14 Educational Websites Students Will Ask to Visit This Summer

The most popular website at my school is Minecraft–hands down, starting in 1st grade (I’m amazed parents let six-year-olds use this sometimes violent game, but they do and students do and the mania starts). Because kids would live in this blocky virtual world 24/7, I only let them play it two lunch periods a week. Those days, my lab is always packed. Kids have no idea they’re learning math (estimation, geometry, shapes), science (geology, rocks, minerals), building, or softer skills like thinking and reasoning, problem solving, hypothesis-testing, risk-taking, and collaboration. They don’t realize they’re exercising that delicate skill called ‘creativity’ or care that Common Sense Media raves that “Minecraft empowers players to exercise their imagination and take pride in their digital creations as they learn basic building concepts.”

CSTA Conference Coming Up!

The 2013 CSTA Annual Conference (click here for conference link) is fast approaching. This lively get-together provides professional development opportunities for K-12 computer science and computer applications teachers who need practical, relevant information to help them prepare students for the future.

Here are some details you’ll want to know:

Dates:   July 15-16, 2013
Location:   Quincy, Massachusetts, USA

Conference Hashtag: #CSTA13

Important Dates:

How to Make a Student-created Video

‘Student-generated’ now has a face–a lively and creative group from Loreto Secondary School in County Meath Ireland. They combined their talents and came up with a fun, engaging PSA to promote dairy.

I fell in love with the video and asked Mr. Tom Kendall (Head of ICT as well as a math and ICT teacher) to summarize the adventure so I can share it here. By the time you’re done reading the next few paragraphs, you’ll be amazed at the inquiry-driven work, the risk-taking employed at ever so many levels, their problem-solving and critical thinking that went into the creation of this four-minute video. If you’re an inquiry-based class or an IB school with an eye to your end-of-year Exhibition, this is a wonderful example. Enjoy:

Aiming for Viral: We Take Dairy and This is Crazy!

A behind the scenes look at the making of a student-created video.

We want to make a Video!

This school year, six Transition Year students in my Digital Publishing class approached me for advice on creating a video for a business competition. In Ireland, Transition Year students fall into the 15 to 16 age bracket.

The competition challenged students to form their own mini-advertising company with the goal of designing and implementing a campaign to promote the importance of dairy to their peers.

What type of Video?

Tech Tip #42: How to (Re)Set Your Homepage

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 homepage got hijacked! I mean, it no longer opens to what it used to. How do I fix that?

A:  Go to the page you want as your homepage. Here’s what you do next:

• If you’re in Firefox, go to Tools–Options
• Click on General
• Click the button that says, Use Current
• Say OK

Tech Tip #39: My Computer Won’t Turn Off

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 pushing the power button on my laptop (or desktop, but more commonly this happens with laptops), but it won’t turn off. What do I do?

A:  Push the power button and hold it in for a count of ten. That’ll work. If not (there’s always that one that breaks all the rules), hold it for a count of twenty.

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Tech Tip #38: My Desktop Icons Are All Different

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 desktop icons (those little pictures that allow you to open a program) are all different. What happened?

A:  I get this question a lot. Push the start button and check who the log in is. That’s the name at the top of the right-hand side of the start menu. It should have your log-in name. Any other, log out and log in as yourself and the world will tilt back to normal.

This happens a lot in my lab because I have separate log-ins for different grades. Students being students often forget to log out. I teach even the youngers how to check for this problem and solve it.

Truth be known, lots of adults have this problem, also. They’re used to sitting down at a computer they share only with themselves. When tech comes and does something on it–say, fixes a problem–and they don’t log out, my teachers are also lost

Now Available: K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Digital Citizenship Curriculum for K-8 (print or digital)

Why do teachers need to teach Digital Citizenship?

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between the school bell’s chimes or the struggling budget of an underfunded program.

Now, education can be found anywhere, by collaborating with students in Kenya or Skyping with an author in Sweden or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on a class project. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders, available 24/7 from wherever students and teachers find an internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is available digitally, freely, and equitably, but before children begin the cerebral trek through the online world, they must learn to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This conversation used to focus on limiting access to the internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) that students would be discouraged from using this infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of protecting students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent in the use of the internet.

What’s included in K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum?

