Free Technology for Teachers

My Studiyo - Multimedia Quizzes for Your Site

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:41:00 +0000

MyStudiyo is an easy way to make a multimedia quiz for your website or blog. With MyStudiyo you can include video, audio, and image file in your quiz. Each question in your quiz can have a different media format. There are two options for answer format, multiple choice or open-ended response. Quizzes are easy to create and easy to embed into a website or blog.

Below is a simple two-question quiz I made using My Studiyo.

 &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mystudiyo.com/act62169/go/us_history_quiz"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;US History Quiz&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Applications for Education
MyStudiyo quizzes are completely customizable. MyStudiyo quizzes are useful for any content area or grade level. You write the questions and the answer choices therefore the content and difficulty of a quiz is up to you to determine. The ability to integrate multimedia clues in your quiz helps to address the needs of a variety of learning styles.

Free Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

As some of you know, my school rolled out a 1:1 program using ASUS Eee NetbooksrunningUbuntu. Our students have quickly figured out how to use Ubuntu. Some of the faculty, however, have not adopted Ubuntu as quickly as the students. This morning I discovered a free ebook that I will be sure to share with my colleagues. Keir Thomas'Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Referenceis available in print form from Amazon or as a free PDF download here and here.

For the teachers in my school, chapters two and three are all they will probably ever need to read. If you are looking to install Ubuntu on your personal computer, Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference will provide you with everything you need to know to get started.

Travel Up the Mekong Delta to Angkor

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:53:00 +0000

Today, on Snag Films I watched Churning the Sea of Time. Churning the Sea of Time is an hour-long documentary chronicling director Les Guthman's journey up the Mekong Delta through Vietnam and into Cambodia. The history and culture of the region is explained as Guthman advances up the Mekong toward Angkor.

The film is embedded below.

Applications for Education
If you teach any lessons about Vietnam and or Cambodia, this film could be an excellent supplement to those lessons. If you do choose to show this film to your students you may also want to explore National Geographic's interactive animations of Angkor.

New Moon on Shmoop

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:32:00 +0000

In case you haven't heard, Stephenie Meyer's New Moon has been released as a new movie. Meyer's books are widely popular with teenage girls (boys read it too, but in much smaller numbers). So if you work in a high school or middle school setting you probably have students who have raved about the book and or went out late Thursday night to see a midnight showing of the New Moon movie. However, if you haven't had time or desire to read the book, you probably don't know what all the fuss is about. Fortunately, Shmoop has made it easy for those of us who haven't read New Moon to quickly figure out what the book is all about.

Shmoop now offers a guide to New Moon. In this guide you will find an overview, chapter by chapter summaries, discussion of themes, and a list of the characters in the story.

Applications for Education
If you're a middle school or high school teacher who hasn't had the time or interest to read New Moon, but you want to know what makes the story so appealing to your students, check out the New Moon guide from Shmoop.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
10 Questions for Stephenie Meyer
Shmoop In Spanish and 19 New Learning Guides
Shmoop Adds Civics and Biographies
Shmoop Study Guides for History and Literature

Weekend Workshop - Make a Wiimote Whiteboard

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:47:00 +0000

If you would like to have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom, but your school can't afford one of the commercial offerings (those things are wicked expensive) don't despair because there is a very affordable alternative. Nintendo's Wii remote can be used to create an interactive whiteboard. The first time I saw a Wiimote Whiteboard was in a TED Talk given by Johnny Lee. The videos and links below will provide you with what you need to know to build your own Wiimote Interactive Whiteboard.

Here's Johnny Lee introducing the Wiimote Whiteboard at TED.

Here's Johnny Lee showing you how to assemble the needed parts.

To get more directions and to download the free software from Johnny Lee, visit his website.

All Together We Can Learn has a twenty page PDF about building and using the Wiimote Whiteboard.

