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"Free Technology for Teachers" - 4 new articles

Short Lessons About Memorial Day
One Week Left!
Grackle - Check Slide and Document Accessibility
Running Free Rivers
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Short Lessons About Memorial Day

Next Monday is Memorial Day. Students often confuse the origin and purpose of Memorial Day with those of Veterans Day. The following videos can help students understand the origins and meanings of Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

The Meaning of Memorial Day is a two minute video covering the origins of the holiday in the United States. The video is embedded below.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers the following video overview of the history of Memorial Day.

Jocko Willink isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoy his podcast and found this video that he released a few years ago to be quite moving.

To find more resources for teaching about Memorial Day, visit Larry Ferlazzo's list of resources.

Try using EDpuzzle to add questions into these videos and distribute them to your students.

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One Week Left!

The first session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp is just a month away. If you haven't registered for the session of your choice, you can do so up until the day before it starts. However, there is only one week left to complete the early-bird registration.

There is a June session, a July session, and an August session of the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. In all three sessions we'll cover ten key topics over the course of ten live webinars (recordings will also be available).

These are the topics for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp:

Teaching Search Strategies & Digital Citizenship
Video Projects for Every Classroom
Classroom Podcasting 101
Building Digital Portfolios
Fun Formative Assessment Methods
Using AR & VR in Your Classroom
Making Virtual Tours
Easy Ways to Make Your Own Apps
Simple and Fun Makerspaces Projects
Blending Technology Into Outdoor Lessons

Register online by May 31st to save $50 on registration for the session of your choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a group discount?
Yes, there is a group discount available. You can save $50/person if you have five or more people registering from your school district. Email me for a discount code to apply to online group registrations or to initiate a PO registration.

Can I register with a purchase order or check?
Yes, you can certainly register with a purchase order. Send me an email or have your business office send me an email to initiate that process. Because of the additional paperwork and delay in receiving funds, the early registration discount doesn't apply to purchase order registrations.

Can I get CEUs/ contact hours?
You will receive a certificate from me indicating that you participated in ten hours of professional development time. Whether or not your school, state, or province will accept it for license/ certificate renewal is a determination that you will have to make. The rules about CEUs vary widely from state-to-state and I can't possibly keep track of them all.

What platform are you using for the webinars?
All of the webinars will be conducted through the GoToWebinar platform. I've tried many other webinar services, but I keep coming back to GoToWebinar because of it's reliability. I've used it for almost a decade for hundreds of webinars. You can access GoToWebinar on any computer or tablet.

Will the sessions be recorded?
Yes, all of the live webinars will be recorded. If you have to miss a session, you'll be able to watch the recording. That said, I find that people get the most out of webinars when they can attend live broadcasts and ask questions in real-time. Therefore, I encourage you to pick the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp session that works best with your schedule.

Register Here!

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Grackle - Check Slide and Document Accessibility

This spring we have some grackles nesting in our hanging plants and in the eve of our covered back porch. Every morning I take a quick look at them when I'm drinking my coffee and letting our dogs out. This morning, looking at one of the mother grackles reminded me of a Google Docs and Slides add-on of the same name.

Grackle Slides is a Google Slides add-on that will evaluate the accessibility of your presentation and give you suggestions on how to improve the accessibility of your presentation. Watch the short video below to see how it works.

Grackle Slides is a companion to the Grackle Docs add-on for Google Documents that I featured last December. Watch my video about Grackle Docs as embedded below.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin and WayBetterSite. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

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Running Free Rivers

River Runner is a neat website that shows you how a drop of water travels from anywhere in the United States to the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. To use River Runner simply go to the site and click on any location in the United States. As soon as you click on the map, River Runner will generate and play an animation of the path that a drop of water would travel from that location to get to the ocean. You can stop the animation, rewind it, and fast forward it if you like. The animation is based on data collected from the USGS. The code for the site can be found here on GitHub.

Applications for Education

When I was in elementary school my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Gessay, had us draw the path that water would take from our school to Long Island Sound. I'm pretty sure that related to our field trip to Rocky Neck State Park later in the year. River Runner does essentially the same thing for students. Today, I'd have students do the same thing then use River Runner to check the accuracy of the paths they draw on their maps.

Using the River Runner site reminded me of the World Wildlife Fund's Free Rivers app. WWF Free Rivers is a free augmented reality app produced by the World Wildlife Foundation. The app uses augmented reality to present a story about rivers. WWF Free Rivers tells students stories about the implications of changes in weather patterns, damming rivers, and pollution on river ecosystems. Students interact with these stories by moving their iPads and or by pinching and zooming on elements in the stories. Unlike some other AR apps the animations within WWF Free Rivers can be experienced by students from a variety of angles. A great example of this is found early in the app when students can see what a dam does to a river. During that experience students can see the dam from above, from below, and from the sides.

H/T to Maps Mania for the River Runner site.

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