Read & Write is a popular Google Chrome Web App that increases the accessibility of the text of documents in your Google Drive account. Today, I received an email from the app's developers announcing that Read & Write for Google can now be used in French. Some of the accessibility options in Read & Write include a picture dictionary and a talking dictionary. To use either dictionary just highlight a word then click on the dictionary that you want to use. The dictionary that you select will pop-up in your document. Read & Write will also read the text of your documents aloud. In the settings menu you can select from nine voices and three playback speeds. Learn more about Read & Write in the video below. To get Read & Write for Google for free, follow these directions from the developers. If you are a teacher, and do not already have Read&Write for Google installed, head to the Chrome Store and download it before registering for your free subscription.  If you already have a trial or an expired trial, go to rw.texthelp.com/drive/home/RegisterTeacher and register by filling out the Teacher Registration form with your name, email, school, administrator, and other details that confirm your eligibility. Note: Be sure the email you provide is the same as the one you used to download Read&Write for Google.  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 PostsAn Augmented Reality App for Learning About Nature5 Good Online Educational Resources from the Smithsonian Museums 

After my bad experience with TodaysMeet back in March I backed away from using for backchannel discussions. Today, I took another look TodaysMeet and noticed a new option that has considering using TodaysMeet again. You can now embed TodaysMeet rooms into a blog post or a web page. To embed a TodaysMeet room into a blog post first create a room in TodaysMeet. After creating your room open the "room tools" menu that appears at the bottom of the page. After opening the menu choose "embed." You can then choose to embed the live room or a transcript of the room. If you choose the live room option, people who visit the blog post into which you've embedded your room will be able to enter messages. 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 StoriesRead & Write for Google - Now Available in FrenchRiddle Adds New Features for Building Image-based QuizzesThe Week in Review - The Most Popular Posts 

Ignite Teaching is a free iPad app and web app that students can use to collaborate on the development of multimedia projects. Through Ignite Teaching teachers can create project titles that they share with students through an invitation code. Students then join the project and build slides that include pictures, text, and video. Students can work on their contributions to the project at their own pace. When they are finished working on the project, students submit their work and their teachers can see it in their accounts. Ignite Teaching allows teachers to create multiple projects and have multiple projects running at the same time. This means that teachers could create small group projects instead of whole class projects to complete in Ignite Teaching. It is also possible to have students work on independent projects in Ignite Teaching. Applications for Education Ignite Teaching's design tools have improved of late which makes it easier for students to create slides although there are still better tools for slide design. Where Ignite Teaching shines is on the sharing and collaboration side of things. The sharing options make it easy for teachers to view their students' work and give them feedback on it. 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 WebsiteRead & Write for Google - Now Available in FrenchExplore the World's Fair on Your iPad 

LeafSnap is a free iPad app designed by Columbia University, Smithsonian, and the University of Maryland for the purpose of helping people identify plants by taking pictures of them on their iPads. With LeafSnap installed on your iPad or iPhone you can take a picture of a leaf, upload it to the app, and then the app’s visual recognition technology will help you identify the name of the plant. It doesn’t work for all leaves and you do need to isolate the leaf be before you take a picture of it. In other words, you can’t just snap a picture of a big tree and ask LeafSnap to identify it. If taking pictures of leaves is not a practical option for you and your students, LeafSnap still has valuable content for you. LeafSnap offers a large gallery of pictures of leaves. The gallery is organized alphabetically. Tap on any picture in the gallery to see more pictures of the same leaf, descriptions of the tree that it grows on, and where those trees grow. Applications for Education I often encourage teachers to think of ways to use iPads and other mobile devices for outdoor learning activities. Earlier this week I shared the Merlin Bird ID app that helps students identify birds. Between that app and LeafSnap your students could have a summer filled with making observations and learning about the nature around them. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesAn Augmented Reality App for Learning About NatureIgnite Teaching - Collaborate on Multimedia ProjectsIdentifying Birds - A Fun Summer Learning Activity 

