Free Technology for Teachers - 2 new articles

The Best Adobe Spark Alternative was one of last week's most popular posts here on Free Technology for Teachers. The alternative that I recommended in that post was Adobe Creative Cloud Express which is the new name for Adobe Spark. If you're looking ...

Click here to read this mailing online.

Your email updates, powered by FeedBlitz

Here are the latest updates for nurhasaan10@gmail.com


"Free Technology for Teachers" - 2 new articles

  1. More Adobe Spark Alternatives
  2. One Simple Tool Streamlined My Appointment Scheduling Process
  3. More Recent Articles

More Adobe Spark Alternatives

The Best Adobe Spark Alternative was one of last week's most popular posts here on Free Technology for Teachers. The alternative that I recommended in that post was Adobe Creative Cloud Express which is the new name for Adobe Spark. If you're looking for other alternatives to Adobe Spark for creating audio slideshow videos, here are a few options to consider. 

Before you jump to the list of alternatives, here are some things to consider when you have students create audio slideshow videos. 

Canva
Canva offers two ways for students to create audio slideshow videos. The first way is to simply put together a series of slides and then select a soundtrack to play in the background. That process is demonstrated here. The other method is to use Canva's full video editor to add narration an custom timings to an audio slideshow video. That process is demonstrated in this video.

Microsoft Photos

Microsoft Photos includes a video creation tool for making short audio slideshow-style videos. You'll find this by just opening the native photos app in Windows 10. Within the editor there are tools for adding animated effects to still images, insert your existing video clips into a video project, and tools for adding audio to your video. There's also a great option to search for Creative Commons licensed images and insert them directly into your video project. The best part of that feature is that attribution information is automatically added onto the images you choose through the built-in search tool. In this video I provide a demonstration of how to create a video in Microsoft Photos in Windows 10.

Phideo

Phideo is a relatively new online tool for creating audio slideshow videos. Registration is not required in order to use Phideo. Simply go to the site and upload the images that you want to use in your video. You can rearrange the image sequence after uploading your images. Phideo provides a library of audio tracks that you can use as background music in your videos. Alternatively, you can upload your own audio files (just remember to be mindful of copyright restrictions). All of the Phideo video creation options are demonstrated in my tutorial video about it.

 

   

One Simple Tool Streamlined My Appointment Scheduling Process

For as long as it has been available I've used appointment slots in Google Calendar when scheduling meetings with colleagues and or students. That works very well when everyone is in the same Google Workspace domain, but it gets a little quirky when you try to use it with people who are outside of your domain. 

Earlier this month I started to experience the shortcomings of Google Calendar appointment slots when I was scheduling a bunch of meetings with companies who will be announcing new things during the ISTE conference in June. The solution to my problems was to start using Calendly

In Calendly I was able to create a calendar of my meeting availability and let people click on it to book meetings with me. People can book meetings with any email account they want to use. I connected my Zoom account to my Calendly account so that a Zoom meeting is automatically created and scheduled when someone books a meeting. Additionally, I linked Calendly to Google Calendar so that all meetings appear on my Google Calendar as well as in my Calendly calendar. (Calendly can also be used with Outlook and Teams). 

I'm using Calendly's free plan (shocker, I know). There are paid plans that give you more features like the ability to create multiple meeting types, but that would probably just add confusion back into my scheduling process. 

Applications for Education
Appointment slots in Google Calendar is great if you only need to schedule appointments with colleagues and students who are within your Google Workspace domain. But if you need an appointment scheduling tool to use with people who aren't a part of your domain, Calendly is a great tool for that.

 
   

More Recent Articles


Previous
Next Post »