Friday 4 – November 9

A recent request that came my way was a desire to see a Friday 4 focused on more practical items that could be immediately employed by teachers or their students in the classroom. I do not think that I have focused an entire Friday 4 on “in the trenches” items before so…here you go!

• The single best source for me for practical technology-based tools/ideas/resources has to be the blog Freetech4teachers written by Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne). I have included items from Richard before in the Friday 4 and would encourage any and all teachers to add his blog to their google reader. He averages over 100 posts a month covering anything and everything tech related….all for FREE!
• One of the coolest site I have come across recently (thanks to Richard Byrne!) is the Google Cultural Institute. “The Google Cultural Institute helps preserve and promote culture online. With a team of dedicated engineers, Google is building tools that make it simple to tell the stories of our diverse cultural heritage and make them accessible worldwide.” The site includes video, images and audio files about just about any cultural event since 1850 that you can imagine, from the 1913 Land Act to D-Day to the 1972 GOP convention in Chicago to the Human Genome Project. Whether you are a classroom teachers looking for a way to spark interest in a topic or just want to learn something new, this site is worth checking out.
• Another fabulous resource for tools and lesson plans is the edtechteacher website. They have a great page at the site dedicated to Technology Tools For Teaching & Learning that will point you to resources to do all sorts of things with your students. A couple of examples from the site include:
  • I want my students to create web based mind maps / graphic organizers.
  • I want to connect my students to other students around the world.
  • I want my students to organize, bookmark and edit their research online.
• If you are a frequent reader of the Friday 4, you know that I am a big fan and user of many Google products including Google reader, Drive and G+. What you may not know is that Google has a massive library of free lesson plans for teachers. There was a recent article on the Edudemic website that describes and links to the Google in education site. The site is searchable by discipline, product type and age range.

I hope that this week’s items lead to a new idea, tool or project for your classroom. There is a wealth of information out there to be certain. If you run across a particularly good item, please share your findings in the comments section or send me an e-mail. I want to hear from you!