I wanted to show a video from the National Geographic YouTube channel to a World Cultures class. Typically, I just link to the video, and when it opens in a browser I launch the full screen option before playing. However, the comments that were associated with this video were not so nice and I did not want the students to see the language onscreen before I played the clip. I need to launch into full [...]

Ever want to know what is new at Discovery Education in your subject area and grade level? Well know there is an easy way to find out without logging into the web site and searching. All we have to do is create an RSS feed! Watch the tutorial below to find out how! Please keep in mind that you must have a Discovery Education account, and an RSS reader account. In this example, I will [...]

A colleague wanted to make a PowerPoint presentation available on her blog site for students to view. I told her that we could post the presentation as a .pps (PowerPoint Show) file on the site for students to download. But I reminded her that we never really know if the end user (the students) has the software capable of viewing at home. To post something that might not be usable would be frustrating. That led [...]

According to CrunchBase, “Storybird is organizing the world’s most beautiful narrative art to make it simple for families and friends to create short, visual stories together that they can share and print. We’re part ETSY, Flickr, and Blurb—optimized for a world of PoD, iPhones, and tablets.” I stumbled across this site by accident in a magazine. I went to the web site and looked around and it does seem very simple to create. I had [...]

I like to use Audacity, a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems, when working with teachers on multi-media projects that require sound. The folks at makeuseof.com have written about three tips for enhancing a recorded interview. If you have ever wanted to learn how to remove background noises, amplify quiet voices, or add a nice musical introduction to your recordings, then check it [...]

In a previous post, I shared how to set the starting point of a YouTube video by appending the link URL with some extra code. I thought this would be helpful for many. But no, that wasn’t good enough for some, and I was asked how to do the same but with an embedded YouTube video. Thanks, Tim! Well, you asked, and I will answer! Below is the embed code for the same video by [...]

Sometimes you might need to show a clip from a YouTube video but don’t want to show all of it. If you are presenting in front of a class, fiddling around with the slider to the proper location might be distracting for the students and waste valuable class time. So, how do you get a video to start at just the right place? Well of course, you could have the video preset so that when [...]

A colleague asked me if I could suggest a way to communicate with parents about their elementary-age children during the school year. She wanted a record of all correspondence, feedback from parents/guardians, and a simple way to manage it. As I listened to her needs I considered a variety of options including Moodle, WordPress, and Outlook e-mail groups. But ultimately, I recommended a Ning site for this situation. Ning is free social networking software. Create [...]

Why Google Docs? Import existing docs, or create new ones from scratch. Edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations from anywhere. Share docs online and collaborate instantly. Store docs securely online. Eliminate confusing email attachments and version-control issues. To get you started, here is a Quick Start Guide to Google Docs!