Technology in Schools: A Brief History

I have a special treat for you today–a bit of history, compliments of a dear efriend, Janet Abercrombie of Expat Educator. Janet teaches math, but in a refreshingly nontraditional manner. She has given me countless ideas for integrating tech into math (or ‘maths’ as they say outside the US).

She just finished up a teaching gig in Hong Kong and is moving to Australia. Through her, I gain insight into the worldwide educational world, something I could never do on my own. But Janet shares her experiences with everyone who visits her blog, including the differences in spelling around the planet, which I’ve left unchanged.

Today, it’s the history of tech. Most of you are too young to have used this equipment, but I can verify: It’s all true:

I recently worked in a school with a Tech Museum. Recognise any of the items in the pictures below?

When I look at this wall of old gadgets, I am taken back to my first practicum teaching assignment – the slightly damp, purple-blue ditto copies that emerged with a toxic smell second only to rubber cement.

Technology has changed tremendously since the ditto machine. As you read, ask yourself this: At what point in time did classroom instruction need to change with the emerging technology?

For a little New Year’s fun, this post includes early tech trivia questions that you can answer in the comment box.

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Tech Integration Phase 1: Pre-90s

Turntables (record players): Record turntables were certainly not in every classroom, but you could check them out from the tech library to use in class. The use of the record player was dependent upon the variety of vinyls in the school library or the teacher’s ability to purchase classroom-appropriate materials. One of the major disadvantages of the turntable was the fear of album scratches or breaks. I suspect that few teachers allowed students to handle the records.

Cassette tapes and players: If you were lucky enough to get a cassette tape player in your classroom, young children could be trusted to touch the equipment. The cassette tapes were far more portable than vinyl records and they weren’t easily destroyed. Most classrooms had a cassette player like the model on the left – while teenagers from affluent families might be seen walking down the street with a large boom-box balanced on their shoulders.

For tech integration, students might present a report on a popular rock group and play a song from the collection. My report on Huey Lewis and the News earned a B because I spent time rewinding and fast-forwarding to find the correct song. Who knew I was expected to do that before the presentation??? We could also make audio-recordings of reading fluency or practice speaking skills.

Early Apple Computers: The Apple IIe was a big deal. A Middle School classroom might have one or two of these machines in the back corner of the classroom. Students worked through “Apple Presents Apple” and could make pictures by plugging in BASIC ‘plot’ and ‘hplot’ commands. Even more amazing, work could be saved provided a magnetised paper clip didn’t get too close to the floppy disks. The Appleworks word processing program allowed students to not have to remember all the Word Perfect Function Keys. Trivia Question 1: Can you name all Word Perfect function keys?

17 Topics to Teach K-8 About Digital Citizenship

Education has changed. No longer is it contained within four classroom walls or the physical site of a school building. Students aren’t confined by the eight hours between the school bell’s chimes or the struggling budget of an underfunded program.

Now, education can be found anywhere, by teaming up with students in Kenya or Skyping with an author in Sweden or chatting with an astrophysicist on the International Space Station. Students can use Google Earth to take a virtual tour of a zoo or a blog to collaborate on class research. Learning has no temporal or geographic borders, available wherever students and teachers find an internet connection.

This vast landscape of resources is offered digitally (more and more), freely (often), and equitably (hopefully), but to take that cerebral trek through the online world, children must know how to do it safely, securely, and responsibly. This used to mean limiting access to the internet, blocking websites, and layering rules upon rules hoping (vainly) that students would be discouraged from using an infinite and fascinating resource.

It didn’t work.

Best practices now suggest that instead of cocooning students, we teach them to be good digital citizens, confident and competent in 17 areas:

10 Most Popular Tech Tips in 2012

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 2012, I shared one of those with you. Here are the

Top Ten tech tips from 2012. Between these ten, they had 48,001 visitors during the year. They better be good or a lot of people were disappointed!

