The Useless Agony of Going Offline – The New Yorker During the world’s longest weekend, it became clear to me that, when I’m using my phone or surfing the Internet, I am almost always learning something. I’m using Google to find out what types of plastic bottles are the worst for human health, or determining…
I have never been a fan of the term digital native. In my opinion, the youth do not have a monopoly on the knowledge of how to use technology. This term popped into my head this week as I was discussing methods on using two large screens in a classroom with a teacher. I showed…
Teaching students to be good citizens and makers requires the knowledge of copyright and of the ability to create your own content. Drawing characters for comics, cartoons, Scratch, etc. can be difficult. Students want their work to look good, and when they can’t draw items that look good, they get discouraged. This past week I…
Inklewriter is an online service that allows the user to write interactive fiction. What is interactive fiction? In its simplest form you can think of interactive fiction as the old choose your own adventure books. Inklewriter lets you or your students create their own interactive fiction online. This could be used with students as they author…
We’ve all been there, clicking on a story, reading it, and then following links to related stories. Soon you are doing searches for the topic, and falling farther and farther down the rabbit’s hole. That’s what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I came across the Hemingwriter (now called FreeWrite) Kickstarter project….
Slashdot linked to an article at The Guardian where Lawrence ‘Larry’ Luckham to his camera to work one day in 1967. He brought a camera into work to capture a day in the life at a company churning out some of the biggest technological advances of the decade The article brought out some interesting theories on the state…
An option to control the flow of email in Gmail from students is to have your Google Apps for Education (GAFE) administrator add a footer to student emails. In the footer, the administrator could put a hashtag such as #studentofSCHOOL where SCHOOL is your school district or building. The idea is that the tag is something unique. Your…
Movenote is a website, Chrome web app, Android, and iOS app that allows you to create narrated presentations. The app supports Google authentication, so students don’t have to create accounts, and there is also an education version that removes the ads. It’s the easiest app I’ve found for allowing students (or teachers!) to record narrated slide…
Although Google Slides has a bunch of good looking templates, after awhile the presentations all start looking a lot alike. I put together a short video on how to modify an existing template and make it your own, so your presentations have your own blend of flair attached to it. After you create your own…
In the olden days, approximately a year or two ago, you could list your main Google Drive folder by last modified, and your most current files would show up at the top. For some reason, Google modified this so it always shows your folders first before your documents. What a pain. But, Google does offer…