Summer Keyboarding Class–How to Win FREE K-8 Keyboarding Curriculum

Every summer, I teach a keyboarding class to 2nd-8th graders. It’s sixty minutes a day, five days a week, for three weeks. This summer, I’m moving it online, through my Keyboard Wiki.

Ready? Don’t need any more information? Click here to join.

There will be two sessions:

• June 24th-July 12th (no class July 4th)
• July 15th-August 2nd

Class will be self-paced, self-managed, the sixty minutes arranged whenever the student can make it fit into summer schedules. Required materials include:

• The Essential Guide to Teaching K-8 Keyboarding–digital or print, as a guide to weekly activities–ebook free when you join class
• membership in the Keyboarding Wiki–also free with the class
• access to the internet and/or Skype
• a full-size keyboard (not an iPad)

How to Thrive as a Digital Citizen

Citizen of the internet

Thanks to the pervasiveness of easy-to-use technology and the accessibility of the internet, teachers are no longer lecturing from a dais as the purveyor of knowledge. Now, students are expected to take ownership of their education, participate actively in the learning process, and transfer knowledge learned in the classroom to their lives.

In days past, technology was used to find information (via the internet) and display it (often via PowerPoint). No longer.  Now, if you ask a fifth grade student to write a report on space exploration, here’s how s/he will proceed:

Understand ‘Digital Citizenship’

Before the engines of research can start, every student must understand what it means to be a citizen of the world wide web. Why? Most inquiry includes a foray into the unknown vastness of the www. Students learn early (I start kindergartners with an age-appropriate introduction) how to thrive in that virtual world. It is a pleasant surprise that digital citizenship has much the same rules as their home town:

Don’t talk to bad guys, look both ways before crossing the (virtual) street, don’t go places you know nothing about, play fair, pick carefully who you trust, don’t get distracted by bling, and sometimes stop everything and take a nap.

In internet-speak, students learn to follow good netiquette, not to plagiarize the work of others, avoid scams, stay on the website they choose, not to be a cyber-bully, and avoid the virtual ‘bad guys’. Current best practices are not to hide students from any of these, but to teach them how to manage these experiences.

7 Technology Tools Every Educator Should Use

Click for a full list of resources

A big part of my job as technology teacher is IT coordinator, which means I must keep up with tech ed widgets and tools so I know what to recommend to the teachers at my school. I have a robust PLN that constantly shares what they are using in their classrooms, programs like PowToon, Dipity, Tikatok, Yacapaca, Glittertools, Chart Gizmo, Noteflight–you get the idea. Still, there are more than any one teacher can test properly.

In a perfect world, here’s how I determine which of these hundreds (thousands?) of tools are student-ready:

• I try it myself. Does it work easily and as promised? Is it intuitive? Are there intrusive ads that will distract students as they work through the steps?
• Next, I query my social networks. Have my fellow tech teachers had success with this tool? What problems did they run into? Is it stable? If my e-colleagues find the glamor is only skin deep, I move on.

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

Book Review: 38 Web 2.0 Articles That Will Turn Your Class Around

Tech ed pedagogy

38 Web 2.0 Articles That Will Turn Your Class Around

by Structured Learning IT Team

Seventy-six pages of the 38 most requested articles from Ask A Tech Teacher©. They cover critical Web 2.0 topics like how blogging makes students better writers, the importance of social media to education, how to teach keyboarding the right way, top ten tips for teaching MS Word, why technology is important for all learners, what to include on the youngest child’s computer, using internet start pages in tech lab and more. Each article is quick (1-2 pages), pithy, and easy-to-understand. They’re written by a working tech teacher with fifteen years experience teaching technology to all age groups.

Available for next-day digital delivery from:

Teachers Pay Teachers, Scribd.com, Publisher’s website

Weekend Website #106: ZimmerTwins

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.

Create a comic movie

Weekend Website #105: Voki

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.

Create talking avatars to assist teaching

Weekend Website #104: Animoto

Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, gotten excited to use. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Animoto–create a video in a minute (if you’re in a hurry) or take your time to make it perfect. Either way, it’s easy.

Book Review: 55 Tech Projects for the Digital Classroom

With the school year almost back, I want to share some of the tech books I use in my classroom. I think you’ll enjoy them also. This one is a two-volume all-in-one for grades K-8. It includes a mixture of lessons that cover different skills, different subjects. Hope you like it!

