Ideal Verge - Your Daily Dose of Knowledge and Inspiration.

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 after a traditional Maine supper of lobsters prepared outdoors.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Character Scrapbook - A Template for Reflecting on Stories
2. Zaption is Closing - Try These Alternatives
3. Two Easy Ways to Add Accent Marks in Google Documents
4. 10 Ways to Use Adobe Spark in School
5. 7 Free Timeline Tools Compared In One Chart
6. Alphabetimals - A Dictionary of Animal Sounds
7. Sugar Scanner Shows You How Much Sugar You're Consuming

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 including a week at ISTE 2016 where I was bombarded with product pitches. During that little break I went bass fishing with a friend I hadn't seen in almost a year and I took some time for a long bike ride. We all need an unscheduled break sometimes. Now I feel ready to get back to cranking out helpful information to share on FreeTech4Teachers.com.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. How to Enable Automatic Grading in Google Forms
2. How to Create Online Collaborative Whiteboards
3. CK-12 Concept Maps Show Kids Connections Between Math and Science
4. Google Forms Can Now Automatically Grade Quizzes Without an Add-on
5. How Fireworks Work
6. Flubaroo Compared to the New Google Forms Auto-grading Feature
7. The History Project - Like Storycorps With Timelines

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.

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 to my friends to the north. And a happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans. I am spending the long weekend with friends at their lakeside camp ("camp" in Maine refers to what most people would call a cabin). Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you get time to relax too.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Google Forms Can Now Automatically Grade Quizzes Without an Add-on
2. Google Cast for Education Gets Your Students on the Same Page
3. The Best Ways to Use Padlet - Examples from Teachers
4. How to Blend Images in Google Slides
5. The Classroom Bookshelf - A Blog of Literature Lesson Ideas
6. 7 Word Summary of ISTE 2016
7. Connect Your Classroom Through SeeSaw Connected Blogs

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 I'm ready to stay home for the next month to play with my dogs, ride my bike, and get ready for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps.

As I do on the last day of every month, I have put together a list of the most popular posts of the last 30 days. This month the most popular post was about Google's new grading tool in Google Forms.

Here are this month's most popular posts:
1. Google Forms Can Now Automatically Grade Quizzes Without an Add-on
2. 15 Tools for Teaching History With Technology - A Handout
3. Google Cast for Education Gets Your Students on the Same Page
4. The Best Ways to Use Padlet - Examples from Teachers
5. An Illustrated Mathematics Glossary
6. Three Geography Games Based on Google Maps and Google Earth
7. 7 Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked
8. Click to Spin - A Fun and Free Random Name Picker
9. Ten Good Video Channels for Science Students
10. How to Use the New Version of Padlet

 

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.

— Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) June 29, 2016

Now to expand on those points in my Tweet:

1. I counted no less than ten companies offering student data collection and analysis tools. That only accounts for the companies focused entirely on that service. There are many, many other companies touting data collection and analysis as part of a larger service. Those booths seemed to be occupied by school administrators. I didn't see many teachers hanging around those booths.

2. Maker spaces and the Maker movement were all over the ISTE program. The conference program had plenty of workshops and presentations on topics related to the maker movement. There were playground areas set up for people to learn about 3D printers, robotics, and programming. In the vendor hall nearly every 3D printer company and robotics kits company had booths swarming with activity.

3. Google and Samsung had dueling booths featuring virtual reality headsets. I had many discussions with conference goers about virtual reality. The consensus seems to be that we're all fascinated with the possibilities but have concerns about the scalability an long-term use of virtual reality in classrooms.

4. Google, Google, Google. They made some big announcements this week about Forms, Cardboard Expeditions, a new screen sharing app, and an "apps bundling" scheme to sell sets of Chrome apps. Their booth was packed every time that I went into the vendor hall. It was interesting to see many other vendors standing around watching the Google presentations.

5. Damage control products were prominently displayed throughout the ISTE vendor hall. You could find a protective case for just about every tablet, Chromebook, phone, and laptop imaginable. There were also plenty of companies selling network monitoring software and web filtering products designed to protect your school network and or block access to websites.

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 the classroom blogging component. SeeSaw added the blogging feature in January in response to requests from users. SeeSaw's blogging feature allows you to select artifacts from your students' digital portfolios to feature on your classroom's blog. You can also have students submit written blog posts that you approve before they go live on the blog. The video in this post shows you how to create a blog within SeeSaw.

Applications for Education
Connecting with other classroom blogs is a great way to build an authentic audience for your students' work. SeeSaw put together a spreadsheet of public classroom blogs to help teachers connect their classroom blogs. The spreadsheet includes the Twitter and or Google+ ID of the teacher in charge of each listed blog.

SeeSaw's blog feature includes a "following" option that makes it easy to quickly see when a blog your class is following publishes a new post. The video embedded below demonstrates how to connect and follow a SeeSaw blog.

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 concerns in public parks. The whole list of top student-created apps can be seen in this PDF.

The next Verizon Innovative App Challenge begins in August. Students must make a video to explain the concept of their apps and write a short essay about their apps. Complete entry rules are available here.

If your students do want to build an app either for this contest or for their own enjoyment, the MIT App Inventor offers a great way to do that. Students can build working apps in their web browsers before using them on their Android devices. Click here to read more about the MIT App Inventor.

