Weekend Website #86: Periodic Table of Videos

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Each video explains the element in video with simple details in text

Address:

Periodic Table of Elements

Age:

6th grade+

Topic:

Science

Review

This website explores the periodic table of elements via video. Each element is linked to a 7-10 minute video discussing it in that uniquely-British approach of staid enthusiasm. Here’s an example of titanium:

The concept was the idea of video journalist Brady Haran. He had been making films with scientists in Nottingham, England (see Test Tube) and approached Professor Poliakoff at the University of Nottingham. The Professor loved the idea and almost immediately started reeling off great stories and information from the top of his head. Other scientists from the university chemistry department also helped in their areas of expertise.

Besides these 119 videos, the website has a section for ‘other’ science videos (always with a bit of humor infused–you’ll love the Elements Song), 41 Molecule videos, Road Trip photos (including an amazing picture of the periodic table in cupcakes), and sixty videos about the symbols of physics and astronomy.

It’s worth noting: If you access the videos from the website, there are no ads. Thank you, Brits!

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Dear Otto: What iPad Apps Do You Recommend?

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers

Do you have a tech quesion?

about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Christine:

Q: Hi,  I teach 8th grade Physical science and next year all of my students will be issued their own ipad.  Any tips on how to find good apps and examples of lessons that use the ipad? Thanks!

A: There are any number of websites that promise a list of iPad apps for education. Some are free, some not and in my experience, they’re particular to a teacher’s interests. Instead of those, I’d recommend going to the Twitter hashtag #ipaded. This stream highlights realtime iPad apps that are recommended by active educators. For example, there’s one called SimplePhysicsyou might enjoy.

Here are some more from my e-colleague Tony:

• Quixey: a search engine of all apps – for Android as well as iPhone & iPad
• Appitic: one of my favourites – collections of apps by theme
• Appolicious: probably the largest collection of reviewed apps – well worth a look!
• iPad apps perfect for ES: a selection of apps that come highly recommended by ‘experts’
• iKidApps: you can search by age or subject and you’ll find great reviews on a load of different apps
• iPad Apps used in school–the list Tony uses. I love it.
• iPad Apps for Education--a comprehensive list from Kathy Shrock

What iPad apps do you recommend?

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, an Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller she just finished. Any ideas? Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab.

Top 13 Web 2.0 Tools for Classrooms

Every day in my K-8 tech classes, I use a variety of cloud-based tools to enhance the learning experience for my students. There are more of these ‘Web 2.0′ tools than I can keep up

Online tools for education

with, but when you teach tech or coordinate technology for your school, ‘keeping up’ is part of your job.

Here’s how I determine which of these hundreds (thousands?) of tools are student-ready:

• Before I introduce a tool to  my class, I try it myself. Can I get it to work with ease? Is it intuitive or will it require teaching? Does it work as promised? Are there intrusive ads? Will students get distracted as they work through the steps required to complete the assignment?
• Next, I query my social networks to determine the experiences of fellow tech teachers. Have they had much success with this tool? Any problems they ran into? Is it stable? If my e-colleagues find that the glamour of the Web tool is only skin deep, I move on. Of course, sometimes I’m ahead of the curve and my colleagues are unfamiliar with the tool. Truth, that rarely happens. There’s always someone somewhere who has experience.

If a tool passes these two tests, I try it in class. Since I teach over 430 students every week, that’s the true beaker. If a program survives the hands-on  grade-level labor of dozens of students, if they can get through the required steps to create a project that supports their learning in new creative ways and still have fun, I’ve found a good tool.

Here’s my list of 2011 favorites that have run that gauntlet:

1. BigHugeLabs–create trading cards, posters, puzzles, mosaics using the student’s own images. Quick, easy, pain-free and fun
2. Bubbl.us–create mind-maps to brainstorm topics. No-frills and easy to use
3. GettingTrickyWithWikis–format wikis with lots of bling to better communicate ideas
4. iMindMap (free version)–create mind maps easily that inspire brainstorming
5. Jing–take screenshots and screencasts for free. No ads. Require registration to install software.
6. Polldaddy–create surveys and polls and embed them into blogs, wikis, websites (for free)
7. Scribd–share lots of document formats with the public or a limited audience for easy viewing online. Embeddable into websites, blogs, and more.
8. Tagxedo–create word clouds with unique shapes, colors, that can be saved, printed and embedded to wikis, blogs, etc.
9. Voki–create avatars that interact visually and audibly with others
10. Wikispaces–free wikis for educators. They’re simple to use and easy to set up.
11. Wolfram Alpha Widget Maker–instantly add live computational knowledge to your blog or website. Create your own or use someone else’s.
12. WordPress.com–build and share a blog with students or classes or colleagues. WordPress is the simplest of the many I’ve tried, with the most options.
13. Xtranormal  (free version)–produce short films with virtual characters and a text to speech facility

Here are a few more great ones that I didn’t consider in my Top 13 because most educators already know about them:

• Edmodo–a micro-blogging service (like Twitter) for teachers and students. Use it to share information, set and collect assignments and more.
• Glogster–create media rich online posters that can be embedded into wikis, blogs and more.
• Google Apps–offer a suite of Google Apps designed especially for educators. Include Google Docs, Google Mail, and Google Sites
• Khan Academy–offers a library of over 2,700 free videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 268 practice exercises,
• Livebinders–organize your resources in an online three ring binder
• Prezi–create awesome presentations live and on the web!
• Voicethread–collaborate online by sharing media and comments. The perfect tool for whole class projects.
• Wordle–generate word clouds quickly.

Should be on the list, but I’ve had too many problems either in their set-up or stability of their platform:

• MuseumBox–lets you describe an event, person, or historical period by placing items into a virtual, interactive box. Unfortunately, several times, it has been inoperative and that’s a nonstarter for a teacher. We plan a lesson. All the parts must work reliably.
• Only2Clicks–a visual collection of website links. Same problem as MuseiumBox.
• Wallwisher–build a wall to share ideas, online notices, notes, and more.  Same complaint as the first two.

Please take a minute to vote in my poll and share which tool is your favorite. If you have a different one, leave a comment.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and author of two technology training books for middle school. She wrote Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a tech columnist forExaminer.com, Editorial Review Board member for ISTE’s Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller Any suggestions? Contact Jacqui at her writing office, WordDreams, or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I push ‘PrintScreen’ (or PrtScn) and nothing happens.

A: I have to teach this as a full-blown lesson in class because it is so counter-intuitive, even adults don’t get it.

• When you push PrintScreen, it saves a copy of your screen to the clipboard. Now, you must tell the computer where to put it.
• For example, open MS Word and a new document. Paste (using Ctrl+V or right click+paste or the icon on the toolbar–or Edit-paste) and a copy of your screen will appear as a picture.

It can be pasted into docs, emails, cards, wherever you’d like.  Just don’t forget to paste it!

Monday Freebies #32: Color my Grammar

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Color My Grammar

Students type several sentences in MS Word. Use the font color palette to label parts of speech, i.e., blue for subject, red for verb. Use sentences from a book they’re reading in class, spelling words they’re working on, or a teacher hand-out. Makes grammar fun.

Click on lessons for a full size alternative.

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom. Preview available on Amazon.com and Scribd.com

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman.  She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Weekend Website #85: 11 Sizzling Space Sites

I just finished a space unit with my 5th graders and wanted to share some of the websites we visited to support that theme:

1. 360 degrees Moon View
2. Land on the Moon
3. NASA City
4. Satellite Fly-bys–by zip code
5. Solar system–3D
6. Solar system
7. Space–explore it
8. Spacesuits–clickable
9. Space sounds
10. Space station game
11. We Choose the Moon

Do you have any I missed?

To sign up for Weekend Websites delivered to your email, click Weekend Websites here.

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What Should You Expect of Younger Keyboarders?

Keyboarding hints for youngers

Before I answer that question, let’s back up a step and answer a more fundamental question: Should you expect youngers to keyboard? I’m talking about students between kindergarten and fifth grade. Are they mature enough? Do they have the fine motor skills required to use the pinkie to push the A key? Do they have that kind of focus and concentration?

