This is a guest post from Ben Sondgeroth (@Mr_Sondgeroth) of EdTechTeacher, an advertiser on this site. As more schools adopt Google Apps For Education (GAFE), increasingly teachers and students are dealing with multiple Google Accounts - one for work/school and one for personal use. When this situation happens, we often want to keep our two worlds separate.  Google has a way to make this possible that is built into Chrome.  Users can establish multiple Chrome profiles tied to specific Google accounts.  As the Director of Technology in my school district, I often see teachers attempt to solve this problem by adding a second account by selecting their profile picture in Gmail and choosing "add an account." While adding an account allows for switching between accounts without signing out of one and into another, it is not a great practice as your Google Drive, Gmail, and other Google services may become confused as to which account is tied to certain Google Apps. Your personalized settings are also not separated in this instance, meaning that themes, bookmarks, passwords, and history will only be tied to the first account listed.  In order to avoid this confusion, people should set up two separate Chrome profiles. When you first open a Chrome browser, you are prompted to sign in to Chrome.  When you do this, you have established more than just the ability to log into your email quickly, you have actually set up a way to keep all settings, bookmarks, apps, history, and passwords synced back to that one account log-in.  The simplicity of keeping all your data in one profile is a great benefit if you are sharing a computer or would like to keep your work profile separate from your personal profile.  As an example, I have several work-related bookmarks pinned to my bookmarks bar with my work account. However, I do not necessarily need those bookmarks when I am browsing from my personal account, nor do I need bookmarks, such as my banking information, tied to my work account. Setting up your secondary Chrome profile can be done multiple ways.  If you are on a PC or Mac, start by looking in the top right corner of your browser window.  In that corner, there should be a rectangle with your name on it; click your name to open a drop-down menu. From that drop-down menu, select "Switch person" and a window will appear.  From there, you will then select "Add Person" from the bottom of the window. When this is selected, a new Chrome window will open, and a new Chrome sign-in page will be displayed.  Log in with your second Google account, and all of your data will be synced to that profile.  At this point, you may be prompted with a question to "Link Data."  This will only happen if you are logging into a managed Chrome profile, which would more than likely be your school account.  The warning is stated that any of your data, "such as apps, bookmarks, history and passwords will become permanently tied" to that account.  This warning is a great reminder that you should be creating two profiles - one for personal data and one for work.  You do want to link your data as a best practice.Not doing so would prevent all of the benefits of having two Chrome profiles. In order to switch between these accounts in the future, follow the same process as adding an account.  After selecting "Switch Person," choose your picture or the name of the account that you would like to access.  Once that is done, you will have access to all of the information stored with that account! In a newly released Chrome update, you can also switch profiles by right clicking on your name and selecting the desired Chrome profile from your list. If you are a Chrome user on your mobile devices, you have the ability to sign in to multiple accounts through the mobile browser as well.  When this is done, all of your bookmarks, passwords, and other data syncs across to your mobile device! From an educational standpoint, knowing how to create separate Chrome profiles is important for students who are using Google Apps for Education at school and then going home to a family computer with multiple users.  Without being aware of this process, many students sign in to the Chrome browser and inadvertently link their student data with the existing family data, which can be messy and frustrating.  Additionally, classroom computers with multiple users can benefit from using these separate Chrome profiles to keep student data separate. By separating your Chrome accounts into different Chrome profiles, you have the opportunity to maximize productivity while minimizing the risk of confusing your worlds.  Not only is this process important for educators, but teaching it to our students enables them to move between school Chromebooks and home computers with ease. Ben will be assisting in a number of EdTechTeacher Summer Workshops in Chicago. There is still time to register for these events. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNearly 5,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This WayThe Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts4 Google Apps for Education Updates You Might Have Missed This Week 