Week In Review - The Most Popular Items

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:55:00 +0000

Last week when I wrote the Week in Review post I said that I was looking forward to watching the Celtics beat the Hawks. The Celtics are playing again tonight, but I'm not making any predictions for fear of jinxing them again.

As I do each Friday, I've compiled a list of seven most popular items of the last week. If you've been busy and not able to keep up with your RSS reader or email, the week in review provides a good chance to catch up on the posts that were most popular with other readers.

Here are the seven most popular items in the last seven days:
1. 6 Ways for Students To Publish Their Writing Online
2. Ten Trends to Affect Teaching in the Future (And Now)
3. Five Places to Find Thanksgiving Lessons & Activities
4. Toobla - Share Visual Bookmarks Anywhere
5. Webinar with Common Craft - Libraries & Online Videos
6. Copyright Watch - Listing of Global Copyright Laws
7. Palm Breeze Cafe Presents Website Smack Down

The list above is based on item clicks and views. If you ever miss the week in review post, you can always check out the Post Rank widget embedded in the right column of the blog. Post Rank displays the most popular blog entries at any given time.

If you're new to Free Technology for Teachers, welcome, I'm glad you've found this blog. If you like what you see in the links above, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email.
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The How-to Series

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Back in August I ran a series of five how-to posts. Those posts gave directions on how to use six Web 2.0 tools that can be used in any classroom. Because that series ran in the summer, a lot of teachers may have missed it. Therefore, I've put those posts in the list below.

1. Using Wikispaces
2. Setting Up a Blog (directions for Blogger, WordPress, and Edublogs)
3. Drop.io - Easy Media Sharing (1o Things You Can Do With Drop.io)
4. Building a Classroom Website (Using Yola)
5. Using Animoto and VoiceThread

Curt Bonk's Flat Classroom Keynote

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:54:00 +0000

I've mentioned how much I like Professor Curtis Bonk's new book The World Is Open a couple of times in the past. You can read those posts here and here. Today, on YouTube I found a video of Curt Bonk in which he gives a quick and entertaining overview of the concepts and people discussed in his book. If you've been considering purchasing his book, watch this video and decide for yourself if you want to read the book. After watching the video I think you will want to read it.

FTC Disclosure: I did receive a free copy of Professor Bonk's book "The World Is Open" and a copy of his book "Empowering Online Learning." That said, even if I had paid for the books, I would still be recommending them.

Soda Tax - This Should Get My Students Talking

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Today's episode of CNN Student News concludes with a segment about a proposed federal tax on soda pop. Based on how much soda I see my students consume, I know that this will get my students talking. In my both my Civics class and my US History class we often talk about the role of government in the lives of private citizens. The idea of a soda tax is very relevant to my students' lives and is sure to spark some lively discussion when I show them the video.

My Page It - Homepages for Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:11:00 +0000

Update: As a reader pointed out in the comments, My Page It does ask for a small ($1) payment to activate parental controls. I did not notice this until I investigated the finer print. I apologize for any inconvenience my oversight may have caused.

My Page It or Mypage.it is a service providing personalized, customizable homepages for five to eleven year old kids. My Page It allows kids to customize their pages with different backgrounds, themes, avatars, videos, games, and other widgets which My Page It call kidgets. Kids can begin to develop Internet search skills by through the safe search engine developed by My Page It. There is also a social networking element of My Page It which allows kids to share their pages with other kids in the My Page It network. In order to share pages, parents have to approve the sharing action each time their children want to share with someone new.

Northern Lights Time Lapse Video

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:37:00 +0000

Here's a neat time lapse video showing light, shapes, and colors of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). This video was filmed by National Geographic on one night in Norway.

