Just a little more than twelve hours ago I received an exciting email from Padlet in which they announced the launch of their new Android app. Padlet has long worked well in the web browser  on Android phones and tablets, but this is the first time that there has been a dedicated Padlet Android app. The new Padlet Android app does everything that makes me love Padlet. From the app I can create new Padlet walls, share walls with my students, customize the background, change the layout, and even moderate notes appearing on my Padlet wall. I can use the Padlet Android app to post notes containing pictures and videos that are saved on my phone and tablet. The sharing features of Padlet are extended on the Android platform as you can quickly share your walls through a variety of social apps including Twitter, WhatsApp, and Google+. Students can use the app's QR code option to scan QR codes for my Padlet wall and instantly join my wall in the Padlet Android app. My favorite ways to use Padlet with students: Padlet as a simple blogging platform: Padlet walls can be arranged in free-form, grid, or stream layouts. Creating a Padlet page in the stream format could be a good way to create a simple, collaborative blog for students. You could create the page, select "stream" format, and make the page accessible for students to write short posts on. Their posts could include images and videos. If you want to, you can password protect your Padlet pages and moderate messages before they appear on your Padlet page. Padlet Mini as a bookmarking tool: Padlet Mini is a Chrome extension that you can use to bookmark websites. When you click the Padlet Mini extension in your browser you will be presented with the option to save to one of your existing walls or create a new Padlet wall. Click here for a video on using Padlet Mini. Padlet as a KWL chart: Padlet can be used to create a KWL chart that students can contribute to anonymously (or not anonymously if you want them to sign-in). Create a wall, make it public, and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. If you allow anonymous posting you might get contributions from shy students who might not otherwise speak-up in class. Of course, if you allow anonymous commenting you should have a conversation with your students about what an appropriate comment looks like. (You could also turn on moderation and approve all notes before they appear). Padlet works well when projected on an interactive whiteboard. Padlet for group research and discussion: A few years ago I showed my special education students a short (18 minutes) video about cultural changes that took place in the US during the 1920's. After the video we discussed what they saw. Then I had students search online for other examples of cultural change in the 1920's. When they found examples they put them onto a Wallwisher (Padlet's previous name) wall that I projected onto a wall in my classroom. The wall started with just text being added to the wall and quickly progressed to YouTube videos being added to the wall. Once every student had added a video to the wall we stopped, watched the videos, and discussed them. Padlet as a showcase of your students’ work: If your students are creating digital portfolios, creating slideshows, or producing videos you could use Padlet to display all of your students’ best work on one page. Create the wall, call it something like "my best work this year," and have your students post links to their works. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Week in Review - 50 Million Page ViewsJoeZoo Express Makes It Easy to Grade in Google Docs5 Settings You Should Know for School or Classroom Facebook Pages 

Posting new content on a regular basis is one of the best ways to get parents to frequently check your school, library, or classroom blog. Coming up with blog post topics is the struggle that many people have in attempting to regularly update their blogs. At times, I have that problem too. I have three things that I do when I'm struggling to come up with a topic for a blog post. Three things you can do to generate blog post topics: 1. Look at your email. Scroll through your email to take a look back at some of the questions that you're asking on a regular basis. Write a post or two or three that answer those questions. 2. Look at Google Analytics. If you have Google Analytics installed in your blog or website you can glean a lot of useful information from what is reported about visitors to your blog or website. One of the sections of Google Analytics that is particularly helpful is the section that shows you the keywords people use in searches before landing on your blog or website. Write a post or two related to those keywords. 3. Update old posts. Everything changes in time. What you wrote twelve months ago or even six months ago might need an update. Take a look at some of your old posts and see if any of them need updating. Bonus tip: When you find yourself writing a particularly long post, consider breaking into a series of posts. Your one 1000 word post could probably become a two or three part series. Like an 80's sitcom, "a to be continued" can keep people coming back. Topics like this one and many others will be covered in depth during my spring and summer offerings of Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders.  Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTry the New Padlet Android AppHow to Create a Classroom Blog on SeeSawThree Customizations You Should Know How to Apply to Your Classroom Blog 

