Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly

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’m afraid of getting slammed with viruses, malware, all that bad stuff that comes with visiting the internet. What can I do?

A:  If you take reasonable precautions, the chances of being hit are minimized. Here’s what I do:

• Don’t download from music or video sites. They have the greatest amount of malware statistically because the Bad Guys know we-all like getting free music and videos.
• Make sure your firewall is working. Windows comes with a built-in one. Maybe Mac does too. Leave it active. It’s under Control Panel-Administrative Tools
• Do the following every week:

How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 3rd Grade

How can I teach my students about digital citizenship

Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they complete their research on projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with wealth comes responsibility. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. There are several great programs available to guide students through this process (Common Sense’s Digital Passport, Carnegie CyberAcademy, Netsmart Kids). I’ve collected them as resources and developed a path to follow that includes the best of everything.

Here’s Third Grade:

Overview/Big Ideas

Why is it important to be a good digital citizen? How can students do this?

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• What are my rights and responsibilities as Digital Citizens?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

5 Great FREE Programs for Students

When I started as a tech teacher, I pushed my administration for lots of software. I wanted a different one for each theme–human body, space, math. Now, they’re all on the internet–for FREE–which means we can use our tech budget for iPads, microphones, splitters… Wait–we have no budget. Good thing I’m addicted to FREE.

7 Great Labor Day Websites

You’re bbq-ing. Friends are over. Life is good. Summer is ending, but that’s tomorrow. Not today. Today is about fun.

What do you do with the child who got sunburned so badly s/he can’t stay outside? Or those last fifteen minutes when the kids are hungry, tired, and completely disconnected with everything that they’ve been doing? Here’s a list of websites they’ll find irresistible. I’ve pulled out five I think are the best starters, but you can decide:

Dear Otto: How Do You Keep Students From Playing with Settings?

Do you have a tech question?

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Jamie:

I love your site I have purchased three of your Technology series. I noticed [in the K-6 textbooks] you talk about using protopage – how do you let your students use it  without them doing anything to what is on the page. 

A: I love my protopage internet start page. I don’t mind if my students (I teach K-8) edit the page (within reason). I was worried at first so I put blocks there specifically for comments, wall writing, doodling. I tried Wall Wisher, which didn’t work well. I added a hamster and a pet dog that students can play with, feed, virtually cuddle. In some of the widgets (such as the calculator), the skins can be changed. That’s fine. I like that students personalize their stations even though the next class in 45 minutes might make changes. If they take ownership of the computer, they’ll take better care of it and enjoy the class more. I used to let them add wallpapers until the IT department locked us out.

Curious About ChromeBooks? Watch These

Can you run your classroom with internet-only laptops?

Let me back up a moment. Chromebooks are Google’s internet-only laptops. You don’t install software or wrestle with an operating system. Everything is done online, which means faster boot-ups and longer battery life (can you believe up to a day on one charge?).

I see tremendous value to getting students to Web 2.0 classroom connections faster. In my classrooms, we spend about half the time on internet sites like Google Earth (you can use it online), Big Huge Labs, online typing sites and more. I conceptually can see online connections for many projects that I simply haven’t pursued because there’s been no need. If software wasn’t there, I’d find the connection and be equally satisfied.

Despite that, there remains a significant need to use word processing software like MS Word for reports etc (though MS 360 solves that if you want to pay for a subscription). My students love Publisher projects and PowerPoint slideshows, but I think we could morph to online sites like Glogster and (fill in the blank for an online PowerPoint look-alike).

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

Tech Tip #93: Auto-fill for Internet Addresses

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: Is there a faster way to type internet addresses? All that h-t-t-p stuff–I keep making typos.

A. In fact, there is. Get the main part of the address in, say ‘google’ or ‘spellingcity’, then press Ctrl+enter and the browser will auto-fill the rest. What a time saver!

Questions you want answered? Email me at askatechteacher@structuredlearning.net and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.

