Free Technology for Teachers

Follow the Olympic Torch Relay

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:22:00 +0000

The Olympic flame is flying to Cornwall today to begin the 8,000 mile relay around the UK before arriving at the Olympic Games later this summer. The relay begins tomorrow morning. You can see the plane and how the flame is transported in these images from the BBC. To keep track of the where the Olympic flame is on a given day, visit the Olympic Torch Relay Map on the London 2012 site.

The BBC also has a good map with pictures of all of the locations that Olympic Torch will pass through over the next seventy days. The BBC also has a nice gallery of past Olympic Torch designs accompanied by a bit of information each design, the host nation, and or that year's Olympic games.

For more resources about the 2012 Summer Olympic Games I recommend seeing the list that Larry Ferlazzo has started.

And if you're wondering about the picture above, it's of my long-time friend Butch Johnson who has competed in five Olympic Games and is currently in the running to make a sixth consecutive US Olympic Archery Team at the age of 56.

GoClass - Create and Deliver Lessons on iPads

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:26:00 +0000

Last week I wrote about NearPod which is an iPad application for creating and delivering quizzes to students. This morning, through David Kapuler, I learned about a similar free iPad application called GoClass.

GoClass is a free iPad application for creating short lessons and delivering them to your students. The lessons can include annotated images, free hand sketches, text, and video. GoClass gives teachers tools for creating class rosters that they can use to keep track of which students are using the lessons when. Teachers also have the option to ask questions and poll their students. After the students' response have been gathered teachers can project those responses without showing individual student's names. The image below, from GoClass, illustrates how a teacher might use the app with students.

Applications for Education
GoClass is a promising iPad app for teachers who are working in 1:1 iPad environments. I particularly like the option to project students' responses in aggregate without revealing individual names. That feature could be useful for prompting discussions about the questions and materials you've presented to your students.

IWitness - Video Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:46:00 +0000

IWitness is a project of USC's Shoah Foundation Institute built to help students learn about The Holocaust. IWitness gives students and teachers access to more than one thousand video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses. The purpose is to give students a place to find first-hand answers to questions that they might ask if they could talk to a Holocaust survivor in person. To access all of the content teachers must register on the site and then invite their students to join. Students cannot register without an invitation from a teacher.

Applications for Education
IWitness offers more than just videos. Teachers can use the activity builder to create lessons and assignments for students to complete. Teachers can observe and moderate students' activities within IWitness. Click here to read about one high school's use of IWitness.

QuizSlides - Quizzes Based on Your Slides

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:41:00 +0000

QuizSlides is a new service whose purpose is to help you build quizzes based upon your slides. The basic concept is that you can upload PPT or PPTX files containing questions then add answer choices to create an instant-feedback quiz. The quiz can be set to allow students to try answers until they get the correct answer or the quiz can be set to allow only one try per question.

Applications for Education
The concept of QuizSlides isn't bad, but I wouldn't use it with elementary school students because students have to enter a captcha code before they can start the quiz. I found the captchas frustrating so I'm sure elementary school students would as well.

QuizSlides could be used with middle school and high school students to post review activities online. As a practice activity I would probably set the quizzes to allow multiple attempts at each question.

Friday Morning Fun - Teachers Dancing

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:30:00 +0000

I saw this video two days ago and thought then that I would post it for some Friday morning fun. It had under 200,000 views when I first saw it and in two days it's up to almost 900,000 so there's a good chance you've seen it too. But if you haven't, here is a great video of some teacher photo bombing their students while busting out some dance moves. The band teachers are my favorite. Enjoy.

CSI Web Adventures for Students

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:30:00 +0000

Rice University has partnered with CBS, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History to produce educational web adventures based on the CSI television series. The web adventures are designed to teach students the process of forensic investigation and problem solving. There are four cases or levels to the CSI web adventures. A fifth web adventure is in development. The web adventures are available in English, Spanish, and German.

Applications for Education
The CSI Web Adventures are great, educational activities for middle school and high school science students. The CSI Web Adventures are also useful for teaching a research and investigation process that can be useful in almost any content area in which students complete research assignments. The CSI Web Adventures teach students to pay attention to details and examine all of the available evidence before reaching a conclusion.