The answer is: Yes, as a rule, though when I reviewed the literature on this subject, it is all over the place as far as when students should/could begin. Some say third grade; some say not until fifth or sixth. From my experience, it’s third grade, though I teach pre-keyboard skills as young as kindergarten. That might be why my students are ready in third grade.

Here’s a caveat: You’ll have to be the arbiter as to whether this is true for your group. If you determine your students aren’t ready, wait a year. You’re the teacher. You’ll know when they’re ready.

Once you decide, the next question is: At what age and how fast should kids type? Here’s a quick answer. Prepare kindergarteners by teaching pre-keyboard skills like posture, hand placement, mouse skills, some shortkeys. This gives their young brains and their immature fine motor skills time to develop. When you determine they’re ready, move on to speed and accuracy.

Me, I’ve come to conclusions that fit my particular K-8 students. Their demographics include:

• private school
• parents support emphasis on keyboarding
• most have computers at home; actually, most have their own computer at home
• students are willing to practice keyboarding in class and submit homework that is oriented to keyboarding

How To Successfully Start a 1:1 Technology Program

There is a lot of interest in the education field about 1:1 technology–using laptops, iPads, or even smartphones to extend a students’ learning experience throughout the school day. 1:1 initiatives address universal

The popularity of tablets, netbooks, Chromebooks has brought 1:1 technology closer to reality

themes of equity in education, engagement of all learners, and empowerment as students learn skills that can be transferred to adulthood. It is a question I get often from readers and one I don’t yet have a good answer to. The program is relatively new and requires research in areas such as pedagogy, technology infrastructure, school district policy, stakeholder professional development, community engagement, funding, and organization before it can mature into a sustainable model for schools across the country.

That’s why I was thrilled when Mark Pullen offered to share his thoughts with me. He has first-hand experience using 1:1 technology in the classroom so has first-hand experience with its set up and roll out. He isn’t going to make the decision for you, merely provide factors you will want to consider if you’re investigating this approach. Please give a warm welcome to my guest blogger, Mark Pullen:

Technology has the power to dramatically transform education.  Realizing this, many schools have begun to introduce 1:1 (one computer per student) programs that allow all students to have access to technology at all times.  The benefits of 1:1 programs can be seen in all subjects: students are able to publish their writing for genuine audiences, practice math using adaptive programs that get harder or easier when needed, view interactive online science dissections, and so much more.

Tech Tip #1: Insert Key

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents and students about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: Every time I type, it covers up everything that comes after.

A: Push the insert key. I hear they’re doing away with it on upcoming keyboards. They might as well. No one knows what it does anyway, and when users errantly push it, they don’t know how to stop its annoying typeover.

Questions you want answered? Click here.

To sign up for Tech Tips delivered to your email, click here.

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6th Grade Technology Textbook is Here!

7th in the series, a year's worth of technology lessons for 6th graders

6th Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every Sixth Grader Can Accomplish

7th in the SL Technology Curriculum Series

Be among the first to purchase from website–get FREE P&H

The choice of  hundreds of school districts, private schools and homeschoolers around the world, this seven-volume suite is the all-in-one solution to running an effective, efficient, and fun technology program for kindergarten-sixth grade (each grade level textbook sold separately) whether you’re the lab specialist, IT coordinator, or classroom teacher. Each volume includes technology basics all sixth graders should know, useful cloud-based Web 2.0 tools, themed units that tie into classroom units of inquiry, articles that address the pedagogy of sixth grade technology, and Scope and Sequence for a ten-month program. Each lesson includes 1) brief overview, 2) prior skills required, 3) vocabulary required, 4) difficulties students might have, if any, 5) assessment strategies, 6) knowledge, skills, and strategies students will gain, 7) connections to other curriculum areas, if any, and 8) ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Standards addressed.

Additionally, this ten-month program highlights areas of digital citizenship and higher-order thinking skills identified as critical for students if they expect to live productive lives in our emerging global society. These areas include the ability to demonstrate creativity and innovation; communicate and collaborate; conduct research and utilize information; think critically, solve problems, and make decisions; and use technology effectively and productively.

Note to readers: Color shown and embedded links are included in pdf version only, sold separately. Please contact publisher for a discounted digital book with proof of purchase.

