Get to Know the New Google Earth
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...
View ArticleQuickly Turn Quiz Questions Into Online Arcade Games
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...
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Email Etiquette Reminder Posters
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...
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Creating Comics for Comfort
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...
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A Quick Way to Create Animated Explanations
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...
View ArticleStories, Maps, and Timelines
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,...
View ArticleInfographics and Questions Created by AI
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...
View ArticleA Faster Way to Create Lesson Plans
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...
View ArticleMore Than an Hour of Code
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...
View ArticleA Modern Take on Classic Study Methods
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...
View ArticleThree Fun Tech Things to Do Before Break
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...
View ArticleThe Five Best Practical Ed Tech Tips of the Year According to Readers
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...
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The Most FAQ Every Year
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...
View ArticleDelivering Feedback Faster
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...
View ArticleFlippity Can Do That
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...
View ArticleThree Quick Quiz Tips
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...
View ArticleSearch in the Age of AI
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...
View ArticleThree Google Gemini Tips
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...
View ArticleThree Tools for Animating Explanations
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...
View ArticleTips and Tools for Citing Sources
Last week I didn’t have time to publish here because I was engrossed in meeting a deadline for the Legal Writing and Research class I’m taking this semester. That work provided the inspiration for...
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