Applications for Education
This video might be a nice visual aid for anyone that teaches weather and meteorology.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Interactive Tour of the Hubble Telescope
Star Child - Learning for Young Astronomers
NASA Quests and Challenges

Google Unveils Chrome OS - A Netbook OS

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:07:00 +0000

There has been a lot of announcements from Google this week, but the one that is getting the most buzz in the blog-o-sphere is Google Chrome OS. The Chrome operating system is designed to be completely cloud based with all applications running inside a web browser. All applications that you would typically install on your desktop will run in the browser. Google claims that this will significantly reduce computer start-up times. Perhaps more significantly, Google claims that having everything operate in the browser will significantly improve security. The improved security will be the result of the operating system's code being verified every time your computer is rebooted. To learn more about the Chrome OS security functions, watch the video at the end of this post.

Chrome OS is not ready for the market yet and won't be ready until next year. In the meantime Google has decided to open-source the project and release all of the code to the public. Anyone with an interest in the coding can learn more about it here.

The video below provides an overview of the general concepts of Chrome OS.

The video below provides an overview of the security concepts used in Chrome OS.

Applications for Education
If the it works as intended, the Chrome OS seems like it will be perfect for netbooks that use a solid state drive. As an open source project the Chrome OS will be a cost effective alternative to using stripped-down versions of Windows products on your school's netbooks.

Update: If you'd like to try Chrome OS right now (in a very, very, very beta stage) TechCrunch has directions.

YouTube Now Auto Captions Videos (Kind Of)

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Today, Google announced a new video captioning option for YouTube. Starting today, YouTube will use Google's automatic speech recognition technology to caption videos uploaded by users. Initially the service will only be available to a select group of YouTube users. That group includes organizations like PBS and National Geographic. And for now the auto captioning will only be in English.

Although auto captioning isn't available to everyone yet, there is a new captioning option that is available to all YouTube users. YouTube has added an automatic caption timing option which should make it much easier to caption your videos. Using the auto-timing option users will be able to upload a text document of the captions they want to use and the captions will be placed appropriately by using Google's automatic speech recognition technology.

The video below shows you how the new auto caption options should work.

Applications for Education
When it becomes available to everyone, YouTube's automatic captioning service will be a great help to anyone that needs to provide subtitled videos to their students.

DotSub and Caption Tube also offer good options for subtitling videos in any language. You can read about those options here.

Presentation Storytelling 101

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Ethos 3 is a consulting company that helps businesses develop and improve their presentations. One of the featured presentations on the Ethos 3 website is Storytelling 101. In this short presentation Ethos 3 outlines the basics of developing a theme and telling a story in a presentation. Watch the short presentation below.

Storytelling 101

View more documents from Scott Schwertly.

Applications for Education
The ideas presented in the above slidecast can be applied not only to slideshows, but to just about any presentation format. Whenever I give my students a presentation assignment, I like to show them a model of a good presentation. The Ethos 3 presentation is one that I'll be adding to list of model digital presentations.

Interactive Earth Offers Enviro Science Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Interactive Earth has a long list of environmental science lessons that can be used online and offline. In fact, the list is divided into online activities and classroom activities. The activities in the list cover a wide range of environmental science topics including river ecology, forest ecology, and animal identification. To aid you in selecting activities for your classroom, Interactive Earth notes the general content areas to which each activity can be applied. For example, just by looking at the notes in the list I know that the Flowing Waters activity addresses topics in geography, mathematics, and science.

Thanks to NMHS_Principal for sharing this on Twitter.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for an environmental science activity that incorporates multiple content areas, Interactive Earth is a good place to start your search.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
The Breathing Earth - Interactive Map
View Glacier Melt in Google Earth
Endangered Places Multimedia Map

The Story of Common Craft and Library Video Use

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Yesterday, Common Craft's Lee Lefever was one of the featured speakers in a webinar hosted by Tech Soup. In the webinar Lefever tells the story of how Common Craft was started, how the videos are made, and how the videos can be used according to licensing. The other two speakers, Mary Beth Faccioli and Carolyn Blatchley add value to the webinar by talking about how videos are used in their library settings. You can view the recording of the webinar here.

