Football Physics: The "Impossible" Free Kick is a new TED-Ed lesson that illustrates and explains how soccer players make the ball curve when they kick it on a free kick or a corner kick. The video also explains how the forces that make a soccer ball curve can also make a thrown baseball curve. The video also answers the question of whether or not it would be possible to make a ball boomerang back to you. The video is embedded below. The full lesson can be seen here. The release of this lesson is timed well with the FIFA Women's World Cup that some of your students may be following. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Math of Michael Jordan's Hang TimeTry LeafSnap for Help Identifying Plants5 Good Online Educational Resources from the Smithsonian Museums 

On Tuesday I shared my discovery about embedding TodaysMeet rooms into blogs. I've had a couple of people email me with questions about how to do that. In the video embedded below I provide a short overview of how to embed TodaysMeet rooms into blog posts. Applications for Education Embedding a TodaysMeet room into a blog post might be a way to avoid having to post the link to your TodaysMeet room in a public forum. Rather than giving out a TodaysMeet link you could simply direct students to the classroom blog that they are already familiar with visiting. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesEmbed TodaysMeet Rooms Into Your Blog or WebsiteTry LeafSnap for Help Identifying PlantsIgnite Teaching - Collaborate on Multimedia Projects 

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a proponent of getting kids involved in physical activities like bicycling, skiing, and playing team sports. I also like to see connections made between students' interest in sports and lessons in the classroom. The resources below can all be used to create lessons connected to students' interests in sports. The Science of NFL Football is a series of ten videos from NBC Learn explaining and demonstrating math and science concepts as they relate to football. The list of topics covered in the Science of NFL Football includes Torque & Center of Mass, Pythagorean Theorem, Geometric Shapes, Projectile Motion & Parabolas, Vectors, Kinematics, Nutrition, and Newton's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Laws of Motion. Every video in the Science of NFL Football is accompanied by a lesson plan appropriate for use in middle school classrooms. In addition to the NFL Football lessons, NBC Learn offers lessons on golf, skiing, skating, swimming, and running. If you have students who are interested in hockey, the following videos from Smarter Everyday could offer a good way to get students interested in thinking about the science of hockey. Physics World offers three video lessons on the science of cycling, swimming, and running. The Open University offers a playlist of video lessons about the science of bicycling. That playlist is embedded below. Exploratorium has a little feature called the Science of Baseball. The Science of Baseball is a bit dated in its looks, but it still has some nice resources that can help students understand how a bit of science and mathematics is involved in the game. The Science of Baseball includes video and audio clips of baseball players and scientists explaining how the weather affects the flight of the ball, the physics of various pitches, and reaction times to thrown and batted baseballs. ESPN's Sport Science has a handful of little resources about the science of baseball. One of those resources is Anatomy of a Pitch. In Anatomy of a Pitch seven pitchers from the Arizona Diamondbacks explain how they throw their signature pitches. Each explanation includes slow motion footage and the pitchers explaining the release points, finger positioning, leg uses, and rotations involved in each their pitches. Two TED-Ed Lessons that I've recently featured are about Michael Jordan's hang time and the physics of kicking a soccer ball. Both videos are embedded below. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesThe Physics of Soccer (Football) Banana KicksThe Math of Michael Jordan's Hang Time5 Good Online Educational Resources from the Smithsonian Museums 

Canva is one of my favorite tools for creating image collages, slides, social media graphics, and infographics. The lesson plan library that Canva offers is an excellent place to find ideas for using visuals in your classroom. The one complaint that I hear about Canva, I heard it this week during a workshop I was leading, is that there are some frustrating quirks to using it for the first time. I made the video that is embedded below to help teachers and students learn to use Canva and avoid some of the common mistakes made by first time users. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories10+ Resources for Learning About the Math and Science of SportsHow to Embed TodaysMeet Rooms Into Your BlogThe Physics of Soccer (Football) Banana Kicks 

