Ask a Tech Teacher

2013 (95)

• 05/17/13 - 16 Memorial Day Websites for Students
  
• 05/15/13 - It’s Here! K-5 Tech Curriculum Aligned with Common Core!
  
• 05/15/13 - 11 Ways to Make an Inquiry based Classroom
  
• 05/14/13 - Tech Tip #49: The Fifteen Second Slideshow
  
• 05/10/13 - Weekend Website #127: Brown Bear Typing
  
• 05/09/13 - You Know You’re a Geek When…
  
• 05/08/13 - 11 Ways to be an Inquiry-based Teacher
  
• 05/07/13 - Tech Tip #48: Quickly Switch Between Windows
  
• 05/06/13 - Dear Otto: How do I prevent printer pandemonium?
  
• 05/03/13 - 15 Great Simulations to Gamify Your Class
  
• 05/02/13 - Subscribers: Your Special is Available
  
• 05/01/13 - CSTA Conference Coming Up!
  
• 04/30/13 - Tech Tip #47: Tool Tips
  
• 04/29/13 - Which is better for schools: iPads or laptops?
  
• 04/26/13 - Weekend Website #126: BrainPop Game Up
  
• 04/25/13 - What’s Trending on Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 04/24/13 - Why Keyboarding Should NOT be Dead
  
• 04/23/13 - Tech Tip #46: The Easiest Way to Explain Right and Left to (Little) Kids
  
• 04/22/13 - Dear Otto: I need reading resources for ELL/ESL
  
• 04/19/13 - Weekend Website #125: Starfall Math
  
• 04/18/13 - 12 Great Websites for Earth Day
  
• 04/17/13 - Platform for Good Hosts Me
  
• 04/16/13 - Summer Keyboarding Class–How to Win FREE K-8 Keyboarding Curriculum
  
• 04/15/13 - Dear Otto: What’s a good Website program?
  
• 04/12/13 - 42 Great Story Websites You’ll Love
  
• 04/11/13 - Humor that Inspires–for Teachers! Part II
  
• 04/10/13 - 7 Ways Common Core Will Change Your Classroom
  
• 04/09/13 - Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?
  
• 04/08/13 - FREE Tech Teacher Training–But Join Quickly
  
• 04/05/13 - Weekend Website 123: Google Gravity
  
• 04/04/13 - Humor that Inspires–for Teachers! Part II
  
• 04/03/13 - How to Make a Student-centered Video
  
• 04/02/13 - Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly
  
• 04/01/13 - Dear Otto: Any Ideas for Tech Ed Benchmark Assessments?
  
• 03/29/13 - Weekend Website #122: Dance Pony Dance
  
• 03/28/13 - 7 Technology Tools Every Educator Should Use–the Movie
  
• 03/27/13 - Subscribers: Your Special is Available
  
• 03/26/13 - Tech Tip #43: Back Up Often
  
• 03/25/13 - Dear Otto: How Do I Teach Citations?
  
• 03/22/13 - 10 Easter Sites For Your Students
  
• 03/21/13 - 14 Easy Spring Cleaning Steps for Your Computer
  
• 03/20/13 - 14 Factors to Consider for Tech Report Cards
  
• 03/19/13 - Tech Tip #42: How to (Re)Set Your Homepage
  
• 03/18/13 - Dear Otto: How Can Students Keep Track of Passwords?
  
• 03/15/13 - 7 Websites That Ring in Spring
  
• 03/14/13 - Great Websites–Stories
  
• 03/13/13 - Ramp up Your iPad Use
  
• 03/12/13 - Tech Tip #41: Repair Your Computer With System Restore
  
• 03/11/13 - Dear Otto: How do I prevent printer pandemonium?
  
• 03/09/13 - Just for Fun
  
• 03/08/13 - 24 St. Patrick’s Day Sites For Students
  
• 03/07/13 - Definition of ‘Teacher’
  
• 03/06/13 - How to Teach Keyboarding? Ask Bernadette
  
• 03/05/13 - Tech Tip #111: Quick Internet Fix
  
• 03/04/13 - Dear Otto: What Can I Use Besides PowerPoint?
  
• 03/01/13 - 5 Favorite Websites for K-5
  
• 02/28/13 - Read Across America Day
  
• 02/27/13 - How to Pick iPad Apps for your Classroom
  
• 02/26/13 - Tech Tip #110: Sound Doesn’t Work?
  
• 02/25/13 - Humor that Inspires–for Teachers! Part I
  
• 02/22/13 - Weekend Website #121: Class Badges
  
• 02/21/13 - How to Teach 3rd Graders About Digital Citizenship
  
• 02/20/13 - 7 Common Core Ways to Assess Knowledge
  
• 02/19/13 - Tech Tip #109: Five Second Back-up
  
• 02/18/13 - One Million Hits–Wow
  
• 02/15/13 - Weekend Website #119: 5 Great Website to Teach Letters
  
• 02/14/13 - What are You Doing for Valentine’s Day?
  
