This post originally appeared on one of my other blogs, Android4Schools.com. More schools are allowing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) now than even just a few years ago. As a teacher BYOD can be a good thing as it allows students to work with a computer, tablet, or phone with which they are familiar. At the same time, BYOD can be a bad thing if you or the school leadership hasn't thought through all of the implications and ramifications of BYOD. To that end, here are five things that should be thoughtfully considered as you move to BYOD. 1. Can you find apps and sites suitable for all students' devices? When every student uses the same school-provided computer or tablet you don't have to worry about this question too much because you simply pick a site or app that works on one device and you're all set. In a BYOD environment you will have a variety of operating systems, versions of operating systems, and display sizes. For BYOD environments I always try to find web apps that are coded in HTML5 so that I have the best chance of the app or site working on all devices. 2. Can your network handle the number of devices that will be added to it? This is a question for the IT department to answer. Once you allow students to add their devices to your wireless network you're going to have a massive uptick in traffic. Are you prepared? Along the same line, are you ready to support helping students figure out how to add a myriad of devices to your network. 3. Are you going BYOD to save money by not providing computers to students? If so, you're missing the point of BYOD. Using BYOD as a reason to not provide students with computers creates an unequal environment for students. BYOD should be a supplement, not a replacement for a 1:1 program. 4. How are your students going to share files and or print files? As a classroom teacher who will be collecting assignments from students think about the way in which you want to collect those assignments. In a Google Apps for Education environment you might use Google Classroom or Google Drive. In other settings you might need to create a Dropbox or Box folder to which students submit files. If it's printed work that you need, are your students going to be able to connect to a network printer or will you have to do all of the printing from a school-issued computer? If you're not sure, ask a member of your IT staff before those printed assignments are due. 5. How will you handle inappropriate use of mobile phones? In the 8th grade I got in trouble for reading a Field & Stream article that I had stuffed inside my Algebra textbook. My point being that students texting in class is a classroom management issue, it's not the fault of the device being present in the classroom any more than Field & Stream was to blame for me not paying attention to my Algebra teacher, Mr. Dorsey. We'll be talking about this topic and many others during the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp this summer. Early discounted registration is on sale now. Powered by Eventbrite This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesFAQs About the 2016 Practical Ed Tech Summer CampsWhat is BYOD? And Why Do Schools Opt for It?Now You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline Access 

Watchkin is a free service that allows you to watch and project YouTube videos without seeing the related sidebar content typically seen on YouTube.com. Watchkin can be used in a few ways. You can enter the direct URL of a video into Watchkin to have the sidebar content removed. You can search for videos through Watchkin and have family-friendly results displayed (if a video appears that is not family-friendly Watchkin has a mechanism for flagging it as inappropriate). Watchkin also offers a browser bookmarklet tool that you can click while on YouTube.com to have the related content disappear from the page. In the video below I demonstrate how Watchkin works. Applications for Education The Watchkin website and browser bookmarklet are great tools for teachers who want to show a YouTube video in their classrooms without risking displaying "related" sidebar content. To be clear, Watchkin is not a work-around if your school blocks YouTube and it is not a tool for downloading YouTube videos. (Downloading YouTube videos is a violation of the YouTube terms of service). This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories10 Educational Resources About the American RevolutionScrible Edu Helps Students Organize Research20 Videos and a Poster Explaining Logical Fallacies 

Geopedia is a nice combination of a map and Wikipedia entries. Search for a location on the Geopedia map and you will be shown a bunch of map placemarks around that location. Click on any of the displayed placmarks and you will see a corresponding image and Wikipedia entry. To change locations you can either right-click on a new area of the map or enter a new search term. Applications for Education Google Earth has a Wikipedia layer that does essentially the same thing as Geopedia. Unfortunately, Google Earth will only work on a Windows or Mac computer. Geopedia provides a nice browser-based alternative to the Google Earth Wikipedia layer. The Geopedia map offers students a good way to see the correlation between places and events. H/T to Maps Mania.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Find Google Earth Files That Aren't in the Google Earth GalleryHow to Compare Maps Side-by-Side in GE TeachSanta Tracker and Related Google Maps & Earth Features 

This coming Monday evening (April 25) I will be hosting a free webinar sponsored by Storyboard That. The webinar will focus on using storyboards to tell stories. In particular, we'll be spending time looking at using storyboards to have students show what they have learned in your classroom during the school year. These stories could be academic lessons that your students learned or they could be life lessons that your students learned during the course of the school year. Storyboard That has rolled-out a bunch of new features during the 2015-2016 school year. So if it has been a while since you tried Storyboard That, join us on Monday evening at 7pm to see the new features in action. Register for the live webinar.The webinar will be recorded. If you cannot attend the live webinar, you can still get the recording by completing this short form.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNow You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline AccessReadWorks Offers a Nice Set of Poems and Guiding Questions for Poetry Month100 Google Apps Tutorial Videos 

