Into the Driver's Seat

Last week Google sent out a notice reminding domain administrators that the end of the classic version of Google Sites is near. That prompted me to publish directions for transition from the classic version of Google Sites to the current version. I also shared a set of tutorials for building your first website with the current version of Google Sites. 

Once you've made the switch to the current version of Google Sites, you might want to go beyond the basics to add some interesting features to your site to make it a one-stop shop for all of your students' and parents' needs. Here are some things you can do to enhance your Google Site with additional features. 

Similar Sites is a a web tool and Chrome extension that you and your students can use to find online resources similar to the one you are presently browsing. With a single click Similar Sites provides you with a list of websites that feature identical content to the site you are navigating.

Video Puppet is a new tool that you can use to quickly turn your PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. If you have less than twenty slides in your presentation you don't even need to create an account on the site to turn your slides into a narrated video.

Learn to change your background, your audio and video settings, and how to share your screen.

Technology progress influences the way kids learn, and it’s constantly changing. Internet, smartphones, and apps have connected people globally without caring about the distance. Within seconds you can communicate with anybody anywhere. Virtual reality has taken it a step further. Now it’s possible to visit these faraway places or go back in time without moving an inch. Technology, like virtual reality apps, has brought the real world into the classroom and once again, changing how kids learn.

Students of today are much more technologically savvy than previous generations. Whatever age they are, once they step into the classroom, they will probably be Internet literate and technologically knowledgeable, at least at some extent. Presenting technology to students gives the teacher more ways to connect with them and this is one of the most important parts of a rewarding teacher-student relationship. Once you find something in common with the student, you are on the right way. Here is a list of websites that specialize in education technology and will give you inspiration and practical ideas for your lessons:

Two weeks ago my tip of the week prompted a bunch of questions from readers regarding where to find and how to use music in multimedia projects. Much like with videos watched on YouTube or streamed through Netflix, just because you can listen to a piece of music online that doesn’t mean you necessarily have the rights to re-use it in a multimedia project. That’s why I recommend trying to find music and sound effects that are either in the public domain or have a Creative Commons license that allows for re-use.

The big data industry has seen king-sized revolutions which are traversing the globe. However, it would be pointless to have data that is not understandable. Th..

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a collection of some good web tools to help you create digital quizzes. You can use them to design interactive quizzes, questionnaire, forms, polls and many more. 

Screencasting is a fast and easy way to capture what is happening on your screen along with your voice or video of you speaking. Teachers can use screencasts to create self-paced lessons for students, tutorials, and supplements to sub plans. Students can use screencasting to tell stories or demonstrate their understanding of a topic or concept. There really are no limitations on screencasting can be used in schools. 

Free resource of educational web tools, 21st century skills, tips and tutorials on how teachers and students integrate technology into education

A list of handy resources for making your blog or Twitter feed look great, at absolutely no cost.

MindMeister is one of our favourite tools for creating mind maps on Google Drive. It provides users with an intuitive brainstorming platform where they can discuss projects, sketch out plans, and collaborate in real-time.

The unfortunate fact is that few of us ever really come to grips with what it means to study, apart from sitting by oneself with a textbook for hours on end. Despite its obvious inefficiency as a learning method, we’ve all found ourselves doing that kind of “studying” at one time or another. Having taught psychology classes for 40 years, Pierce College professor Marty Lobdell has seen thousands of students laboring, indeed suffering, under similar studying-related assumptions, and in his 8.7-million-times-viewed talk “Study Less, Study Smart,” he sets out to correct them. He has also dispensed his wisdom in a book by the same title.

With online teaching and learning becoming the norm for so many teachers and students during the COVID-19 climate, it is important to be aware of what makes an engaging, creative and effective web-based teaching and learning experience.

After posting about  iPad apps for librarians, we are featuring another equally important visual comprising some of the best web tools to help librarians in their everyday work. We have arranged these tools into 10 main categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools. 

Looking to start off your new year on the right foot? Brush up on your instructional design skills with our most helpful Instructional Design (ID) articles of 2018.

You’ll find resources to bookmark and reference when you need a refresher on the basics or want to explore new e-learning ideas or design learning scenarios. And if you’re more experienced—no worries! We have great tips that will challenge you to think outside the box, too. Take a look:

As lifelong learners, we should always be looking for ways to learn something new everyday. One of my favorite tools for this is podcasts.

In the twenty-first century classroom, learning is no longer teacher-directed. Students are beginning to feel more ownership for their learning, allowing them to interact with course material instead of simply trudging through direct instruction and handfuls of physical material.

Google HyperDocs are digital documents that contain all elements of a learning cycle in a central location. Within a single document, students have access to hyperlinks to all resources necessary to complete the activities within that unit of instruction.  The following are ways in which HyperDocs can help enhance your teaching at any educational level

Free resource of educational web tools, 21st century skills, tips and tutorials on how teachers and students integrate technology into education

Easy and free screen recorder for Mac, Windows, and Chromebooks. Record your camera and screen with audio directly from your Chrome browser and share the video with your team, friends, and family.

Jim Lerman's insight:

I have to check this, but...it seems as if loom is the video recording app we've been waiting for. It's free, can record what's from the screen or via the camera, can copy both audio and video from streaming sources (this, I believe, is the first free app that will do both), and has an editing feature (they call it trimming). Each recording gets a unique URL and it integrates with email.

Quite feature packed. My guess is they will move at some point to a freemium model, starting to charge for advanced services.  But right now, WOW, the whole shootin' match is gratis.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here is a collection of some good web tools to help you create digital quizzes. You can use them to design interactive quizzes, questionnaire, forms, polls and many more. 

After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the world seems to be waking up to what educators have known for a long time: media literacy matters, especially as it relates to the news, social media, and the web. While the definition and specific skills of media literacy (as well as its companions, news literacy and information literacy) evolve with the media and technology landscape, the core objectives remain: that through media literacy, students learn to find, consume, and create media critically and develop a mindfulness about how media is made, by whom it is made, and for what purposes it is made. There are a lot of tools out there to help students build and practice these essential skills, and on this list we feature some of the best we've found. You'll find great apps and websites broken down into three core categories: those that help students evaluate media, those that help them create media, and those that steer students toward factual sources.

Over the past few months, I’ve written a series of posts over on the Flipped Learning Network web site that offer a wealth of different tools and techniques that can be used to create digital learning content for flipped or blended