• 02/13/13 - Free Lesson Plans–Visit My TeachersPayTeachers Store
  
• 02/12/13 - Tech Tip #40: Where Did Windows Explorer Go?
  
• 02/11/13 - New Literacies Enable Smarter Researching
  
• 02/08/13 - 20 Valentine Sites For Your Students
  
• 02/07/13 - How the Internet Neighborhood is Like Any Other Community
  
• 02/06/13 - Dear Otto: When will the 7/8 Technology Curriculum Textbooks be out?
  
• 02/05/13 - Tech Tip #39: My Computer Won’t Turn Off
  
• 02/04/13 - Subscribers: Your Special is Available
  
• 02/01/13 - Weekend Website #118: Scale of the Universe
  
• 01/31/13 - 5 Favorite iPad Apps
  
• 01/30/13 - 11 Resources to Blend Technology and Special Needs
  
• 01/29/13 - Tech Tip #38: My Desktop Icons Are All Different
  
• 01/28/13 - Now Available: K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum
  
• 01/25/13 - Great Websites Updated!
  
• 01/24/13 - Technology in Schools: A Brief History
  
• 01/22/13 - Tech Tip #37: My MS Word Toolbar Disappeared
  
• 01/21/13 - 17 Topics to Teach K-8 About Digital Citizenship
  
• 01/21/13 - Take Tech into the Classroom
  
• 01/19/13 - 5 Tips to Keeping Your New Years Resolutions
  
• 01/18/13 - Weekend Website #120: Spelling Teacher App
  
• 01/17/13 - 10 Top Click-throughs from Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 01/16/13 - 2013, I Resolve…
  
• 01/15/13 - 10 Most Popular Tech Tips in 2012
  
• 01/14/13 - Lesson Plans for Martin Luther King Day
  
• 01/11/13 - Top Ten Websites of 2012
  
• 01/09/13 - Honors for Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 01/08/13 - New Year’s Gift: 113 Digital Citizenship Links
  
• 01/07/13 - 10 Hits and 10 Misses for 2012
  

2012 (262)

• 12/21/12 - Happy Holiday!
  
• 12/18/12 - Tech Tip #36: The Internet Toolbar Disappeared
  
• 12/17/12 - 5 Fabulous Last-minute Gifts
  
• 12/14/12 - 5 Great Website to Teach Letters
  
• 12/13/12 - Dear Otto: Should I stick with age limits on websites?
  
• 12/13/12 - Check Out My Post at TeachHUB
  
• 12/12/12 - Tech Tip #35: My Program Closed Down
  
• 12/12/12 - How to Thrive as a Digital Citizen
  
• 12/10/12 - 10 Steps to Become a Better Geek
  
• 12/07/12 - 14 Holiday Websites For Your Students
  
• 12/06/12 - Subscribers: Your Special is Available
  
• 12/05/12 - 7 Technology Tools Every Educator Should Use
  
• 12/04/12 - Tech Tip #34: My Program Froze
  
• 12/03/12 - Perfect Gift for the Teacher in Your Life
  
• 11/30/12 - Weekend Website 40: NORAD Santa
  
• 11/29/12 - Dear Otto: PowerPoint or Publisher?
  
• 11/28/12 - How to Thrive as a Digital Citizen
  
• 11/27/12 - Tech Tip #33: My Desktop Icons are Messed Up
  
• 11/26/12 - 10 Steps to Become a Better Geek
  
• 11/16/12 - 18 Thanksgiving Sites For Your Students
  
• 11/15/12 - Subscribers: Your Special is Available
  
• 11/14/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 6th Grade
  
• 11/13/12 - Tech Tip #32: My Taskbar Got Moved to the Side
  
• 11/12/12 - Check Out My Post at TeachHUB
  
• 11/09/12 - Weekend Website #116: Google Street View Locations
  
• 11/08/12 - Be Featured on Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 11/07/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 5th Grade
  
• 11/06/12 - Tech Tip #31: What’s Today’s Date
  
• 11/05/12 - 15 Ways to Get Your Geek On
  
• 11/02/12 - Weekend Website #115: Minecraft
  
• 10/31/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 4th Grade
  
• 10/30/12 - Tech Tip #109: How to Open 2 Gmail Accounts at Once
  
• 10/29/12 - Yes, I’m Resilient, but I Wish Computers Were More Dependable
  
• 10/26/12 - Weekend Website #114: 55 Digital Citizenship Links
  
• 10/25/12 - What’s Trending on Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 10/24/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 3rd Grade
  
• 10/23/12 - Top Tech Tips of All Time
  
• 10/22/12 - Dear Otto: What Keyboard Curriculum is Best?
  
