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In the past 2 weeks that I have been back to school, the College of Education handed out iPads to all students. This is my first time ever owning an iPad, so I was really excited to try it out and start making it my own. However, the iPads were issued to us mainly so that we can start thinking about how to incorporate technology in our own classroom learning someday. Richard Byrne created a Blog which is all about technology for teachers to use that is free. Interested, I decided to pick his particular website to read for my review, and I am so glad that I did. It is packed full of information, including free websites, apps, and descriptions of how teachers can incorporate them into their lessons. There is even a section about Ipad apps for school, which was perfect for me to check out on my new Ipad. Before I discuss some of the great technology I just learned about, I will discuss a little about Richard Byrne. Richard is a former high school social studies teacher. He taught for 8 and a half years, and during that time he started creating his blog and doing other various things with technology. He has since been invited to speak different places all over the world, and is focused on sharing "free resources that educators can use to enhance their students' learning experiences." He discusses all of his awards and services in his about me section of his blog. His blog is so intriguing, and contains multiple resources and ideas of new technology for teachers. However, for this review, I will discuss his most recent post just published yesterday, September 1st, 2016. He mentions how at the end of each month he likes to look at the most common search terms that were searched for on his website, so he can expand on some of these terms in further detail. At the end of August, the most common searches were for timers, word clouds, and Kahoot. He mentions how the easiest way to start a timer in class is just to search Google for "set timer", and set the allotted time needed. He mentions one other timer as well: Russel Tarr's Classtools Countdown Timer where you can set multiple timers at once, and have the option to set music to your timers. For word clouds, he mentions how they are nice way to visualize the most frequently used words in a passage of a text. The most popular website to use for this is wordclouds.com. Websites like these are great for teachers to use to help their visual learners. Richard even includes his own Youtube tutorial on how to make word clouds, which I have included in this review. Lastly, he talks about Kahoot, a website where teachers can make review games for their students. I have actually had the chance to use Kahoot in a couple of my classes in college, and would highly recommend it to anyone. It is a great way to bring fun and friendly competition into review. Richard Byrne is very informational, and his blog is definitely one that I will be going back to look at throughout my journey to becoming a teacher.
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