Q&A With Two Ed Tech Guys
Three years ago Rushton Hurley and I started a series of live Q&A webinars titled Two EdTech Guys Take Questions and Share Cool Stuff. While we’ve stopped hosting live webinars, we are still answering lots of questions and still sharing cool stuff. Now we’re doing that in a recorded format. The first episode of the […]
Writing With Emojis
Yesterday I wrote about Tony Vincent’s new page of free Shapegrams. As I mentioned in that post, Tony has always had great ideas for using clever graphics in the classroom. In fact, five years ago Tony Tweeted a slick graphic that convinced me to pay more attention to the clever used of emojis. In the […]
Free Shapegrams from Tony Vincent!
I’ve known Tony Vincent for at least a dozen years. In all that time he’s always had awesome graphics on his website and in his presentations. So when he recently reached out to tell me about his new page of free Shapegrams, I knew I had to share it with all of you. Shapegrams are […]
Five Ideas for Using Google Drawings This Fall
A couple of weeks ago I shared directions for an icebreaker activity that can be done in Jamboard or Google Drawings. Jamboard and Google Drawings have a lot of similarities. There are some differences between the two that can make one better than the other depending upon the use case. Here are five ways to […]
Taking Shape: Drawing Your Own Icons – Webinar Recording
This afternoon Tony Vincent gave a great presentation as part of the Practical Ed Tech Creativity Conference. His presentation was all about creating your own icons. In his presentation Tony explained why teachers might want to make their own icons, the benefits of making their own icons, and how the process fits into classrooms. Of […]
How to Remove the Background from Your Pictures
Thanks to the ever-clever Tony Vincent this week I learned about a neat tool called Remove.bg. Remove.bg is a free tool that will remove the background from your images. The catch is that it will only work with pictures that have people in them. I tried to use it with pictures of my dogs and […]
How to Make Your Own Emojis – And How to Use Them in a Lesson
During the summer Tony Vincent helped me see emojis as more than just annoying symbols that people use in text messages and social media posts. He did that with a slick graphic that he created and shared on Twitter. In the graphic, seen here, he created a game in which students have to decipher school […]
How to Add Emojis to Google Docs – And a Classroom Activity
Thanks to the influence of Tony Vincent I’ve started to see the utility of adding emojis to documents and graphics. Scroll through Tony’s Twitter feed and you’ll see lots of examples of classroom uses for emojis. Here’s one recent Tweet in which Tony shared a little activity he developed for students to complete by guessing the […]
Five Ways to Create Mind Maps and Flowcharts Online
Earlier this week Tony Vincent Tweeted an excellent graphic that he made to show the process of creating a flowchart in Google Drawings. Tony’s graphics are always top notch and this one was not an exception to that rule. Check it out. 🔀 You can use the Line tool in Google Slides to create flowcharts and […]
Goo.gl Is Being Shut Down – 5 Alternatives
Thanks to a Tweet from Tony Vincent I learned that Google announced the impending closure of the Goo.gl URL shortening service. It has been a good URL shortening tool for years, but not the most popular service because you couldn’t customize your shortened URL. That’s why I’ve always preferred to use Bitly.com to shorten URLs. If […]
DropItToMe Is Shutting Down
Thanks to a Tweet from Tony Vincent, this morning I learned that DropItToMe is shutting down on July 15th. DropItToMe provided a seamless way to collect files from anyone without the need for email attachments. I will be testing alternatives to DropItToMe in the coming days and I’ll be sure to share a recommended alternative […]
Tony Vincent Teaches Us How to Make Great Illustrations
Over the weekend my friend Tony Vincent sent me an email about a new video that he made about Adobe Illustrator Draw. Adobe Illustrator Draw is a free iPad app and Android app. It’s the app that Tony uses to make the awesome illustrations that appear in his presentations, on his website, and in his […]