Vibby is another service that I featured yesterday and this morning fielded a couple of questions about how to use it. The video embedded below demonstrates how to highlight and comment on videos through Vibby. Applications for Education As I mention in the video, Vibby could be a good tool to have students use to analyze presentations. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHighlight Debates or Analyze Presentations Through VibbyHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDueVersal Adds a Gadget Marketplace and Google Classroom Integration 

The proper use of apostrophes can be tricky. Even the best of us occasionally misplace them or forget to place them where they need to be. When To Use Apostrophes is a relatively new TED-Ed lesson explains when and where to use apostrophes. The video is not the most in-depth explanation that TED-Ed has produced, but does provide a nice review for students. Click here for the complete lesson with review questions. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesShort Lessons on the Origins of EnglishHow to Annotate Videos Through VibbyHighlight Debates or Analyze Presentations Through Vibby 

Announcify is a free text to speech application that is available as a Chrome browser extension. With Announcify installed in your browser any time you're viewing a webpage you can simply click on the Announcify icon in your browser and have the text of the page read to you. A bonus aspect of using Announcify is that in order to make a webpage easier to read it enlarges the text of the webpage and removes all sidebar content. In the video embedded below I provide a short demonstration of Announcify in action. Applications for Education As I mentioned in the video above, Announcify could be a great little tool for students that need audio support when they are reading online content. The enlargement of text and removal of sidebar content could also help students focus on what they are trying to read on a webpage. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesIt's a TED-Ed Lesson on ApostrophesHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDueHow to Annotate Videos Through Vibby 

This is an updated version of a post from my archives. The original version of this post was written in response to a teacher's request that I share some resources containing visual lessons on fractions.  Thinking Blocks is a series of iPad apps nice site for elementary and middle school students. Thinking Blocks provides interactive templates in which students use brightly colored blocks to model and solve problems. As students work through the problems they are provided with feedback as to whether or not they are using the correct sequence to solve each problem. There are templates and problems for addition, multiplication, fractions, and ratios. Thinking Blocks is also available as a series of web-based activities. Who Wants Pizza? is a fun online activity for learning about fractions. Who Wants Pizza was developed by Cynthia Lanius at Rice University. The activity has five parts plus practice activities for students to explore. Teachers will find notes about using this activities in the classroom. Visual Fractions has eight categories of visualizations, lessons, and games for students to explore and learn the functions of fractions. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives has a lot of interactive activities for students learning the use of fractions, addition and subtraction, and the multiplication of fractions. Conceptua Math is a provider of interactive visual mathematics lessons. One of Conceptua Math's primary focuses is on the development of tools to aid teachers in the instruction of lessons on fractions. Conceptua Math's offerings are a mix of free and premium (paid) tools. There are a total of fifteen free interactive tools for teachers and students. Each of the free tools has an introductory video and a sample lesson plan. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesFun Math Practice With PenguinsMeasure Yourself - Comparing the Feet of AnimalsNoteBookCast - An Online, Collaborative Whiteboard for Every Device 

A lighthouse I photographed during a bike ride this week. Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and the air feels exceptionally fresh. My week-in-review post usually mentions an outdoor activity like cycling, hiking, or skiing. This morning it just feels right to sit on my deck, drink coffee, and read a book (Wilderness Warrior - a biography of Theodore Roosevelt). So that's what I'm doing. I hope that your weekend is off to an equally enjoyable start. This week I wrapped up the last session of my online course Blogs & Social Media for Teachers & School Leaders. That five week course carried a graduate credit option. A number of people asked if I would offer it again. Due to the time constraints of the new school year starting soon, I decided to offer a condensed version of that course. Classroom Blog Jumpstart will be a three night event (August 17, 18, 19) in which I'll cover everything you need to know to create an awesome classroom blog. Learn more about it here. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. 12 Good Resources for Teaching Digital Citizenship - A PDF Handout 2. How to Create & Distribute Flipped Lessons Through EDPuzzle 3. How to Save Time When Replying to Email 4. ClassDojo Introduces a New Way to Communicate With Parents 5. How to Create a Random Name Picker in Google Sheets 6. 5 Posts to Jumpstart Your Classroom Blog 7. SimplyCircle Helps You Organize Communication With Parents  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. Storyboard That is my go-to tool for creating storyboards and cartoon stories.MidWest Teachers Institute offers online graduate courses for teachers.HelloTalk is a mobile community for learning a new language.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.SeeSaw is a great iPad app for creating digital portfolios. 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 - Preparing for CampHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDue 