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Monday Freebie #31: A Title Page in Word

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

 A Title Page in Word

Create a title or cover page using MS Word. This is more difficult than #30 (cover page using Publisher) so allow more time. Have students include text and picture as well as a border

Top Ten Websites of 2011

Every week, I post a website that my classes found useful, instructive, helpful in integrating technology into classroom lesson plans. Some, you agreed with me about; others not so much. Here, I’ll share with you

Top Ten Websites of 2011

which sites readers thought were the most helpful in their efforts to weave tech into the classroom experience. Between these ten, they had over 80,000 visitors during the year. See if you agree:

1. Great Kids Websites–this is a list of hundreds, organized by grade and topic. It’s no surprise it came in at #1
2. 20 Great Research Websites for Kids–I suggest you post these sites where students can easily access them. I have them on the internet start page that’s the first site students see when they open the internet. This was #5 last year and inched its way up to #2 this year.
3. 18 Online Keyboard Sites for Kids–Overall, keyboarding websites are the most popular posts I have. In my school, it’s the #1 request from the classroom teachers–that students type faster. There were four more subsets of this theme in the top ten, but those sites are included here, so I skipped them for the purposes of this post.
4. 41 Websites for Teachers to Integrate Tech into Your Classroom–a collection of the top websites I’ve found to integrate tech into the elementary classroom
5. 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms–lots of information, games and virtual visits to our world’s landforms
6. Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills–this is geared for youngers. They’re fun and are skills every student must master
7. 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs for K, 1–great starter keyboarding sites for our youngest students. They’ll think they’re playing games while they learn the keyboard
8. 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5–Websites that encourage the accomplishment of mental math skills
9. Nineteen Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time–websites to fill those 5-10 extra minutes before lunch/end of the day, for early finishers, or anywhere you have a few minutes you don’t want to waste
10. 31 Human Body Websites for 2nd-5th Grade –Great list although I’ve added to it this year. Stand by for an update in 2012
    

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 200,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 9 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and author of two technology training books for middle school. She wrote Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a tech columnist forExaminer.com, Editorial Review Board member for ISTE’s Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller Any suggestions? Contact Jacqui at her writing office, WordDreams, or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

2012, I Resolve…

New Years–a time for rest, rejuvenation and repair. A time to assess. Do we settle into our life, enjoy where it’s headed, or is it time to grab our purse, our iPhone and keys and get out of there?

I resolve...

As most of you know, I am a K-8 technology teacher, but I have a serious interest in writing. It started with non-fiction technical writing and morphed to novels. I write techno-thrillers, scientific fiction–plots that are based in the cerebral and encourage readers to join my love of intelligent topics. Therefore, my resolutions are far-ranging and varied, so I group them. Here’s how I did last year:

Teaching

• Attend ISTE this summer. I missed it last summer, but it’s already approved by my principal for this summer. Anyone else going? Went and loved it. Here’s my summary
• Start a technology club at my school. I’ve tried to do this in the past, but I’ll try harder this year Just not going to happen. I think it would work in Middle School, but most of my classes are K-5. Or am I making excuses?
• Participate more in the online communities that encourage technology integration in education. I write a weekly column for Technology Integration in Education and one for Examiner.com on tech tips for Everyman. Maybe there’re more. I need to find new ezines and blogs for tech ed. I am active on several social networks for tech teachers and write a column for an international ezine. I’d like to do more.
• Participate more actively in Computer Science Teachers Association. To that end, they have asked me to serve as a reviewer for their Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium. I’ve already made the commitment. I have done nothing with CSTA since that initial review. I have to ask myself: Why not?

10 Most Popular Tech Tips in 2011

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday in 2011, I shared one of those with you. Here are the

Top Tech Tiops of 2011

Top Ten tech tips from 2011. Between these ten, they had 40,510 visitors during the year. They better be good or a lot of people were disappointed!

1. Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See
2. Twenty-one Techie Problems Every Student Can Fix
3. What Do You Think is the Hardest Techie Problem?
4. Tech Tip #18: Ten Best MS Word Tips–How Did You Survive Without Them
5. 25 Tips for Not-so-Techy Folk
6. Tech Tip #1: the Insert Key
7. Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key
8. Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
9. Tech Tip #12: Wrap Text Around a Picture
10. Tech Tip #57: How to Create a Chart Really Fast

Monday Freebies #28: My Storybook

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

My Storybook

Create a ten-sentence story, using characters, setting, plot, rising action, climax and resolution. One sentence per page with a picture to communicate the idea. Include a cover, About the Author. Use this lesson to teach students how to use Publisher’s design gallery

Click on lessons for a full size alternative.