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 

Good morning from sunny Woodstock, Maine where I'm home after a great week in which I spent time with teachers in Nappannee, Indiana. A big thank you to all of Val Anglemyer and Jim Bennett for making that possible. While I was in the school I noticed a set of traffic lights in the cafeteria. I was curious about them and asked what they were for. The lights are connected to a sound meter so that the students can see when they are being too loud during lunch. I thought it was a clever strategy. Here are this week's most popular posts: 1. 7 Tools for Building Review Games 2. 20 Good Map Creation Tools for Students 3. How to Get Your School Announcements to as Many People as Possible 4. 10+ Resources for Learning About the Math and Science of Sports 5. Use Your Phone to Control Google Slides Remotely 6. Jellybean Writer - An Online Tool for Creating Picture Books 7. 5 Good Online Educational Resources from the Smithsonian Museums Summer PD Opportunities With Me.Teaching History With Technology begins in July. Getting Going With GAFE is offered in June and July. Blogs & Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders is offered in July. Would you like to have me visit your school? Click here to learn about my PD 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 - Thank You Guest BloggersMonth in Review - The Most Popular Posts 

It's a rainy Sunday morning here in Maine. I'm sure the rain put a damper on a few picnics today. It certainly caused a change in my plans for the day. But at least the rain inspired me to look back at some of the many resources for teaching and learning about weather that I have reviewed over the years. Here are ten resources for teaching and learning about weather. The History of the Barometer. This TED-Ed lesson covers the history, development, and use of barometers in forecasting the weather. Why Are There Clouds? is a relatively new Minute Earth video that explains how clouds are formed and how they rise or fall in the sky. The nice thing about Minute Earth videos is that a list of references is included in each video's description on YouTube. Thirstin's Water Cycle takes students on an animated and narrated tour of the water cycle from water, to vapor, to clouds, to rain. Thirstin's Tour of a Water Treatment Plant takes students on a narrated tour through a typical water treatment facility found in the United States. Waterlife is an interactive story about the water cycle in the Great Lakes. Waterlife is a twenty part story through which students can learn about the role of water in our lives. Through the story students learn about things like fishing, pollution, invasive species, wetlands, and the politics of water conservation. When students select a part of the Waterlife story they will be able to hear narration, see visuals, and read the text of the story. Some parts of the story also contain links to external resources that student can explore. Scholastic's Interactive Weather Maker is an activity in which students adjust temperatures and humidity levels to create rain and snow storms. Students simply move the temperature and humidity sliders until rain or snow begins to show up in the scene on their screens. 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. The following short explanatory video from Presh Talwalkar explains how windchill is calculated Wild Weather Kitchen Experiments is a short series of instructional videos produced by The Open University. Each of the four videos in the series features a short lesson followed by directions for an experiment that you can carry out to see the lesson's concepts in action. The four lessons are on avalanches, tornadoes, floods, and dust storms. Television news reporters like to use the word "extreme" whenever we have a lot of rain or snow in a short amount of time. Is the weather really "extreme" or is that just our impression of it? The following Minute Earth video takes on the topic of how extreme weather affects our thinking about weather patterns in general. I found the video to be interesting from a psychology perspective. The video is embedded below. The following episode of Bytesize Science embedded below explains how snowflakes are created. Videos like those in the list above are excellent candidates to be used as parts of flipped lessons. VideoNotes, Vialogues, and EDpuzzle are solid tools for hosting discussions around shared educational videos. 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 Forecasts10+ Resources for Learning About the Math and Science of SportsThe Math of Michael Jordan's Hang Time 

Developing fiction stories comes easily to some students. For others it can be a struggle to come up with ideas for fiction stories. The apps and sites in the PDF embedded below can help students start creative stories. A few of the tools in the document will also help you provide your students with feedback on their stories. Click here if cannot see the embedded document. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesJellybean Writer - An Online Tool for Creating Picture BooksHow to Turn Your Blogger Blog Into a Book - VideoMay Flowers - A Writing Lesson 