Applications for Education
I watched this webinar last night because I was interested in learning more about the way that the In Plain English videos are created. The process is a good model of story development that you and your students can use in developing digital stories.

The webinar also offers some good information about using videos to enhance the teaching and learning experience.

Egiate - College Search Aided By Google Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:53:00 +0000

Egiate is a website designed to help students locate a college or graduate school that is right for them. Egiate provides a great set of search filters for helping students narrow their list of choices. Students can filter their searches by degree type, major field of study, location, campus setting, athletics, and special program offerings. On their own, the extensive list of search filters would make Egiate a good college search service, but Egiate takes it a step farther by incorporating Google Earth.

Egiate uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to show students the location of the colleges in which they're interested. For some colleges, Egiate offers the opportunity to take a virtual tour of the campus within the Google Earth browser plug-in. Students can also use the Yelp search box located at the bottom of the map to search for restaurants, businesses, and wireless hotspots around campus.

Thanks to the Google Earth Blog for the link to Egiate.

Applications for Education
I've explored nearly two dozen college search websites in the two years and Egiate is one of the best. If your high school's guidance department has a website, Egiate should be one of the links on it.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
College Crunch
Unigo - College Reviews by Students
EduPursuit - College Search by Location

TypePad Micro Offers an Easy Way to Start Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:06:00 +0000

TypePad has launched a new free blogging service. The name TypePad Micro implies that the service is designed for short messages, but you can do quite a bit more than post short updates. TypePad Micro allows you to embed videos, post pictures, write long-form posts, and generally do all of the things that you would want student bloggers to do. To make posting fast and easy, TypePad Micro allows users to post via email (much like Posterous) or to post using the TypePad Micro bookmarklet (also much like Posterous).

TypePad Micro offers some theme customization options including color choice and background images. You can see the theme I selected for my TypePad Micro blog here.

TechVi provides a nice little overview of TypePad Micro and some other microblogging options in the video below.

Applications for Education
If you're looking for a quick and easy way to get students started on their blogging journies, TypePad Micro might be a good option to explore.

Life on Minimum Wage - Economics Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:20:00 +0000

Teaching economics is one of my favorite things to do each year. A big part of the reason that I enjoy teaching economics is that learning about money gets my students excited about class. Another reason that it's fun to teach is that economics easily lends itself to simulation activities that get kids actively engaged in learning. In the past I've used simulations created by the Buck Institute and simulations created by Biz Ed. While those simulations are good, I've always wanted something that students could personalize just little bit more. So today during my lesson planning time, I created the outline and materials for a simulation about living on minimum wage in the United States.

The purpose of Life on Minimum Wage is for students to recognize how difficult it is to save money when your only job(s) pay minimum wage without benefits. To win (prize not determined yet) at Life on Minimum Wage the students have to reach five financial goals that they select. To earn money the students have to complete the tasks of their assigned jobs. The students then have to pay required bills before using money for their selected financial goals. As the game progresses students will be issued "surprise" cards which require them to spend money on things like speeding tickets, trips to a health clinic, and increases in rent.

All of the jobs in Life on Minimum Wage are connected so that if one "business" slows production or closes, the workers of another business are also effected. The goal here is to demonstrate the effects of a business closing on a small town's economy.

I've published all of the rules of the game and needed "cards" as a Google Document which you can view here. I would love to hear feedback for improvement from anyone that has done a similar activity. Please note, that I designed this activity with a rural Maine population in mind. Therefore, some aspects of the activity might need alteration if you want to use the activity in your classroom. For example, if you're in Florida you might want to replace the goal of "buying a snowmobile" with "buying a jet ski."

Life on Minimum Wage - Lesson Plan -

Video - Making the Most of a Museum Field Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:49:00 +0000

Through the Teaching Palette, I discovered this video from the Art Institute of Chicago. The video was created as a resource to help teachers and students get the most out of a trip to an art museum. The animated video tells the story of high school students going to an art museum. In the video the teacher explains how to behave at an art museum (don't touch the paintings). The teacher and students also model critiquing art. The video is subtitled in English and Spanish.

