I was recently contacted by the Mozilla Foundation with news about their recently released interactive guide to teaching web literacy. Mozilla's interactive web literacy map is based on three main components of web literacy; reading, writing, and participating. Each of those elements is linked to smaller, supporting components. Clicking on any component of Mozilla's interactive web literacy map will lead you to a definition for that component. Mozilla's web literacy map is a handy guide to basic definitions of web literacy and the map does a nice job of showing how all of the components are connected. The real value of the web literacy map is found when you click into Mozilla's web literacy teaching activities. Mozilla's web literacy teaching activities page contains eighteen sections offering dozens of lesson on everything from basic web literacy like protecting privacy on the web to advanced topics like writing Javascript. There is even a section of lessons designed for teaching web literacy in classrooms in which not every student has access to a computer. Applications for Education Mozilla's web literacy teaching activities page offers lessons suitable for use with students of all ages. Should find that the lessons are too difficult or too easy for your students go ahead and modify it to fit your needs. Mozilla offers some tools that you can use in building and sharing your own web literacy learning activities. Additional web literacy resources that I have reviewed for elementary school settings.   Additional resources for teaching web literacy to middle school and high school students.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesAn Easy Way to Create Strong, Complex PasswordsSearch Strategies for Students - Webinar RecordingNew Polling Feature Added to Google Classroom 

Jenn Scheffer and her students at Burlington Public High School run a great tech help desk blog for teachers and students. This week they tackled an app that is still a mystery to many educators, Snapchat. I encourage any teacher, administrator, librarian, or parent who doesn't understand Snapchat to take some time to read the BPHS Help Desk blog post about Snapchat and watch the video overview of how it works. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesMozilla Releases an Interactive Web Literacy MapNew Polling Feature Added to Google ClassroomHow to Make a Copy of a Public Google Drive File 

On Wednesday I shared my list of resources for teaching and learning about Mount Everest. This afternoon, thanks to Larry Ferlazzo, I learned about another good resource for learning about Mount Everest. Why is Mount Everest so Tall? is a new TED-Ed lesson in which students learn why the peak of Everest is so high, why other mountains are longer from base to summit, and how mountains in general are formed. Through the lesson students can also learn why the heights of mountains change and why Everest may not be the tallest mountain forever. If you're looking for tools for creating flipped lessons with this video or any others, take a look at this overview of flipped video creation tools.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesRiddle Me This - 7 TED-Ed Lessons Based on RiddlesWhat Would Happen if You Didn't Drink Water? - And 12 Other TED-Ed Lessons About the Human BodyWho Owns Antarctica? - A Political Geography Lesson 

Good morning from the Free Technology for Teachers world headquarters in Woodstock, Maine. It's a beautiful early spring morning for walking in the woods with two loyal dogs. As the sun is rising earlier now so too are my dogs rising earlier in the morning. We've already had one short walk this morning and we'll soon head out for a longer adventure. Before we do that I have this week's list of the most popular posts to share with you. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. New Polling Feature Added to Google Classroom 2. Click to Spin - A Fun and Free Random Name Picker 3. A Short Overview of 12 Tools for Creating Flipped Classroom Lessons 4. Capture Student Ideas with VideoNot.es & Google Classroom 5. 11 Backchannel & Informal Assessment Tools Compared in One Chart 6. Try the Google Newspaper Archive to Locate Old Articles and Images 7. Mozilla Releases an Interactive Web Literacy Map Spring and Summer PD Opportunities With MeMore registrations for the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camps arrived this week. One month is left to grab your seat at the discounted rate. If coming to Maine isn't an option for you, take a look at the online workshops I'm hosting throughout the spring and summer. 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. 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 - The Most Popular PostsThe Week in Review - 50 Million Page ViewsThe Month in Review - #Masonshome 

Disclosure: BoomWriter is an advertiser on this blog.  April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. BoomWriter offers a good resource for those teaching poetry this month. On BoomWriter's free resources page you will find a set of poetry vocabulary sheets that you can share with your students. In those vocabulary sheets you will find lists of key terms, definitions, and examples of different types of poems. After reviewing BoomWriter's poetry vocabulary sheets to your students you can use BoomWriter's poetry anthology activity. In the poetry anthology activity students individual write poems then work together to assemble an anthology of the poems created by their peers. Students can organize the classroom poetry anthology according to poem types and topics. As a teacher you can monitor the construction of the anthology from your teacher dashboard in BoomWriter. BoomWriter is completely free to use for this activity. Learn more about BoomWriter in my instructional video embedded below. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesSearch Strategies for Students - Webinar RecordingNew Polling Feature Added to Google ClassroomHow to Make a Copy of a Public Google Drive File 