My recent about Jellybean Writer, an online picture book maker, was one last week's most popular posts. If you missed it, I have a description of it below along with four other good tools for creating picture books. Using pictures as the basis for a story can be a good way to get students to write a story. The pictures can serve as prompts for writing the story. All five of the tools listed below have that capability. Picture Book Maker allows students to create six page stories by dragging background scenes into a page, dragging in animals and props, and typing text. All of the elements can be sized an positioned to fit the pages. Text is limited to roughly two lines per page. Completed stories are displayed with simple page turning effects. Stories created on Picture Book Maker can be printed and or saved as PDFs. MyStorybook is a nice online tool for creating short storybooks. MyStorybook provides blank pages on which you can type, draw, and place clipart. Your storybook pages can also include pictures that you upload. After signing into your MyStorybook account you can start creating your first book. Click on the text fields to edit any existing text in the title and author fields. You can add more text by clicking "text" in the editing menu. To add a picture of your own select "items" in the editing menu. At the bottom of the "items" menu you will find an option to upload your own images. MyStorybook provides lots of stock imagery that you can place on a page or use as the background to a page. If you want to branch-out beyond text and images, use the drawing tools on your pages. Storybird provides templates and artwork for creating digital stories. To use Storybird you simply select a theme (layout) then drag and drop the drawings you like into your story. Once you've selected drawings for your story, you then write in the text of your story. Using Storybird, anyone can create great-looking digital picture book stories regardless of your drawing skills or lack of drawing skills. Storybird can be used on your iPad. The video embedded below demonstrates how. Storybird Editor from Storybird on Vimeo. Alphabet Organizer is a great little tool from Read Write Think that students can use to create alphabet charts and books. The idea behind Alphabet Organizer is to help students make visual connections between letters of the alphabet and the first letter of common words. In the video below I demonstrate how to use this tool. 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. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories10 Good Apps & Sites for Creative Writing ProjectsJellybean Writer - An Online Tool for Creating Picture BooksRemind Opens a New Chat Feature For Teachers 

This afternoon I was working on a document in Google Docs that included a list. I did want to use numbers for my list, but I didn't want to use the formatting that Google Documents was trying to force on me. I spent a few minutes of manually adjusting the formatting after Google Documents had inserted. That process worked, but it quickly became tedious. Rather than trying to continue to override the default formatting I just turned it off altogether by using the preferences settings in Google Documents. Click image to view full size. You can find the Preferences settings under the Tools drop-down menu in Google Documents. In the Preferences menu you can turn off automatic list detection, set link detection, and specify all kinds of automatic character replacements. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesInsert Images Into Google Slides and Docs on Your iPad or Android Tablet5 Online Tools for Creating Picture BooksRemind Opens a New Chat Feature For Teachers 

Last summer the folks at Canva were kind enough to create a great infographic for me based on a set of search tips that I sent to them. The infographic makes a great poster to display in your classroom, but it is a little light on the details of how and why to use some of the search strategies. The PDF embedded below provides more detail on the search strategies that I frequently share with teachers and students. Click here if you cannot see the embedded PDF. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesTips for Using the Site Operator in Google SearchA Quick Tip on Google Docs Formatting5 Online Tools for Creating Picture Books 

Book Creator has long been a popular iPad and Android app for creating multimedia ebooks. Today, the developers of Book Creator released a Windows version of the app. Book Creator for Windows (Windows 8.1 or higher required) allows anyone to create his or her own ebooks using images, text, videos, and audio recordings. You can arrange your book in three different formats; portrait, square, or landscape. Each page in your book can include pictures and videos. In addition to the pictures and videos you can include as much as text as you can fit on each page. In fact, if you just want to have text on a page you can do that. If you would like to narrate your book you can tap the record button to add your voice to each page of your book. Every page in your book can have a custom color scheme. Book Creator for Windows from Book Creator on Vimeo. Applications for Education Book Creator can be a fantastic tool for students to use to create short stories or to create longer research papers that include multimedia elements. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesMyStudyLife a Student Planner for All Platforms - Updated for Better SchedulingMyStudyLife - A Student Planner for All Platforms10 Important Google Search Strategies for Students - A PDF Handout 