I was recently introducing some teachers to blogging when one of them said, "but they don't even read our newsletter." She was right, most of the parents and students probably are not reading the newsletter that the school sends out. My suggestion was to create a blog. I made the suggestion knowing full well that many parents wouldn't visit it directly on a consistent basis. I suggested maintaining a blog because from it you can launch a variety of outreach strategies to connect with parents and students. My basic strategy for reaching parents and students is outlined below. 1. Maintain a blog. Update your blog on a consistent schedule throughout the school year. You don't have to update it daily. Publishing a new post every Monday, Wednesday, and every Friday is sufficient. Monday's post could be a list of what's coming up during the week. Wednesday's post could be reminders about assignments. Friday's post could be a recap of the week. 2. Provide an email subscription option for updates. Some parents will want updates emailed to them instead of having to visit your blog directly. Blogger offers a "follow by email" gadget that you can add to your blog. When parents use it they can subscribe to your blog through email. If you use WordPress for your blog, the Jetpack plug-in offers a free "follow by email" option. For more control over your email list, you can use paid services like FeedBlitz and Aweber to automatically email new blog posts. 3. Connect your blog to social media outlets.  When you publish a new blog post, share it on your school/ classroom Twitter and Facebook. Services like If This Then That have recipes for automatically publishing your blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. FeedBlitz, the service I use for email, publishes my new blog posts to Twitter automatically. Tools like Hootsuite give you the option to schedule social media posts in advance. Use Hootsuite to Tweet and or Facebook your blog post once per day for parents and or students who might have missed it earlier in the week. 4. Instagram it.  If you have a school/ classroom Instagram account that parents and students are following, post a screenshot of the latest blog post. Put the link to the blog post in your caption of the image. 5. Text it.  Use Remind or Celly to send out the link to the new blog post. Creating a system for getting your message out to parents and students will take you a little time to develop. Once you have a system down, you'll find that it doesn't take much time to create and send the updates. With a good system in place you'll be reaching parents and students where they are instead of hoping that they come to where you are. I'll be covering this topic in much more depth along with many others in my July offering of Blogs & Social Media for Teachers & School Leaders.  This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesPros & Cons of Using Blog Posts for School AnnouncementsHow to Schedule Blog Posts on Blogger, Edublogs, and KidblogHow to Turn Your Blogger Blog Into a Book - Video 

Last Friday I wrote a post about using Google's My Maps service to create biking and walking route maps. Since then I've had a few people email me with questions about the bike route mapping component. The bike route mapping tool has a route prediction feature that can drive you nuts if there are lots of roads near the route you're trying to map. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to get past that little annoyance and create bike route maps that you can save and share with friends. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesPlan and Share Biking and Walking Routes on Google's My MapsHow to Create Image Collages and More on CanvaHow to Embed TodaysMeet Rooms Into Your Blog 

Whether it is to attend the annual ISTE conference, to participate in my Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp, or to go on vacation, many teachers will be traveling this summer. As someone who flew more than 100 times last year, I have some tips to pass along that can make your summer travel experience a little bit less stressful if not enjoyable. 1. Check-in online as soon as possible. Most airlines let you check-in for a flight 24 hours in advance. If you don't have a pre-assigned seat and you want a chance at getting the best seat possible for your fare class (there are different fare classes beyond just coach or first), check-in early. Be aware that some airlines charge a fee if you don't check-in online. 2. Get there early! This is obvious, but it cannot be stressed enough.  Other than the holidays, summer is the busiest leisure travel time which means there are lots of people in the security lines who are unfamiliar with the process. Unless you have TSA Pre-Check or elite status on an airline, be prepared for long security lines. 3. Plan for delays and cancellations. Even if it is bright and sunny at your home and at your destination, there can be delays to your flights. Before you get to the airport look at alternate flights to your destination that are available on your airline. You can do this by doing a dummy booking on the airline's website (stop before the field asking for your credit card). Write down those flight numbers and keep them handy in case of significant delay or cancellation. This will save the airline agent time and relieve a bit of your stress if you know what your options are. Remember this when delays and cancellations occur; the airlines don't like delays any more than you do. The gate agents, flight attendants, and phone agents are probably more stressed out by the delay than you are. Getting huffy with them and saying things like "I'll never fly this airline again" won't help you or anyone else. (Insider info: Most flight attendants don't get paid for time on the ground when the aircraft door is open). 4. Know your airline's reservations desk phone number. When your flight gets delayed or cancelled you will have to wait in line to see an airline agent. Get on the phone with the airline's reservation desk while you're waiting in line. Often you will get through on the phone before you get to the front of an airport line. Give the phone agent the alternate flight numbers that you found before you left your house. 5. Bring a small power strip and make friends. There are never enough outlets to go around in an airport terminal. Bring a small power strip (I found one at Walmart that has four outlets with a one foot cord) and then you only need to find one outlet to charge your phone and those your friends, family, or strangers. 6. Join the airline's frequent flyer program. Even if you only fly once a year, join the frequent flyer program. You can use the miles for things other than flights. For example, I only fly on United and Delta when US/ American doesn't fly to where I'm going. I collect miles from those trips and have used them for magazine subscriptions, gift cards, and even "bought" a coffee maker through frequent flyer miles. 7. For the nervous flyers: I was once a very nervous flyer too. That changed once I realized that the pilots want to land safely just as much as I do. Pilots won't fly unless they feel safe. Those sounds you hear the plane making, they're normal. Bonus tip: free hotel perks! Even if you only plan to stay at a hotel once a year, join its loyalty/ rewards program. Almost all of the major hotel chains give free in-room wi-fi to all guests who are enrolled in their loyalty programs. I've also received free bottled water, soda pop, ironing services, and snacks just for being a member of Kimpton and Omni's loyalty program. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesHow to Plan Biking and Walking Routes in Google MapsHow to Get Your School Announcements to as Many People as PossibleHow to Create Image Collages and More on Canva 