7 Online Sticky Note Services for Students and Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:29:00 +0000

I was recently looking at some of the all-time most popular posts on Free Technology for Teachers. Among the twenty most-read posts is this one about using Wallwisher having my students share their web findings and thoughts about the 1920s. Reading that post again gave me the idea to create this list of online sticky note services that could be useful for teachers and students.

Since I started this post by mentioning Wallwisher, it just makes sense to start out with an explanation of what it is. Wallwisher is a virtual corkboard to which students can post multimedia notes. Notes can have up to 160 characters of text, video links, and image links. To get started simply go to Wallwisher.com and click "build a wall." Then title your wall, choose a URL for your wall, enter your name and email, and start adding sticky notes to the wall. You can choose to make your wall private or public. If you choose the public option anyone can quickly add sticky notes to your wall. If you want to approve additions to the wall before they appear, that's an option too.

Stixy is an organization and collaboration tool that I first wrote about four years ago. Stixy, as the name implies, allows you to write notes and stick them to a clipboard. Stixy allows you to share your notes with others and have them respond to your notes. The Stixy clipboard also gives you options for sticking and sharing documents, sticking and sharing photographs, and creating and sharing to-do lists.

Spaaze is a free online sticky note service that offers some handy functions for teachers and students. Spaaze allows you to write notes, edit notes and reorder your notes. Your notes can be simple text notes or you can create notes that contain videos, images, or links. Use the Spaaze browser bookmarklet to add a note to your collection anytime you come across an interesting find on the web. Spaaze is iPad friendly. The video below gives a good overview of what can be done with Spaaze.

Lino It is a free service that allows you to create a canvas of online multimedia sticky notes. In addition to basic text, the sticky notes you place on your canvas can contain videos, images, and file attachments. Unlike some similar sticky note services, Lino It allows you to alter the size and color of your fonts. You can use Lino It's built-in calendar tool to set due dates on your sticky notes. To use Lino It, you have to register for an account. Once you've registered you can create as many sticky note canvases as you like. You can make your canvases and notes public or private. If you choose to make a canvas public other users can add sticky notes to it and read all of the notes on it.

Desktop sticky note applications are very handy for creating reminders for yourself and recording quick thoughts. But if you frequently work from more than one computer, a desktop sticky note application might not suit your needs. That's where a service like Noterr can be helpful. Noterr is a free web-based sticky note service. Noterr provides a blank canvas for posting sticky notes to yourself. Individual notes, but not an entire canvas, can be shared with others via the link provided by Noterr.

Scrumblr is a site that provides an online space to create and share sticky notes with a group. Scrumblr can be used by anyone to quickly create an online space for sharing stickies. To get started just enter a name for your space. The name you choose will be a part of the url for your sticky note space. To add notes just click the "+" symbol in the bottom left corner of the screen. Then double click to edit your notes.

Primary Wall is designed with elementary school students in mind. To use it students just have to go to the url for the wall you've created and click "add a note" or double click on the wall to start writing notes. Students can title their notes and attach their names (first name only please) to a note. Learn more about Primary Wall in the video below.

ISTE Newbie 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

In 2009 I received an email from a relative stranger, Beth Still, asking me if I was planning to attend that year's NECC (Now ISTE) Conference in Washington, DC. I said no because at that time I was struggling to pay the heating bill on time let alone consider going to a conference that would cost at least $1000 to attend. Beth wrote back about a week later with the crazy idea to launch a social fundraising campaign to send me to the conference. I've never been one to ask for help with anything, but I agreed because Beth was taking the lead to do the asking. The whole story can be read here and here, but the short version is that thanks to many of you who donated and to VoiceThread who matched donations that year I was able to attend NECC 2009. Attending NECC 2009 was one of the most influential weeks of my adult life. This year Beth isn't taking the lead on ISTE Newbie like she has in the past (she's still involved) but the ISTE Newbie 2012 project is a go as three others try to raise the funds, with your help, to send a new first-timer to ISTE.

Here's the ISTE 2012 Story as written by this year's project coordinators.

To make a donation please visit the ISTE Newbie Site.

