How My Students Are Using Google Sheets With Their Arduino Projects
The students in one of my classes are starting to make some Arduino-powered gadgets. I let them choose what they wanted to build so I have some that are making cars, one making a Bluetooth-connected locks, and couple making a variation of this Hacking STEM project. In other words, there are a lot of things […]
Slides Randomizer – A Neat Google Slides Add-on
Slides Randomizer is a Google Slides add-on that will randomly shuffle a set of Google Slides. It’s easy to use the Slides Randomizer add-on. Once you’ve installed the add-on simply select Slides Randomizer from the add-ons drop-down menu while viewing your slides then click on “randomize presentation.” Right before the slides shuffle you’ll be asked […]
One Last Round-up of Educational Halloween Resources
Halloween is less than 48 hours away as I write this. My daughters are excited about their Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes. Some of my high school students seemed pretty excited about Halloween too. If you find yourself looking for some last-minute Halloween-themed activities here some items that I featured earlier this month. Those […]
The Practical Ed Tech Creativity Conference – Call for Proposals
In December I’m hosting a free online conference called the Practical Ed Tech Creativity Conference. The purpose of the conference is to give teachers an opportunity to share their creative classroom projects with other teachers. If you have an idea that you would like to present, please complete this short presentation proposal form. If you’ve […]
Two Ways I’m Using Pictures in Formative Assessments This Fall
This fall I’m teaching a few computer science classes. The curriculum for one of those courses is heavy on hardware and hardware repair. This month my students and I have been using a lot of pictures and diagrams. There are two ways that I’ve been incorporating those pictures and diagrams into formative assessment. Formative Assessment […]
How to Adjust the Captions on YouTube Videos
This week’s Practical Ed Tech newsletter featured a few things that we can do to improve the accessibility of the slides and videos that we use in our classrooms. One of those things is to turn on the captions when playing a YouTube video in class. Another is to create a transcript of the YouTube […]
How Vocabulary Lists Help Students Conduct Better Searches
Can you identify this mushroomfound in the forest near my housein Maine? In chapter five of The Joy of Search Daniel Russell explains the process he used to determine whether or not a plant that he found was poisonous. When I read that chapter a couple of weeks ago I was struck with the reminder that […]
Robocompass – A Robotic Geometry Box
Robocompass is described by its developer as robotic geometry box on 3D. Not being a math teacher and not having taken a math course since the Clinton administration, I wasn’t exactly sure what “robotic geometry box” meant at first. So I gave it try and quickly realized that it is an online tool for graphing […]
Creativity and Leaf Piles – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and almost every leaf in my neighborhood seems to have landed in my backyard. The only good thing about leaf removal is making big piles for my kids to jump in. They sliding down their Little Tykes slide into the piles. Wherever you are this weekend, I […]
How to Create and Run Polls in Google Slides
Slido is a polling service that recently released a free Google Slides add-on and companion Chrome extension. The combination of the two tools makes it easy for anyone who uses Google Slides to quickly create and launch polls directly within the Google Slides editor. The thing that I like about Slido is that you can […]