Web 2.0 Tools in Tech Ed

Please check out my latest article for the internationally-acclaimed Innovate My School. I think you’ll enjoy it!

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Weekend Websites #84: Planet in Action

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Use Google Earth to play with the planet

Product Review: MindMaple

Brainstorm with MindMaple

When the nice people at MindMaple contacted me about reviewing their product, I was intrigued. I like finding tools that enhance education for students and improve a teacher’s ability to communicate ideas. Plus, ‘mind mapping’–a visual approach to thinking and sharing–is quite popular in education so I agreed to take a look. Though MindMaple is for business and education, I’ll review it only from the educator’s point of view.

In education, mind mapping is used to organize lesson plans, dig into complicated ideas, and brainstorm. It allows you to sort ideas and concepts through topic boxes that spill into myriad layers of subtopics. Think of an organizational chart, but for ideas, not people. Mind maps are created by brainstorming as a group or an individual. They begin with a central idea and expand outward to more in-depth sub-topics that can cover any level of minutiae. Unlike organization charts, mind maps use colors, images, icons, as well as words to get ideas across to others.

A program called Inspiration is the most popular mind map resource for educators, but I personally couldn’t get comfortable using it. I took so long figuring out how to use the tools (most likely because I didn’t use it often enough) that I lost track of my brainstorming. I like the idea of visually presenting thoughts. I see its merits in the classroom so I was excited to look at an alternative.

First glance at the MindMaple website, I didn’t see the education connection. The marketing blurbs made it sound like a business application (“…can be used for a wide range of tasks, from project management to setting up personal schedules or plans…”). I looked for a tab–even a link–that said Educators, but found none.

10 Hits and 10 Misses for 2011

Since I started this blog thirty months ago, I’ve had over 324,000 visitors–double last year–visiting the 570 articles I’ve written on

Top 10 hits and misses for 2011

every facet of integrating technology into the classroom. They may be about how to use wikis or blogs in the classroom or what I’ve learned from my students as we got through another tech week. I have regular features, like Monday Freebies, Tech Tip Tuesdays and Weekend Websites. I post a lot of lesson plans that have worked for me and share my thoughts on other ideas that affect teachers trying to tech-ify their classrooms. It’s a fast changing world. I’m just trying to hang on and share the ride.

It always surprises what my readers find to be the most provocative and least interesting. The latter is as likely to be a post I put heart and soul into, sure I was sharing Very Important Information, as the former. Talk about humility.

A few side notes about my year:

• The busiest month was November. In 2010, it was September
• The deadest month was February. In 2010, it was June.

Without further distraction, here they are–the Top Ten Hits and Misses of 2011:

Top Ten Hits

Introducing: Tech Tip Tuesday

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused.

To be sure you don’t miss any, subscribe to them here. If you’ve already subscribed–no worries. You’ll start receiving them next week.

Monday Freebies #19: My Bookcover in KidPix

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

My Bookcover in KidPix

Draw a cover for a classroom project or unit of inquiry or use one of Kidpix’s templates. Have students nicely mix text and pictures for an attractive design. Introduce KidPix fonts, font sizes, font colors to grade 1

Happy Holidays!

I’ll be taking a week (or so) off–until after the New Year–to play with my children and work on some writing projects with a deadline. I may add a post here or there, or drop in on you-all as you enjoy your holidays, but mostly I’ll be regenerating.

I wish you a wonderful season, safe and filled with family. See you shortly!

