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Everyone who reads this blog knows I'm a huge fan of Chromebooks , especially for education. One area that I get asked about often is 3D CAD and 3D Printing. So here is some info. I am by no means an expert on 3D printing though. Tinkercad is a completely web-based, 3D CAD system that works on Chromebooks. I've used it and found it easy to use and pretty powerful (and I've used systems like CATIA, Pro-Engineer and SolidWorks). You can easily download the STL file to use with the 3D printer. Tinkercad also has some great resources to help you learn how to use it. I haven't found a 3D printer that would work directly from a Chromebook, but even Windows laptop schools connect a powerful desktop to their 3D printer to do the rendering and printing and allow the student to use their device for other things while the job runs. Some printers even have built in support for accessing files from media devices like flash drives so you can print direct. So, students can do their d...

CK-12 , a great resource for free e-textbook and curricular resources, has just announced that it is integrating with Google Classroom. Google recently updated Classroom to allow third parties to integrate and share with Classroom and CK-12 has just done that. The Google Classroom share button is now in CK-12 so teachers and students can access all of the content in CK-12 from within Google Classroom. A teacher can easily share any textbook, video, activity or assignment they find in CK-12 right into Classroom for their students to access. Check out this video that shows how it works: Related: More about CK-12 and their excellent resources More about Google Classroom -

Astute Hoot, a site, run by educators, that has reading and math strategy animals and accompanying books, hands-on tools, lessons, and graphic organizers, has a free download that has 10 template and sample files for teachers to help them get the new school year started a little easier. The FREE Top 10 Tools for Back to School includes the following sample files: 1. Beginning of the Year Checklist 2. Golden Keys to Success Responsibility Chart 3. Golden Keys to Success Parent Brochure 4. Routines, Procedures & Transitions: Walking in line 5. Icebreaker Activity: Top 10 About Me 6. Common Core Reading Strategies Poster 7. Behavior Reflection Think Sheet 8. First Day of School Lesson Plan 9. Social Story--Following Directions 10. Parent Welcome Letter sample Take a look. Related: Welcome Back! Some great resources to get your school year started -

The Mozilla Foundation is a global nonprofit that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet. Their mission is to improve universal web literacy , or the ability to read, write and participate on the Web. This summer, Mozilla is rolling out new, free tools and curriculum to help learners of all ages achieve web literacy. Webmaker Beta  is a free, open source Android app that allows smartphone users of any skill level to create original content online. Here is a  blog post on Webmaker  and you can download it  here .  Maker Party is Mozilla's annual global campaign to teach web literacy through hands-on learning. This year, from July 15 - 31, educators and students can use their  curriculum and teach others how to read, write and participate online. Activities touch on privacy, HTML, collaboration and more. You can read more about it  here . It's very much a networked initiative: individuals and organizat...

The Teachers Guild is a really interesting new initiative with the goal to "Bring together teachers, just like you, to collaborate and solve 30 education challenges in three years. Building on each others’ ideas, we will amaze our students, schools and the greater system with a flood of new and better solutions designed by and for teachers." It is an ambitious, worthy goal that has some great potential. Finally, someone sees the fact that teachers are the experts in education and need to be part of any project or reform that has to do with education. David Harrington, from Google, has a great explanation on LinkedIn  (read more at the link): This is about an enabler, and it’s brand new this week. It’s called The Teachers Guild , created by an innovation group that includes the world-famous design firm IDEO and Google . Both Ideo and Google use Design Thinking, a process that was created pre-1970, expanded in the 80's and 90's, and has now moved beyond the narrower ...

Chromebooks and Google Apps are excellent assistive technology (AT) that help students with special needs access curriculum and information. Google Apps and Extensions in the Chrome Web Store provide many supports to students with learning challenges. Chromebooks allow students to access curriculum while avoiding their triggers. Online curriculum and resources allow them to work without distraction, which lowers anxiety. Chromebooks also allow students to access additional resources to support their learning and address their individual needs. There are specialized web apps, screen readers, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, screen magnifies, curriculum resources, lesson ideas, collaboration tools and so much more. The following links provide an overview of extension and apps available to support students with special needs. Resources: Google Accessibility Features and Resources - resources about all of the accessibility features in all of Google’s products. The Google Products Acces...

In the past, I've written about the technology I use on a daily basis (see bottom of page for links). Here's my updated version for Summer, 2015. I'm a huge user of Google Apps and Evernote . They are my main work, and personal tools, and all of my devices work with them. Without these, I'm stuck. I also back them both up. My personal smartphone is an HTC One M7 running Android. I love it. I can do anything on it - email, web browsing, Google Apps, Evernote, messaging, photos, musics, etc. I is my go-to device. I have an external battery for traveling, but the battery life is pretty good. It's also durable, as I've dropped it a few times and it's still here - no case either. I'm due for an upgrade next month, so I'm looking to see what I will get next. I'm thinking about the new Nexus 5 that is rumored, or the HTC One M9. I chose not to get a work smartphone so I didn't have to carry two devices around all day. I have the same work and per...

I've been away from this blog for a while because I've taken a new position. I am now working for CDW-G  in the K-12 group. I will be working with school districts to assist them with selecting and implementing technology solutions to help them improve teaching and learning. I will also be supporting customers as a Google Apps and Chromebooks Specialist. I will still be updating this blog as I can with free resources, tips and updates. This change was made after taking time to think it through and I decided it was the best thing for me and my family. So far, I'm really enjoying it. I also became a Google Apps Certified Administrator last week. I setup and deployed Google Apps to all 26,000 users in Bridgeport, CT, as well as deploying over 11,000 Chromebooks while there. I've also worked with over 30 other school districts setting up and deploying Google Apps and Chromebooks. -

Google Classroom is an excellent tool from Google that allows students and teachers to collaborate and communicate and allows teachers to assign work to students, collect that work, grade it and comment on it and return it to the student. One limiting factor in using it was the fact that the students and teachers had to be in the same Google apps domain. Many schools use separate domains. That has now changed. You can whitelist each domain in each admin console and allow them to work together in classroom. Simply follow the instructions here:  https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6173514 It's easy to do and make Classroom accessible to even more schools. Google Classroom Resources for Educators -