The U.S. News Map is a great resource produced by Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. The U.S. New Map is an archive of American newspapers printed between 1836 and 1925. You can search the archive by entering a keyword or phrase. The results of your search will be displayed on an interactive map. Click on any of the markers on the map and you'll be shown a list of newspaper articles related to your search term. Click on a listed article to read it on the Library of Congress' Chronicling America website. Applications for Education The U.S. News Map has a neat playback feature that you can use to see the frequency with which a term or topic appeared in newspapers between 1836 and 1925. That playback feature could be a nice way to show students developments in technology. For example, search the term "telephone" and you'll see peaks and valleys in the frequency with which articles were written about telephones. H/T to Google Maps Mania and Larry Ferlazzo.  Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesLiberty - The Chronicle of the American RevolutionPowerPoint Playbook - Animating Numbered ListsThe First Presidential Election - A Hip Hughes History Lesson 

Chromebooks are quickly becoming the preferred choice of computer for 1:1 programs in schools. Chromebooks are reliable, inexpensive, and versatile tools. That said, teaching with Chromebooks may require you to learn some new tricks to make the experience great for you and your students. At the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp on July 18th and 19th we will take an in-depth look at how to effectively integrate Chromebooks into your practice. Ten things you can learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp: 1. How to use Chromebooks effectively even when the wi-fi fails. 2. Efficient workflow processes on Chromebooks. 3. Everything you could ever want to know about Google Apps for Education. 4. Fun and clever ways to teach search skills. 5. Create and manage digital portfolios. 6. Develop engaging video and audio creation projects. 7. Get parents involved with your students' projects in a meaningful way. 8. Digital storytelling with Google Maps. 9. Fun ways to conduct assessment exercises. 10. Anything you've ever wondered about blogging with students. Register for the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp by April 30th and you can save $50 off standard registration. Subscribers to the PracticalEdTech.com newsletter can save an additional $25 by entering the code "subscriber" at checkout. Have a colleague or two who wants to join you? Special rates are available for two or more people registering from the same school district. Email me richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com for details. Powered by Eventbrite Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTry the New Padlet Android AppFAQs About the 2016 Practical Ed Tech Summer CampsJoeZoo Express Makes It Easy to Grade in Google Docs 

Flipping your classroom with video lessons can be a good thing in the right situation. Before you decide to completely flip your classroom there are a few things that you should consider. 1. Do the majority of your students complete their homework assignments on time on a consistent basis? If not, there may be a larger issue of student engagement and motivation to investigate. Furthermore, if you flip the classroom and students come to class having not watched the video lessons, how do you spend your classroom time the next day? Do you let students watch the videos in class? Do you reteach the lesson that they should have watched for homework? 2. Do all of your students have access to the web at home? If not, how are you going to address that? Will you distribute copies of your video files to students before they leave your classroom? Do you all of your students have computers or tablets to use at home? If the answer is "no" to one or all of these questions, are you setting up an inequitable learning environment? 3. Do you have time to create quality videos? If not, will you create some and then source the rest of from the web? For the record, I'm not against flipping the classroom in the right situation. I just don't want to rush into a model that might not be the best solution for all situations. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesZaption Expands Free Options for Creating Flipped LessonsThe Month in Review - #MasonshomeTen Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp 

Family Shield, powered by OpenDNS, is a service that can be used to filter the content accessed by anyone on your home network. Family Shield is designed to filter adult websites, proxy and anonymizer websites, and phishing websites. Step-by-step directions are provided for setting-up Family Shield on your home computer(s) and router(s). Applications for Education While I generally prefer to emphasize education about the Internet over blocking access to the Internet  I also understand that a lot of parents would still prefer to have a way to restrict the content their children can access from home. If you're asked by a parent for advice on Internet filtering at home, consider referring that person to Family Shield. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTen Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook CampThree Ways to Generate Topics for Your School's BlogTry the New Padlet Android App 

