163 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 Here are the categories:

• Analyze, Compare/Contrast
• Assessments
• Classroom Management
• Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Digital Portfolios
• Domain-specific Language
• Geography
• Lesson Plans
• Listening
• Literacy
• Math
• Parent Ed
• Publishing
• Reading
• Science
• Sharing
• Speaking
• Special Needs
• Study Tools
• Videos
• Visual Learning
• Web Tools
• White Board
• Writing

Do you have any to add?

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

Follow me

---

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.

Summer Tech Tips–What Do You Need?

I’ve been off a day already! Ah, glorious life–no schedules, sleeping in, walking the dog… Hopefully you’ve gone to movies, picnics, amusement parks.

Enough of that. Time to think about next year. I’ve got lots of ideas, but I’d like your input:

… Oh, I see. You’re busy trying to entertain your out-of-school children. I understand–I have a great list of all-encompassing websites at Great Websites for your children to visit. Students can freely visit any within their age group without you worrying about content (although, there’s still that stuff outside of the digital neighborhood called ‘ads’).

Are they busy now? Do you have a moment? Vote! I’m waiting…

Sigh…

---

---

---

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books on how to integrate technology in education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, featured blogger for Technology in Education, IMS tech expert, and a monthly contributor to TeachHUB. Currently, she’s editing a techno-thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Follow me

Tech Tip #50: The Easiest Way to Outline

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 fifth graders are learning outlining in the classroom. Is there an easy way to tie that into technology?

A:  Outlining can’t be easier than doing it in Word. Here’s what you do:

• Select the Numbered List or the Bullet List in MS Word. MS Word 2010 even lets you select the style up front. MS Word 2003–it’s a bit more complicated
• Your first bullet or number appears on the screen. Type your item
• Push enter to add another number or bullet
• To create a subpoint, push tab after you’ve pushed enter to start the next bullet/number
• To push a subpoint up a level, push Shift+tab after you’ve pushed enter for the next bullet/number

That’s it–three keys:

Tech Tip #49: The Fifteen Second Slideshow

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 kindergarten and first grade students are too young to create their own slideshows for Open House (or any parent day) and I’m just too busy. What’s an easy way to display their work digitally for parents that also involves the students in the preparation?

A:  I had this problem last year. I simply ran out of time trying to prepare so I offloaded the work onto the students. I was worried it would be too much, but it turned into a wonderful experience for students and parents alike. Here’s all you do:

Tech Tip #48: Quickly Switch Between Windows

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 copy-pasting between a Word doc and an Excel doc on my computer. I know how to do that, but here’s the problem: I have three Word docs open. I don’t want to close the other two because I’ll need them soon. It takes a lot of time to click down to the taskbar, bring up the Word group and find the correct Word doc. Is there an easier way?

A: Oh yes, Much easier. Use Alt+tab. That takes you to the last window you visited. If you’re toggling between two windows, this is the perfect solution. I use it a lot for grading and report cards.

Tech Tip #47: Tool Tips

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!

This week’s tip: I’m supposed to find a tool on the toolbar, but there are so many and I have no idea what they are for? It’s just as bunch of pictures to me. Is there an easy way to figure this out?

A:  To figure out what a tool does on the toolbar or 2007/10”s ribbon, hover your mouse over the tool (place the mouse above it without clicking). A tool tip will appear with a clue as to what it’s for.

This works in any program with a toolbar or ribbon–MS Office, the internet, Photoshop, and more.

Tech Tip #46: The Easiest Way to Explain Right and Left to (Little) Kids

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 teach kindergarten. They don’t always understand the difference between left and right.

A: There are two times kids get confused about right and left when I’m teaching:

• right mouse button
• clicking in front of a spot (to edit, use the tab key, format–stuff like that)

I’ve found an easy way to clarify. Here’s an example:

Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?

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 screen is sideways 90 degrees. How do I fix that?

A: If you ever needed this, you’re going to be blessing me. If you’ve never faced that off-kilter screen, you’re going to wonder why I’d post this tip.

Of course, I’ve faced it–I run a tech lab and there are always those pesky prodigies who want to outsmart me. They know if they push Ctrl+Alt+(down arrow), it’ll turn the screen upside down. The first time it happened, I was at a loss. That’s when a different pesky prodigy told me how to fix it:

Great Resources for Educators–Check it out

Credit: Nemo

I’ve added a page to my top bar. This one is a list of resources I’ve used or other teachers have told me about that I think you might find helpful in your daily teaching.  They’re all free (though, as it is these days, most ‘free’ widgets have a ‘fee’ upgrade. You decide if you want that).

Weekend Website #110: 89 Resources for Teachers

I know summer just started. You’re relaxing, reading the stack of books that collected on your nightstand, planting the flowers you were supposed to take care of in April, but, well, teaching came first.

Bookmark this page and when you’re ready to look at some teacherly resources, come back. I’ve collected 89 great resources to make your job easier–everything from grading rubrics, online quizzes, audio books, utilities, to puzzle creators and more.

Weekend Website #81: A Web Whiteboard

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.

Clean, simple start

Click start, you get a white board

Address:

A Web Whiteboard

Age:

Teachers, for all ages

Topic:

Classroom management

Review

A Web Whiteboard is simple, straight-forward, no ads or clutter. It starts with an easy-to-find start button. When you push it, you get a full-screen, rudimentary white board that you can draw on. All you get is a couple pens, a couple colors, and the ability to erase or save. But, you can invite others to join the communication and you can post the completed drawing to FB, Reddit, and Twitter. I’d like html so I can add it to my wiki page, but NP–I’ll simply take a screen shot.

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

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

What Every Parent Should Know About Computers

As a tech teacher, I constantly chat with parents about computers and their kids. Some are afraid to allow their children access to the

computer and want suggestions on how to make internetting specifically and computer use in general a positive experience for their little one. After ten years of teaching technology, I can tell you without doubt that school can no longer be done without a computer. They’re used for:

• homework, starting in around 2nd grade–sooner in some cases
• communication with the teacher–it may be difficult to reach a teacher on the phone or catch them between classes, but the teachers I know commit to responding to all email within 24 hours. If that isn’t fast enough, then definitely, hang out by their classroom
• research–I teach 2nd graders basic research on the computer and I may be a year late. Your children are seeing it in school, hearing about it from friends. They’ll want to access information on classroom topics via your computer. Let them spread their fingers and go.
• finding out what’s going on around school. Most schools have lots of administrative material online, sports dates, shows, events. Children feel comfortable at their school when they understand the environ. Enjoying school means they learn to love learning.

3 Steps to Keep the Internet Child-Safe

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

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

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

Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?

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!