• 10/19/12 - Weekend Website #113: Digital Passport
  
• 10/18/12 - Book Review: 16 Holiday Projects
  
• 10/17/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 2nd Grade
  
• 10/16/12 - Tech Tip #108: Three-click Rule
  
• 10/15/12 - Dear Otto: I need more guidance than the curriculum offers. What do I do?
  
• 10/12/12 - Weekend Website #109: Google World of Wonders
  
• 10/11/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in 1st Grade
  
• 10/10/12 - A Virtual Tour of America–Via Biplane
  
• 10/09/12 - Tech Tip #107: Got a Tech Problem? Google It!
  
• 10/08/12 - Dear Otto: Is Keyboarding Not for Cool Students?
  
• 10/05/12 - Weekend Website #112: Nanoogo
  
• 10/04/12 - How to Teach Digital Citizenship in Kindergarten
  
• 10/03/12 - Is Keyboarding Dead?
  
• 10/02/12 - Tech Tip #91: Internet Problem? Switch Browsers
  
• 10/01/12 - Dear Otto: How Do I Prepare for an Unknown Tech Future?
  
• 09/28/12 - Weekend Website #108: Wowzers
  
• 09/27/12 - Do You Make These 9 Mistakes
  
• 09/26/12 - What’s a Digital Portfolio and Why Should You Use it?
  
• 09/25/12 - Tech Tip #106: Fastest Way to Add a Period When Typing on an IPad
  
• 09/24/12 - Dear Otto: What Are Good Guidelines for Younger Bloggers?
  
• 09/21/12 - Weekend Website #107: Google Search Education
  
• 09/20/12 - Will Texting Destroy Writing Skills?
  
• 09/19/12 - How to Use iPads in Your Classroom
  
• 09/18/12 - Tech Tip #105: Create Shortkeys for any Windows Tool
  
• 09/17/12 - Dear Otto: What are Options on Digital Portfolios
  
• 09/14/12 - 16 Great Virtual Field Trips
  
• 09/13/12 - Book Review: 38 Web 2.0 Articles That Will Turn Your Class Around
  
• 09/12/12 - Tech Tip #104: Need a File on Your iPad? Here’s an Easy Way
  
• 09/11/12 - Our Children Remember…
  
• 09/10/12 - When is Typing Faster Than Handwriting?
  
• 09/08/12 - Check out my Article over at Cisco
  
• 09/07/12 - 5 Great FREE Programs for Students
  
• 09/06/12 - Book Review: K-8 Keyboard Curriculum
  
• 09/05/12 - New to technology? Follow my classes
  
• 09/04/12 - 25 Most Common Problems Your Students Will Face
  
• 09/03/12 - Happy Labor Day
  
• 08/31/12 - 7 Great Labor Day Websites
  
• 08/30/12 - Book Review: 98 Tech Tips
  
• 08/29/12 - Let me Plan Your Tech Curriculum–for Free
  
• 08/28/12 - Tech Tip #30: Menu Command is Greyed Out
  
• 08/27/12 - Dear Otto: What’s a good student email program?
  
• 08/24/12 - Weekend Website #106: ZimmerTwins
  
• 08/23/12 - Do Your Children Need Computers for School?
  
• 08/22/12 - Now Available: K-8 Keyboard Curriculum
  
• 08/21/12 - Tech Tip #103: Need Email Accounts for Registration? Here’s a Fix
  
• 08/20/12 - Dear Otto: What’s a good program to create an online ezine?
  
• 08/19/12 - Book Review: Common Core SS K-5 Lesson Plans
  
• 08/18/12 - Book Review: 38 Web 2.0 Articles That Will Turn Your Class Around
  
• 08/17/12 - Weekend Website #105: Voki
  
• 08/16/12 - New to technology? Follow my classes
  
• 08/15/12 - Back to School–Tech Makes it Easy to Stay On Top of Everything
  
• 08/14/12 - Tech Tip #102: Doc Saved Over? No Problem
  
• 08/13/12 - 50 Ways to Tell a Story (and Each is Unique)
  
• 08/10/12 - Weekend Website #112: The Babakus
  
• 08/09/12 - Dear Otto: My computers are old. What do I do?
  
• 08/08/12 - Check out my Article over at Cisco
  
• 08/07/12 - Tech Tip #28: 5 Ways to Fix a No-Sound Problem–For Free
  
• 08/06/12 - Now Available: 35 Extra Lessons for the SL K-6 Technology Curriculum
  
• 08/03/12 - Weekend Website #104: Animoto
  
• 08/02/12 - Subscribe to my Blog–Get Special Gifts Every Month
  
• 08/01/12 - Book Review: 19 Posters to Decorate Your Technology Lab
  
• 07/31/12 - Tech Tip #27: My Taskbar Disappeared
  
• 07/30/12 - Dear Otto: What About Carmen San Diego?
  
• 07/27/12 - Weekend Website #103: Screenbird
  
• 07/26/12 - Book Review: My Evernote
  
• 07/25/12 - Why do Educators Use Pinterest?
  