1. Tech Tip #18: Ten Best MS Word Tips–How Did You Survive Without Them
2. Tech Tip #18: 10 Best MS Word Tips
3. Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See
4. Twenty-one Techie Problems Every Student Can Fix
5. Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key
6. Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
7. Tech Tip #12: Wrap Text Around an Image
8. Tech Tip #2: The PrintScreen Key
9. Tech Tip #57: How to Create a Chart Really Fast
10. Tech Tip #1: the Insert Key

Top Ten Websites of 2012

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 which sites readers thought were the most helpful in their efforts to weave tech into the classroom experience. Between these ten, they had over 120,000 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. 62 Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons–a collection of my favorite tech ed kindergarten sites
5. Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills–this is geared for youngers. They’re fun and are skills every student must master
6. 31 Human Body Websites for 2nd-5th Grade –Great list although I’ve added to it this year. Stand by for an update in 2013
7. 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
8. 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5–these are math websites that focus on speed and accuracy
9. 10 Great Virtual Field Trips–there are some great virtual field trips on this list. Link to it from this list I keep updated
10. 62 First Grade Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons–like the kindergarten list, these are my favorites from first grade

10 Hits and 10 Misses for 2012

Since I started this blog forty-two months ago, I’ve had over 1 million visitors (most of them, this past year) to the 835 articles I’ve written on

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 Tech Tip Tuesdays, Dear Otto, 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 September. In 2011, it was November.
• The deadest month was June. In 2011, it was February.

Without further distraction, here they are–the Top Ten Hits and Misses of 2012:

Top Ten Hits

Tech Tip #34: My Program Froze

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 writing a very (very) important paper and all of a sudden, the screen is frozen. I can’t save it, or anything else. What do I do?

A: Programs do freeze for no reason sometimes, but not often (I’m assuming you take care of your computer–defrag, don’t download with abandon, update it occasionally). Before you declare a dog-ate-my-homework sort of catastrophe, try this:

• Check your desktop for an open dialogue box and close it. You might have to answer its question first.
• Push escape four times. You might have inadvertently got yourself into something you don’t even know you’re in. Escape often lives up to its name.
• Click your program on the taskbar. You might have gotten out of it by accident.

Tech Tip #33: My Desktop Icons are Messed Up

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 have several kids/students who share the same computer. Kids being kids loving moving the icons around on the desktop. Sometimes they create the first letter of their name in icons. It’s cute, but makes it difficult for the next student to find the shortcut they need. What’s the best way to handle this?

A:  I’ve tried everything. Refusing to allow them to play doesn’t work and asking them to undo their play at the end of their time doesn’t either. The best solution is to teach all students how to organize their desktop:

• Right click on the desktop
• Select ‘arrange icons’
• If you’re in Win &, pick ‘sort by’ and ‘type

This can be part of their start-up maintenance when they sit down to begin their class. They’ve learned a new skill. They feel empowered to solve their own problems. Life is good.

Dear Otto: How Do I Prepare for an Unknown Tech Future?

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 Sandy:

For the pass 10 years I have taught computer for 3K and 4K Early Education. Also each year that I have taught they have added a grade level to my schedule. So at this point I now teach 3K, 4K, and Kindergarten through 4th grade. I would like to take some continuing education courses in this field to better educate my students. I have already taken the Microsoft Office 2007 Master Certification Course and I intend on taking the Microsoft 2010 course as well (even though I passed the course using the Office 2010 software, I would just like to have the more updated certificate). I am also looking into taking a “Computer Support Technician” Certificate Program. My question to you is…do you have any suggestions on courses that I could take to educate myself more in this field to keep up with the fast technology pace, especially with our young kids today educating themselves through all of today’s tech devices? Currently I concentrate on Keyboarding Skills, Computer Parts and Terminology, Research, Online Safety, proficiency in MS Word, Excel, and Power Point. What do you suggest?

I think the best approach is to develop your PLN, connect with tech professionals who you trust, and shares thoughts, ideas, lesson plans. Attend any conference (like ISTE or local ones) that you can to see what’s happening. Try everything that inspires you. Blog with your students. Get them on wikis. Have them create Storybirds and Animotos and iMindmaps. Some will work. Some you’ll learn from. Browse your e- colleagues and see what they’re doing.

Will Texting Destroy Writing Skills?

Across the education landscape, student text messaging is a bone of contention among teachers.  It’s not an issue in the lower grades because most K-5 schools successfully ban cell phones during school hours. Where it’s a problem is grades 6-12, when teachers realize it’s a losing battle to separate students from their phones for eight hours.