In 2009, Beth Still started the ISTE Newbie Project to serve as an example of how people who are connected to one another on Twitter can work together to do great things. There were still a lot of people who discounted the value of Twitter and she was determined to show the naysayers that it really did have a valuable place in education. For three years in a row she tapped into her personal learning network to raise money to send three different Newbies to ISTE. A Newbie is simply someone who had never attended ISTE. Last summer she made the decision to take a break from the project to spend time with family and pursue other projects, but all of that changed the other night.

Beth was not planning on doing the ISTE Newbie Project this year. She had organized and managed this project for the last three years simply needed a break. There is a lot of work that goes into making this project work that happens behind the scenes and she did not have the time to do it this year due to family obligations. But last week all of that week when she received an email from Suzie Nestico. Suzie had been contacted by Jeff Bradbury who manages the TeacherCast website and Ron Peck who is one of the co-founders of #sschat and the SSChat Ning. They were looking for a way to get Jerry to San Diego so he could attend his first ISTE.

The Newbie for ISTE12 is one of those rare people who has found a way to give more than he/she takes from his/her personal learning network. This individual started out creating a website for his/her school in 1999 but by the next year had developed a site for all educators with hundreds of great resources and links. The website grew and now has over 500 pages and 30,000 links. It is considered the “go-to” website for information on just about anything. Many educators sing the praises of this wealth of information and sharing on a level that no one in education can come close to. In addition, this individual is an active member of several chats on Twitter. #Edchat, #ntchat, #gtchat, #elemchat, #engchat, #sschat and #ptchat are just a few of the chats he contributes to and moderates on a regular basis. This amazingly generous person deserves everything we can do for him/her and more.

Jerry Blumengarten, also known as @cybraryman1, is the ISTE12 Newbie!

It will take a large number of us working together to raise enough money to get Jerry to ISTE. The idea behind the Newbie Project is to raise a lot of money without anyone donating much more than they would spend on a couple of cups of fancy coffee. The goal this year is $2000. We need 200 people to give $10. In previous years individual donations have ranged from $5 to $150. My advice is to give what you are comfortable with and don’t assume that your contribution is insignificant. Every dollar adds up! We only have until June 10 to accomplish this goal. Please show Jerry how much you appreciate him by chipping in to get him to San Diego!

The Newbie for ISTE12 is one of those rare people who has found a way to give more than he/she takes from his/her personal learning network. This individual started out creating a website for his/her school in 1999 but by the next year had developed a site for all educators with hundreds of great resources and links. The website grew and now has over 500 pages and 30,000 links. It is considered the “go-to” website for information on just about anything. Many educators sing the praises of this wealth of information and sharing on a level that no one in education can come close to. In addition, this individual is an active member of several chats on Twitter. #Edchat, #ntchat, #gtchat, #elemchat, #engchat, #sschat and #ptchat are just a few of the chats he contributes to and moderates on a regular basis. This amazingly generous person deserves everything we can do for him/her and more.

Jerry Blumengarten, also known as @cybraryman1, is the ISTE12 Newbie!

It will take a large number of us working together to raise enough money to get Jerry to ISTE. The idea behind the Newbie Project is to raise a lot of money without anyone donating much more than they would spend on a couple of cups of fancy coffee. The goal this year is $2000. We need 200 people to give $10. In previous years individual donations have ranged from $5 to $150. My advice is to give what you are comfortable with and don’t assume that your contribution is insignificant. Every dollar adds up! We only have until June 10 to accomplish this goal. Please show Jerry how much you appreciate him by chipping in to get him to San Diego! Jerry Blumengarten, also known as @cybraryman1, is the ISTE12 Newbie!

It will take a large number of us working together to raise enough money to get Jerry to ISTE. The idea behind the Newbie Project is to raise a lot of money without anyone donating much more than they would spend on a couple of cups of fancy coffee. The goal this year is $2000. We need 200 people to give $10. In previous years individual donations have ranged from $5 to $150. My advice is to give what you are comfortable with and don’t assume that your contribution is insignificant. Every dollar adds up! We only have until June 10 to accomplish this goal. Please show Jerry how much you appreciate him by chipping in to get him to San Diego!

