Resources from Two EdTech Guys Webinars
Taking Questions and Sharing Cool Stuff
Rushton Hurley of Next Vista for Learning and Richard Byrne of Free Technology For Teachers take your questions and share cool stuff in their free Friday webinars. Register at the Next Vista Instructional Continuity Webinars page.
Resources from the Webinars: June 12th, 2020
Richard shared the National Zoo's Educational Activities You Can Do at Home, which is one of The Smithsonian's National Zoo resources for teachers, students and families around the globe.
Rushton shared the short and inspiring videos of Great Big Story, and gave a particular shout-out to the story of Magic Wheelchair.
Resources from the Webinars: June 5th, 2020
Richard shared Acoustic Atlas - Sounds of the Wild West, an "audio tour of Montana's four major ecosystems."
Rushton shared OK Go Sandbox, which uses the wildly creative music videos from the band to spark learning.
Resources from the Webinars: May 29th, 2020
Richard shared the Digital Public Library of America, a collection of "37,142,275 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States." It is free to use (with attribution) under the CC by 3.0 License.
Rushton shared Kinder Rockets, a site from amazing educator Ben Cogswell with daily video lessons and nightly read-alouds for his kinderpeople.
Resources from the Webinars: May 22nd, 2020
Richard shared Pixabay Music, a resource for those looking for music they can legally use in projects for free.
Rushton shared the 5-Day Teacher Challenge, a project on his blog designed to help teachers have some fun together choosing one of two challenges each day over five days.
Resources from the Webinars: May 15th, 2020
Richard shared the Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse Sets, a wealth of legally-available content you can use with your classes.
Rushton shared Naraview, a research game for connecting two Wikipedia articles by two Israeli educators. Thanks to Guy Bresler for joining us on the video chat after the recording and demonstrating the game!
Resources from the Webinars: May 8th, 2020
Richard shared Loom, a screencasting tool that now has a strong iPad and iPhone app. They are working on one for Android, too.
Rushton shared the Agora Images contest The World of Work 2020, with 50 images from around the globe that include the theme of work in amazing variety.
Resources from the Webinars: May 1st, 2020
Richard shared Ofee, a student-created platform for creating "experiences" (lessons, etc.) that one can charge for or offer for free. When offering for free, the creator can ask that viewers donate to an identify charity, and Ofee will waive any transaction fees to help make that happen.
Rushton shared the Lisa Kristine Gallery exhibit, Intimate Expanse, a stunning set of images from photographer Lisa Kristine on her travels. Some of the images have descriptions, and with or with them, you can have students work with the images to generate questions, fill in gaps in the story, etc.
Resources from the Webinars: April 24th, 2020
Richard shared Kidpofy, a resource for turning one's handwriting into a font file you can use on your computer. We don't know how to pronounce the name of the company, but we think it's cool that a student's handwriting can become a font!
Rushton shared Goat 2 Meeting, an offering from Sweet Farm, an animal sanctuary, to rent time with one of their animals for your next Zoom meeting. Whether having, say, a llama join your next meeting sounds interesting to you, this is a brilliantly creative way to adjust one's business model during shelter-in-place, and can serve as strong fodder for discussions on cool ways to deal with one's circumstances.
Resources from the Webinars: April 17th, 2020
Richard shared Video Puppet, an easy tool for editing video.
Rushton shared Street View's 15 Favorite Street Views, a post on the Street View blog with some excellent spots around (and above) the world to explore using Street View.
Resources from the Webinars: April 10th, 2020
Holly shared Brush Ninja, a free animated GIF creator well-suited for educators.
Jesse shared AltspaceVR, a VR space for anyone "to attend live shows, meetups, cool classes, and more with friendly people from around the world."
Rushton shared WideOpenSchool from Common Sense Media, which allows those at home looking for engaging online learning possibilities to find field trips and other high-quality resources.
Resources from the Webinars: April 3rd, 2020
Richard showed us Wheel of Names, a simple tool for choosing a name from a list. The list can have up to 200 names that make it to the wheel, though if there are more, then 200 of them will be on the wheel. One can save and import a list, as well.
Rushton suggested Book Creator for Chrome as a way to combine text, images, voice recordings, video, and more into digital books that can be shared easily, even with those who don't have a Book Creator account.
Rushton shared the link to make a copy of Torrey Trust's check-in survey for her students. It asks how they are feeling, what challenges are having an impact on their work, and more. Trust is a the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and is a past president of the ISTE Teacher Education Network.
Resources from the Webinars: March 27th, 2020
Richard pointed would-be podcasters to Anchor FM, which bills itself as the easiest way to make a podcast. It's also a great tool for sharing audio work for students creating simple to sophisticated pieces. Get more info on their newest features at Richard's blog post on this tool.
Rushton introduced SpeakPipe Voice Recorder, a simple (and free) audio recording site that requires no account nor payment. This tool requires going to exactly the correct address, or you won't see that it is free. Recorded messages can be up to five minutes long, and will last on their servers for three months. Following the created link, though, one can download the recording as an MP3 audio file.
Rushton suggested this summary of ten tips for online teaching from Monica Martinez. It is focused on teachers who have made the shift to online teaching as a result of school closures. Well written, and like all of Monica's work, well designed!
Finding good tutorials for the tools you are using is a critical activity for teachers who have shifted to online learning and need some help. Eric Curts' set of videos for Google Classroom, as well as his video set for Google Meet, are cleverly presented, easy to understand, and a good length for covering the topic without taking more of your time than you have.