The overarching discussion among educators is texting’s utility in providing authentic experiences to students, the type that transfer learning from the classroom to real life. Today, I’ll focus on a piece of that: Does text messaging contribute to shortening student attention span or destroying their nascent writing ability

Let’s start with attention span. TV, music, over-busy daily schedules, and frenetic family life are likely causes of a student’s short attention span. To fault text messaging is like blaming the weather for sinking the Titanic. Texting has less to do with their inability to spit out a full sentence than their 1) need for quickness of communication, 2) love for secrecy, and 3) joy of knowing a language adults don’t.

What about writing? In the thirty years I’ve been teaching everyone from kindergarteners to college, I can tell you with my hand on a Bible that children are flexible, masters at adjusting actions to circumstances (like the clothes they wear for varying events and the conversations they have with varying groups of people). There is no evidence to support that these elastic, malleable creatures are suddenly rigid in their writing style, unable to toggle between a casual texting shorthand with friends and a professional writing structure in class.

In general, I’m a fan of anything that gets students writing, and there are real benefits to giving students the gift of textual brevity rather than the stomach-churning fear of a five-paragraph structured essay. I’ve done quite a few articles on the benefits of Twitter’s 140-character approach to writing and my teacher’s gut says the same applies to text messaging. Truth, studies on this topic are inconclusive. Some suggest that because young students do not yet have a full grasp of basic writing skills, they have difficulty shifting between texting’s abbreviated spelling-doesn’t-matter language and Standard English. But a British study suggested students classify ‘texting’ as ‘word play’, separate from the serious writing done for class and results in no deterioration in writing skills. Yet another study found that perception of danger from texting is greater than the reality: 70% of the professionals at one college believed texting had harmful effects on student writing skills. However, when analyzed, the opposite was true: Texting was actually beneficial.

Weekend Website #103: Screenbird

Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, gotten excited to use.

Need to teach step-by-step lessons? Try Screenbird

The Elephantine Impact of Technology on Education

Have you noticed what’s happening in your child’s school? Technology. There’s rarely a lesson taught, be it math or science or health, that doesn’t include some form of technology

Education has changed

to enhance its message, increase its reach, improve its communication. If you haven’t been in the classroom lately, drop by this week when you pick up your wonderful student. There’s likely to be a Smartboard (or some sort of interactive screen) on the wall, a pod of computers (if not 1:1 laptops) overflowing from a corner, maybe iPads on desktops or in a mobile cart, a digital camera and microphones to record events, streaming video from Discovery Channel. Those ubiquitous samples of student work that traditionally clutter the walls now include many created with computers.

Today’s education happens by standing on the shoulders of technology innovation.

If you don’t have a school-age child, take a peek at Cisco’s VNI Service Adoption blog. There’s an uptick in the impact of technology on all parts of consumer life. As Cisco suggests, these changes are all about connecting students to their future, empowering them with responsibility for their own education in areas such as:

• access to learning
• quality of instruction and education assessment
• innovative learning models
• decision making
• reduced costs with administrative efficiency (not yet, but it’s a good goal)

9 Steps to Tech Savviness This Summer

Summer is for change. Out with routine, in with spontaneity. When you were in high school, that meant relaxing, seeing friends, going to parties. In college, it likely meant a summer job to make the money that paid for college. Now, as an adult, living your future, summer is a time to rejuvenate, to enrich, to build your core–those things that make you who you are.

As a technology teacher or IT coordinator or computer specialist (or all of the above), you need as much time as you can get and more than you have during the school year to stay afloat of what’s happening in the tech ed field. The list of changes is daunting–iPads, 1:1 initiatives, technology integration, podcasts, sharing and publishing student work, embeddable widgets, Common Core State Standards, digital citizenship, keyboarding. If you’re like me, you try to do what you can during the school year, but it’s summer, with its endless days and no schedule that gives you the freedom to let your brain lose.