• 07/24/12 - Tech Tip #26: My Mouse Doesn’t Work
  
• 07/23/12 - 10 Passwords Everyone Uses (And You Shouldn’t)
  
• 07/22/12 - Great Resources for Educators–Check it out
  
• 07/21/12 - Book Review: 55 Tech Projects for the Digital Classroom
  
• 07/20/12 - Website Review: Chegg
  
• 07/19/12 - The Elephantine Impact of Technology on Education
  
• 07/18/12 - 19 Free Posters For Your Tech Lab
  
• 07/17/12 - Tech Tip #25: My Keyboard Doesn’t Work
  
• 07/16/12 - Dear Otto: What Online Images are Free?
  
• 07/14/12 - Book Review: Sixth Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 07/13/12 - Weekend Website #111: 40 California Mission Websites
  
• 07/12/12 - Have You Noticed Our New “Great Websites?”
  
• 07/11/12 - 5 Great Tech Ed Blogs You May Not Have Heard Of
  
• 07/10/12 - Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program
  
• 07/09/12 - Dear Otto: How Can I Highlight a Document
  
• 07/08/12 - Subscriber Special: Huge Savings on Lesson Plan Bundles
  
• 07/07/12 - Book Review: Fifth Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 07/06/12 - Weekend Website #110: 89 Resources for Teachers
  
• 07/05/12 - Use the SL K-6 Technology Curriculum? Want More Lessons? I Can Do That
  
• 07/04/12 - Happy July 4th!
  
• 07/03/12 - Tech Tip #23: I Deleted a File By Accident
  
• 07/02/12 - Dear Otto: What’s a Good Comic Creator
  
• 07/01/12 - Book Review: Fourth Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 06/30/12 - Special Ends June 30th–98 Tech Tips FREE With Blog Follow
  
• 06/29/12 - Weekend Website #102: Interactive Simulations
  
• 06/28/12 - 9 Steps to Tech Savviness This Summer
  
• 06/27/12 - Now Available: Grade-level Bundles of Common Core Lessons
  
• 06/26/12 - Tech Tip #22: Quick Exit from 97% of Programs
  
• 06/24/12 - Dear Otto: Should Students Space Once or Twice After a Period?
  
• 06/23/12 - Book Review: Third Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 06/23/12 - Weekend Website #101: Electrocity
  
• 06/23/12 - Tech Tip #21: How to Make a Small Webpage Window Big
  
• 06/23/12 - What’s a Tech Teacher Do With Their Summer Off?
  
• 06/18/12 - Dear Otto: What Can I Use Besides TuxPaint/KidPix?
  
• 06/16/12 - Now Available: 98 Tech Problems From the Classroom: and How Students Can Solve Them
  
• 06/15/12 - Weekend Website #100: CybraryMan Math
  
• 06/14/12 - How to Teach Internet Safety in K-6
  
• 06/13/12 - Book Review: Second Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 06/12/12 - Tech Tip #20: How to Add an MS Word Link
  
• 06/11/12 - Dear Otto: How Do You Teach Adults to Keyboard?
  
• 06/08/12 - Weekend Websites #99: How to Research
  
• 06/06/12 - Now Available: KEY TO ALIGNING K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
  
• 06/05/12 - Tech Tip #19: How to Activate an MS Word Link
  
• 06/04/12 - Check out my Article over at Cisco
  
• 06/04/12 - I’ve been Nominated for the Fascination Award
  
• 06/01/12 - App Review: 5th Grade Math–Splash Math Worksheets
  
• 05/31/12 - Dear Otto: Where Can I Find Kid-safe Images?
  
• 05/30/12 - The Truth About Teaching in America
  
• 05/29/12 - Tech Tip #18: 10 Best MS Word Tips
  
• 05/28/12 - Happy Memorial Day
  
• 05/25/12 - Weekend Website #98: Smithsonian Wild
  
  This website is devoted to sharing images of animals in their wild habitats. The pictures--201,000 and counting to date--have been captured by motion-triggered 'camera traps'--cameras that are activated by an animals movement or body heat and then take pictures of them in their most natural of states--when they believe they are alone. Pictures include dozens of varieties of animals in the following categories:
• 05/24/12 - Pre-Order: KEY TO ALIGNING K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
  
• 05/23/12 - Summer Keyboarding Class–Here are the Details
  
• 05/22/12 - Tech Tip #17: What’s Today’s Date?
  
