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›- Practical Ed Tech By Richard Byrne
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Practical Ed Tech By Richard Byrne - Education & Personal Development
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Three Tools for Animating Explanations - Practical Ed Tech
As some of you know, on the weekends I teach skiing lessons at Mt. Abram Ski Area. Yesterday, I taught the second-to-last class of an eight-week class that I teach to kids of intermediate ability. In yesterday’s class I asked the kids to pick their favorite skiing tip and teach it to the class. They...
Three Google Gemini Tips - Practical Ed Tech
Earlier this month Google rebranded Bard to Gemini. Why they did that isn’t terribly important (presumably to be able to monetize it better). What is important is that you know Gemini offers the same functionality as Bard. On that note, here are a few functions of Gemini that are helpful to teachers and students. Draft...
Search in the Age of AI - Practical Ed Tech
In Teaching Search Strategies to History Students I wrote about the importance of identifying the goal of a research task before ever typing a query into a search box. I was reminded of that last week when someone asked me “what does the research process look like in the age of AI?” My short answer...
Three Quick Quiz Tips - Practical Ed Tech
A couple of weeks ago I shared a few ways to speed up the process of giving your students meaningful feedback when they take a quiz or submit a writing assignment. (If you missed that newsletter, you can see it here). This week I have some tips for quickly creating quizzes and similar assignments. Repurpose...
Flippity Can Do That - Practical Ed Tech
Last week my seven-year-old came home from school excited to tell me that her teacher had her play a new game called Mad Libs! The game has been around since the 1950’s, but it was new to her and she loves it. That prompted me to make some Mad Libs games for her to play. ...
Delivering Feedback Faster - Practical Ed Tech
As you may know, back in August I returned to the classroom on a full-time basis. Not as a teacher, but as a student. That experience has reinforced my belief that prompt feedback is one of the most important things you can give to students. On that note, this week I have some tech tips...
The Most FAQ Every Year - Practical Ed Tech
I started the Practical Ed Tech weekly newsletter ten years ago this month. It was an off-shoot of the daily FreeTech4Teachers.com posts that started in 2007. Over that time I’ve answered a lot (well into the thousands) questions from readers. But there is one question that comes up more than any other every year. Every...
The Five Best Practical Ed Tech Tips of the Year According to Readers - Practical Ed Tech
It’s a holiday week for most of us. So rather than present a new tip, I’m sharing the five best tips of the last year as chosen by readers like you. To pick them I went through analytics for all issues of this newsletter over the last year and chose the most read and shared...
Three Fun Tech Things to Do Before Break - Practical Ed Tech
Greetings from Maine where I’m writing this with the help of a generator. No, not an AI-powered writing generator. The power is out and I’m running a “portable” electric generator. On the topic of generators, AI-content generators can be fun to play with. For example, you may have noticed the Funko figure trend circulating on social media...
A Modern Take on Classic Study Methods - Practical Ed Tech
Next weekend I’m taking final exams for the first time since Clinton was in office. (If you missed the news, I’m a full-time student again). This has given me an opportunity to test some modern takes on classic study methods including flash cards and Jeopardy-style games. Flashcards From the first day of the semester I started...
More Than an Hour of Code - Practical Ed Tech
This week is Hour of Code week organized by Code.org. They’re joined by just about every company that makes some kind of learn-to-code product in offering short activities designed to introduce programming concepts to students of all ages. Code.org and the Hour of Code website are fine places to find activities to use this week. There are...
A Faster Way to Create Lesson Plans - Practical Ed Tech
When I started teaching there were some websites on which you might find a lesson plan, but they were few and far between. So there were more times than I care to admit in which I found myself flipping through books, bugging sympathetic colleagues, or just staring at the wall in the hopes of divine...
Infographics and Questions Created by AI - Practical Ed Tech
This year’s emergence of AI-powered tools for education reminds me a bit of the emergence of Web 2.0 tools fifteen years ago. Back then there were a lot of new tools emerging that had great potential despite being rough around the edges. I feel the same way about a lot of AI tools right now....