55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom: Everything you need to integrate computers into K-8 classes

by Jacqui Murray

Volume I is 219 pages and Volume II 235 pages, making this series an all-in-one K-8 toolkit for the lab specialist, classroom teacher and homeschooler, with a years-worth of simple-to-follow projects for K-8. Integrate technology into language arts, geography, history, problem solving, research skills, and science lesson plans and units of inquiry using teacher resources that meet NETS-S national guidelines and many state standards. The fifty-five projects are categorized by subject, program (software), and skill (grade) level. Each project includes standards met in three areas (higher-order thinking, technology-specific, and NETS-S), software required, time involved, suggested experience level, subject area supported, tech jargon, step-by-step lessons, extensions for deeper exploration, troubleshooting tips and project examples including reproducibles. Tech programs used are KidPix, all MS productivity software, Google Earth, typing software and online sites, email, Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, internet start pages, social bookmarking and photo storage), Photoshop and Celestia. Also included is an Appendix of over 200 age-appropriate child-friendly websites. Skills taught include collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, creativity, digital citizenship, information fluency, presentation, and technology concepts. In short, it’s everything you’d need to successfully integrate technology into the twenty-first century classroom.

If you send a proof of purchase for the print textbook to the publisher at sales@structuredlearning.net, you can buy a discounted pdf of the book here.

Summer Keyboarding Class–Here are the Details

Photo credit: Public domain pictures

Keyboarding is one of my most-requested topics. I get lots of questions about when to start, how to do it, what makes it fun, and more. If you’re struggling with teaching keyboarding to students, check these posts out and then keep reading:

1. How Fast Should Kids Type
2. 18 Online Keyboard Sites for Kids
3. Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See
4. What are Your Favorite Summer School Keyboard Activities
5. #55: Keyboarding in the Classroom
6. 6 Kindergarten Keyboard Basics
7. How to Teach Keyboarding in Lower School
8. 20 Best Keyboarding Websites
9. Weekend Website #47: Online Keyboarding
10. Weekend Website #21: Test Your Typing Speed
11. #57: Yes, You Should Assign Keyboarding Homework

Every summer, I teach a keyboarding class to 3rd-6th graders. It’s fifty minutes a day, five days a week, for three weeks. To keep myself organized and make the class as student-centered as possible for a rote sort of subject, I created a Keyboarding Wiki. There, I collected what we did each day, keyboard websites, finger exercises, teaching strategies and more. This enabled those precocious souls who didn’t get enough keyboarding during the class to get more at home, though that was never required.

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

Communicate the Web 2.0 Way

My school is an IB school. We follow the philosophy that to educate students requires an

international understanding of the world, people and ideas. Part of the curriculum requires fifth graders to participate in an Exhibition where they use knowledge accumulated over six years of education to communicate their ideas on a global issue such as displacement, global warming, lack of education, pollution, world hunger, and limited access to fresh, clean water.

Last year, the fifth grade team asked me to brush students up on Publisher/PowerPoint/Word skills so they could construct their presentation. This year, I’m taking a different approach by encouraging students to think of other ways than these traditional ways to communicate their ideas. We’re spending six weeks studying and teaching each other some of the amazing online communication tools that offer motivating and inspirational ways to share thoughts.

Here’s how we’re doing that:

• I reviewed with students the concepts of communicating ideas, the shortfall of confining themselves to tools such as MS Office, and then gave a quick overview of seventeen Web 2.0 Communication Tools. All are free and as many as possible require no log-in
• Students broke into three-person teams and selected a Web 2.0 tool from the list (note to self: let students create the list next year).
• All students joined the class wiki and created their own page (using only first names). On this page, they will share the tool they’re teaching as well as those learned through classmates
• I demo’d how a presentation would work using the wonderful online program called Tagxedo.
  • I reviewed the tool and everyone created a Tagxedo
  • I showed them how to incorporate the Exhibition theme into the Tagxedo. This will be expected of all tools they teach
  • I showed them where to find Tagxedo’s embed tools so it could be added to their wiki page. All students did this and they loved it. To see that image animate is an epiphany in communication
• I reviewed the rubric that I would use in grading. It includes four broad areas:
  • knowledge of the tool
  • ability to teach students
  • reflection on the lesson
  • group work
• In their preparation, I encouraged students to embrace mistakes, problem-solve, be curious, as this will help them help classmates during the presentation
• Each week, a different team of students taught the class. One team member provided instruction while the other two roamed the classroom helping where classmates got stuck. Estimated time of presentation: 20 minutes (though longer is OK)
• In the presentation, students modeled how to incorporate this tool into an Exhibition