Here’s my bucket list for this summer:

1. Work on my blog (I have Ask a Tech Teacher, and I also have one for my writing hobby called WordDreams)
   
2. Create a wiki for my tech class (luckily, the framework’s in place. I need to review and upgrade)
   
3. Increase my PLN (I’m looking. Anyone have ideas?)
   
4. Read some tech books. (Here’s a list from Richard Byrne I’m working my way through.)
5. Learn one new web-based tool every day–take weekends off (So far, I’ve learned Animoto, Storybird, Screencast, some online Timeline creators, several online Puzzle creators…)
   
6. Notice one tech use around me every day. (Like QR codes. Do you believe how they’re everywhere? How about Siri? How can I use that in the classroom to connect tech class to everyday life?)
7. Learn to use the iPad. These are going to take over education–be ready. Don’t be stumped. (Fingers crossed, I’m getting one when the iPad 3 comes out)
   
8. Try tech tools I don’t understand. (I’m learning robotics this summer as part of my school’s push to teach robotics to 5th graders. How about you? Pick one you think you won’t like. What about Twitter? or Facebook? Try them out. See how they work. Then, you’ll have good reasons why you don’t like them or you’ll change your mind)
9. Join an ed tech effort that’s bigger than you. Present at a tech ed conference (next year: ISTE). Join the LearnZillion Dream Team. Teach a summer tech class for free. I know I’ll come out of it motivated, inspired, ready to return to teaching in the Fall.

Tech Tip #22: Quick Exit from 97% of Programs

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 child has a program on the computer and I can’t figure out how to get out of it. There’s no File-exit, no menu. What do I do?

A:  Try the old standby from Windows’ earliest days–Alt+F4. It works on almost all programs. I use it on the kindergarten programs in my lab all the time.

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Dear Otto: Where Can I Find Kid-safe Images?

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 a reader:

I am a computer lab teacher and teach grades 1-5.  I can really use some advice from others. Do you have a good place for students to go and get images that are appropriate – I teach grades 1-5  and Google even with strict settings as well as MS Office clipart have some inappropriate images  that come up from searches

I wrote a post about this almost a year ago. I appreciate that you’ve reminded me it’s time to revisit. This is harder than it should be. I use Google as a default because it is the safest of all the majors, not to say it’s 100% kid-safe. I spent quite a few hours one weekend checking out all of the kid-friendly child search engines (Sweet Search, KidSafe, QuinturaKids, Kigose, KidsClick, Ask Kids, KidRex, and more), but none did a good job filtering images. Content–yes, but images dried up to worthless for the needs of visual children.

How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards

Common Core standards–adopted in 46 states

Common Core State Standards, proposed by the National Board of Governors and adopted by 46 states to date, provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn in the critical areas of math, science, language, reading, writing, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

They don’t specifically mention technology as a separate subject, but assume technology will support the teaching of math, science, reading, language, and writing. Last week, I discussed CCSS in general. This week–here are a few of the specific elements that technology can address and examples of projects (not in any particular grade-level order):

Anchor Standards

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing–Production and Distribution of Writing–6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Book Review: Kindergarten Technology Textbook

Kindergarten Technology: 32 Lessons Every Kindergartner Can Accomplish on a Computer

by Structured Learning IT Teaching Team

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m often asked what books I’d recommend for teaching technology in the classroom. Each year about this time, I do a series of reviews on my favorite tech ed books. If you’re already looking ahead to next year’s technology curriculum and want to fix some of this year’s problems, I suggest you consider the seven-volume K-6 technology curriculum series that’s used in hundreds of school districts across the country (and a few internationally). It’s skills-based, project-based, aligned with NETS national standards and fully integratable into state core classroom standards.

The first in the series, the 58-page Kindergarten Technology: 32 Lesson Any Kindergartner Can Do, is the Fourth Edition (Structured Learning 2011), updated to MS Office 2007/10, available in print or digital, and perfect for Smartscreens, iPads, laptops. It  includes many  age-appropriate samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections, thematic websites, and how-to’s. Because I edited this book, I made sure it includes pieces that I as a teacher knew to be critical to teachers:

• PDF version is in full color
• PDF version has active links so you can click through to enrichments when required for student-centered learning
• each lesson summarizes a 45-minute class period–usually 2-3 activities, arranged temporally throughout the year for ease of understanding by students. For example, a lesson is likely to include 2-3 activities from among typing practice, student presentations, project that ties into core class activity, problem-solving that assists with 1:1 initiatives
• each lesson is aligned with NETS standards
• each lesson includes required vocabulary
• each lesson provides integrations to core classroom units and topics
• each lesson includes trouble-shooting solutions to the problems most likely to come up in the classroom
• each lesson includes enrichments for those precocious students who finish the lesson and want more
• includes a list of websites (PDF has active links, print version goes to Ask a Tech Teacher Great Websites). Both print and PDF can access a webpage on Ask a Tech Teacher that is updated yearly with new websites by grade level and category
• there’s a help link (to this blog) to a teacher using the curriculum will help you through the prickly parts of a lesson plan. This is FREE–no charge.
• Where lessons center around purchased software, the authors made an effort to offer free alternatives. For example, instead of KidPix, teachers can use TuxPaint. Instead of Type to Learn, teachers can use a list of online keyboarding websites like Dance Mat Typing and Typing Web
• If you buy the print book, the PDF is discounted
• includes pedagogy articles to help think through critical issues like keyboarding, use of the internet, how to use wikis in classrooms, and more

How to Align Technology with Common Core State Standards

This past month, I have had a rash of requests from school districts to assist them in aligning their technology program with Common Core State standards. This takes me back to the days when everyone wanted to match their lesson plans with ISTE NETS standards. We all had to review our activities, rethink connections and rework details.

Now, for the 46 states that have adopted Common Core State Standards, that’s happening again, with a different tilt.

Let me back up. What are Common Core State Standards? According to the Mission Statement posted on their website:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Their bi-line speaks volumes…

Preparing America’s Students for College and Career

Changing Education Paradigms

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award. For more information on Sir Ken’s work visit: http://www.sirkenrobinson.com

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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three 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 midshipman. She is webmaster for six 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 out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Apps for Education

Kids love iPads

Kids love using iPads. All those fun activities that can be accessed quickly via the pad format are both stimulating and

addictive. I’m all for giving kids what they want in the way of educational tools, but there-in lies the rub:

How do you find those apps?

When my school asked me to come up with a collection to use on our new class-set of ipads (to cycle through grades 3-8), I thought it would be easy.

It wasn’t.

Dear Otto: What About Teacher Tech Training?

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 Mary:

How does your district approach professional development opportunities especially when it comes to technology?  How do you sustain professional development? We have 2 days a year set aside for professional development focused on technology but then there’s no follow up or time given to apply the new concepts learned. We sit and get and then it’s gone. How can we make it more sustainable?  Is there a model that exists that we could follow? We tried tech Tuesdays but teachers are so stressed with the every day responsibilities they have few would give up their lunch time or after school time to attend. Any suggestions?  Thank you.

107 Favorite iPad Apps for K-8–Plus 1

Click for more information

OK–I left one app off the list of 107 Favorite iPad Apps published earlier this week. It’s called Murky Reef. It’s advertised as ‘a series of thematic educational apps that encourages critical thinking through contextual game play’ and includes specific apps for language, science, and different grade levels.

One thing I particularly like about this app is that it’s designed with Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind–those quintessential characteristics of effective learning.

There are 7 apps in the Murky Reef series. Here are the more relevant links:

Full cross-curricular app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/murky-reef-1st-2nd-grade-reading/id465112920?mt=8

Science & Reading Comprehension :http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/murky-reef-science-reading/id501426947?mt=8

107 Favorite iPad Apps for K-8

Great iPad apps for K-8

Tablet computing and mobile devices promise to have a dramatic impact on education. A growing number of schools across the world are jumping on the digital bus and embracing  iPads (less often, other tablet products) as the latest tool to teach literature in multimedia, history through games and simulations, and math with step-by-step animation of problems.

Not surprisingly, student scores improve when they use iPads and their interest in school soars. I say not surprisingly because students love digital toys and in my experience work harder and longer if given the opportunity to do so with any of the digital offerings (ipods, laptops included).

