Author: Patrick Cauley

I teach middle school technology and love to play around with tech and teach students and colleagues alike. You can read my blog at www.itbabble.com

CloudApp – A review

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Do you ever have those apps that you like using. That you genuinely enjoy firing up and doing some work in it? Well CloudApp is one of those apps for me. I’ve been using for nearly a decade now and it just gets better and better.

What does it do?

In short, it performs four main functions.

  1. It can host images or media in the cloud
  2. It can take screenshots that you can crop, annotate
  3. It can take a video that you can quickly trim and add annotations to it
  4. You can upload files to quickly share (since I use Google Drive this isn’t such a big deal)

Not only can it do those things it has a nice web interface if you want to log into the website and use it. It has apps for Mac and Windows and even iOS so you can have all your content available on whatever platform you use. Heck they even have a Chrome Extension so it can work with Chromebooks. No Android app yet but I’m hopeful it will come soon.

There is a paid version but I think the free version would be more than enough for most people which is rare. Continue reading “CloudApp – A review” →

Buying Chromebooks next year? ORDER NOW!

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Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

This is more of a PSA than an opinion or review. If you are a school who buys/leases Chromebooks every year go ahead and order them now! From vendors I’ve talked to there is a backlog of Chromeook orders waiting to be filled. In fact we ordered 10 replacement Chromebooks in November of 2020 and are still waiting on them on now at the start of February 2021. Continue reading “Buying Chromebooks next year? ORDER NOW!” →

Social Media – Cautionary tales

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Before I get into the meat of this story I just want to say that I am not condoning any action taken by any party. This is not the point of this post.

This post is just to talk about how anything that is posted online is not private, does not truly delete itself and can be easily copied and shared at a later date. Be careful! Continue reading “Social Media – Cautionary tales” →

Royalty Free Images – Where to find them

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If you are still using the old “copy and paste” method from random websites to add images to your blog, worksheets or websites then you should stop. It’s probably a violation of copyright but there are better and more legal ways.

People are paying more attention to where photos come from and what they are being used for. Basically, if you have done the old copy and paste you may have committed a copyright violation. đŸ˜¦ You can always try and ask for permission but those requests usually go ignored.

A problem before was where do you find these images? Where can you go to safely and confidently know that you are downloading an image that is safe to use?

You can always sign up for an image repository website like stockphoto.com, gettyimages.com or shutterstock.com. These sites have millions of photos and you can either purchase them individually or sign up for a subscription and just download away, but if you’re a teacher and are just looking for something fun to drop in the corner of a worksheet this seems a little over the top. Not to mention these sites can get expensive fast.

Luckily, there are sites out there that can help you with this little predicament. These sites offer royalty free images that are also free to download and use. As always be sure to check each individual photo for its licenses or restrictions. Some may allow for download and use but won’t let you modify it, some may let you do whatever you want to it but require attribution. At any rate, here are four sites that I like to use. Continue reading “Royalty Free Images – Where to find them” →

Chromebook + Wacom tablet? Interesting

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I am quite interested in this. I have seen some Chromebooks with touchscreens and even a few of those may have a stylus, but the quality of those Chromebooks may leave a little something to be desired.

Then I saw this article in Engadget that says Wacom now has a drawing tablet that works with Chromebooks – no drivers or software installation needed! If you’re not familiar with Wacom, they make some of the best drawing tablets in the world. They also have some entry level tablets too which is where the One by Wacom (lousy name) comes into play. Continue reading “Chromebook + Wacom tablet? Interesting” →

Mote – Chrome Extension review

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OK, it’s a weird name but it has a pretty cool function.

This is an extension you can add to Chrome and use on a variety of Google products to leave audio comments. If you mark up an essay or digital document, all too often students will just take a look at the score at the top of the first page and maybe leaf through the rest of their work and then stuff it in a folder, trashcan, or some other dark region never to give it another thought.

This is obviously a problem as feedback is a pretty crucial part of the teaching-learning process. mote allows you to record audio feedback and add it to Any type of Google document (Docs, Sheets, Slides) and it also allows you to add comments on Google Classroom as well. Continue reading “Mote – Chrome Extension review” →

ChronoFlo timeline maker – Review

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To check out my sample timeline click this link.

https://www.chronoflotimeline.com/timeline/shared/4076/IT-Babble-Rocks/

I have to admit I am a sucker for a good timeline maker. Way back in 2011 Omar Ghosn (the co-founder) and myself decided to review a bunch of timeline generators to find the best one (at the time). You can find all those articles here.

Sadly many of those are no longer (RIP Dipity and TimeGlider) but now there is a new contender:

ChronoFlo Timeline Maker

This review will take a look at this new site and see if it is worth your time.

Continue reading “ChronoFlo timeline maker – Review” →

Episode 187 – Snow Days

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On this episode we talk snow days, football (RIP OSU) and quite a few other topics. Check out the agenda below and as always you can subscribe to us on Apple Music or your favorite podcasting app.

  1. Snow day and football
  2. How can we be independent from big tech companies?
    1. Independent hosting services
    2. GoDaddy, Blue Host
  3. Teachers teaching from home
    1. What they wanted vs what they got
  4. Blue Yeti Microphone
  5. YouTube Playlist
    1. Great for collecting, sharing and collaborating on resources
    2. https://itbabble.com/2021/01/11/youtube-how-to-make-a-playlist/

You can download the episode here

YouTube – How to make a playlist

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This is pretty easy and certainly not a new topic but YouTube does change a bit over time so I thought I would put together this hand dandy little guide (with beautiful pics) to help you out.

Keep in mind you must be logged into YouTube in order to create your own playlists to share with your students or to to keep for your own teaching (or personal enjoyment) needs.

Why make a playlist

If you’re big into lesson/unit planning this is a great way to organize these resources and have them on hand year after year. It’ll save you a bunch of time so you won’t be scrambling around for the last minute. I’ve perused YouTube plenty of times, stumbled across a great video that would assist my class and just dropped it into a playlist and keep on perusing.

Continue reading “YouTube – How to make a playlist” →