Practical Ed Tech

Professional Development With Richard Byrne

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Archives for June 2015

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – 10 Google Search Tips for Students

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When given a question or a research prompt students immediately turn to Google. Unfortunately, while many students think that they know how to use Google they don’t really know how to find information beyond what appears on the first few pages of search results. I put together the document embedded below (click here if you cannot see it) to help teachers guide students to being better users of Google search.

This week’s most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. 10 Important Google Search Strategies for Students – A PDF Handout
2. 11 Helpful Hints for Combining Google Drive With Symbaloo
3. Three Helpful Gmail Settings for Students and Teachers
4. 5 Online Tools for Creating Picture Books
5. 10 Good Apps & Sites for Creative Writing Projects
6. Active Reading Strategies Using the DocHub Chrome App
7. Video – Three Google Docs Formatting Tips

Summer PD Opportunities With Me.

Teaching History With Technology begins in July.
Getting Going With GAFE begins this Thursday, July 2nd.
Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is offered in July.

Would you like to have me visit your school? Click here to learn about my PD services.

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Embed a Backchannel Into Your Blog

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chat-23713_640Hosting an online backchannel can be a good way to give every student in your classroom a voice and an opportunity ask questions as they arise. By using a backchannel tool like TodaysMeet my students who have a lot to say don’t dominate the classroom conversation. At the same time my shy students are given a place to comfortably ask questions and or post comments in response to my questions.

One of the challenges of using a backchannel is just getting everyone onto the correct URL for the backchannel room. TodaysMeet recently made this less challenging by introducing the option to embed your backchannel room directly into your existing blog. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to do this.

Here are this week’s most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. 7 Tools for Building Review Games
2. 20 Good Map Creation Tools for Students
3. How to Get Your School Announcements to as Many People as Possible
4. 10+ Resources for Learning About the Math and Science of Sports
5. Use Your Phone to Control Google Slides Remotely
6. Jellybean Writer – An Online Tool for Creating Picture Books
7. 5 Good Online Educational Resources from the Smithsonian Museums

Summer PD Opportunities With Me.

Teaching History With Technology begins in July.
Getting Going With GAFE is offered in June and July.
Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is offered in July.

Would you like to have me visit your school? Click here to learn about my PD services.

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Scheduling Blog Posts & A Glossary of Blogging Terms

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Scheduling blog posts to appear in the future is one of the best ways to maintain a steady pace of posts appearing on your blog. On a classroom blog scheduling posts is a great way to keep certain content hidden until your students need to see it. For example, I have often scheduled posts containing practice quizzes for my students to take after completing a lesson. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to schedule blog posts in Blogger, Edublogs, and Kidblog.

If you’re new to blogging or you are introducing others to blogging, the following glossary of blogging terminology will be helpful to you. You can also click here to view and download the document.

Here are this week’s most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. My Five Favorite Classtools.net Tools
2. An Interactive Infographic About Designing Infographics
3. Use Your Phone to Control Google Slides Remotely
4. Three Good Resources from the Lawrence Hall of Science
5. A Glossary of Blogging Terminology – A PDF Handout
6. 5 TED-Ed Lessons on How the Human Body Works
7. Student Blogging Activities and Tools That Don’t Rely on Text

Summer PD Opportunities With Me.

Teaching History With Technology begins in July.
Getting Going With GAFE is offered in June and July.
Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is offered in July.

Would you like to have me visit your school? Click here to learn about my PD services.

Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week – Create Animated Videos and Presentations on Wideo

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Wideo is a neat service for creating animated, Common Craft style videos in your web browser. I’ve been using and talking about the service for a couple of years now.  When you create a video in Wideo you do so by dragging and dropping clipart and text in storyboard frames. You set the position and animation sequence for each element in each storyboard frame. When you have completed your storyboards Wideo generates a video for you. The new presentation mode in Wideo will allow you to present each frame of your video independently just like in a slideshow. Watch the video below to learn more.

Here are this week’s most popular posts on FreeTech4Teachers.com:
1. Six Styles of Classroom Video Projects – A Handout
2. Using Google Apps in a Math Classroom
3. Chromebook Rollout Through Teacher Leadership
4. Creating Narrated Slideshows with Google Tools
5. Learning to Program With MaKey MaKey in Elementary School
6. Champion Reader – A New Reading Game on Teach Your Monster to Read
7. Organizing Descriptive Feedback with Google Forms

Summer PD Opportunities With Me.

Teaching History With Technology begins on July 16th.
Getting Going With GAFE begins on July 2nd. Graduate Credits Available.
Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders starts on July 6th. Graduate Credits Available.

Brand new course! Blogger Jumpstart! – A two night event in which I’ll share everything I’ve learned about turning a blog into a small business.

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