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and author of two technology training books for middle school. She wrote Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a tech columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for ISTE’s Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller Any suggestions? Contact Jacqui at her writing office, WordDreams, or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Tech Tip #100: Top Ten MS OfficeTips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

I’ve been sharing Tech Tips for 98 weeks–almost two years. Here are the keyboarding hints readers consider the most important:

• Tech Tip #18: Ten Best MS Word Tips–How Did You Survive Without Them
• Tech Tip #1: the Insert Key
• Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
• Tech Tip #12: Wrap Text Around a Picture
• Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key
• Tech Tip #6: The (Horrid Annoying) Drawing Canvas
• Tech Tip #67: How to Add Accents and more
• Tech Tip #57: How to Create a Chart Really Fast
• Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program
• Tech Tip #73: Alt+??? Brings up which Menu Command?

Monday Freebie #27: Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs

Create a classroom blog. Show students how to interact on it, answer questions, add their ideas. Include pictures, student schedule, location of your wiki and more

Weekend Website #83: Bookmarks4Techs

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

hundreds of techie bookmarks vetted by an expert

Address:

Bookmarks4Techs

Product Review: Live! Cam

I was looking for a simple webcam. My computer doesn’t have one and my son is going overseas, so I wanted a way to Skype with him without having to be a technical geek to make it happen. I decided to try the affordable

An affordable webcam that does what it's supposed to

Creative Live! Cam. I figured if it didn’t work, I hadn’t wasted much money.

I purposely didn’t read the directions before installing it, wanting to see how intuitive the process was. The webcam sits on top of the monitor. There’s no velcro or sticky, but it is stable. I wouldn’t trust it in a California earthquake, though. The cam attaches to a USB port. The cord isn’t overly long, but sufficient for my needs. You wouldn’t want the CPU too far from the monitor, though. I installed the software, sat down and went to work. Hooking to Skype was a snap. Sound was good, as was the 10 MP pictures and 2MP video. The auto-focus worked quite well.

Once I got over the distraction of calling everyone I knew and adding them to my Skype address book, I returned to the features of my Live! Cam. Without any difficulty, I took photos and videos, grabbed an avatar and added special effects (like fire from my head). I shared my desktop both in its entirety and part. I love that–so many uses for screen sharing as a teacher. Videos were easily uploaded to YouTube with the push of a button, as were photos to Photobucket. You can also email any video/photo directly from the Live! Cam application. The video and photo quality is fine for my needs (go to http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com; scroll down to my blog entry and you’ll see the photos I took), though I’m guessing a pro would want a more robust platform.

Overall, this is a wonderful tool to enrich communication. Normally, I wouldn’t trust anything this cheap to work this well, but the Live! Cam did everything I expected. I should also mention: This is the first webcam I’ve ever used, so I didn’t have expectations except that it perform as promised.

Here’s a slideshow of some of the pictures I took with my Live! Cam:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Note: This review written as part of my Amazon Vine Voice series

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, an Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller she just finished. Any ideas? Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab.

32 Science Websites for Fifth Graders

This list covers all sorts of science from nature to geology. Like with the math websites, for my

Science websites to scintillate students

students, occasionally I put a list on the internet start page and let students go there during sponge time (click the link and see what’s up this month):

1. Breathing earth–the environment
2. Dynamic Earth–interactive
3. Earth Science Digital Library
4. Electric Circuits Game
5. Forest Life
6. Forests
7. Geologic history
8. Geologic movies–great and fun
9. Human Body Games
10. Moon around
11. Moon—We Choose the Moon
12. Nature—explore it
13. Ocean Currents–video
14. Ocean Videos
15. Ocean Waves–video
16. Ology Sites
17. Periodic Table of Videos
18. Planet in Action via Google Earth
19. Satellite Fly-bys–by zip code
20. Science games
21. Science Games II
22. Science Games—Bitesize
23. Science Stuff
24. Smithsonian Museum
25. Solar System Video
26. Solar System in 3D
27. Stardate Online
28. Virtual tour (with pictures) of a zoo
29. Virtual tours
30. Volcano Adventure
31. Water Cycle
32. Wonderville

Tech Tip #99: Top Ten Internetting Hints

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

I’ve been sharing Tech Tips for 98 weeks–almost two years. Here are the keyboarding hints readers consider the most important:

• Tech Tip #51: Copy Images From Google Images
• Tech Tip #65: Google Street View
• Tech Tip #47: Tool Tips
• Three Tips to Keep Your PC Safe
• Tech Tip #21: How to Make a Small Webpage Window Big
• Tech Tip #68: Check History in Your Browser
• Tech Tip #4: Zoom In and Out
• Tech Tip #91: Internet Problems? Switch Browsers
• Tech Tip #75: What’s My IP Address
• Tech Tip #93: Auto-fill for Internet Addresses