It will take a large number of us working together to raise enough money to get Jerry to ISTE. The idea behind the Newbie Project is to raise a lot of money without anyone donating much more than they would spend on a couple of cups of fancy coffee. The goal this year is $2000. We need 200 people to give $10. In previous years individual donations have ranged from $5 to $150. My advice is to give what you are comfortable with and don’t assume that your contribution is insignificant. Every dollar adds up! We only have until June 10 to accomplish this goal. Please show Jerry how much you appreciate him by chipping in to get him to San Diego!

Ken Burns on Storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:07:00 +0000

I saw this video this morning on Open Culture and I had to watch it right away because I'm always curious about the art of storytelling and because I am a big fan of Ken Burns. In the five minute video below Ken Burns explains what he thinks are some of the key themes in the art of storytelling. One of the things that stands out to me is his assertion that "all story is manipulation."

Applications for Education
If a venerated documentary film producer like Ken Burns is willing to say that all story is manipulation, what does that say about new media and other media outlets? That might be a good question to put to your students as an introduction to lessons on bias and propaganda. In the video Burns also introduces another question that could be a great conversation starter in your classroom, that is, "is it okay to manipulate information and how much manipulation is okay?

Road to Grammar - Hundreds of Grammar Practice Quizzes

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find more than 300 grammar quizzes on the site. Each quiz provides instant feedback and notes to explain why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the quizzes visitors can work through a dozen practice activities and five practice games.

Road to Grammar Jr. is the companion site to Road to Grammar for younger students. The words and phrases on Road to Grammar Jr. are chosen for use in elementary school.

Applications for Education
In addition to the resources that students can use individually, Road to Grammar offers some downloadable resources for teachers. Teachers will find the collection of eight downloads offer discussion starters for English lessons, lesson warm-up activities, and some worksheets.

243 Free Printables from Teachers Printables

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000

This week Free Technology for Teachers welcomes a new advertiser, Teachers Printables.

As much as we might want to do everything electronically some things are easier to do and or are more effective when printed. For example, an attendance chart or behavior chart for little ones can be more effective when it is posted in a place that students can quickly see it and update it. Ideas from brainstorming activities in a classroom that lacks one-to-one devices should be recorded on paper by students. Seating charts for a substitute teacher usually need to be printed too. Rather than create forms from scratch, visit TeachersPrintables.net to find and download more than 200 helpful forms.

TeachersPrintables.net offers 243 free printable forms organized into 23 categories. Some of the categories that I think will be visited by a lot of teachers are lesson plans, passes, sight words, sign language charts, and substitute teacher report forms. The four most frequently printed forms right now are the lesson plan template, field trip permission slips, blank rubrics, and teacher-parent communication logs.

The next time you need a new form to use in your classroom, take a look at what TeachersPrintables.net has before you spend time trying to create a new form from scratch.

Google Introduces a New Knowledge Graph

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:04:00 +0000

Today, Google announced a major change to the way that their search engine will handle your inquiries and serve results. Starting today for most U.S. users will be take advantage of Google's Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph is designed to search and serve results based on natural language. What this means is that it is trying to determine what it is that people really want when they enter a search term or phrase. For example, the Knowledge Graph recognizes the difference between someone using the word "oasis" to search for information about the band versus using "oasis" to search for information about patches of vegetation in a desert.

The search results now include summaries of key points in the links that are listed in your search results. The results page will include sections based on the different meanings of your search term. If you use the example of "oasis" again there is a section of links about the band and section about the geographic feature.

The video below features Google employees talking about the Knowledge Graph and what it means for your search experience.

Applications for Education
Google's Knowledge Graph could be very helpful in getting students to recognize the multiple meanings of their search terms. The Knowledge Graph could prove to be frustration-relieving for students who are struggling to find information relevant to their inquiries. That said, students should still be taught how to use the proper search terms and search modifiers. Combining proper search term usage with the new Knowledge Graph-based results should yield better results than if students just rely on "Google to do it for them."