In my school, we have been rotating one set of Pads this year through K-8. I’ve collected quite a few apps on a variety of subjects. I’d like to share the favorites of teachers and students with you, see what you think:

Drawing

• AirSketch Free–Turn your iPad into a wireless whiteboard! Project live sketches to a local computer.
• Drawing Box (free)–Drawing Box is the most suitable app to learn and practice drawing and painting. With reponsive smooth pencil and brush strokes, graphical and intuitive interface, you can use it to make a quick sketch or a detailed study on the go.
• How to Draw–Listen, follow the instructions and draw on your screen. See how easy it is.
• PS Express–Phtoshop Lite–Adobe’s free app for editing photos on your iPad, iPhone, or iPad touch.
• SketchBoard–Like to draw your own ideas? Want to keep them all in one place for further search? sketchBoard is simple yet powerful,

Geography

What Every Parent Should Know About Computers and the Internet

How do parents protect kids from the internet

Technology, the internet, computers, are words that confuse–even frighten–many parents. In my blog, Ask a Tech Teacher, I post lots of tips, tricks,, a list of hundreds of kid-friendly websites, self-help articles on how to address this in your

homeschooled child’s education. Every week, I get lots of questions from parents about the right way to address access to technology. Most want suggestions on how to make computer use a positive experience for their little ones.

After fifteen years of teaching technology in a classroom and online, I can tell you without a doubt that educating your child can be done more efficiently and with better results in the world of computers. I don’t mean ONLY on computers. I mean using technology to extend your scholastic reach:

• Research–whether your child’s in second grade or seventh– from a computer is more productive. With training on how to use search skills, students can find the information they want from the comfort of their home or the library and fill in the blanks on the topic you’re covering, be it landforms, the Civil War, or photosynthesis.
• Communication within your homeschool group is much easier using the new collaborative tools available. These include wikis, Google Tools, and more. These allow multiple students to collaborate on a project at once, then embed the result into a digital portfolio (like a wiki page) for all to see
• Finding out what‘s going on in your community so you can use local resources to extend the reach of your homeschool. Most towns have pages sharing what’s going on in the neighborhood, as do local museums, libraries, and more. Once students have learned to search, it can be their responsibility to find and organize.
• Using Web 2.0 tools to bring traditional topics into the child’s world. For example, use Twitter to teach writing skills (click the link to see how)

So how do you make sure your child‘s internet experience is positive? Here are a few simple rules to help you maneuver that minefield:

29 Steps to Internet Safety for Kids

Photo credit: Public domain pictures

This is a great list from Deb Ng, founder and former owner of the Freelance Writing Jobs. I thought hard about what she’d written to see if I could add anything, enhance or disagree.

Nothing. It’s a great list, as good as any I’ve seen since social media exploded on the education landscape. Read and take note:

Most of my online crowd are savvy when it comes to the Internet. We know how to navigate, can spot shady characters at a glance, and can quickly spy inaccurate and poorly written content. However, there’s a whole generation of young people out there who don’t know any of this. And it’s not a slam on their intelligence, either. Not everyone knows enough about predators, privacy and SEO content to educate their kids, and it’s not something so quickly offered in school. We’re getting better at teaching our kids the ropes online, but there are still some areas in which we’re falling short.

Why are we so good about teaching our kids how to avoid shady situations in the real world, but remiss when it comes to the unsavory online stuff?

I recently experienced a circumstance where my son viewed something extremely adult online, despite parental control settings. And though I haven’t been too lax about keeping an eye on his online habits, it got me thinking about all the things all parents should be teaching their kids about using the Internet.

Here’s my list – I hope when you’re done reading, you’ll add your own items to the list because I know there’s much more.

1. Not everything you read online is true: It used to be anything we read in print was true. We could trust newspapers, magazines and books as reliable sources of information. It’s not the same with the web. Since anyone can become published, some of the stuff you’re reading online isn’t true. Even worse, some people are just rewriting stuff they read from other people online, so you might be reading the same false information over and over again. Even Wikipedia isn’t necessarily a reliable source. If you’re researching something online, consider the source. Some poorly written, ramdom web page, isn’t necessarily a good source. However, if you find a .gov or .org site, the information has a better chance of being true. Always look at who owns the website and whether or not they have an agenda before considering whether or not certain information is true.

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

I have to reblog this wonder post by my efriend, Lisa, over a ILove EdTech. How many of these fit you? Can you add to this fun list?