Monday Freebies #25: Intro to PowerPoint–with KidPix Pictures

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Intro to PowerPoint–with KidPix Pictures

Drawings are done in KidPix. Assign topics (me, my family, etc) for grades K-1 to reinforce the concept of following directions. With 2^nd grade, use one picture for each of the parts of a story—characters, plot, setting, climax/resolution.  Mix pictures and text. Students can show these to parents at Open House or a parent night using Windows slideshow function (something they can do without assistance after a bit of practice)

Weekend Website 40: NORAD Santa

It’s the time of year when inquiring young minds want to know–Where’s Santa? Here’s a great website to answer that question.

Track Santa on Xmas Eve

6th Grade Tech Textbook Almost Ready

I received numerous requests for this logical addition to the K-5 series. We’ve collected lots of ideas from 6th grade teachers, checked the details and are now organizing the lessons so they work in your classroom. Once that’s done, we’ll put them into a year-long format that provides sixth graders a student-centered curriculum to move them into the skills they’ll need for middle school education.

If you’d like to be notified when this book is ready, please click the form below and sign up. The publication date looks to be after the new year.

Coming after the new year

Edublogs Nomination: Best EdTech/Resource Sharing Blog

Woah! The list of Edublog 2011 nominees is out. I am surprised and thrilled. Thanks to those who nominated me, including my efriend EdTech Sandy. I’d love for anyone so inclined to click this link and vote for me. The voting is in the website’s left sidebar. Select:

Best edtech/resource sharing blog 2011

Then select

Ask a Tech Teacher.

Now back to my school report cards…

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, an Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, an IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s seeking representation for a techno-thriller she just finished. Any ideas? Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab.

Tech Tip #98: Speed up MS Office with Quick Access Toolbar

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I tend to do the same actions over and over on my  MS Office software. How do I create a customized tool bar with my favorite tools?

A: This one is going to improved the quality of your tech life immediately. It’s so simple, you’ll wish you’d known it months ago.

First, you need Office 2007 or 2010 because earlier versions don’t include the Quick Access toolbar. It looks like this:

Quick Access toolbar--above or below the ribbons. I like below because I can see it better.

Monday Freebies #13: Great Online Art Sites

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Great Online Art Sites

Online resources for great worldwide museums. Take one lesson to introduce students to these six art sites (five to ten minutes on each) and then allow them to revisit when they have a few minutes at the end of a class projects, unit, before lunch, etc.

Weekend Website #82: NASA City

Every Friday, I’ll send you a wonderful website (or more) that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

How do YOU benefit from space exploration?

Address:

NASA City

Read My Latest ‘Innovate My School’ Article

It’s called What every parent should know about computers and the Internet. There are also some other wonderful posts about tech and school and how to keep up from international experts. Check it out.

Managing the Second Grade Classroom

This is the third in a series on classroom management through wikis. Here are links for grades K-5 wikipages:

• Kindergarten
• First Grade Wiki
• Third Grade Wiki
• Fourth Grade Wiki
• Fifth Grade Wiki

This one is Second Grade:

Click here to visit my second grade class wiki

Tech Tip #96: Open a Program Maximized

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: How do I open the internet maximized on my screen. For the younger students, clicking that tiny square in the upper right corner is often one step too many–not to mention that fine motor skills are still developing in the youngers.

A: I got this question from a reader. Here’s how you open the internet–or most programs–program maximized rather than that annoying smaller size that often makes it difficult for students to maneuver:

• Right click on the program icon
• Select Properties>Shortcuts
• Select the dropdown menu by Run and choose Normal window

Monday Freebie #12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you’ll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

Create Simple Shapes in Excel
What’s the first thing you think of when I say, Excel. Numbers, right–turning data into information. That is Excel’s ‘killer app’, but the ingenious human brain has come up with another striking use for Excel: Drawing. I spent a long time trying to find a lesson that taught drawing in Excel and/or offered example. I finally gave up and created my own.