This week's Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week was about how to create screencast videos on an Android device. Shortly after posting that tip I had some people ask how to create a screencast of an iPad screen. There are a couple of ways that you can create a screencast video of your iPad's screen. Method 1 - If you have a Mac computer: Connect your iPad to your Mac by using the Lightning cable (the cable that came with your iPad). Then open QuickTime on your Mac. Next select "new movie recording" from the QuickTime menu. You can then choose the name of your iPad and click record. When you're done recording your new screencast will save to your computer as a video file that you can then edit in iMovie if you want to cut out portions of it or lay a music track under your narration. Method 2 - If you have a Windows computer: You will need a third-party service that allows you to mirror your iPad to the screen of your Windows computer. Air Server is the service that I recommend for mirroring an iPad to a Windows computer. Air Server includes a recording tool that  you can use to make a screencast video of your iPad's screen. With Air Server running you can just tap record and instantly start capturing your screen and your narration. The video will save on your Windows computer where you can then edit it and or upload it to your favorite video hosting service. Whiteboard videos: If you don't need to record your entire iPad screen and just want to make a whiteboard video there are plenty of options available in the App Store. ShowMe and Educreations are two of the most popular apps for that purpose. Learn how to do things like this and many more practical ed tech tips at the Practical Ed Tech BYOD Camp in July. Just three tickets are left. Powered by Eventbrite This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNearly 5,000 People Get Their Ed Tech Tips This WayThe Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts4 Google Apps for Education Updates You Might Have Missed This Week 

Last year the CK-12 Foundation introduced the CK-12 Brainflex Summer Challenge. The challenge is a free program that students can use to keep their math and science skills sharp through the summer while also learning some new knowledge and gaining new skills. Students register for the program then track their skills review through the CK-12 Brainflex website. The CK-12 Summer Challenge is self-paced and students choose the subjects that they want to review. Applications for Education Teachers can send invitations to students to participate in the CK-12 Summer Challenge. With those invitations teachers can include suggestions for subjects to review. CK-12 also provides a template for a letter to send home to parents with suggestions on subjects for their children to review over the summer. That letter could be sent to the parents of the students moving on from your classroom this summer or to the parents of the students you're expecting to see in the fall. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesWhy Are Airplane Engines so Big? - How Jet Engines Work #STEMStackup - Create & Track Reading Goals for You and Your StudentsRiddle Me This - 7 TED-Ed Lessons Based on Riddles 

Last week I wrote a comparison of adding media to Buncee slides and adding media to Google Slides. Over the weekend a couple of people emailed me for more information about how to add media to Buncee slides. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to add animations and videos to Buncee slides. Disclosure: Buncee is a client of MindRocket Media Group. I have a financial interest in MindRocket Media Group. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Create Screencasts of Your iPadThe Week in Review - The Most Popular PostsBuncee Buddies Connects Classrooms for Earth Day 

ReadWorks has just released a new set of reading packs designed to help you keep your students reading through the summer. Like all ReadWorks units the articles within the reading packs are free to download and print. The ReadWorks Summer Reading Packs are arranged by grade level. Within each grade level you will find ten articles that are accompanied by lexile scores. You can download individual articles or print all of the articles in a grade level as one packet. Applications for Education The reading packs can provide you with some good material to send home with your students this summer. You can supplement the packs by adding more content from the ReadWorks library. With a free ReadWorks account you can search the library 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 StoriesReadWorks Introduces ReadWorks Digital for Sharing Reading Assignments With StudentsReadWorks Offers Articles, Question Sets, and Videos About Martin Luther King, Jr.CK-12 Brainflex is Back for 2016 - Keep Math Skills Sharp This Summer 

Yesterday, I shared the news that CK-12 is once again running a summer math and science program for students. This evening I learned that CK-12 is offering a summer program for teachers too. CK-12's Jumpstart Your Curriculum is a six part course for teachers who want to learn how to create great CK-12 FlexBooks. FlexBooks are digital textbooks that you create and customize to meet the specific needs of your classroom. The course includes the option to join a community of other FlexBook creators and collaborate with them. The image below outlines the six parts of the course which begins on June 20th. You can register now for CK-12 Jumpstart Your Curriculum. The registration process takes less than minute and is completely free. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesCK-12 Brainflex is Back for 2016 - Keep Math Skills Sharp This SummerHow to Create Screencasts of Your iPadHow to Add Multimedia Elements to Buncee Slides 

