Latest education updates from around the world
Getting Your College Degree in Prison
The Second Chance Pell pilot program has permitted more than 28,000 students in prison to access Pell Grants in order to pursue higher education while imprisoned. The program will soon expand to all incarcerated individuals.
July’s Most Popular Posts on Free Technology for Teachers
The sun is setting on what turned out to be a great last day of July. I spent the last day of the month hanging out at the lake with my kids and going for a little bike ride. I hope that you ended the month in a similarly relaxing way. I say that because, to me, the switch from July to August always feels like mental switch to back-to-school season.
Online OCR- A Free Image to Text Converter
Five Good Resources for Learning About Airplanes and Airlines
We’re planning a little trip this fall to visit some family that we haven’t seen since before the start of the pandemic. When we told our daughters that we’re going to fly they got very excited about it. We’ve now been answering questions about flying seemingly nonstop for a few days. Those conversations prompted me to compile this list of resources for teaching and learning about the science of flight.
Turbulence: One of the Great Unsolved Mysteries of Physics is a TED-Ed lesson that explains what turbulence is and the forces that create it. The lesson explains […]
New Solution Synchronizes Audio and Visual Communications
The Attention! solution helps to reinforce campus communication by allowing all networked classroom audio and Interactive displays to work in concert to deliver announcements and alerts.
A Great Place to Find Lesson Plan Ideas
Earlier this week I published a lengthy piece about a new tool called TARA and how it can help you save time this fall. My favorite of all the features in TARA is the strategy resource bank that is available to any teacher who wants to use it. In the strategy resource bank you’ll find dozens of teaching strategies accompanied by free handouts to use in your classroom.
In this short video I provide a demonstration of […]
Flip, Focus, and Blueberries – The Week in Review
Good morning from Maine where the sun is shining and it’s going to be a great day to play outside. A couple of days ago I went on a bike ride and found a lot of wild Maine blueberries. So just like in Blueberries for Sal, this morning we’re going back with our pails to pick some wild Maine blueberries. Hopefully, we get enough to save some to have in our pancakes throughout the winter. I hope that you have something equally fun to do this weekend.
This week I hosted […]
The Art of Teaching Children- New Book for School teachers
5 Ways to Clean Out Your Gmail
How to clean out your gmail. You want to keep a clean inbox to increase your productivity. Here are 5 tips from Alice Keeler on how to keep your Gmail inbox clean.
The post 5 Ways to Clean Out Your Gmail appeared first on Teacher Tech.
Microsoft’s Battlefield AR Headset in Jeopardy After Deep Budget Cuts
Microsoft’s big defense contract that looks to supply the US Army with modified HoloLens AR headsets isn’t going so well. As first reported by Bloomberg, the Senate panel that oversees defense spending announced significant cuts to the Army’s fiscal 2023 procurement request for the device.
Microsoft announced last year it had won a US Army defense contact worth up to $22 billion to develop an Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a tactical AR headset for soldiers based on HoloLens 2 technology.
Now the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee announced it’s cut $350 million from the Army’s procurement plans […]
Flap to the Future to Learn About Dinosaurs and Birds
As I mentioned yesterday, my daughters are currently obsessed with Elinor Wonders Why and the question in its theme song, “why do birds sing and how do they fly?” Answering the question about how birds fly led me to The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and its online game called Flap to the Future.
Flap to the Future is an online game through which students can learn about the evolution of animal flight. The game has four levels for students to progress through. […]
‘Walkabout Mini Golf’ Releases New Course Based on ’80s Classic ‘LABYRINTH’
Walkabout Mini Golf (2020) always seems to rank among the top games on Quest, which is no doubt thanks to its uncommonly high degree of polish and consistently fun gameplay. Now developers Mighty Coconut have finally released the long-awaited paid DLC inspired by Jim Henson’s ’80s classic LABYRINTH (1986), letting you dive head first into a course set in a magical world filled with memorable characters and iconic scenes from the fantasy film.
Update (July 29th, 2022): Walkabout Mini Golf released its first licensed DLC, based on JIm Henson’s LABYRINTH.
The paid DLC is priced at […]
What is Kibo and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks
Kibo is a robotics and coding specialist that is ideal for education.
More Video Editing Features Coming to Chromebooks This Fall
Earlier this summer Google launched a new built-in screencasting tool for Chromebooks. This week Google announced that more video features will be added to Chromebooks in the fall.