Zoom In is a new resource that US History teachers will like. After reading Glenn Wiebe's and Larry Ferlazzo's glowing reviews of it, I had to try it out too. Zoom In provides units of lesson plans built around primary source documents. The collection of lesson units is organized into six eras of US History. Zoom In is more than just a collection of lesson plans and documents. Zoom In provides an online classroom environment. As a teacher you can manage multiple classrooms within your Zoom In account. Students join your class by using a class code (email addresses not required). Once students have joined your class, you can begin distributing assignments to them from the lesson plan database. You can track which students have started the assignments, read their responses to questions within the assignments, and give students feedback on the assignments all within your Zoom In classroom. Applications for Education It took me some time to fully understand all of the features of Zoom In's user interface. Likewise, I think that students will need to some time to understand how the user interface works. All that said, once I figured out how all of the parts worked together, I saw that it will be a great tool for helping students analyze and learn through reading primary source documents. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTeaching American History Through ArtMake Lesson Plans and Storyboards Pop With These New GuidesUse Your Google or Edmodo Account to Create HSTRY Timelines 

Disclosure: PrepFactory is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com. As we head into the fall many students will be preparing to take the SAT or ACT. PrepFactory is a free service for high school students can use to prepare for those tests. PrepFactory offers students a series of tutorial videos and written tips to help them prepare for both tests. After completing a tutorial students can test themselves in a series of practice questions. Each question set is timed and and limited to chunks of ten questions at a time. Students can earn badges for completing tutorials or question sets. To get started on PrepFactory students choose the test that they are preparing to take (they can change their choices at any time) then take a short guided tour of the service. After taking the tour students complete a ten question quiz intended to give them a sense of what they need to work on. Upon completion of their first quiz students can choose to review their answers with the help of PrepFactory, take another quiz, or watch a video about test-taking skills. For the fall PrepFactory has introduced SAT Wordplay, a head-to-head vocabulary game between two players. SAT Wordplay randomly matches players in a game to answer vocabulary questions as quickly and accurately as possible. In the video embedded below I provide an overview of PrepFactory's features. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesKnoword - A Fun and Challenging Vocabulary GamePrepFactory Offers SAT & ACT Practice Exercises and TutorialsHandy Visuals for Fractions Lessons 

One of the challenges of starting a new classroom blog is generating enough content for your students to read and to comment on. If you can get students blogging early in the year, you can build momentum for the rest of the school year. Here are five things that you could have students blog about in the first week of school. Three favorite moments from the last school year. Favorite part of summer vacation. All-time best moment in school. Three questions they want to find the answers to this year. Favorite book or movie and why.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories5 Posts to Jumpstart Your Classroom BlogThe Week in Review - Time to ReadHow to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDue 

Last year I featured the Hemingway App Editor as a good tool to help students analyze their own writing. Hemingway is a free tool designed to help you analyze your writing. Hemingway offers a bunch of information about the passage you've written or copied and pasted into the site. Hemingway highlights the parts of your writing that use passive voice, adverbs, and overly complex sentences. All of those factors are accounted for in generating a general readability score for your passage. This summer the Hemingway Editor was updated to offer a few more features. The Hemingway Editor now provides tools for formatting the text that you write in the web version of Hemingway. You can now create bullet lists, change font size and style, write numbered lists, and indent paragraphs. Applications for Education Hemingway is the kind of tool that I like to have students use before exchanging papers with classmates for peer editing. Hemingway acts as a kind of "virtual peer" before the peer editing process. I would also have students use Hemingway before turning in their final drafts for a grade. StoryToolz offers a tool similar to Hemingway that you may also want to check out. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories5 Things Students Can Blog About to Start the School YearThe Week in Review - Time to ReadIt's a TED-Ed Lesson on Apostrophes 

Duolingo is a popular free service that offers activities for learning Spanish, English, French, Italian, Irish, Dutch, Danish, German, and Portuguese. The service works in your web browser and is available as an app on Android, iPad, and Windows 8. Last winter Duolingo introduced Duolingo for Schools. Within Duolingo for Schools teachers can create online classrooms in which they monitor their students' progression through the learning activities available in Duolingo. In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to create a classroom in Duolingo for Schools. The video also shows a student's view of Duolingo for Schools. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesNow Open - Duolingo for SchoolsComing Soon - Duolingo for SchoolsHemingway Editor Updated in Time for the New School Year