VideoNot.es is a great tool to connect to your Google Drive account. With VideoNot.es you can take notes on one side of your screen while watching a video on the other side. Your notes are automatically synchronized with the timestamps in the video. You can share your notes just like you share any other file within Google Drive. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how VideoNot.es works. The screencast video above was recorded on a Chromebook. Creating videos on Chromebooks is one of the topics we'll cover in-depth during the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp, I hope that you can join us. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNow You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline AccessAurasma Studio - Create Augmented Reality In Your Web BrowserHow to Create Bookmarks & Reminders With the New Google Keep Extension 

CaptureCast is a free Chrome extension that enables you to create screencast videos on your Chromebook. With CaptureCast installed you can record everything that you display on your Chromebook's screen. The CaptureCast extension gives you the option to record your sound. An option to record yourself through your webcam is also offered in CaptureCast. In fact, you could choose to just record your webcam and sound to make a video blog entry. Recordings made with CaptureCast are saved on your Chromebook under the "manage media" tab in CaptureCast. From there you can upload your video directly to YouTube or save it to Google Drive. Applications for Education I used CaptureCast to create the video in my earlier post about VideoNot.es. CaptureCast is good for that kind of tutorial video. You might also use it to record a short lecture over slides that are in your Google Drive account. As I mentioned above, CaptureCast could be used to create video blog entries by just selecting the webcam and sound options instead of the desktop recording option. Video blogging can be a good way to get students to share observations about what they have learned in your classroom without the pressure of having to write. Creating screencasts and flipped lessons is one of the topics that will be covered during the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp and the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp. I hope that you can join us this summer.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Use VideoNot.es With Google DriveNow You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline AccessHow to Create Bookmarks & Reminders With the New Google Keep Extension 

National Geographic's YouTube channel includes a fun playlist of short videos about interesting science facts. The playlist is called Today I Learned or TIL for short. In the playlist you will find videos that answer questions like "why is the ocean salty?" and "why do some birds eat dirt?" The answer to "why do some birds eat dirt?" is provided in the video below. It's a short explanation of why macaws seek salt and other minerals found in dirt. Applications for Education The videos in Today I Learned aren't long enough to be full flipped lessons, but they could be useful as warm-up material to spark your students' curiosities about a topic. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesAnimal Migrations in Yellowstone National ParkA Lesson on Bears and Punnett SquaresWhy Are Airplane Engines so Big? - How Jet Engines Work #STEM 

Take a stroll through any supermarket or browse your favorite online retailer and you'll see prices ending in .99 more often than not. Why is that? What's the psychology behind that kind of pricing? BrainStuff has the answers to those questions and more in a new video Why Do Price Tags End in .99? The video introduces viewers to the retail psychology concepts of bargain signalling and rounding off. Check out the notes on YouTube below BrainStuff's video to see the sources and studies they used in making the video. This video is a good companion to The TED-Ed lesson Why do competitors open their stores next to one another? in which students learn why retail stores are found next to each other. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesWhy Do Some Birds Eat Dirt? - National Geographic Explains20 Videos and a Poster Explaining Logical FallaciesWhy Are Airplane Engines so Big? - How Jet Engines Work #STEM 

Kaizena is a great tool for adding voice comments to your students' documents and slides. When Kaizena originally launched it was designed for adding comments to Google Documents and Google Slides in the Chrome web browser. It then expanded to add support for Word files and PDFs. The latest update to Kaizena introduces support for commenting on physical documents through iPhones and iPads. Kaizena's free iPad app and free iPhone app allows you to take a picture of a document, scan it, and upload it to Kaizena where you can then add voice comments to it. Of course, Kaizena's free iOS apps also support voice commenting on Google Documents, Word documents, and PDFs too. Applications for Education The latest update to Kaizena's iPad app could provide you with a good way to give students feedback on handwritten work. If you collect exams that have lengthy handwritten responses, Kaizena's iPad app could help you digitize those exam responses and speed up your process of providing students with feedback on their responses. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesScrible Edu Helps Students Organize Research5 Questions to Consider in BYOD SchoolsNow You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline Access 

Google Keep is a handy tool to taking notes in your web browser, on your Android phone, or on your iPhone. I've previously featured ten ways that students can use Google Keep. This week Google announced some updates to Keep. The latest version of the Google Keep Chrome extension and the Google Keep Android app enables you to create bookmarks and notes while browsing any webpage. One of the neat things about the extension is that in addition to applying labels and notes to your bookmarks you can also set reminders to share your bookmarks with someone else at a later time. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Google Keep to create bookmarks, notes, labels, and reminders within the Chrome web browser. Applications for Education As I demonstrated in the video above, creating a reminder to go along with a bookmark could be a good way to time when you share resources with your friends and colleagues. Rather than sharing as soon as you make a bookmark you can time when you want share by using the reminders feature in Google Keep notes. For example, rather than sharing this article on a Friday afternoon when many of my colleagues aren't going to pay much attention to a new bookmark that I've shared (I can't blame them for that), I'll create a reminder to share it on Monday morning when it is more likely to be seen by them. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesCaptureCast - Record Screencasts on Your ChromebookHow to Use VideoNot.es With Google DriveNow You Can Choose Which Google Drive Files Are Synced for Offline Access