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

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#99: How to Teach Internet Basics to Kids

Review the basics of internet, including the address bar, forward/back buttons, links, favorites, plagiarism, and netiquette

• All Pages

Lesson Description

• Federal, state and local governments have spent millions of dollars to connect students to the Internet. By 2005, 94% of public school classrooms had internet access. Hopes are high that Internet use will change the process of education and enhance student learning.
• The internet offers a multitude of freeware to enthuse students about a myriad of educational subjects. The days of purchased software on a budget are gone. If you know what to do.
• Throughout this workbook, we’ve listed dozens of free websites on common academic subjects. In this lesson, we’ll talk about internet basics: How to access those confusing web addresses and links.

Computer Activity

Weekend Website #69: Free Online Classes From MIT et al

Contemporary wisdom is ‘you get what you pay for’. Not always true. Here’s a long list of FREE internet resources that are high quality, useful and simple to install.

• Top 10 FREE Apps to Install on your computer
• 5 More Must-Have FREE Apps (including the Photoshop clone GIMP)
• 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs
• FREE Google Apps
• FREE Microsoft Programming Software
• Carnegie Mellon’s FREE programming software, Alice
• MIT’s FREE Programming software, Scratch

MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford and others now offer online tech training–for FREE. Read this:

5 Great Labor Day Websites

You’re bbq-ing. Friends are over. Life is good. Summer is ending, but that’s tomorrow. Not today. Today is about fun.

What do you do with the child who got sunburned so badly s/he can’t stay outside? Or those last fifteen minutes when the kids are hungry, tired, and completely disconnected with everything that they’ve been doing? Here’s a list of websites they’ll find irresistible. I’ve pulled out five I think are the best starters, but you can decide:

Tech Tip #85: Browser Problem? Switch Browsers

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:My browser has been working fine, but lately, it doesn’t bring up some of the stuff on my start page? What do I do?

A: The quick answer is, switch browsers. Sometimes you load programs/system or operating files on your computer that conflict with your current browser. Everything that had been working fine suddenly doesn’t. That just happened to me. I have used FireFox for years with iGoogle as my start page with all my favorite widgets loaded so I got a quick overview of my world every time I went on the internet. One day, Firefox refused to load half of my RSS feeds. I waited a week, another week, and nothing changed. I tried my start page on Internet Explorer with the same result. I did a really adventurous move and downloaded a browser I’ve never before used called Google Chrome, tried my startpage in that and all has been fine ever since.

Weekend Website #61: Brainy Widgets from Wolfram Alpha

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.

Educational widgets for your blog or website

Five Great Summer Websites Your Kids Don’t Want to Miss

It’s summer. Kids can’t play outside all the time, so here are some fun online activities that will keep their attention while feeding their brains. These are all tested on my classes throughout the school year. When my students are done with the day’s planned projects, I let them pick a website or software of their choice to fill the last five or ten minutes before the bell rings. These five, I’ve found to be favorites”

Book Review: Savvy Cyberkids at Home

The Savvy Cyber Kids At Home

by Ben Halpert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It’s not often I find a successful fiction book that explains complicated adult ideas to children. The last one was Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi: A Math Adventure, a creative story that introduces math concepts like Pi, circumference and radius to young children. I’m not a math teacher, but I can relate that to computer concepts I teach to kindergarten and younger. As with geometry, it’s difficult to explain the concept of ‘internet safety’ to the newest users. Unlike geometry, it must be done as soon as they pick up a mouse and lock their eyes onto the glowing, scintillating screen. Every month, more and more children, younger and younger, play on websites like Jumpstart, Clifford and NickJr. They–of course–trust the adults who love them to keep them safe. Now, we have a tool to do that.

Weekend Website #41: Spanish Help

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website 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.

Learn Spanish

#35: Sponge Activities for Vocabulary Building

There are lots of great online vocabulary websites to help kids learn high-frequency and dolch words. I’ll share five of them. Maybe you have some to share with the group.

Tech Tip #51: Copy Images From Google Images

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: To copy an image from Google Images (or Bing), I right-click on the picture, select copy, then paste it into my document (with right-click, paste). But, It’s hard to move around. Isn’t there an easier way.

3 Steps to Keep the Internet Child-Safe

The biggest concern I get from parents at my school is how to keep their children safe on the untamed internet.