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

1. You can’t remember the last time you printed a classroom document.
2. Plurking, tweeting, and playing with your wiki in public are acceptable behaviors.
3. Your Notebook isn’t spiral bound – it plugs into the wall.
4. Forget the garden…you spend more time on the weekend weeding out your Inbox.
5. You can recite your school’s Acceptable Use Policy by heart.
6. On parent/teacher night, instead of exchanging business cards, you Bump.
7. You express yourself with emoticons.
8. You no longer consider it graffiti to write on someone’s wall.
9. Your significant other gets jealous of your PLN.
10. It’s not creepy to have lots of followers.
11. You’re in a constant battle to be Mayor of your school.
12. Your students call you the “cool” teacher.
13. The other teachers are jealous of your Prezi.
14. YouTube is blocked in your school, and you know how to get around it and still use the content.
15. The Tech Department is sick of your constant requests to unblock Twitter.
16. You’ve Googled your principal.
17. You know that TweetDeck is not a patio with a lot of birds.
18. You correct your friends’ grammar when they text you.
19. Never mind the fruit, you want a real Apple for Christmas.
20. “Casual Fridays” means logging into the EdTech UNconference in your bunny slippers.
21. You wear your “I Heart EdTech” button everywhere you go.
22. You read this blog post then tweet it, like it, and pass it on to a friend

How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools into the Classroom

‘Web 2.0’ is a term familiar to all teachers. Stated in its simplest form, it’s the set of interactive internet-based tools used by students to enrich educational opportunities. ‘Web 1.0’ referred to the act of accessing

Which ones do you use?

websites—nothing more. Students read websites, clicked a few links, and/or researched a topic.Web 2.0—Web-based education basics–includes blogs, wikis, class internet homepages, class internet start pages, twitter, social bookmarks, podcasting, photo sharing, online docs, online calendars, even Second Life—all tools that require thoughtful interaction between the student and the site. For teachers, it’s a challenge to keep up with the plethora of options as the creative minds of our new adults stretch the boundaries of what we can do on the internet. Students, adults, teachers who use this worldwide wealth of information and tools are referred to as ‘digital citizens’. They leave a vast digital footprint and it is incumbent upon them to make healthy and safe decisions, including:

• Treat others and their property with respect (for example, plagiarism—even undiscovered—is immoral and illegal)
• Act in a responsible manner
• Look after their own security

Here are some activities you can do in your classroom that will make your lessons and activities more student-centered and more relevant to this new generation of students:

Google Apps Support Bloom’s Taxonomy–Take a Look

Kathy Shrock has done a wonderful piece linking the multitude of Google Apps to the levels of Blooms Taxonomy. This is an invaluable resource for all teachers. Take a look:

Google Apps Meets Blooms Taxonomy

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
    

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 Tips 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

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

Weekend Website #80: 73 Sponges for Classroom–by topic

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.

Age:

K-5

Topic:

Websites to fill in that 5-10 minutes between topic, before lunch  or whenever you need filler that’s educational, but brief.

Review:

Here’s a list of websites that can insure you waste no time in your classroom. I have 51 websites that are general, and 22 that are divided into Vocabulary, Geography, History and Art. This is an update of the old-style puzzles or paper sponges to educational fillers that will truly engage students and have them thirsting for more, even when the sponge time ends.

Weekend Website #74: 41 Websites for Teachers to Integrate Tech into Your Classroom

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. I posted this list about a year ago. It got so many comments, I’ve reposted it for you. Have you found anything new this year?

Age:

Kindergarten-5th

Topic:

Academic

Review:

This list has a little bit of everything, and will kick-start your effort to put technology into your lesson plans:

1. 10 Tech Alternatives to Book Reports
   

   Add a word; hone in on what you mean; get a globe covered with pictures

2. Read, write, think
3. Animations, assessments, charts, more
4. Biomes/Habitats—for teachers
5. Create a magazine cover
6. Create free activities and diagrams in a Flash!
7. Create free activities. No signup
8. Creative Tools
9. Crossword Puzzle Maker
10. Easy Techie Stuff for the Classroom
11. Easy Web 2.0 tools
12. Environmental footprint
13. Flashcards or Worksheets
14. Free online tools (Web 2.0)
15. Geography Activities—for teachers
16. Glogster—posters
17. Hollywood Sq/Jeopardy Templates

Weekend Website #75: Solar System Scope

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.

Interactive space on steroids