You can watch the video below.

By the way, if YouTube is blocked in your school, you may want to explore one of these options for viewing the video.

Applications for Education
Even if you're not able to take your students on a field trip to an art museum, this video still has value. The modeling of conversations about art could be used prior to having students look at art online or in books.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
ArtsEdge - Podcasts and Lesson Plans
Blogs for Art Teachers
Kodak Lesson Plans

Five Places to Find Thanksgiving Lessons & Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:26:00 +0000

Thanksgiving is just over a week away so if you're looking for some Thanksgiving themed lesson plans and activities, here are five good places to look.

1. National Geographic Kids has games, quizzes, and offline activities appropriate for elementary age students. They also include a short history of Thanksgiving.

2. ABC Teach has numerous free lesson plans, coloring pages, and offline games that are designed for elementary school use.

3. Kaboose offers Thanksgiving themed games as well as jokes and riddles for kids.

4. James Hollis at Teachers Love SMART Boards has developed an excellent list of Thanksgiving lessons that can be done using a SMART Board or other interactive whiteboard.

5. Last, but certainly not least, Larry Ferlazzo has an extensive list of Thanksgiving lesson resources. In general, if there is a holiday in the US, Larry has a list for it.

Google Scholar Now Searches Legal Opinions

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:30:00 +0000

The third product announcement coming from Google today (Google Sites Templates and Image Swirl were the previous two) is an improvement to Google Scholar. Google Scholar now allows you to search for, find, and read full text legal opinions from US federal and state district courts, appellate courts, and the Supreme Court. You can search for opinions by case name (like Miranda v. Arizona) or by topic (like school busing).

Applications for Education
Google Scholar's addition of legal opinions could be very useful for teachers and students of US civics. Google Scholar could help schools reduce or eliminate the need to purchase updated legal opinion books every few years.

A related resource that may be of interest to you is Yale's Avalon Project.

Google Swirl is Like Wonder Wheel for Images

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Earlier today Google announced a new image search option called Image Swirl. Image Swirl is similar to Wonder Wheel which I've previously written about here and here. To use Image Swirl, just enter your search term as you would in the regular image search service. The results of your search will be displayed in a grid similar to that with which you're probably familiar. Click any image in the grid a web of more, related, images will appear. Click an image in the web and another web of images will appear.

Applications for Education
Image Swirl, like Wonder Wheel, could be useful for students who need a little help diversifying their Internet searches.

K-12 Writing Lesson Plans from Expo & Scholastic

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:32:00 +0000

Scholastic and Expo have partnered together to create the Expo Writing Resource Center. The Expo Writing Resource Center offers lesson plans for teaching writing. The lesson plans are organized into four groups based on grade level. Each lesson plan includes PDFs of printables to distribute to your students. While the lesson plans are free, Expo is obviously trying to sell more markers because they give directions for color coding various aspects of the lesson plans.

Applications for Education
The free lesson plans offered in the Expo Writing Resource Center cover all grades K-12. There are lesson plans for teaching creative writing, persuasive writing, and vocabulary development.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Imagination Prompt Generator
Two Sources of Writing Prompts
Write Rhymes Provides Fun Times

World Clock - World Statistics in Real-time

noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:47:00 +0000

World Clock is a neat little website that provides continuous updates of demographic statistics from around the world. The clock continuously updates data on topics including, but not limited to, population growth, oil produced, cars produced, and deaths caused by various illnesses. The data used in the World Clock comes from the World Health Organization, CIA Factbook, and the US Census Bureau.

Applications for Education
World Clock could be useful for showing students how quickly the world's population is changing, the seriousness of some illnesses, or the rate of oil production in the world.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Show World - Change the World One Map at a Time
Free Posters, Free Maps