Interactive Animated Explanation of Body Mass

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:40:00 +0000

As I've mentioned in the past, my school district recently received a grant for programs to address the rate of childhood obesity in our schools. Therefore, I always take note of things like Explania's interactive, animated explanation of body mass index. The animation includes two interactive breaks during which viewers can calculate their body mass indexes and their ideal weights. The narrator uses metric units in the explanation, but the interactive elements can be used in metric or imperial units. Try it out as embedded below.

Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) - Explania

On a related note, you might also like Explania's explanation of cholesterol.

What is Cholesterol? - Explania

7 Great Note-taking Tools for Teachers and Students

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:11:00 +0000

This is another post that was prompted by a reader's email. The email was looking for a list of recommended note-taking tools. I've reviewed a lot of note-taking tools over the last five years, but I have never made a list. So here's my list of seven great note-taking tools for students and teachers.

InClass is a free iPhone and iPad app that could be a very useful tool for students carrying those devices. InClass provides students with tools for taking text, audio, and video notes. Students can also use the app to take pictures of hand-outs, slides, and other valuable information that they see in class. Taking notes is not all that InClass can be used for. It can also be used as a task management tool to help students keep track of their schedules and due dates. To share notes, images, videos, and schedules students can connect InClass to their Facebook accounts.

Color Note is a simple note-taking app that I've been using on all of my Android phones for the last year (yes, it's been a rough year for phones in my life). Color Note offers a sticky note environment, a calendar option, to do list options, and the option to share your notes via email and sms. Color Note does offer an option to password protect your notes so that even if someone takes your phone, your notes are still protected.

Save Meeting is a meeting recording app for iOS and Android devices. The app allows you to record the audio of your meetings, transcribe the audio, and share the recordings and transcriptions with others. The transcription options that I tried were somewhat limited (30 seconds of automatic transcription and 5 minutes of manual transcription) but should be sufficient for recording quick notes during a meeting. Save Meeting uses a freemium pricing model. At the free level you can save up to 1,000 minutes of audio.

Notes.io offers a simple platform for taking and sharing notes. To use Notes.io just go to the site and start typing your notes. When you want to share your notes just click "short" to have a shortened url created for sharing on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever else you like. It really couldn't be any simpler to use.

No list of note-taking tools would be complete without mentioning Evernote. Evernote can be used by students to take notes on the web, on their desktops, on their Android devices, and on their iOS devices. Their notes can be automatically synchronized across devices whenever they connect to the web. Notes can include text, images, links, and more. Click here to read about how I am using Evernote.

mySchoolNotebook is a service for taking, saving, and sharing notes online and offline. The basic purpose of mySchoolNotebook is to provide a place that students can take and organize notes from all of their courses. Students can create notebooks for each of their courses to which they add text and image notes. To use mySchoolNotebook you do have to have a Facebook account. By signing into mySchoolNotebook with a Facebook account students are able to connect with and share notebooks with their friends taking the same courses that they are taking. mySchoolNotebook is available to use on the web and as an iPhone/iPad app. Students can export their notebooks as PDFs if they need to have a paper copy of their notes.

If your students are already in the habit of using Google Documents to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets it just makes sense that they take notes in Google Docs too. Teach your students to create folders for each of their courses to help them keep their notes organized. While the mobile versions of Google Docs aren't perfect, they can be used for some basic viewing and editing.

Video Explanations of IPOs

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:30:00 +0000

Your students may have heard that Facebook is going to make an IPO sometime soon. If they haven't heard that or if you haven't heard that, check out today's episode of CNN Student News. Your students might be wonder, what is an IPO? Here are a couple of videos explaining the answer to that question.

The YouTube channel Investopedia has a bunch of videos explaining financial topics. Included in their list of videos is a one minute explanation of IPOs.

Another YouTube channel offering simple explanations of financial topics is Finance Guy Video. Finance Guy Video uses the iPad app Show Me to create short whiteboard lessons. His explanation of IPOs, embedded below, includes the recent examples of LinkedIn and Zillow IPOs.

Moodle Tutorial Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

This morning I received an email informing me that a source of Moodle tutorial videos that I featured three years ago has gone offline. That prompted me to search for some new Moodle tutorial videos. There are four sources that I found and think can be helpful for teachers getting started using Moodle.