Stories, Maps, and Timelines - Practical Ed Tech
This week is Geography Awareness Week. It’s my favorite non-holiday week of the year. Don’t stop reading because you’re not a geography teacher. As I hope you’ll see by the end of this newsletter, digital mapping tools are useful in many subject areas. To that end, here are some digital mapping activities for a handful...
A Quick Way to Create Animated Explanations - Practical Ed Tech
In my course on making and teaching with animated explanations I provide in-depth explanations of that process and why it is helpful in remembering key terms and concepts. I also provide a lot of direction on various methods for making animated explanation videos. Last week I tried a new AI tool for making animated explanation videos. That...
Creating Comics for Comfort - Practical Ed Tech
This week I was going to just write about Halloween and how to create comic strips in Canva. Here’s the video about how to do that. But last week was a very difficult week here in Maine, so it felt more appropriate to share an SEL resource. On Monday morning my daughters’ school and most others opened...
Email Etiquette Reminder Posters - Practical Ed Tech
As one of my friends who teaches 4th grade said to me last week, we’ve entered the part of the school year in which “we’re really in it.” What she meant was the newness of the school year has worn off. When the newness has worn off it is time to revisit some basics that...
Quickly Turn Quiz Questions Into Online Arcade Games - Practical Ed Tech
I haven’t been to an arcade in decades (do they even still exist?). But if I have the chance to play ski-ball or mini-basketball to win a prize, I’ll take it. So it was with excitement that last week I tried a new AI tool that can be used to turn quiz questions into arcade-style...
Get to Know the New Google Earth - Practical Ed Tech
If there is one thing that I’ve come to expect from Google over the last seventeen years it is that none of their best products stay the same for too long. Case in point, so far this month Google has announced the deprecation of Jamboard and has released a new version of Google Earth. The...
Research Guides for Students and Teachers - Practical Ed Tech
Researching small, nuanced topics in civil legislation and regulations is one of the things that I’m spending a lot of time doing this fall. Through that process I’ve become familiar with a new aspect of the Library of Congress that I had previously overlooked. The Library of Congress offers in-depth research guides for hundreds of topics divided...
An Easy Way to Make a Timelapse Video - Practical Ed Tech
Autumn is my favorite season of the year. From wearing my favorite flannel shirts to taking my kids trick o’ treating to watching the leaves change colors, there’s nothing I don’t like about fall. It’s those changing leaves that inspired one of my favorite video projects. The project is to create a timelapse of the...
The ICYMI Edition (Where I've Been) - Practical Ed Tech
I hope that the new school year is going well for you. The start of this school year has been like none other for me. And that’s why you haven’t heard from me in a couple of weeks. This week I’m going to share what’s been happening and then I’ll share my favorite tip of...
Five Ways to Flip This Fall (or Spring) - Practical Ed Tech
Last week I mentioned that I’ll be visiting some of the “classics” of edtech over the next few weeks. This week I have a handful of ways to think about using Microsoft Flip (formerly known as Flipgrid) for you to consider trying this fall (or spring for my friends in the southern hemisphere). While not...
Five Ways to Use Book Creator This Fall - Practical Ed Tech
I love this time of year as it’s when we’re ready to start the year with some new ideas on how to make this school year the best one yet. Sometimes that means trying a new edtech tool and other times it means using a favorite edtech tool in a new way. To that end,...
Search Tips Posters for Your Classroom or Library - Practical Ed Tech
This is the time of year when many of us start to think about classroom design and what’s going on the walls of our rooms to start the new school year. I’m not the person to talk to about making things pretty. But I can help you with some practical things to put on the...
How to Convert Handwritten Notes to Text - Practical Ed Tech
Last week I shared some cool tools for digital drawing or sketchnoting. This week I’m continuing on that theme with a couple of handy tools for converting handwritten notes into text notes. Why? Many students and adults recall information better when they’ve handwritten notes compared to taking those same notes by typing. Here’s an interesting study on...
Five Good Tools for Digital Sketching - Practical Ed Tech
In my Animated Explanations course I shared that one of the most popular things I’ve published in the last 16 years is this simple set of stick figure sketches. Publishing that set of sketches proved to me the value of breaking down a topic into small chunks that are easy to understand at a glance. ...