It’s true, every website links to other places. Children click there by accident–and suddenly they’re where they shouldn’t be. Some parents I know forbid internet use without constant supervision, but that’s onerous to parents and hurts kids. Parents don’t have time to watch over their child’s shoulder (while they are trying to cook dinner, prepare for guests, watch the dog–or do their day job) and kids end up the losers (see this list of great websites for kids to see what they’d be missing).

Here’s what I do to balance both sets of needs:

3 Programs to Teach Architecture in First Grade

Three projects over six weeks and your students will learn about blueprints, room layout, dimensions. Plus, they’ll understand how to think about a three-dimensional object and then spatially lay it out on paper. This is challenging, but fun for first graders.

Spend two weeks on each projects. Incorporate a discussion of spaces, neighborhoods, communities one week. Practice the drawing, then do the final project which students can save and print. Kids will love this unit.

• First, draw a picture in KidPix of the child’s home using the KidPix architecture tools (use TuxPaint if you don’t have KidPix–it’s free). Have kids think about their house, walk through it. They’ll have to think in three dimensions and will soon realize they can’t draw a two-story house. In that case, allow them to pick which rooms they wish to include and concentrate on what’s in the room. Use the ‘stamps’ tool (in KidPix) to find items.

Classroom layout--through the eyes of a First Grader

Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly

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!

Weekend Website #29: Storybook Maker

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #26: Tagxedo

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #24: Office Web Apps

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #23: Fourth Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

My Fourth Grade Class Wiki

25 Tips for Not-so-Techy Folk

Click on the PowerPoint below (opens in Google docs) and read these 25 tips before the school year starts. I teach tech and still found a few that I’ll be using in my classroom:

Weekend Website #18: Second Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

 

My 2nd grade class wiki--click to visit

Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word

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!

Weekend Website #17: Third Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Tech Tip #20: How to Add A Link to Word

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!

Weekend Website #16: Fourth Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

My Fourth Grade Class Wiki

Weekend Website #14: The Internet Start Page

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #13: MS Office

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

This is a two-fer, for those who are upgrading from Office 2003 to 2007. Here are the sites that will show you where all your favorite commands have gone in that pesky, confusing ribbon at the top of the screen.

#13: Great Online Art Sites

Summer is a great time to explore. What better way than visit a few great online art sites. If your kids have ten or fifteen minutes, in between other stuff, while they’re waiting for lunch, send them to any of these fun kid-friendly sites.

Weekend Website #11: Google Moon

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Where Would You Like to Go Today?

Are you here for a lesson plan… Tech tips… Humor? Click the category on the sidebar and you’re there.

I notice lots of readers are clicking on the pictures, hoping it’s a link to a category. I have to confess: I was unable to get the pictures to act as links. I don’t think WordPress can do that. I spent quite a while trying. I can do it if I put each picture in separately (rather than as a two-column album), but it’s difficult to maneuver. Until I solve that you’ll have to visit the Categories section on the sidebar. You’ll get a group of projects on that topic, mixed ages:

Tech Tips

KidPix Projects

Google Earth Projects

Photoshop Projects

Keyboarding Projects

MS Word Projects

Publisher Projects

PowerPoint Projects

Excel Projects

Computer Humor

Tech Tips

Anyone know how to make the pictures in a picture gallery act as links? Hmmm….

Weekend Website #10: Google Mars

Drop by every weekend to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Thirty-two More Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time

I keep a list of themed websites that are easy-in easy-out for students. They must be activities that can be accomplished enjoyably in less than ten minutes. In the parlance, these are called “sponges”.

Photo credit: Nemo

You may have read my post with nineteen sites my students love visiting during sponge time (let me know if you liked them, have some to add, I’m always interested in learning from you). Here are thirty-two more. Hope you like them!

Language Arts

• Make your own Story—answer questions, and the story writes itself
• Funny poetry to read and enjoy
• Jeff’s Poetry for Kids
• Fill in the blank poetry
• Get Writing—write your own story
• Web version of Mad Libs

Math

• Math and Virtual Manipulatives
• Math website—popular, a standard
• Math—by Grade Level
• Math—game-oriented
• Mental Math
• Minute Math

Research

Weekend Website #8: Virtual Surgery

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #7: Create Flash Class Tools Online

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.