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:

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:

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

Unlocking Social Networking for Schools

Please join me in welcoming my guest, Brent Thurrell. Brent is the CEO of Scholabo Ltd a company he founded to help his children’s school reduce their reliance on paper and move their communications strategy into the 21st century. What started as a small project rapidly developed into a passion to help strengthen the relationship between schools and parents everywhere. Before Scholabo, Brent worked in the world of information security and identity management across multiple projects in sectors from global finance through to government and defence.

Brent saw an article I wrote for Innovate My School entitled How to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom and contacted me to chat about social networks in schools. When I heard his thoughts, I asked if he’d share his vision with my readers. Here are his thoughts:

Unlocking Social Networking for Schools

If you read the title of this article and the blood in your veins runs cold at the mere mention of ‘social networking’, chances are you’re probably a teacher. Don’t worry though– this is a very common reaction and this article has been written to ease your now elevated heart rate and, hopefully, give you a new perspective about how the ‘principles’ of social networking can be applied to positive effect in your school.

To start with, we are not going to be talking here about social networking involving any form of pupil participation – that should have you relaxing already! Instead we will be focussing upon exploring the role it can play to support Parental Engagement initiatives and bridge the growing communications gap between Schools and today’s Parents.

31 Human Body Websites for 2nd-5th Grade

In my school, 2nd grade and 5th grade have units on the human body. To satisfy their different maturities, I’ve developed two lists of websites to complement this inquiry. I put them on the class internet start page so when students have free time, they can visit:

2nd -3rd Grade

Place organs where they belong

1. Blood Flow
2. Body Systems
3. Build a Skeleton
4. Can you place these parts in the correct place?
5. Choose the systems you want to see.
6. Find My Body Parts
7. How the Body Works
8. Human Body Games
9. Human Body websites
10. Human Body—by a 2^nd grade class—video
11. Human Body—videos on how body parts work
12. Inside the Human Body: Grades 1-3
13. Kids’ Health-My Body
14. Matching Senses
15. Muscles Game
16. Nutrition Music and Games from Dole

Book Review: Third Grade Technology–32 Lessons

Third Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every Third Grader Can Accomplish on a Computer

by Structured Learning

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the Fourth Edition, updated to MS Office 2007/10. It  includes many more samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections and how-to’s that are age-appropriate for a second grader. At 126 pages, it’s much more like a tech lab-in-a-binder than a mere 32 projects. The Amazon blurb says it all:

The six-volume Structured Learning Technology Curriculum (Fourth Edition, 2011) is the all-in-one solution to running an effective, efficient, and fun technology program  whether you’re the lab specialist, IT coordinator, classroom teacher, or homeschooler, and is the current choice of hundreds of school districts across the country. Newly updated and expanded, each volume now includes step-by-step directions for a year’s worth of projects, samples, grading rubrics, reproducibles, wall posters, teaching ideas and hundreds of online connections to access enrichment material and updates from a working technology lab. Aligned with ISTE national technology standards, the curriculum follows a tested timeline of which skill to introduce when, starting with mouse skills, keyboarding, computer basics, and internet/Web 2.0 tools in Kindergarten/First; MS Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Earth, internet research, email and Photoshop in Second-Fifth. Each activity is integrated with classroom units in history, science, math, literature, reading, writing, critical thinking and more. Whether you’re an experienced tech teacher or brand new to the job, you’ll appreciate the hundreds of embedded links that enable you to stay on top of current technology thinking and get help from active technology teachers using the program. Additional items included in each volume are wall posters to explain basic concepts, suggestions for keyboarding standards, discussion of how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom curriculum and the dozens of online websites to support classroom subjects.

For a limited time, if you send a proof of purchase for the print textbook to the publisher at sales@structuredlearning.net, you can buy a discounted pdf of the book.