Three Good Ways to Use All Those Pictures - Practical Ed Tech
Take a look at your phone and you’re likely to find hundreds or thousands of pictures and videos (heck, there are more pictures of my daughters’ first weeks as infants than of my entire childhood). Now take that number and triple it and you’re getting close to the amount of pictures the average middle school...
Five Dozen Canva Tutorials for Teachers - Practical Ed Tech
Canva’s popularity amongst teachers seems to grow every day. Every week when I look at the analytics for my YouTube channel and for FreeTech4Teachers.com, anything related to Canva is at the top of the list of most-visited items. I’ve been making tutorials about Canva since it was just a beta product. Now it’s a full-fledged...
Teaching Search Strategies in History Classes - Practical Ed Tech
Earlier this year I listed the educational technology topics that I’m still passionate about after all these years. One of those topics is search strategies and discovery tools for students. To that end, I’ve recently updated my e-book on Teaching Search Strategies to History Students. In my updated e-book Teaching Search Strategies to History Students I outline activities...
Five Adobe Express Tutorials for Teachers - Practical Ed Tech
I’ve been a regular user of the video editor in Adobe Express since it first launched under the Adobe Spark name seven years ago. The video editor of one of many excellent tools available to teachers and students who have free Adobe Express accounts. If you haven’t given Adobe Express a try or you simply...
How to Enable Students to Start Flip Topics - Practical Ed Tech
Microsoft Flip (formerly Flipgrid) recently added a bunch of new features. Some of those new features are purely cosmetic while others are actually meaningful. One of the meaningful new features is the ability for students to create discussion topics. For students to be able to create discussion topics in Flip you have to enable the...
Three Tools for Making Interactive Video Lessons - Practical Ed Tech
Over the years tools for making interactive video lessons have come and gone. Some have been swallowed up by bigger companies and others have simply gone the way of MySpace. A few just keep on ticking as reliable options for teachers. Those are the ones I’d like to share with you this week. ClickView ClickView is...
How to Use Engageable to Recharge and Focus - Practical Ed Tech
Engageable is a free service offered by the folks behind Swivl. During the 2022-23 school year Engageable was known as Focusable. The name has changed, but the purpose is still the same. That purpose is to help students and teachers learn how to focus on a task at hand and then recharge with short, guided activities...
Five Fun Canva Features You Should Try - Practical Ed Tech
Last week I attended the ISTE Live conference in Philadelphia courtesy of Canva. During the week I shared some of my notes during the conference on FreeTech4Teachers.com. One of those notes was about the impressive use of Canva by Lauren Enders who uses it as an AAC tool. Seeing Lauren’s presentation and the demos by some of the...
What to Look for in New EdTech Tools - Practical Ed Tech
This week I’m attending the ISTE conference in Philadelphia. I’m excited to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, and learn a lot along the way. I’m also bracing for enthusiastic sales pitches from edtech companies. Whether you’re going to a big conference like ISTE, taking in information about edtech via social media, or simply...
Creating From Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams - Practical Ed Tech
A couple of weeks ago a reader replied to my tip-of-the-week about digital housekeeping with a question about creation tools in Google Classroom. It was a good question and one that applies to any learning management system, not just Google Classroom. Here is the question: Next year I’m starting a new job teaching social studies in a...
25 Search Strategies You Need to Know - A New Course Starting July 1st - Practical Ed Tech
One of the most popular webinars and courses that I’ve hosted over the years have been about search strategies and how to teach them to students. This summer I’m offering a new Practical Ed Tech course on that topic. 25 Search Strategies You Need to Know is a five-part course in which I’ll teach you my favorite search...
Logo and DIY Programming Tools - Practical Ed Tech
Every year I hear from people who are transitioning into new positions as a tech coach, tech integrator, STEM integrator, and other similar roles. Last week I answered two such emails. What those readers always ask about are ideas and tools for teaching programming beyond obvious resources like Code.org. That’s why this week I’m sharing...