• 05/21/12 - Book Review: First Grade Technology Textbook
  
• 05/18/12 - Weekend Website #98: TED-Ed
  
• 05/17/12 - How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards
  
• 05/16/12 - Connect Classrooms With Skype–How it’s Done
  
• 05/15/12 - Tech Tip #16: Quickly Email a Doc
  
• 05/14/12 - Book Review: Kindergarten Technology Textbook
  
• 05/11/12 - Weekend Website #97: Timed Test Arcade
  
• 05/10/12 - How to Align Technology with Common Core State Standards
  
• 05/09/12 - Ask a Tech Teacher is Interviewed
  
• 05/08/12 - Tech Tip #101: Doc Saved Over? No Problem
  
• 05/07/12 - Great Apps Now Available
  
• 05/04/12 - Weekend Website #96: Embedit.in
  
• 05/03/12 - 16 Ways Educators Use Pinterest
  
• 05/02/12 - What About Teacher Tech Training–Part II
  
• 05/01/12 - Tech Tip #15: Save Early Save Often–Always
  
• 04/30/12 - Dear Otto: Why Can’t I type into a PDF?
  
• 04/29/12 - Tech Tip #11: How to Show the Entire Drop Down Menu (Office 2003)
  
  Q: Every time I click on a drop down menu in MS Office (Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint), it shows only some of the choices. How can I see all of them?
• 04/27/12 - Weekend Website #95: AIRR Math
  
• 04/26/12 - Changing Education Paradigms
  
• 04/25/12 - 10 Things My Blog Taught Me
  
• 04/24/12 - Tech Tip #14: Did Your Desktop Icons Disappear?
  
• 04/23/12 - Apps for Education
  
• 04/20/12 - Weekend Website #94: 9 Websites to Teach Writing
  
• 04/19/12 - Communicate the Web 2.0 Way
  
• 04/18/12 - Ed-Tech Readers’ Choice Awards–Final Call
  
• 04/17/12 - Tech Tip #13: Powerful Right Mouse Click
  
• 04/17/12 - Tech Tip #13: Powerful Right Mouse Click
  
  Q: I need a faster way to access menus. Is there one?
• 04/16/12 - Dear Otto: What About Teacher Tech Training?
  
• 04/16/12 - Dear Otto: What About Teacher Tech Training?
  
• 04/13/12 - Weekend Website #93: 24 Third Grade Websites on Landforms
  
• 04/12/12 - How Do I Decide What to Write About?
  
• 04/11/12 - 107 Favorite iPad Apps for K-8
  
• 04/10/12 - Tech Tip #12: Wrap Text Around an Image
  
• 04/09/12 - Monday Freebie #34: How to Teach Dolch Words with KidPix
  
• 04/07/12 - Google Summer of Code–They’re Hiring
  
• 04/06/12 - Weekend Website #93: 18 Natural Disasters Websites
  
• 04/04/12 - What’s Trending on Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 04/02/12 - Dear Otto: How Do You Keep Students From Playing with Settings?
  
• 03/30/12 - Weekend Website #92: 43 Language Arts Websites for 3rd Grade
  
• 03/29/12 - Should Tech Teachers be in the Classroom or the Lab–Follow Up
  
• 03/28/12 - Wikipedia vs Britannica–the Results May Surprise You
  
• 03/27/12 - Tech Tip #10: How to Undelete With Two Keystrokes
  
• 03/26/12 - Monday Freebies #39: Google Earth Board
  
  Students select from a list of Wonders of the World (or locations put together in conjunction with the classroom teacher). They do brief research on it, locate it using Google Earth and make a short presentation to the class about it.
• 03/23/12 - Weekend Website #91: 16 Word Study Websites for 2nd Grade
  
• 03/22/12 - 13 ways Twitter Improves Education
  
• 03/21/12 - Grants for Classroom Management Software–Take a Look
  
• 03/20/12 - Tech Tip #9: Hide Your Screen Quickly
  
  How do I quickly hide what I'm working on from prying eyes. Not just the Win 7 key that minimizes everything to the desktop, but so it looks like I'm working on something else than what I am?
• 03/19/12 - Dear Otto: How do I protect my lab?
  
• 03/16/12 - Weekend Websites #90: Free Audio Books
  
  It's clean, easy-to-maneuver, with just a bit of unobtrusive advertising to pay the bills, and she offers dozens--hundreds?--of age-appropriate free downloadable audio books.
• 03/15/12 - What Every Parent Should Know About Computers and the Internet
  
• 03/14/12 - Should You Dump Twitter?
  
• 03/13/12 - Tech Tip #8: Print Part of a Web Page
  
  I only want to print part of the webpage, not the entire thing. Other than copy-pasting a selection into a Word doc or using PrintKey or Jing (they're not on some of the computers I use at work or friends' houses), how do I quickly print just a selection?
• 03/12/12 - Monday Freebies #40: Wonders of Google Earth
  
• 03/09/12 - Weekend Website #89: Rubrics for Web 2.0 Tools
  
• 03/08/12 - 21 Reasons Why You Know You’re a Teacher
  
• 03/07/12 - Dear Otto: Should Lefties Use Right Hands for Mousing Around
  
• 03/07/12 - Do You Skype? Dilbert Does
  
• 03/06/12 - Tech Tip #7: Make Backgrounds Transparent
  
  When I insert my picture, the background isn't transparent, so it covers everything behind it. I want it see-through. How do I do that? BTW, I'm using Publisher.
• 03/05/12 - Dear Otto: Should Lefties Use Right Hands for Mousing Around
  