Book Review: Kindergarten Technology–32 Lessons

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

by Structured Learning IT Teaching Team

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the Fourth Edition, updated to MS Office 2007/10. It  includes many more samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections and how-to’s that are age-appropriate for a second grader. At 58 pages, it’s much more like a tech lab-in-a-binder than a mere 32 projects. The Amazon blurb says it all:

The six-volume Structured Learning Technology Curriculum (Fourth Edition, 2011) is the all-in-one solution to running an effective, efficient, and fun technology program  whether you’re the lab specialist, IT coordinator, classroom teacher, or homeschooler, and is the current choice of hundreds of school districts across the country. Newly updated and expanded, each volume now includes step-by-step directions for a year’s worth of projects, samples, grading rubrics, reproducibles, wall posters, teaching ideas and hundreds of online connections to access enrichment material and updates from a working technology lab. Aligned with ISTE national technology standards, the curriculum follows a tested timeline of which skill to introduce when, starting with mouse skills, keyboarding, computer basics, and internet/Web 2.0 tools in Kindergarten/First; MS Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Earth, internet research, email and Photoshop in Second-Fifth. Each activity is integrated with classroom units in history, science, math, literature, reading, writing, critical thinking and more. Whether you’re an experienced tech teacher or brand new to the job, you’ll appreciate the hundreds of embedded links that enable you to stay on top of current technology thinking and get help from active technology teachers using the program. Additional items included in each volume are wall posters to explain basic concepts, suggestions for keyboarding standards, discussion of how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom curriculum and the dozens of online websites to support classroom subjects.

For a limited time, if you send a proof of purchase for the print textbook to the publisher at sales@structuredlearning.net, you can buy a discounted pdf of the book.

Book Review: Fourth Grade Technology–32 Lessons

Fourth Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every Fourth Grader Can Accomplish on a Computer

by Structured Learning IT Teaching Team

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the Fourth Edition, updated to MS Office 2007/10 (currently available only as pdf). It  includes many more samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections and how-to’s that are age-appropriate for a second grader. At 126 pages, it’s much more like a tech lab-in-a-binder than a mere 32 projects. The Amazon blurb says it all:

The six-volume Structured Learning Technology Curriculum (Fourth Edition, 2011) is the all-in-one solution to running an effective, efficient, and fun technology program  whether you’re the lab specialist, IT coordinator, classroom teacher, or homeschooler, and is the current choice of hundreds of school districts across the country. Newly updated and expanded, each volume now includes step-by-step directions for a year’s worth of projects, samples, grading rubrics, reproducibles, wall posters, teaching ideas and hundreds of online connections to access enrichment material and updates from a working technology lab. Aligned with ISTE national technology standards, the curriculum follows a tested timeline of which skill to introduce when, starting with mouse skills, keyboarding, computer basics, and internet/Web 2.0 tools in Kindergarten/First; MS Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Earth, internet research, email and Photoshop in Second-Fifth. Each activity is integrated with classroom units in history, science, math, literature, reading, writing, critical thinking and more. Whether you’re an experienced tech teacher or brand new to the job, you’ll appreciate the hundreds of embedded links that enable you to stay on top of current technology thinking and get help from active technology teachers using the program. Additional items included in each volume are wall posters to explain basic concepts, suggestions for keyboarding standards, discussion of how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom curriculum and the dozens of online websites to support classroom subjects.

Book Review: Second Grade Technology–32 Lessons

Second Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every Second Grader Can Accomplish on a Computer

by Structured Learning IT Teaching Team

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the Fourth Edition, updated to MS Office 2007/10. It  includes many more samples, reproducibles, Web 2.0 connections and how-to’s that are age-appropriate for a second grader. At 72 pages, it’s much more like a tech lab-in-a-binder than a mere 32 projects. The Amazon blurb says it all:

The six-volume Structured Learning Technology Curriculum (Fourth Edition, 2011) is the all-in-one solution to running an effective, efficient, and fun technology program  whether you’re the lab specialist, IT coordinator, classroom teacher, or homeschooler, and is the current choice of hundreds of school districts across the country. Newly updated and expanded, each volume now includes step-by-step directions for a year’s worth of projects, samples, grading rubrics, reproducibles, wall posters, teaching ideas and hundreds of online connections to access enrichment material and updates from a working technology lab. Aligned with ISTE national technology standards, the curriculum follows a tested timeline of which skill to introduce when, starting with mouse skills, keyboarding, computer basics, and internet/Web 2.0 tools in Kindergarten/First; MS Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Earth, internet research, email and Photoshop in Second-Fifth. Each activity is integrated with classroom units in history, science, math, literature, reading, writing, critical thinking and more. Whether you’re an experienced tech teacher or brand new to the job, you’ll appreciate the hundreds of embedded links that enable you to stay on top of current technology thinking and get help from active technology teachers using the program. Additional items included in each volume are wall posters to explain basic concepts, suggestions for keyboarding standards, discussion of how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom curriculum and the dozens of online websites to support classroom subjects.

41 Websites for Teachers to Integrate Tech into Your Classroom

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 #53: 41 Websites for Teachers to Integrate Tech into Your Classroom

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
2. Analyze, read, write literature
3. Animations, assessments, charts, more
4. Biomes/Habitats—for teachers
5. Create a magazine cover
6. Create free activities and diagrams in a Flash!

#30: A Cover Page in Publisher

Use the Quick Publication template to make a fast cover page for a report, project, etc, in the classroom. Pay attention to layout, grammar, spelling, design.

computer lesson plan

Lots of Great Lesson Plans

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

52 weeks of tech tips

KidPix lessons for K-2

Google Earth lesson plans

Photoshop lesson plans

Web 2.0 lesson plans

MS Word lesson plans

MS Excel lesson plans

Powerpoint lesson plans

Publisher lesson plans (DTP)

Keyboarding lesson plans

 

Mouse lesson plans

Take a break

Click to see all the lesson plans at once.

How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers

Edublogs--one of many classroom-minded blog services

If kids are inspired to write, they get better at writing. The trick is to make writing fun.

Blogs do that. The students get to interact with their favorite toy–a computer–and go online for legitimate purposes. They get to see their thoughts in print–what could be more appealing? Blogs and online forums are a teachers dream.

The problem is how teachers use this 21st Century tool. Like every good skill, blogging requires a few simple rules. These are similar to Other Writing, but not usually the most important techniques you’d teach. In blogging, they are near the top of what is required to be an effective blogger:

Weekend Website #36: LearnItIn5

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, too.

#27: Online Blogs for Your Classroom

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.

Click on them for a full size alternative.

Weekend Website #7: Free Flash Tools for your Classroom

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 an update on my original posting on Classroom Tools. Today–how to create free educational games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in seconds! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! No signup, no passwords, no charge! Visit Classroom Tools and get started.

Weekend Website #19: First 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 first 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

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 #15: A 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 wiki for my fifth grade class

5 Google Earth Projects for the Web 2.0 Classroom

View this document on Scribd

It is for sale, but if you sign up for an RSS feed to my blog, I’ll send you one of the five for free. Good deal! Here are the five projects:

• Intro to Google Earth
• Where did I come from?
• Where am I?
• The Wonders of Google Earth — a favorite of my students
• The Google Earth Board — teaches Google Earth and presentation skills. A two-fer

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.

#44: How to Teach Geography with KidPix I

Get as creative as you want with the pictures that go at the four points of the compass rose–let the kids be creative!

Before you start this project, be sure to go through How to KidPix I and How to KidPix II.

#100: How to Web 2.0 Accessorize Your Classroom

Web 2.0 is the most exciting thing to happen to education since the schoolhouse. It is a limitless classroom, allowing students access to anything they can define. Includes what’s a digital citizen, how to create a blog, a classroom internet start page, a classroom wiki, how to join social networks and post pictures on Flikr, where to go for podcasting and online docs, and more.

Here’s where you start:

#17: A Holiday Story in MS Word for Grades 2-7

Reinforce fiction writing–characters, plot, setting, climax–with a short story in MS Word. Then use color, borders, pictures to enhance the words.