Russell Stannard offers two sets of Moodle training videos. The first twenty-two part series can be accessed here. Click here to access the second fourteen part series.

MoodleRooms, recently acquired by Black Board, has a YouTube channel in which you can find tutorial videos created by MoodleRooms staff as well as some other videos that they have organized into helpful playlists.

Moodle HQ offers twenty tutorial videos produced by Moodle.com staff.

Using Moodle is probably the best of the YouTube channels that I found dedicated to Moodle. The videos are produced by a teacher, Mary Cooch, who is a languages teacher and Moodle trainer. Mary has produced videos in English and in French.

Try GmapGIS to Draw on Google Maps

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000

GmapGIS is a free tool for marking and drawing on maps without having to create or use a Google account. GmapGIS provides tools for drawing lines and shapes, adding markers, adding labels, and measuring distances. To get started just visit GmapGIS and select the drawing or labeling tools that you want to use. When you are finished drawing on and labeling you can share your map by sending the link that is automatically generated for your map. You can also save a KML file for your map and view it in Google Earth.

Applications for Education
GmapGIS could be used by students to identify and label places without having to create an account. They can share their work with you by using the links generated for their maps. Students could also use GmapGIS to quickly measure distances between places on a map.

GmapGIS is simple to use, but is not quite as robust as Scribble Maps, Build a Map, or Animaps.

H/T to Google Maps Mania.

Meetings.io - Video Conferencing Without Registration

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Hosting a Google+ Hangout can be good way to have a video conference with a small group, but only if everyone you want to join you has a Google account. Meetings.io doesn't require users to register at all which could make it a great alternative to Google+ Hangouts.

Meetings.io allows you to have up to five people in a room. You can start using Meetings.io by simply clicking on the blue "Get a Meeting Room" button. When you click that button Meetings.io will create your room and assign it a URL to share with the people you want to video conference with. Once the room is created just allow Meetings.io to access your webcam and you're in business. You can make your room public or private after it has been created.

If you do want to register on Meetings.io, you can. Registering on Meetings.io allows you to create a personalized room with a URL chosen by you. That room is yours to use as many times as you like.

Applications for Education
Meetings.io doesn't have screen sharing or file sharing, yet but it still could be a good way to host a small video conference with students, parents, and colleagues. I think that Meetings.io could be useful for hosting parent-teacher conferences with parents who cannot come into your school.

Google Adds Tab Synchronization for Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:34:00 +0000

Chrome is my preferred web browser and the one that I recommend to anyone who asks. I like it because of its speed, its support for WebGL, the Chrome web apps, its synchronization of bookmarks and extensions, and now I like its ability to synchronize all of my open tabs across multiple devices. Today, Google released version 19 of Chrome. The latest update allows you to sign-in with your Google account and sync all of your open tabs across all of the devices on which you are using Chrome. (You have to be using Ice Cream Sandwich for it to work on an Android device).

Applications for Education
Synchronizing tabs across computers could be very helpful for teachers and students who work on a different computer at home than they use at school. Now they can quickly switch between devices without missing a beat (provided you've signed-in with your Google account).

Tech Jobs and Internships for Teens

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:57:00 +0000

Summer will be here soon in the Northern Hemisphere and that means there will be high school students looking for summer jobs and internships. Teens in Tech knows this and is doing something to help high school students find jobs and internships with tech companies. The Teens in Tech Job Board is a place for tech companies to post opportunities and for students to find those opportunities.

The Teens in Tech Job Board just launched this week so the opportunities list is limited still short. The job board does have the potential to become a good place for high school students to find a company that will give them an experience that they probably won't find mowing lawns or flipping burgers during the summer.

H/T to TechCrunch.

Search the Web Within Your Google Documents

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:22:00 +0000

This afternoon I discovered a new feature in Google Documents (now a part of Google Drive) that could prove to be handy for students to use while writing research papers. Google Docs now has a search function built-in. This feature allows users to search the web without having to leave the document they're viewing. To access the new feature open the "tools" menu then select "research" while you have a document open. The search box will appear on the righthand side of your screen. See my screenshots below for directions.