• 03/02/12 - Weekend Website #88: Drive a Ship
  
  One of the favorites of my students is Ships. It gives them an opportunity to stand at the helm of the ship of their choice and guide it through the world's oceans.
• 03/01/12 - 29 Steps to Internet Safety for Kids
  
• 02/29/12 - Ed-Tech Readers’ Choice Awards
  
• 02/28/12 - Tech Tip #6: The (Horrid Annoying) Publisher Drawing Canvas
  
  When I try to insert a text box or object into Word 2003, a drawing canvas appears around it. It gets in the way--everything has to wrap around it and it leaves too much white space, even when I resize it. My solution: Get rid of it. It's huge and designed to allow you to place multiple shapes that are moved and resized as one. Most of us are only interested in inserting one text box, so it is cumbersome, annoying and useless. To turn the drawing canvas off:
• 02/27/12 - Monday Freebies #38: Introduction to Google Earth
  
• 02/23/12 - You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…
  
• 02/22/12 - How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools into the Classroom
  
• 02/21/12 - Tech Tip #101: The Internet Button
  
  Q: My internet stopped working on my laptop. Everyone else's in the house works, but mine won't connect. What do I do? A: First: Make sure the laptop button that allows connection to the internet is on. More often than not, that's the problem for teachers at my school. If it's not that, it gets much more complicated. I'll cross my fingers.
• 02/20/12 - Monday Freebies #37: Use Oregon Trail to Teach Westward Expansion
  
• 02/17/12 - 62 First Grade Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
  
• 02/16/12 - Do Teacher Ed Programs Prepare Students for Technology Needs of the Classroom?
  
• 02/15/12 - Should Tech Teachers be in the Classroom or the Lab
  
• 02/14/12 - Tech Tip #5: What to do When Your Taskbar Disappears
  
  Q: Some programs hide the taskbar when they open (especially for young children--like KidPix). How do I access other programs without closing down the one I'm working on?
• 02/13/12 - Monday Freebies #35: Sponge Activities for Vocabulary Building
  
  There are lots of great online vocabulary websites to help kids learn high-frequency and dolch words. I’ll share five of them. Maybe you have some to share with the group.
• 02/11/12 - How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools into the Classroom
  
• 02/10/12 - Great Websites Updated!
  
• 02/09/12 - Google Apps Support Bloom’s Taxonomy–Take a Look
  
• 02/08/12 - My G+ Stream is a Trickle
  
• 02/07/12 - Tech Tip #4: Zoom In and Out
  
• 02/06/12 - Monday Freebies #36: My First Report
  
  Students type a report for their class on one of their units of inquiry (i.e., animals) using MS Word. Use this lesson to introduce MS Word, margins, page breaks, centering, fonts. Show students how to add pictures from the internet (using copy-paste), from the computer (using insert). Takes a few classes, depending upon how long the report is:
• 02/03/12 - 62 Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
  
• 02/02/12 - Dear Otto: What iPad Apps Do You Recommend?
  
• 02/01/12 - Help Students Stay Organized with Wikis
  
• 01/31/12 - Tech Tip #3: Turn an Address into a Link
  
• 01/30/12 - Monday Freebie: #33: Grow Your Story
  
• 01/25/12 - Organize Your Classroom With Wikis
  
• 01/23/12 - Monday Freebies #13: Great Online Art Sites
  
• 01/20/12 - Weekend Website #85: 11 Sizzling Space Sites
  
• 01/19/12 - Dear Otto: Should Lefties Use Right Hands for Mousing Around
  
• 01/18/12 - The Secret to Teaching Tech to Kids: Delegate
  
• 01/17/12 - Tech Tip #1: Insert Key
  
  Q: Every time I type, it covers up everything that comes after.
• 01/16/12 - 6th Grade Technology Textbook is Here!
  
• 01/16/12 - Monday Freebie #31: A Title Page in Word
  
• 01/16/12 - Monday Freebies #32: Color my Grammar
  
• 01/13/12 - Top Ten Websites of 2011
  
• 01/12/12 - Web 2.0 Tools in Tech Ed
  
• 01/11/12 - 2012, I Resolve…
  
• 01/10/12 - 10 Most Popular Tech Tips in 2011
  
• 01/09/12 - Monday Freebies #28: My Storybook
  
• 01/09/12 - Monday Freebies #28: My Storybook
  
• 01/06/12 - Weekend Websites #84: Planet in Action
  
  The fascinating geniuses at Planet in Action use Google Earth to power some of the greatest toys I've seen around the internet. When you visit their site, you can:
• 01/05/12 - Product Review: MindMaple
  