Last week Google added a convenient polling option to Google Classroom. That update proved to be a huge hit as comments that I saw about it on Facebook and Twitter included, "finally," "sweet," and "woo hoo!" The update to Google Classroom wasn't the only update to Google Apps that should be of interest to teachers. Last week a new task reminders function was added to the browser-based version of Google Calendar. The new reminders option in Google Calendar will let you create task reminders within the browser-based version of Google Calendar. Reminder tasks that you don't complete on a given day will automatically forward to the next day until you complete the task. Microsoft Outlook users will be happy to learn that the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office now supports Outlook. Screenshots of the new features can be seen on the Google Apps Update Blog. Learn more about Google Classroom and Google Apps for Education at the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp this summer in Portland, Maine. Powered by Eventbrite This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNew Polling Feature Added to Google ClassroomHow to Make a Copy of a Public Google Drive FileGoogle Calendar Reminders Coming Soon to a Browser Near You 

The New York Public Library is marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death by publishing 30 recordings of NYPL staff members reading their favorite Shakespeare speeches, monologues, or sonnets. One recording per day will be published throughout the month of April. April is National Poetry Month in the U.S. These recordings could provide a nice model for your own "poem a day" classroom project. You could have students each take a turn reading their favorite poems this month. SoundCloud makes it easy to record and assemble a playlist of spoken recordings. Take a look at the video below to learn how to record on SoundCloud. H/T to Open Culture for the NYPL recordings. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesPoetry Vocabulary Sheets Containing ExamplesThree Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed Last WeekThe Week in Review - A Walk in the Woods 

A few years ago Sponge Lab Biology won a National Science Foundation award for its interactive Build a Body activity. Spend a few minutes using Build a Body and it is easy to understand why it was recognized by the NSF. In Sponge Lab Biology's Build a Body students construct a human body system-by-system. To build a body students drag and drop into place the organs and bones of a human body. Each organ and bone is accompanied by a description of the purpose of that bone or organ. The systems that students can build in the Build a Body activity are the skeletal, digestive, respiratory, nervous, excretory, and circulatory systems. Build a Body has a case study menu in which students can read about diseases, disorders, and and other concerns that affect the human body. In each case study students are given a short description of the concern followed by a question that they should be able to answer after completing the Build a Body activity. Applications for Education Build a Body was designed with high school students in mind. Build a Body could be an excellent resource to pair with Biodigital Human or Healthline's Body Maps. Have students use the Body Maps and Biodigital Human to study the construction of the human body then use Build a Body to test their knowledge. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesWhat Would Happen if You Didn't Drink Water? - And 12 Other TED-Ed Lessons About the Human BodyAnother Great Resource for Learning About Mount EverestHow Does Anesthesia Work? - A New TED-Ed Lesson 

EdTechTeacher, an advertiser on this site, has launched a new FREE video series called #ETTchat. Each week, one of their instructors posts a new video with ideas using technology in the service of learning.  Collaborating and Creating with RealtimeBoardRealtimeBoard allows students and teachers to create a never-ending virtual space on which they can create, collaborate, and even chat. Educators and students can sign up for a FREE premium account at realtimeboard.com/education. In this video, Greg Kulowiec (@gregkulowiec) walks through the potential of using this tool in the classroom to support collaborative projects and activities.  Learn more about collaborative tools and ePub creation on the EdTechTeacher web site. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesAn Interactive Build a Body Lesson30 Days of Shakespeare Presented by the New York Public LibraryThree Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed Last Week 

Visual editors in blog and website platforms like Blogger, WordPress, and Weebly make it easy for anyone to create a webpage in relatively little time. The appeal of those tools is that you don't have to learn code in order to make a blog or website. The downside to relying on visual editing tools is that if you don't understand the code it can be hard to make corrections when something does go wrong. Not knowing HTML and CSS also limits you in terms of design formatting. Over the years I've taught myself the basics of HTML and CSS through online tutorials. A quick Google search will lead you to plenty of online tutorials that you can use to teach yourself or your students some useful HTML and CSS skills. The following are the resources that I frequently recommend. A Beginner's Guide to HTML & CSS is a nice resource developed by Shay Howe whose resume reveals that he works on the user interface for Groupon among other projects. Shay currently offers twelve text-based lessons for beginners. Once you've mastered the beginner lessons you can try your hand at the ten advanced lessons offered on the site.  Thimble is a free Mozilla product designed to help users learn how to write HTML and CSS. Thimble features a split screen on which you can write code and see how it works at the same time. On the left side of the screen you write your code and on the right side of the screen you instantly see what that code renders. If you write the code correctly, you will know right away. Likewise, if you don't write the code correctly, you will know right away. Some of the sample projects you can work with include webpages, games, and avatars. w3Schools has long been my go-to place for quick directions when working in HTML. If I get stuck while working on a project, a quick visit to w3Schools usually reveals the help I need to get past a stumbling block. If you're completely new to writing HTML start with the introductory sections of w3Schools to learn the basics. Bonus tip:  Once you've become familiar with the basics of HTML and CSS you may find yourself venturing into things not covered by the tutorials featured above. At that point you may want to consider joining the community at Stack Overflow to ask questions and or answer questions from other community members. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesMozilla Releases an Interactive Web Literacy MapSnapchat Explained by Students to TeachersNew Polling Feature Added to Google Classroom