Stackup is a new service that aims to help you give students credit for time spent reading quality articles online. On Stackup you can create reading challenges for your students. A challenge could be something like "read international news for 60 minutes this week." After creating the challenge you invite students to join it. Students can join by entering a challenge code on Stackup or you can invite them by email. To get credit for reading quality articles students have to use the Stackup Chrome extension. When it is enabled the extension tracks how much time students spend on a relevant webpage and how many relevant webpages they've read. In their Stackup dashboards students can see their progress toward completing a challenge and they can share their reading data with you. Applications for Education Stackup could be a good tool for high school students to use to prove that they have read content related to topic that they're studying in your classroom. I think the best use of Stackup would be in a social studies class in which students need to follow current events for classroom discussion. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesMoveIt - A Chrome Extension to Keep You ActiveAn Interactive Cartogram of NewsNewsela Offers Text Sets About the 2016 Election 

ClassDojo is a popular tool for giving students feedback on class participation, behavior, and for keeping parents informed about classroom news. The feedback mechanism for teachers is to award points to students. Today, ClassDojo introduced a new "no points" feedback option. This option allows teachers to confirm that students did something, but doesn't assign a point value to it. This option could be good for keeping track of things like who took a turn as line leader during the week. ClassDojo published a lengthy post on the rationale for adding this new feedback option. I encourage you to read it. ClassDojo can be used for more than just giving feedback to students. The ClassDojo Class Story feature provides a good way to keep parents informed of the good work that students are doing in your classroom. Watch the following video from my YouTube channel to learn how ClassDojo Class Story works. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocsClassDojo's Makes Translation Available to All Class Story UsersHappier Icons Coming Soon to ClassDojo 

In my previous post I shared the news about ClassDojo's new feedback option. In that post I referenced my YouTube channel having some ClassDojo tutorials. The most popular of those tutorials is How To Use Custom Avatars in ClassDojo. The video is embedded below. Applications for Education Using custom avatars in ClassDojo can provide you with two things. First, it can help you learn students' names at the beginning of the year by matching their faces to their names whenever you open ClassDojo. Second, it gives students a sense that they are individuals and not a faceless avatar in your digital classroom. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesClassDojo Introduces a New Feedback OptionHow to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocsStackup - Create & Track Reading Goals for You and Your Students 

PrepFactory is a free service that offers excellent SAT and ACT preparation activities. The site offers free guides to SAT and ACT strategy along with a plenty of review activities to help students sharpen their skills and knowledge before taking the ACT or SAT. In the video embedded below I provide an overview of a student's perspective of PrepFactory. Applications for Education One of the better ways to prepare for a test is to review small chunks frequently. PrepFactory provides students with a good review system that breaks SAT and ACT review into bite-sized modules for each of the topics on the tests; each module contains a 3-5 minute video, notes on the video, and a five question video review quiz. The modules help to identify problem areas for students. PrepFactory also provides tools to allow teachers to manage their classes by keeping track of how many modules their students have completed, and whether or not they've mastered strategy tips and tricks related to the SAT and ACT. Disclosure: PrepFactory is an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTry PrepFactory for Free SAT & ACT ReviewQuizzy Offers a Quick Way to Create Online QuizzesStackup - Create & Track Reading Goals for You and Your Students 

Earlier this week Google added a frequently requested feature to Google Classroom. That feature is scheduling of assignments and announcements to appear in your Classroom stream at a later date and time. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to schedule an assignment in Google Classroom. The video also points out a scheduling mistake that I think a lot of people will make the first few times they attempt to schedule an assignment. Learn how to get the most out of Google Apps for Education in my online course Getting Going With GAFE. The next class begins on Tuesday. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocsSoon You Will Be Able to Email Parents from Google ClassroomSchedule Assignments in Google Classroom 

