Patrick Donovan

Best Education Podcasts 2017

Podcasting is on the rise in terms of both popularity and creativity. According to Edison Research, 40 percent of people age 12 or older have …

How to Protect Students From Fake News

For those raised in the information age, life without the internet is no life at all. It is often a primary focus of a teen’s day (75% of teens are …

Should Students Take Notes on a Computer?

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for instructors to include notes regarding laptop and internet use in their course syllabi. Many instructors ban the use …

Tools for Creating Stop Motion Movies

Kevin Hodgson recently updated his excellent Making Stop Motion Movies website on which he features examples of student projects and provides good …

Book Creator is Now Live for All Chromebook Users

Earlier this summer Book Creator, a massively popular iPad app, was made available in a beta version for teachers to try on Chromebooks. As of this …

How to Use SeeSaw's New Messaging Option

SeeSaw is a great digital portfolio tool that works on Chromebooks, iPads, Android tablets, and any computer with a modern web browser. Earlier this …

Use a Screen Reader With Google Classroom

Earlier this week a follower of the Practical Ed Tech Facebook page asked if a screen reader could be used for Google Classroom. You can use a screen …

Three Google Classroom Updates That You Will Appreciate

Six updates to Google Classroom were released yesterday. Three of those updates could immediately improve your use of Google Classroom this fall. …

Benefits of Using Backchannels In Your Classroom

Over the years I've introduced a lot of teachers to using tools like Padlet, TodaysMeet, and Socrative in their classrooms. All three of these tools …

Screencast-o-Matic Now Offers Background Music

Screencast-o-matic has long been my favorite tool for creating screencasts on Windows and Mac computers. This morning I logged into my account and …

Try YouTube Live for Review Sessions - Breakfast With Tom Richey

This morning I opened YouTube to see a notification from my friend Tom Richey that he was going live with a review session for AP European History …

7 Ways to Use Google Keep in Your Classroom

This week's Practical Ed Tech Tip of the Week featured a demonstration of how to use Google Keep to annotate images. That is just one of many ways …

10 Ways to Use Google Earth in Your Classroom

A couple of weeks ago Google released the new web-based version of Google Earth (take a tour of it here). The older desktop version of Google Earth …

How to Create a Flowchart on Padlet

Late last month Padlet introduced a handful of new features. One of those features is the option to show connections between notes on a Padlet wall. …

Draw Your Own Illustrations - NETA 2017

10 Big Ideas for Technology Integration

I’m spending the day at the 2017 Iowa 1:1 Institute in Des Moines. Check out the conference website, session resources, and Twitter hashtag #i11i. …

Know Students Better: A Visual Guide to Formative Assessment Tools

When teachers know their students well, they can build strong connections that lead to better learning. Knowing students’ interests, strengths, and …

How to Annotate Images on a Chromebook

From time to time you may find yourself needing to highlight portions of an image or point out features of a diagram for your students. Or you may …

More Than 400 Science Animations

Learners TV, like many similar sites on the Internet, offers an index of math and science video lessons. What makes Learners TV a little different is …

Desmos Now Offers an Online Geometry Tool

Desmos, the company known for its online graphing calculator, recently released a new online geometry tool. Desmos Geometry is designed to help …

7 Google Product Updates You Might Have Missed in March

It can be hard to keep up with all of the changes and updates that Google makes to the products that have become an integral part of many teachers' …

Downloads On A Chromebook and 4 Other Tips for New Users

This morning I received an email from a reader who was concerned that her school was going to be using Chromebooks next year and she couldn't …

Pixlr Mobile - Easy Image Editing & Collage Creation

Last week I published a post about Pixlr's suite of online image editing tools. That post prompted a few questions from readers seeking iOS and …

5 Ways to Show YouTube Videos Without Related Content

Anyone who has ever opened YouTube in front of a classroom knows the feeling of dread that comes with hoping that the "related" content in the …

Formatically Helps Students Properly Format Essays

Formatically is a free service that helps students properly format their papers in MLA style.<br>Students can use Formatically without creating an …

Put a Planetarium In Your Web Browser

Planetarium by Neave Interactive is a website on which you can specify your current location and it will show you a map of the night sky based upon …

YouTube Is Removing Annotations Option - Try This Instead

Earlier this week Google announced that the option to add annotations to your YouTube videos will be going away on May 2nd. This is sad news for many …

Storymap JS - Tell Stories With Maps

The New York Times has a new feature called Harriet Tubman's Path to Freedom. The feature is a presented in scrolling map format. The map is combined …

How to Quickly Total a Spreadsheet Column

Google Sheets and spreadsheets in general offer a good format for organizing numerical data. If you have a lot of cells in a Google Sheets column …

Three Good Tools for Creating Screenshots on Chromebooks

Capturing an image of your screen as you see it at a particular moment in time can serve a lot of purposes in a school setting. You can use …