Good evening from Maine where the sun is setting on the month of March. The highlight of the month for me was bringing home a new family member. Three weeks ago I adopted Mason from Harvest Hills Animal Shelter. He's a nine year old German Shepherd and Golden Retriever mix and he is an awesome marshmallow of a dog. In other news, this month the first registrations for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps came in. One month is left to grab your seat at the discounted rate. As you think about your summer PD plans, please take a look at the in-person and online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer. Here are the most popular posts of March, 2016: 1. Click to Spin - A Fun and Free Random Name Picker 2. Three Helpful Google Docs Updates Released This Week 3. Travel the Iditarod Race in Google Street View 4. My Favorite Internet Search Tips for Teachers & Students 5. More Than 40 Alternatives to YouTube 6. 3 Tips for Using YouTube Videos In Your Classroom 7. 5 Things We Can do to Prepare Students to Work Independently 8. Six Tools for Creating Videos on Chromebooks 9. Five Tools for Sharing Portions of Videos 10. Three Tools Students Can Use to Add Annotations to Videos Professional Development Opportunities!There will be two Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps this year. There will be one tailored to schools that have 1:1 Chromebook programs and one for everyone else. Both Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps will be held in July. You can learn more about them here. Discounted early registration is available now. The Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp has sold out every year for the last three years. Would you like to have me speak at your school or conference?Click here to learn about my professional development services.  Please visit the official advertisers that help keep this blog going.Practical Ed Tech is the brand through which I offer PD webinars.BoomWriter provides a fantastic tool for creating writing lessons. Cloudschool is a great online LMS and course creation tool. Google Forms in the Classroom is a good book on all things Google Forms.  Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.Discovery Education & Wilkes University offer online courses for earning Master's degrees in Instructional Media.PrepFactory offers a great place for students to prepare for SAT and ACT tests.The University of Maryland Baltimore County offers graduate programs for teachers.Boise State University offers a 100% online program in educational technology.EdTechTeacher is hosting host workshops in six cities in the U.S. in the summer. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Week in Review - 50 Million Page ViewsTen Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook CampTry the New Padlet Android App 

Disclosure: Storyboard That is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com Earth Day 2016 is three weeks away. If you're trying to develop a lesson plan to correspond with Earth Day, take a look at what Storyboard That is offering this month. Storyboard That's Earth Day Activities page offers eleven lesson plan ideas appropriate for elementary school and middle school classrooms. Some of the featured plans on Storyboard That's Earth Day Activity page include creating "cool Earth facts" storyboards, creating comics about how to help the Earth, and creating public service announcements about pollution and pollution prevention. Applications for Education Storyboard That's Earth Day activities are short enough to be completed in 30-60 minutes. The activities are also written in such a way that they can easily be modified to fit the specific needs of your curriculum. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Month in Review - #MasonshomeTen Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook CampTry the New Padlet Android App 

XtraMath is a free service designed to help teachers and parents help their students learn basic mathematics skills. The service provides an online environment in which students complete practice activities that are recorded and shared with their teachers and parents. The lessons provided by XtraMath come in video format. Recently, XtraMath added support for ASL. This is in addition to the six other languages previously supported by XtraMath. Learn more about XtraMath in the videos below. XtraMath Overview from XtraMath on Vimeo. XtraMath in the Classroom from XtraMath on Vimeo. Applications for Education  XtraMath does not remove the need for students to learn directly from teachers and parents. It's not trying to be like Khan Academy. The purpose of XtraMath is to help teachers and parents monitor the progress that their students are making and prepare lessons that meet students where they are. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesOrigo One - One Minute Math Lessons5 Dice - A Fun Math Activity on iPadsZaption Expands Free Options for Creating Flipped Lessons 

Earlier this week I shared the U.S. News Map which is a database of newspapers that displays search results on a map of the United States. The U.S. News Map is limited to the years of 1836 to 1925 and is limited to U.S. newspapers. The Google News Newspaper archive offers a larger selection of newspapers both in terms of years and geography. In the Google News Newspaper archive you can search for a specific newspaper, search for article titles, or as demonstrated below you can search for a topic. Join me in July for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps. Discounted early registration is available now. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Mapped & Searchable Archive of American NewspapersTen Things You Can Learn at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook CampThree Ways to Generate Topics for Your School's Blog