Once you have opened the search sidebar there are some great features to take advantage of. If you find a web result that you want to use in your writing, click on the "insert link" and "cite" buttons to have that link included in your document. Google Docs will automatically insert a footnote citation for that link. The same concept is applied to image searches. When you find an image that you want to use in your document, drag it into place and Google Docs will automatically include a citation for you. The only problem with the image search is that I couldn't tell if the images were Creative Commons licensed or not without going to the actual source in a new tab. Finally, there is a quotation search function that allows you search for famous quotes to include in your writing. Again the automatic citation function kicks-in if you find a quote that you want to you use.

Applications for Education
The new search-within-documents option could be useful for students who need to quickly double-check something that they are citing in a research paper. Students who are trying to include a quote that they've heard can take advantage of the "quote search" option that is included in the Google Docs search option.

The new search function doesn't appear to be available to Google Apps users (Google Apps for Edu, Google Apps for Business) yet so you'll have to be in a personal Google account to see the new feature.

To learn more about Google Documents and Google Drive, download my free 57 page guide to Google Drive and Docs for Teachers.

Create a Beautiful Website for Free With Zoho Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Last month I shared a list of 11 Free Tools for Creating Websites. Today, Zoho released a new website creation tool to bring that list up to twelve. Zoho Sites is a new addition Zoho's suite of services. Zoho Sites appears to be trying to address two frequently-noted shortcomings of Google Sites by offering visually impressive themes and by automatically making your sites mobile-friendly.

TechCrunch says that Google needs to watch out for Zoho Sites, but I don't think Google has too much to worry about because aside from the theme beauty and mobile readiness, creating a website on Zoho Sites is just like almost every other free website builder. To create a site on Zoho Sites you can sign-in using a Zoho account, Google account, or Facebook account. Once you've signed-in, select a theme and start arranging elements on your site by using the drag-and-drop menus. One of the nice elements that you might want to add to your site is the integrated blogging element. You can have a blog reside inside you site. In other words you can have the static content of a website combined with a section for chronologically organized blog posts. Like on any good website builder, you can preview your site before you publish it and you can edit it at any time.

The video below provides a short overview of Zoho Sites.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for a platform that your students can use to build visually-appealing digital portfolios, take a look at Zoho Sites. If your students already have Google accounts, signing into Zoho Sites won't require them to create a new user name and password.

If you're looking to build a new course website that is mobile friendly, Zoho Sites is worth giving a good look too.

If You Were President Lets Kids Be the President

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

If You Were President is a nice, short activity from Scholastic through which elementary school students can learn about budget balancing basics. In the activity students select a three member cabinet, set a five part budget, and answer questions from the Press. When they've finished answering questions from the Press, a short newspaper article is written about their budget and cabinet decisions.

Applications for Education
If You Were President could be used as part of an elementary school lesson about government budgetting. I like that students are asked to defend their choices in writing after creating their budgets.

H/T to Vicki Davis.

View A Cleaner YouTube Without Extensions

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Ever since I discovered it last July, I've been promoting using A Cleaner Internet as a way to remove from YouTube unwanted "related" videos and advertisements. The only problem was that it required users to install the extension on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. That left out anyone working in a school that doesn't allow them to install extensions and anyone forced to use Internet Explorer. That problem has been resolved.

If you point your browser to http://youtube.clea.nr you can search YouTube and watch YouTube videos without viewing any of the "related" videos or advertisements on YouTube.

Applications for Education
YouTube can be a great source of educational material to share in your classroom. Unfortunately, if you try to search YouTube in front of a class, you're open to the possibility that something inappropriate will pop-up. Use http://youtube.clea.nr or the Cleaner Internet browser extension to avoid that potential problem.

Flashcard Flash - A Flashcard Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Flashcard Flash is a handy little search engine designed for one purpose, helping you find sets of publicly shared flashcards. Flashcard Flash was built using Google Custom Search. Flashcard Flash searches twenty-seven flashcard services to find flashcard sets that match your terms. When you find a set of flashcards you may have to register on the host site to use those cards, but searching using Flashcard Flash does not require any registration.

Applications for Education
Flashcard Flash is a good service to try when you don't have the time to build a set flashcards. Students can use the service to find flashcards that will help them prepare for a test.