How to Teach Email to Kids

Subject #11: Technology

Lesson Description

• Online communication include faxes, instant messages, blogs (discussed in other Projects), and email. Of the four, email is the most popular—so popular, it has transformed the way the world communicates. According to the Radicati Group, in 2008, 1.3 billion people had email accounts and sent 210 billion messages daily.
• Why so popular? First, email is paperless, appealing to our global need to conserve resources. On a more basic level, email is a faster alternative to most other forms of communication by combining the telephone’s speed and efficiency with users need to transfer files and documents. Email has no time or place barriers. You can write and respond (with an amazing level of anonymity) whenever you choose – day or night with multiple contacts, keeping many people in the loop with the click of a few keys. And, email is stored and retrieved quickly at almost no cost.
• Used properly, email encourages collaboration among teachers (see table on next page), making an integrated curriculum simpler than ever. It encourages conversations between parents-students-faculty and facilitates the paperless submittal of homework and projects (no more dog-ate-my-homework excuses).
• This project initiates students into the use of email. Be sure they understand it is not fail-safe, merely one more step in that direction.

Computer Activity

• Open the school’s sample email program, in my case, Outlook.
• Remind students: There are many alternate email programs. The one they have at home may be different. Ask parents to help their students match what you teach with their system.
• ‘To:’—This field is for the sendee—who the email is intended for. Be sure the address is spelled correctly with no spaces. It must have an ‘@’ in it. If multiple sendees are required, put a semi colon between their addresses.
• ‘Subject:’—This is a brief summary of your email. Put any references or numbers that make it easy to recognize for the receiver. Many people read their email based on the subject line (see next page). Don’t use the urgent flag unless it is.
• Body of email:—Be brief. Use correct grammar and spelling (see next page for rules). You can include pictures, links, and text.
• Use tab to move from field to field
• Have students do a sample email. Walk around and be sure it’s correct. Have them address it to themselves and to you. This is a good opportunity to see if they know your email (for homework and projects) and their home address. Experiment with the editing tools—they’re similar to those in MS Word.
• Show students how to check the ‘Sent’ file to be sure their email went out. Show them how to ask for a receipt, although many email servers are different than Outlook. Encourage them to do this with emails they send to you
• Go over the rules on the next page. Take them slowly. Encourage discussion on items like email security, spam, etc.

Extensions

• Go through the menu bar tools. Like Address Book. Let students see what’s there.
• Show students how to organize email into file folders, i.e., ‘school’, ‘technology homework’, etc.
• Show students how to have the program spell-check each email before it is sent

Troubleshooting Tips

• I can’t get my email to work at home (Check with parents, friends. Check the email programs ‘help’ files. Is there a tutorial you can review?)

Email etiquette (from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom):

More Web 2.0 technology projects? Check out the book on Scribd.com or the website.

How Blogs and Wikis Make Students Better Writers

Tech blogs

Wikis, blogs, social networks and a whole lot more Web 2.0 tools are the most exciting thing to happen to education since public schools.Kids love them. They’re drawn in, want to get involved, thirst to share their thoughts. Here’s the interesting part to us teachers:  If students want anyone to read what they write, they have to do it correctly–and they’re willing to make this effort for a blog.

That’s right. There are rules to follow. You’d think people would tire of posting to oblivion. No readers. No comments. They’d give up and try something new. But they don’t. They buckle down and try to follow the unique rules inherent in blogs and wikis that, if followed, will draw readers. The effort is worth the reward, which seems to be the joy of gaining a following (it sure isn’t the money).

Check out One Cool Site by Timethief. She has post after post of suggestions for increasing the popularing of your blog. It covers mundane, ancient topics like grammar, pithiness of content, exciting headlines. Then scoot over to Problogger for more on the right way to write blogs (different ideas, same message).

As a teacher, I originally thought blogs (and social networks for that matter) were way too modern for rules. Look at texting. It’s developed an entire neologistic vocabulary, complete with spelling and new letters (i.e., emoticons). Boy was I wrong. My blog didn’t get read until I checked it for:

• pithy content
• correct spelling and grammar
• appeal to my readers (a great lesson for students–make sure your voice fits your audience)
• interaction with readers via  questions in the blog and answering comments when there were any
• the three paragraph structure (just like students learn in school): first to attract search engines with a scintillating synopsis, second to appeal to my audience, third to tie everything down to a conclusion (and maybe leave them wanting more)
• mistakes, redundancies, flow by proof reading. I had to verify point of view, confirm facts–just like when students write an essay or story

So get over it parents. These Web 2.0 tools are not going away, which is a good thing. They’re student-centered and pithy. They sneak in volumes of lessons on good writing, and are full of the five-second info kids love.