So you love NotebookLM’s audio overviews feature, but it’s a pain to listen to them on the go. What if you could listen to them on your favorite podcast player? You can! I found a tool called PushPod that lets you create a private podcast using a Dropbox or OneDrive folder. This tutorial will show […]
How Generative AI Helps Me Maintain Flow When Writing
Writing has always been a challenge for me. It’s hard to maintain flow because I often fall into the trap of editing while writing. I will show you one way I used ChatGPT Plus to avoid that trap, and then I’ll mention some of the free options available to do the same thing. I’ll also […]
Reboot: Making Sense of AI in Education
I’ll get write to it. I’m rebooting my blog because of AI. I’ve worked in K-12 education for fourteen years, and I’ve never seen a new technology emerge with the power to radically change our world with such power and speed. Tablets, 3D printers, smartboards, 1:1 classrooms, those were iterative developments that (not always) enhanced […]
Sparking Student Creativity with Abstract Ice Cream Cones
How can we help kids be more creative? It’s a question I often think about when working with students at Garden Street Academy. Creative thinkers make better problem-solvers. Here’s a bit of insight I recently had with sixth graders in my 3D printing and design class. I’m teaching them to design for our 3D printers […]
How to Change the Background Color of an Apple Pages Document
Have you ever wanted to change the background color of an Apple Pages document? If the document has full-page body text (instead of text boxes), and you try to drag a photo, shape, or object onto the page, you’ll notice that the text either gets pushed around like two magnets repelling each other, or it gets covered up. This quick tutorial […]
Taking Notes in Class: Laptops vs. Handwriting
I didn’t get my first computer until my third year of college in 1995. It was a giant, Windows 95 tower PC (a P120 with 16MB of RAM). Laptops were not common, and no one used anything but pen and paper to take notes during class lectures. Forward to today, and laptops and tablets are […]
Dinosaur Timelines and Time Scales for Class Reports and Projects
Dinosaurs are a popular topic in schools, especially with younger students. One of the important bits of information students learn is when dinosaurs lived. However, I couldn’t find any simple dinosaur timelines or time scale that students could print out and use to show when a dinosaur lived. Dinosaurs roamed the earth for 181 million years. It can be challenging for […]
Bad Data – Carbon Monoxide Eruption Over Western North America Not Real
This post is a bit out of the scope of this blog, but I think it has important implications for making sure our students develop solid critical thinking skills. A few days ago, people began noticing an apparent eruption of carbon monoxide (CO) in western North America as seen on Cameron Beccario’s excellent animated map of global […]
How to Make a Random Slideshow in Mac OS X Using the Screen Saver
When Apple replaced iPhoto with the new Photos app in OS X Yosemite, we lost the ability to shuffle (randomize) the slide order. This was a big loss for those of us who have to quickly create slideshows from a large number of photos for a party or school event. Often we’ll have several photos […]
Analog EdTech – We Don’t Need No Stinking Electrons!
The best, most engaging learning experiences don’t have to come with wires attached. I saw a beautiful reminder of that when I came across this photo tweeted by Danielle Harlow (@Dani805). Along with the photo she tweeted, “My daughter brought her magnifying glass on our walk to pre-school. Made our walk a constant investigation.” I spend most […]