Google Docs Tips and Tricks

I have posted many times about Free Technology for Teachers, Richard Byrne's blog.  He provides so many wonderful resources and is one of my go tos!  I wanted to include a couple of his blogs about add-ons for Google Docs.  Add-ons are additional tools or apps that can extend what you can do with Google Docs.  He has a blog about Add-ons and one about creating a Word Cloud using on of these Add-ons.

How to Create a Word Cloud in Google Documents

How to Install Google Documents Add-ons

Take a look at his blog, I know you will find as many useful resources as I do!

Bizarre Borders - Fun Geography and History Lessons

Another great post from Richard Byrne - this features videos from a Youtube channel.  Yes, I know that many schools block Youtube but there is usually a way to bypass those filters or you can use something like Ant.com video to download them.  I loved the video about the American and Canadian border, it was funny without being ridiculous and very informative. .

Bizarre Borders - Fun Geography and History Lessons

Tons of Halloween Resources from Larry Ferlazzo

Larry Ferlazzo provides great resources for ELL teachers, but many of these are just plain good for all teachers.  With this in mind I thought I would include a link to his "The Best Websites for Learning About Halloween".  It is that time of year and many teachers are looking for ways to enhance learning while engaging students.  Check out these resources! To access the list click here.

More Google Apps Resources from Richard Byrne

Free Technology for Teachers has to be one of my favorite educational blogs, Richard Byrne provides wonderful resources and tutorials for teachers that enhance their use of technology.  Here is a blog featuring a link to his many Google Apps videos.

65 Videos about Google Apps

This is phenomenal, I saw it on Larry Ferlazzo's blog and it is awesome.

World Without Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers posted a really great link to a series of YouTube videos for students.  The video featured is called A Crash Course for Kids on Weathering and Erosion.  There is a whole series called A Crash Course for Kids featuring videos on a variety of topics that would be great for teachers.

A Crash Course

I have a couple links I want to share today, they are just fun things, helpful sites that might make teaching a learning a bit easier.

The first one I just love, the whole idea is so helpful.  It is called Bouncy Balls and it monitors classroom noise levels.  You do need to have a microphone and I understand from the Teacher's First blog it was a little difficult to get that going but once you do the balls let your students know what their noise level is.  Just a little thing but it is such a nice visual.  I think you would initially have to let the kids make the balls bounce, get the fun of the thing out of the way but if you used it regularly I think it might be helpful.

Bouncy Balls

The next one is Just Flip a Coin and that is just what it does, great fun but also great for probabilities!

Just flip a coin