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 worked. In addition to the Blogger Cafe (despite the tone of this post, it's a friendly place)  you can find me at these places during ISTE 2016:

•  Virtual Reality - Blend This Into Your Learning - Monday at 2:30pm in room CCC 401
•  Free Digital Flexbooks - Why Is It Worth It ? - Wednesday at 8:30am in room CCC 706
•  Buncee booth - Tuesday at 10am at booth #3324
•  Otus booth - Monday at 10am at booth #3731

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 ISTE, please say hello if you see me. I look just like I do in the picture in my blog's header.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 5 Reasons to Have a Classroom Blog
2. 7 Tools for Creating Classroom Blogs
3. My Three Favorite Video Creation iPad Apps for Elementary School
4. Three Geography Games Based on Google Maps and Google Earth
5. 5 Ways to Quickly Get Your Students On the Same Webpage
6. A Good Example of a Student & Teacher Blog - And How to Make Your Own
7. Beware of the Copycat Trap!

 

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 not a big fan of the ISTE after-party scene, but I do enjoy talking with people during the conference. You can find me at ISTE by Tweeting me or by coming to one of the panel discussions in which I will be a participant. On Monday afternoon I will be on a panel about virtual reality. On Wednesday morning at ISTE I will be on a panel about open resources hosted by the CK-12 Foundation.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. How to Use the New Version of Padlet
2. Ten Good Video Channels for Science Students - Best of 2015-16 School Year
3. A Week of Presentations - A Slide of Slides
4. A TED-Ed Lesson on the Bill of Rights
5. Three Ways for Students to Compare the Sizes of Countries and States
6. Recording History With Students - Tools & Ideas
7. 300+ Ed Tech Tools Tutorials

• Take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.
• The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook and BYOD Camps are sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. 

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 students with short reviews to inspire them to read new books.

In Elisabeth's presentation she explained the ground rules that students had to follow in order to contribute to The Bode Book Review. Two ground rules that stood out to me were that students couldn't give spoilers in their reviews and that when it came to commenting students were not allowed to correct each other's grammar and spelling. Elisabeth also pointed out that she never corrects students grammar in comments. Instead she gives those corrections privately. Her explanation was that it can be discouraging for reluctant writers to see their work publicly corrected by the teacher. I thought that was an excellent point.

Take a look at The Bode Book Review as a good example of a student and teacher blog. If you want to learn to develop your own blog like it, grab a copy of my free guide to using Blogger in school (link opens a PDF).

This summer I am teaching a five week course all about using blogs and social media in school. There is an option for you to earn three graduate credits for completing the course. 

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 workshops on using technology to help teachers and students improve their physical fitness. It's great to see that trend.

I was on the road all week which is why I re-posted some of the most popular posts of the 2015-16 school year. New posts will resume on Sunday.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. An Illustrated Mathematics Glossary
2. 7 Blogging Platforms for Teachers Compared and Ranked
3. Good Tools for Learning to Type
4. 10 Good Video Sources for Social Studies Teachers and Students
5. 10 Resources for Teaching With Primary Sources
6. Great Google Drive Add-ons & Chrome Extensions for Teachers
7. 5 Things We Can Do to Help Students Learn & Work Independently

• Take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.
• The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook and BYOD Camps are sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. 

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 or check out my work with me page.

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.


If this video sparked your interest in having your students make videos, take a look at Next Vista's next student video contest called Creative Spark.

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 most popular posts from May, 2016:
1. 10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice
2. Create an Interactive Video Summary of the School Year
3. A Fun Tool for Making Word Clouds in Fun Shapes
4. 12 Tools for Creating End-of-Year Review Activities
5. Great Tools for Creating Screencasts - A PDF Handout
6. 7 Tools for Creating Flowcharts, Mind Maps, and Diagrams
7. More Than 100 Sets of Primary Source Documents for Students
8. How to Blend Images in Google Slides
9. 10 Ways to Use Adobe Spark in School
10. 4 Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed Last Week

• Take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.
• The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp is sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. 

Buncee offers a great tool for creating visual stories.

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 many ways that Storyboard That can be used in your classroom.


Disclosure: Storyboard That is an advertiser on this blog. 

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 we can do that I have to finish a couple of blog posts and Mason needs to finish his breakfast. As you can see in the picture to the left, he wasn't in a hurry to eat this morning. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope that you have time to relax just like Mason.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. 4 Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed Last Week
2. 12 Tools for Creating End-of-Year Review Activities
3. 10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice
4. How to Create Images, Videos, and Web Pages With Adobe Spark
5. 10 Ways to Use Adobe Spark in School
6. Interactive Maps of Travel Through the Roman Empire
7. Thousands of Free eBooks for Summer Reading

• Only one ticket remains for the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp in July. 
• Take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.
• The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp is sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. 

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 bloom. Hopefully, we don't get any more snow to cover them as we did briefly on Monday morning.

Here are this week's most popular posts:
1. Create an Interactive Video Summary of the School Year
2. Great Tools for Creating Screencasts - A PDF Handout
3. More Than 100 Sets of Primary Source Documents for Students
4. How to Create a Biking or Walking Route Map in Google Maps
5. How to Create a Google Spaces Community
6. Geopedia - A Map & Wikipedia Mashup
7. How to Create an Interactive Series of Videos

• Only two tickets remain for the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp in July. 
• Take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer.
• The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp is sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list.