volley in my Best of the Web 2021 webinar. So now that you know I’m […]
One Week Left!
The first session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp is just a month away. If you haven’t registered for the session of your choice, you can do so up until the day before it starts. However, there is only one week left to complete the early-bird registration. There is a June session, a […]
Five Ways to Get Students to be More Active in Remote Learning
This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College. In remote environments, sustaining engagement is a challenging task even for adults, but with school continuing to take place virtually, the question of “How to motivate and keep students engaged in remote learning?” […]
Three Areas That Can Help Teachers Improve Hybrid Learning for All Students
This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College. Across the country, teachers, students, and families have been engaging in simultaneous learning (often referred to as hybrid learning, or “Zoom and Room”) for quite some time. A year into these practices, we […]
Three Ways Teachers Can Improve Remote Learning
This is a guest post from Hali Larkins (@HaliLarkins), communications intern at The Learning Accelerator and Master’s student at Columbia Teachers’ College. Right now, many students are still trying to navigate major changes to their environments, learning formats, and wellbeing —all factors that can impact their ability to do well in remote learning. Teachers can […]
Two Free PD Webinars Tomorrow
Every Thursday at 4pm ET I join Rushton Hurley from Next Vista for Learning for a free webinar called Two Ed Tech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff. We’re doing it again tomorrow. It’s always a fun conversation and I hope that you’ll join us. You can register for it right here. And if […]
Five Current Google Meet Features to Note
Last week Google announced a bunch of additional features that will be coming to Google Meet later this fall. Before those appear in your Google account, here are five other features of Google Meet that you should how to use. Meeting Nicknames: This feature allows you to choose a nickname for your meeting in place […]
July PD Opportunities With Me
Last week I hosted the first Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. I realize that the middle of June isn’t the ideal time for everyone to join online professional development. That’s why I’m offering the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp two more times in July. The first July session runs July 6th-10th and the […]
The National Zoo’s Activities You Can Do at Home
My daughters are currently obsessed with a book titled On the Loose in Washington D.C. It’s a book created in the “Where’s Waldo” style, but instead of having to find Waldo you have to find animals. The premise of the book is that all of the animals have escaped from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and […]
The Week in Review – It Was a Rough One
Good morning from Maine where the ground is once again blanketed with six inches of heavy, wet snow. We had a big storm on Thursday night that knocked out the power to more than a third of the homes, including mine, in my county. So in the midst of remote learning we had a snow […]
Use Read Receipts to Make Sure Students Know They Have Google Classroom Assignments
Last week I published a post in which I explained that you can use read receipts in your G Suite for Education email to make sure that students have at least seen your messages even if they don’t reply to your messages. I do that when I email students to remind them that they have […]
A Student View of Joining a Zoom Meeting on an Android Phone
A few days ago I got an email from a reader asking me what it looks like when a student tries to join a Zoom meeting on an Android phone. It was a good question because it is important to have an understanding of what a student experiences when he or she tries to use […]
Free Course – A Teacher’s Guide to Creating Common Craft Style Videos
For more than a dozen years Common Craft videos have been used by teachers to help students understand topics including digital citizenship, personal finance, and many big technology concepts. One of the things that makes Common Craft videos popular is the clear and concise manner in which information is presented using a whiteboard, simple cutouts, […]
Live Weather Lessons for Kids Hosted by a Meteorologist
Mallory Brooke is a meteorologist who lives in and is an active part of my local community. In addition to giving weather forecasts on a couple of our local television news stations, she runs a firm called Nor’Easter Weather Consulting. Last night she announced that starting next week she’ll be giving live weather lessons to […]
The Cincinnati Zoo Launches Daily Virtual Zoo Visits
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is closed to the public right now and thousands (millions?) of kids are home from school right now too. That’s why the zoo has announced that they’re hosting daily “Home Safaris” beginning today at 3pm ET. These Home Safaris will be broadcast live on Facebook. Each Home Safari will […]
Start 2019 With a Practical Ed Tech PD Course
As you may know, one of the ways that I keep Free Technology for Teachers running is with the revenue generated through my other site, Practical Ed Tech. On Practical Ed Tech I offer online professional development courses. In January I am hosting three professional development courses on PracticalEdTech.com. Enrollment is limited to 25 people […]
FAQs About Upcoming Practical Ed Tech Courses
This weekend I have answered a bunch of questions about the two Practical Ed Tech courses that are starting next week. I figure that if even one person asks there are probably a few others who are curious about the same topic too. Here’s a list FAQs about the Practical Ed Tech courses that are […]
Why I Created “From Blog to Job”
A couple of weeks ago I released an on-demand course called From Blog to Job – A Teacherpreneur Jumpstart. I’d like to tell you a little bit about why I created the course. A little over ten years ago I was where a lot of teachers find themselves. I loved my job, but I didn’t […]
How to Prevent Plagiarism in Online Learning: Unicheck and Google Classroom
This blog post is sponsored by Unicheck. The reputation and credibility of the educational institution directly depend on academic conduct policies and measures taken to prevent plagiarism. It is equally relevant for online and offline academic institutions. The problem is plagiarism has never ceased to exist. According to the University of Adelaide survey, 90% of […]
Four Online PD Opportunities Starting In July
In June I hosted four online courses for teachers and school administrators. In July I am offering four more online learning opportunities. A description of each course, its dates and times, and registration links are included below. If you’re a subscriber to the Practical Ed Tech newsletter be sure to use the discount code “subscriber” […]
Six Hours of On-demand Professional Development
During the school year we tend to think to ourselves, “I’ll do some professional development during the summer.” Then the summer arrives and we find our schedules a little more busy than we expected. That’s when on-demand professional development is handy. I offer six on-demand professional development webinars through Practical Ed Tech. You can download […]
Three Tips for Getting More Out of Webinars
About nine or so years ago I watched a webinar for the first time. I can’t remember exactly what the webinar was about (it was something about Second Life), but I do remember thinking that I didn’t get “it.” After that I watched bunch of free webinars about all kinds of things because that’s what […]
Coming Soon – Discovery Education’s Annual Fall VirtCon
Every fall Discovery Education hosts a virtual conference that is open to the world. The DEN Fall VirtCon is a blended online and physical conference. This year’s event is happening on October 22nd. You can participate virtually as I did last year or attend one of the physical events organized in locations all over North […]
Spend a Few Fall Evenings Learning New Tech Skills To Use In Your Classroom
Next week I’m starting three sections of my popular Practical Ed Tech online courses. On Monday Blogs & Social Media for Teachers & School Leaders begins. On Tuesday Getting Going With GAFE begins. Graduate credits are available for completing both of those five week courses. Teaching History With Technology is a three week course that […]
Highbrow – Learn a New Subject or Skill in Small Chunks
Highbrow is a neat service that delivers short courses to your email inbox in bite-size chunks. When the service launched last year the course offerings were fairly limited. I took another look at the site today and noticed that course catalog has expanded. You will now find courses in history, logic, science, and art. There […]