The Smithsonian Science Education Center's Weather Lab is a simple online activity designed to help elementary and middle school students learn about weather patterns. In the Weather Lab students select an ocean current and an air mass then try to predict the weather pattern that will result from their choices. The Weather Lab provides an overview of the characteristics of each air mass and ocean current. Students should use that information in making their weather predictions.  After making their predictions the Weather Lab will tell students if they were correct or not. In the feedback given to students they will find links to videos for further learning about each weather pattern featured in the Weather Lab. Applications for Education The Smithsonian Science Center's Weather Lab isn't the most robust online activity that you'll find online. That said, it is a good starting place for lessons about weather. I would have students use the Weather Lab to learn a bit about weather patterns then transition them to using real-time meteorological data to make weather forecasts for where they live. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTry LeafSnap for Help Identifying PlantsHow to Create Image Collages and More on Canva10+ Resources for Learning About the Math and Science of Sports 

Jellybean Scoop is a relatively new service that features fun and interesting news stories on four reading levels. Along with each story you will find comprehension questions and vocabulary lists. Larry Ferlazzo wrote a review of the articles and activities here. What Larry didn't focus on was the writing tool on Jellybean Scoop. The writing tool is called Jellybean Writer. Jellybean Writer is a free tool for creating picture books. Students can import pictures from their computers then write captions for each image. A variety of layout templates, background colors, and fonts are available to Jellybean Writer users. All stories can be saved online or downloaded and printed. If picture books are too simple for your students, they can skip using pictures and select one of the text only templates for the pages in their books. You do have to create an account to access the reading questions and writing tools on Jellybean Scoop. Teachers who create accounts for themselves can also create and manage accounts for their students. Applications for Education Jellybean Scoop and Jellybean Writer could be good resources for elementary school classrooms. Students could read stories on the site then transition to writing their own stories about the topics covered in the articles you had them read. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesSmithsonian Weather Lab - Learn About Weather Patterns and Make ForecastsMay Flowers - A Writing LessonHow to Create Image Collages and More on Canva 

Last month Remind opened their chat feature to all registered teachers. That feature allows teachers to have students and parents reply with text to their messages. Now that feature has been extended to allow teachers and administrators in the same school building to text each other through Remind. Remind allows you to search for colleagues using the service within your school building. When I first heard about Remind's chat feature I was leery of it because I was concerned that students and parents would be messaging teachers at all hours of the day and expecting rapid responses. Remind alleviated that concern when I saw the "office hours" setting in the Remind chat service. "Office hours" allows teachers to specify when they will allow them to state when they will be available for messaging. Teachers can also pause or stop chat exchanges at any time. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to adjust those settings. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesRemind's Chat Feature Is Now Open to EveryoneRemind Adds Chat to Their Mobile Messaging PlatformHow to Adjust the Chat Settings in Remind