• 01/04/12 - 10 Hits and 10 Misses for 2011
  
• 01/03/12 - Tech Tip #65: Google Street View
  
  Q: I can't find enough detail about a particular area of the world that we're studying in class. Any suggestions?
• 01/02/12 - Monday Freebie #27: Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs
  

2011 (241)

• 12/23/11 - Weekend Website #76: 46 Math Websites for Tech Integrated Classrooms
  
• 12/20/11 - Tech Tip #64: Reset Default Font
  
  Q: If you're like me, you don't like MS Office 2007 or 2010's default font of Calibri, size 11 with a double space between paragraphs. Here's how you fix that:
• 12/19/11 - Monday Freebies #25: Intro to PowerPoint–with KidPix Pictures
  
• 12/16/11 - Weekend Website #80: Sponges for Classroom–by topic
  
• 12/14/11 - What Should You Include on a Younger Child’s Computer
  
• 12/13/11 - Tech Tip #63: Don’t Like Double Space Between Paragraphs?
  
  Q: My Word 2010 came with a double space between paragraphs as the default, but I don't like that. I've tried to reset it to single space, but it doesn't fix it. What do I do? A: I don't either. What was Bill Gates thinking?
• 12/12/11 - Monday Freebies #21: Another Holiday Card
  
  Create a holiday card using Publisher’s templates. Make it simple (don’t edit text, add only one picture) for youngers. Let olders change as much as they wish. Use this lesson to teach youngers about templates and olders about design, and menus. This project is very easy so shows students how fun and simple computers are.
• 12/09/11 - Weekend Websites #79: 57 Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
  
• 12/08/11 - 6th Grade Tech Textbook Almost Ready
  
• 12/07/11 - Edublogs Nomination: Best EdTech/Resource Sharing Blog
  
• 12/06/11 - Tech Tip #62: Email from Word (Or PowerPoint or Excel)
  
  was helping one of the faculty at my school. She couldn't print a document (server problems) so I suggested she email it to herself at home and print it there. She started going online to her Yahoo account and I stopped her. Click the email tool on the Word toolbar.
• 12/05/11 - Monday Freebies #24: Holiday Newsletter
  
• 12/02/11 - Weekend Website #77: Blackle
  
  Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy.
• 12/01/11 - Read My Latest ‘Innovate My School’ Article
  
• 11/30/11 - Product Review: Luna Projection Camera
  
• 11/29/11 - Tech Tip #61: How to Get Youngers to Use the Right Mouse Button
  
  Kids always get confused when I'm explaining directions that require the right mouse button. I've found an easy way to clarify. Here's an example: "Right click with your mouse"
• 11/28/11 - Monday Freebies #20: Make a Holiday Card
  
• 11/24/11 - Happy Thanksgiving!
  
• 11/23/11 - #41: Where is That?
  
• 11/22/11 - Tech Tip #60: How to Add Shortcuts to the Desktop
  
  Q: How do I create a shortcut on my desktop so I can find my programs easier?
• 11/21/11 - Monday Freebies #3: How to Make Wallpaper
  
• 11/18/11 - Weekend Website #75: Solar System Scope
  
  An interactive trip through the solar system that can be embedded into a web page (must take Flash, so not WP.com, but it worked fine on my WP.org side) or a start page (click to see my sample). what a great way to get kids excited about space.
• 11/16/11 - Nominations For Edublog Awards Now Open!
  
• 11/15/11 - Tech Tip #59: Shortkey for the Copyright Symbol
  
  Q: How do you create the copyright symbol in Word?
• 11/14/11 - Monday Freebies
  
• 11/09/11 - What Every Parent Should Know About Computers and the Internet
  
  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:
• 11/08/11 - Tech Tip #58: Show all Your Tools on Toolbars
  
  Q: I work with younger students (first grade, second grade, even third grade). We're using Office 2003. When I direct them to the menu bar and one of the dropdown menu choices, sometimes it isn't there. Instead, there's a chevron--double arrow--that they have to click to expand the menu. This is confusing for youngers. Is there any way to have the entire menu drop down rather than the truncated version?
• 11/07/11 - #37: Use Oregon Trail to Teach Westward Expansion
  
• 11/04/11 - Weekend Website #73: 3 Programs to Teach Architecture in First Grade
  
  Three projects over six weeks and your students will learn about blueprints, room layout, dimensions. Plus, they'll understand how to think about a three-dimensional object and then spatially lay it out on paper. This is challenging, but fun for first graders.
• 11/02/11 - How to Find Reliable Internet Sources
  
• 11/01/11 - Tech Tip #57: How to Create a Chart Really Fast
  
  Q: What's the easiest way to introduce 3rd graders to Excel charts?
• 10/31/11 - Buy 3, Get 16 Holiday Projects Free
  
• 10/26/11 - Thirty-two More Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time
  
