You Know You’re a Geek When…

Thanks to Julia Hayden for this lovely list:

• You look at a movie trailer and think, “I have that typeface.”
• You get sudden attacks of bittersweet nostalgic feelings when thinking about your long-lost old Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX-81, TRS-80 (or other hardware), and use large amounts of money/time trying to track one down.
• You are wearing ten year old spectacles, made of steel.
• You realize you never cook, eating only take-away pizza.
• You seriously consider devoting a web page to your computer. (Not the brand, mind you, but the actual computer itself)
• You get depressed when you get less than 10 e-mail messages a day.
• You plan to get two Masters degrees.

10 Steps to Become a Better Geek

If you teach technology, it’s likely you’re a geek. Even if you didn’t start out that way–say, you used to be a first grade teacher and suddenly your Admin in their infinite wisdom, moved you to the tech lab. Overnight, you became a geek. You morphed into the go-to person for tech problems, computer quirks, crashes and freezes. Overnight, your colleagues assumed you received an upload of data that allowed you to Know the answers to their every techie question. It didn’t matter that yesterday, you were one of them. Now, you are on a pedestal, their necks craned upward as they ask you, How do I get the Smartscreen to work? or We need the microphones working for a lesson I’m starting in three minutes. Can you please-please-please fix them?

Celebrate your cheeky geekiness. Flaunt it for students and colleagues. Play Minecraft. That’s you now–you are sharp, quick-thinking. You tingle when you see an iPad and the first thing you do when you get to school is check your email

It’s OK. Here at Ask a Tech Teacher, we understand. The readers understand. You’re at home. To honor you, I’ve created this poster. It gives ten more ways to get your geek fully on as you go through your day:

For more tech ed posters, click here and here and here

Follow me

---

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeacherHUB, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to TeachHUB and Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

15 Ways to Get Your Geek On

Celebrate your geekiness. Flaunt it for students and colleagues. Play Minecraft. That’s you–you are sharp, quick-thinking. You can’t help but smile when you see an iPad and the first thing you do when you awake is turn on the computer.

It’s OK. Here at Ask a Tech Teacher, we understand. The readers understand. You’re at home. To honor you, I’ve created this poster. It gives fifteen more ways to get your fully geek on as you go through your day:

1. Be smart. Yeah, it feels good
2. That’s my inner Geek speaking
3. Think. Exercise your brain.
4. Waves. Sigh.
5. Repeat after me: People are my friends. Like Siri.
6. Move away from the keyboard–Not.
7.  Some people watch TV. I play with a Rubik’s Cube
8. Be patient. I’m buffering.
9. There must be a shortkey for that
10.  Life needs an Undo key
11. Leave me alone for 2 minutes and I’ll go to sleep
12. Yes, I can fix your computer
13. Like a computer, I do what you tell me to
14. My RAM is full. Come back later.
15. Slow down. My processor isn’t that fast

Want that as a poster? Here you are:

Do You See Youself in This Video?

This is great…

ASCII Art for the Beginner

ASCII art is that amazing computer drawing where keyboard letters become a picture. Done well, it never fails to impress friends with your geekiness.

I was inspired by my friend, Zakgirl, to try it. I’m inherently lazy so wanted an ‘easy way’ to accomplish this tedious art.  I went on a hunt for that method–and found it! Here’s a pumpkin I did for Halloween in about fifteen minutes:

Dr. Seuss in the Digital Age

Here’s a Dr. Seuss redux for the techie child:

You can think up web pages.
That’s what you can do.
You can think them in yellow
With letters bright blue…
Think your banners in red.
And your buttons in pink.
You can paste in a JPEG.
Oh, the LINKS you can Link!

This School Has Spirit!

This video was made to inspire the students of Chicopee and the rest of Massachusetts to excel in the 2010 MCAS testing.

The Geek Lifestyle: Can You Relate

Watch the slideshow. Are you there?