The new video editing features on Chromebooks will actually be found inside of Google Photos on Chromebooks (availability for other platforms seems to be coming later). These will be an update to the current video creation options available in Google Photos. The updated video editing tools in Google Photos will let you create a video from scratch by combining pictures […]
‘COMPOUND’ Review – A Retro Roguelite Shooter That’s An Instant Classic
COMPOUND is a roguelite shooter fresh out of Steam Early Access that unabashedly owes a lot of its DNA to classic first-person shooters like Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Doom (1993). Far from being just a version of those old school games translated to VR, Compound brings its own stylish take to the genre and integrates VR-native mechanics at its core, which makes it feel right at home in the 21st century.
COMPOUND Details:
Available On: SteamVR, Quest 2 coming “soon”
Release Date: July 19th, 2022
Price: $20
Developer: Bevan McKechnie
Publisher: notdead
Reviewed On: Quest 2 via Link
Gameplay
You’re not fighting the Nazi regime or demons escaped from Hell in Compound; the enemy du […]
NaturalReader- An Excellent Online Text to Speech Tool
Roller Coaster Physics
Tomorrow I’m taking my oldest daughter to Storyland for a daddy-daughter hangout day before she starts Kindergarten in a few weeks. Her favorite ride is the Polar Coaster which is a roller coaster that is perfect for kids her age (and for 40-something dads who can’t really handle big roller coasters anymore).
Thinking about the Polar Coaster got me to look in my archives for some resources for teaching and learning about the physics of roller coasters. Unfortunately, everything that I wrote about the topic in the past is no longer available. Therefore, I compiled […]
Why Do Birds Sing?
My daughters have recently become obsessed with Elinor Wonders Why on PBS Kids. The theme song for the show includes the line, “Elinor wonders why, why do birds sing and how do they fly?” That line has been stuck in my head and playing on repeat for the last few days. So in a quest to answer Elinor’s question about why birds sing I went back in my archives and found a couple of helpful explanation.
FASTER! Create Rubrics for Google Classroom
Rubrics for Google Classroom are slow to create and hard to reuse. Try GC Rubric by Alice Keeler to create faster and better rubrics for Google Classroom.
The post FASTER! Create Rubrics for Google Classroom appeared first on Teacher Tech.
Using Minecraft to Launch An Esports Program
Minecraft is an excellent entry point for schools interested in starting esports programs
FTC Sues to Block Meta’s Acquisition of Top VR Fitness App Developer
In 2021 Meta announced its intention to acquire Within, the studio behind popular VR fitness app Supernatural; though neither company announced the deal price, reporting indicated a whopping $400 million price tag which may have caught the attention of the US Federal Trade Commission. Today the FTC moved to formally block the deal in what it says is an effort to protect competition.
Update (July 27th, 2022): Following reports late last year that the US Federal Trade Commission was scrutinizing Meta’s deal to acquire Within, the developer of the popular VR fitness app Supernatural, today the agency announced that it […]
How to Capture and Markup Web Pages in Microsoft Edge
This afternoon a reader of my weekly newsletter kindly pointed out that Microsoft removed the annotation tool that was in earlier versions of Microsoft Edge. However, there is still a built-in web page capture tool in Microsoft Edge. And that tool does include some basic markup capabilities.
In this new video I demonstrate how to capture and markup web pages in Microsoft Edge.
Applications for Education
The capture and markup tool in Edge can be useful if you want to draw attention to a specific part of a web page for instructional […]
Sony Promises Info on PSVR 2 Release Date & Launch Titles “Soon”
Sony has fully revealed PlayStation VR 2 at this point, but the company has still kept the PSVR 2 release date under wraps, with many wondering if it will come in 2022 or 2023. Well the company says it’ll finally reveal that info “soon.”
Earlier this week Sony revealed some new software features coming to PSVR 2. Subtly tucked into the same announcement were some teases that the company will “soon” share the last essential details everyone wants to know: PSVR 2 release date, price, and launch games.
The road to launch for PlayStation VR2 is in full […]
5 Good Apps for Writing Math Equations
1. Math Equatio
Not Your Average High School Finance Lesson
Thanks to one of Gary Stager’s recent LinkedIn posts I recently learned about an interesting high school investing and saving activity created by William Frey at Fryeburg Academy (just a few towns over from where I live).
A Unit on Saving and Investing for High School Students appears to be created to coincide with the use of The Stock Market Game. In the unit students gather and compare data about financial then use that information in the construction of a portfolio. What’s interesting about Mr. Frey’s […]