MindMup is a nice mind mapping tool that can be integrated into your Google Drive account. MindMup works like most mind mapping tools in that you can create a central idea and add child and sibling nodes all over a blank canvas. MindMup nodes can contain text and links. When you're ready to save your MindMup mind map you can save it to Google Drive, save it to your desktop, or publish it online. If you publish it online, you can grab an embed code for it to post it in a blog post or webpage. Earlier this week MindMup released a new feature in MindMup 2.0. You can now organize your mind maps vertically and create hierarchy structures in your mind maps. Applications for Education Creating mind maps is one of my favorite ways to organize ideas and information. I've often had my students create mind maps as an exercise in making visual connections between important concepts, events, and people in a unit of study. The new vertical hierarchy structure in MindMup could make it a good option for organizing things like genealogy research projects. H/T to Jen Deyenberg This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesMost Popular in 2015 - Two Tools for Turning Outlines Into Mind MapsDesign Mind Maps and Flow Charts With Lucidchart for iPadLearn How to Create CK-12 FlexBooks In a Free Summer Course 

LitCharts is a relatively new service that provides teachers and students with guides and summaries of classic and popular literature. The service currently offers more than 300 titles. LitCharts guides can be viewed online or you can download the guides as PDFs. To download a PDF you do have to enter your email address. The online version of the guides available on LitCharts feature background information on a book's author, a color-coded list of themes in the book, a plot summary, a character list and summary, and an interactive chart board of themes in the book. The interactive chart boards on LitCharts offer a way to explore the entire guide from one place. The chart board is a wheel of chapters of a book. The wheel is color-coded with themes from the book. When you click on a chapter and color in the chart board you will be shown a short summary of that section of the book followed by a link to read more. Color-coding makes it fairly easy to follow a theme through the book. Applications for Education I learned about LitCharts from Terri Eichholz who pointed out that some teachers will find LitCharts to be just another cheat sheet. But other teachers will put LitCharts to use by taking advantage of the color-coded theme tracker in LitCharts. One thing that I might do with the color-coded theme tracker is pick sections from two or more themes and ask my students how the author connects the themes throughout the book. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesReadWorks Publishes Summer Reading Packs for K-12CK-12 Brainflex is Back for 2016 - Keep Math Skills Sharp This SummerReadWorks Introduces ReadWorks Digital for Sharing Reading Assignments With Students 

This morning I was frustrated trying to get the new annotations feature in Evernote for Android to work correctly so I went back to using Google Keep to annotate my pictures on my Android phone. As I was annotating a picture I noticed that I could add a voice comment to the same note that my picture was in. To add a voice comment to a picture in Google Keep you simply open the app and tap the camera icon in the "take a note" field. Then after taking your picture (or importing from your camera roll) tap the "+" icon in the lower-left corner to add a note. You can choose to type a note or your can tap the microphone icon to record a note. Then just start speaking. The audio file will automatically be attached to the note containing your image. Applications for Education Sometimes a voice note more accurately conveys what a student wants to remember about than a text note does.  Adding voice notes to pictures in Google Keep could provide students with a relatively easy way to make notes for themselves about a diagram or math problem that you've shared with them. 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 Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocs 

Earlier this week I posted the image you see to the left as part of my blog post about CK-12's summer math program. That image was made by blending two images together in Google Slides. To make the final image I went to Pixabay and grabbed a public domain image of a beach and a public domain image of an abacus. Then in Google Slides I used the image editing tools to layer the images and adjust the transparency so that it looks like the abacus and beach are blended together. Watch the video embedded below to see how I did it. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesAdd Voice Notes to Pictures in Google KeepHow to Schedule Assignments & Announcements in Google ClassroomHow to Use the New Q&A and Laser Pointer Features of Google Slides @googledocs