Knoword is a fun and challenging game that tests your ability to match definitions to words. Knoword is played like this; you're presented with the first letter of a word, its part of speech, and the definition. You then have to fill in the correct spelling of the word. If you enter the correct word, you earn points. If you don't get it right, you lose points. You don't have to register to play Knoword, but you can register if you want to. Registering for Knoword gives you the option to keep track of your game statistics. Registered users can also earn badges based on their performances. Applications for EducationIn the few games that I played I noticed that Knoword is probably best suited to use by students in middle school and high school. I think many of the words would be too difficult for elementary school students and they could end up frustrated with the game. For middle school and high school students though Knoword could be a fun way to refresh their memories of words they already know and add new words to their vocabularies. 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 Traffic LightsSmithsonian Weather Lab - Learn About Weather Patterns and Make Forecasts10 Resources for Teaching and Learning About Weather 

For over a year now Google has been pushing a new user interface on users. You've probably seen it and you might have even reverted back to the old user interface as I did for a while. Soon you won't have a choice between the old and new interface. Last Friday Google announced that beginning on July 7 all Google Apps users will lose the ability to revert to the old Google Drive user interface. The change from the old Google Drive user interface to the new UI will not impact the files you have saved in your account or how you go about using Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. The change may impact where your files appear in your Google Drive dashboard and could change the way you sort some files. It took me a couple of a days to adjust. Since that initial adjustment period I haven't had any problems using the new Google Drive UI. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related StoriesA Quick Tip on Google Docs FormattingChanging School Districts and Want Offline Copies of Your Google Data? - Use TakeoutInsert Images Into Google Slides and Docs on Your iPad or Android Tablet 

This is a guest post from Beth Holland (@brholland) of EdTechTeacher - an advertiser on this site. Active reading strategies are just as critical with digital reading as with their paper-based counterpart. However, until recently, it has been a bit cumbersome to highlight, add notes, and draw on documents - particularly in a BYOD environment with Macbooks, Windows laptops, and Chromebooks. However, by using the DocHub Chrome app, this capability is now possible on any device. Students and teachers can login to the DocHub app (or DocHub.com) using their Google account. From there, it is possible to upload any PDF, text document, or Microsoft Office file from Drive, the web, or even your computer/Chromebook download folder. Once a document had been uploaded, students can highlight, draw, insert text boxes, and even incorporate sticky notes. These annotated PDFs can then be sent to Drive or even shared with a link. Unlike some other web-based annotation tools, all of the annotations remain with the PDF after it has been sent to Drive though the sticky notes only appear when shared with a link. DocHub also allows multiple people to read and annotate the same document at the same time. It’s important to keep in mind that unlike Google Docs, the changes are not instantaneous and do not appear on the other person's screen until after the page is refreshed. In many ways, this makes for an improved reading experience as individuals are not as easily distracted by changes appearing on the screen while attempting to read. From the perspective of providing feedback, this is also beneficial as students would not necessarily see your annotations until after you ask them to reload their document. Beyond having students use DocHub for active reading, it could also be useful for assessments. With DocHub, students can fill in PDF forms and teachers can even create templates that would allow multiple people to fill in copies of a single document. Much like many of the PDF annotation apps for iOS and Android, DocHub is an excellent option for the Chrome browser and Chrome OS. Looking to learn more about Reading, Writing, & Research this summer? Beth will be leading Summer Workshops for EdTechTeacher in Boston, MA in July. This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.              Related Stories10 Good Apps & Sites for Creative Writing ProjectsJellybean Writer - An Online Tool for Creating Picture BooksUse the Love Reading Map to Find Good Books