ReadWorks is a great service that I've featured in at least twenty blog posts since it launched a few years ago. ReadWorks offers free standards-aligned reading lesson plans for K-12 classrooms. In addition to lesson plans ReadWorks offers a huge libray of fiction and non-fiction literature that you can search according to topic and grade level. All articles in ReadWorks are listed with a lexile score and suggested grade level. Next week ReadWorks is launching ReadWorks Digital. ReadWorks Digital is a service that will allow you to send reading assignments to students, have them take short quizzes about those reading assignments, and grade the assignments online. This is a departure from how ReadWorks currently works as you currently have to print all assignments or email them as PDF attachments. Watch the video below to learn more about ReadWorks digital and check back here next week for complete tutorial on the service. Applications for Education One of the aspects of ReadWorks that I like is that lexile scores are listed for each article. ReadWorks makes it easy to find fiction and non-fiction articles that are appropriate for your students. With a free ReadWorks account you can search for lessons and reading passages by grade level, lexile score, reading skill, subject area, and text type (fiction or non-fiction). In your ReadWorks account you can create digital binders of the lesson plans and reading passages that you want to use. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesStackup - Create & Track Reading Goals for You and Your StudentsReadWorks Offers Articles, Question Sets, and Videos About Martin Luther King, Jr.How to Schedule Assignments & Announcements in Google Classroom 

It seems like this spring Google is rolling out three or new Google Apps features every week. Last month they added 11 new features. This week three new features were added and one big feature was teased. This week Google added an awesome Q&A feature to Google Slides. The Q&A feature is found in the revamped presentation mode of Google Slides. With the Q&A feature enabled you can send your audience to a specific URL at which they enter questions. Your audience can vote for their favorite questions. This week's other update to Google Slides was the addition of a "laser pointer" feature in the presentation mode. That feature allows you to highlight portion of your slides for your audience. Watch the video below to learn how the new laser pointer and Q&A features work in Google Slides. A frequently requested feature was added to Google Classroom earlier this week. That feature is the option to schedule assignments and announcements to appear in your classroom stream at a later time. The video embedded below shows you how to do this. Finally, this week Google announced that by this coming fall (in the Northern Hemisphere) you will be able to invite parents to view a digest of updates to your Google Classroom stream. This should make it much easier to keep parents informed of assignments and announcements. Join Getting Going With GAFE to learn how to get the most out of these features and many more. The next class begins on Tuesday evening. It's one of three courses that I'm offering this spring and summer. 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 AccessHow to Schedule Assignments & Announcements in Google ClassroomHow to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocs 

Good evening from Maine where Max, Mason, and I are still disappointed with the outcome of last two Red Sox games. But as true Red Sox fans we know that they'll come back tomorrow and beat the Yankees. In the meantime we're enjoying a nice sunset view from my back deck. Wherever you are this weekend, I hope you have time for a relaxing evening. And Happy Mother's Day to my mother, Kathy, and to all mothers reading this blog. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. Tony Vincent Teaches Us How to Make Great Illustrations 2. 11 Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed This Month 3. A Great Explanation of Primary Sources vs. Secondary Sources 4. Schedule Assignments in Google Classroom 5. How to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides 6. Stackup - Create & Track Reading Goals for You and Your Students 7. An Animated Tour of the Water Cycle and Water Treatment Spring and Summer PD Opportunities With MeOnly five tickets are left for the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp in July. The Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp is sold out! Email me to get on the waiting list. 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. FreshGrade is a great online digital portfolio tool. 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.FrontRow offers adaptive online ELA and Math practice activities.  Teach n Go is a comprehensive platform for teaching online courses.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.Buncee offers a great tool for creating visual stories.  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 - A Walk in the WoodsThe Week in Review - 50 Million Page Views 

About eighteen months ago I started to make a stronger effort to include video tutorials in more of my blog posts. At first I used Wistia to host those videos but the bandwidth costs became too high so I switched them to YouTube. Now I have more than 250 ed tech tools tutorial videos on my YouTube channel. Nearly 5,000 people have subscribed to my YouTube channel. Subscribe to it and you'll be notified when I publish a new tutorial (currently about two per week). To subscribe to my YouTube or any other YouTube channel simply sign into your Google account then click "subscribe" on the channel's homepage. The video below demonstrates how to do this. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories4 Google Apps for Education Updates You Might Have Missed This WeekHow to Schedule Assignments & Announcements in Google ClassroomHow to Add Custom Avatars to ClassDojo 

Two years ago NPR  published a database of the best commencement speeches ever given (how they determine "best" is unclear). The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever has an index of 354 commencement speeches. The speeches are listed alphabetically by speaker's first name. Instead of searching by speaker's name you can search according to theme, school, or date. A transcript for each speech is available. Videos are available for many of the speeches. Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford is embedded below. Applications for Education NPR's The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever could be a good source of inspiration for crafting graduation messages to share with students. H/T to Open Culture. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Great Explanation of Primary Sources vs. Secondary SourcesHow Much Energy is Consuming by Watching a Video?Nearly 100 TED-Ed Lessons About Nature