• 10/26/11 - How to Stop Hating Your Computer
  
• 10/25/11 - Tech Tip #56: Force a New Page
  
  Q: I'm teaching my students to create a book report with a cover page. what's the easiest way to get the cover on the first page and the report on the second?
• 10/21/11 - Weekend Website #75: Solar System Scope
  
  An interactive trip through the solar system that can be embedded into a web page (must take Flash, so not WP.com, but it worked fine on my WP.org side) or a start page (click to see my sample). what a great way to get kids excited about space.
• 10/20/11 - 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5
  
• 10/19/11 - 7 More Great Mouse Skills Programs
  
• 10/18/11 - Tech Tip #55: Find a Lost Shortcut
  
  Q: I can't find the shortcut for a program I want to open. It's not on the desktop, on the start menu or in 'all programs'. How do I open the program? A: Try 'Start button', then type in the name of the program where it says 'start search'. The shortcut shows up.
• 10/17/11 - Monday Freebies #20: Make a Holiday Card
  
  start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that includes step-by-step directions as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. Eventually, you'll get the entire Technology Toolkit book. If you can't wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.
• 10/14/11 - Weekend Website #68: Live Like Bear Grylls
  
  If you want to spice up a unit on landforms, have students look into surviving these unique natural habitats. To get out with their lives, they'll have to understand the flora and fauna, dangers and helpers. Here are some websites they can visit to improve their survival toolkit:
• 10/12/11 - Ask a Tech Teacher Takes to Radio
  
• 10/11/11 - Tech Tip #54: How to Auto Forward a PowerPoint Slideshow
  
  Q: My students are learning to use Powerpoint for presentations. They'll stand in front of the class and the slideshow will play behind them. We want it to go automatically without requiring them to click the mouse or push the space bar. How do we do that? A: Presentations are a great skill to teach students. I applaud you on this. Auto-forward isn't difficult:
• 10/10/11 - Monday Freebies #3: How to Make Wallpaper
  
  Kids love personalizing their computer stations. Show them how to create their own wallpaper using internet pictures, pictures on the computer or their own photos or drawings
• 10/07/11 - Weekend Website #72: 62 Favorite 1st Grade Websites
  
  These are my 62 favorite first grade websites. I sprinkle them in throughout the year, adding several each week to the class internet start page, deleting others. I make sure I have 3-4 each week that integrate with classroom lesson plans, 3-4 that deal with technology skills and a few that simply excite students about tech in education.
• 10/06/11 - How to Use Excel to Teach Math Arrays
  
• 10/05/11 - Easi-Speak Digital Microphone is Simple
  
• 10/04/11 - Tech Tip #53: How to Pin Any Program to the Start Menu
  
  Q: There's a program I use all the time, but it's not on my desktop. I have to click through All-Programs-(etc--wherever it is you must go to find it). Is there a way to add it to my start menu so I can find it more easily? A: Absolutely. Click through All-programs to wherever it is, but don't open the program. Instead, right click on the icon that would normally open the program and select 'pin to start menu' from the drop down menu. This will attack this program to your Start button in the future. Much easier!
• 10/03/11 - Scared of homeschooling? Know its scope and future
  
• 10/01/11 - Weekend Website #71: 5 Great FREE Programs for Kids
  
• 09/30/11 - Weekend Website #67: 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms
  
• 09/28/11 - 18 Great Poetry Websites
  
• 09/27/11 - Tech Tip #52: Roll Your Computer Back to a Problem-Free Date
  
  Q: Something happened and now my computer isn't working right. I downloaded a program/music/video or installed a new holiday program and it hasn't worked right since. What do I do? A: These days, that's not as hard as it used to be. All you have to do is type 'restore' in the search box (on the start menu) and follow instructions. What it'll do is turn your computer back to an earlier date, before you did the download or the install. It won't affect documents, only the bad stuff. It's saved me several times.
• 09/26/11 - Are You As Smart as a Fifth Grader (and more)
  
• 09/24/11 - Weekend Website #69: Free Online Classes From MIT et al
  
• 09/23/11 - Weekend Website #65: Noodle
  
  Plus, Noodle offers a 'school selection' tool, to enable parents and high schoolers to search for the right school, from kindergarten through college. Once you've set up an account, Noodle allows you to keep track of the schools you’ve applied to or been admitted to, or classify schools based on criteria such as cost, campus setting, etc. You can keep these lists private or make them public so that your friends can see them.
• 09/21/11 - 13 Cool Win 7 Tricks
  
• 09/20/11 - Tech Tip #51: Copy Images From Google Images
  
  Q: To copy an image from Google Images (or Bing), I right-click on the picture, select copy, then paste it into my document (with right-click, paste). But, It's hard to move around. Isn't there an easier way. A: You're probably grabbing the thumbnail rather than the real image. Before copying the picture, go to the full size image by clicking on the gallery thumbnail...
• 09/19/11 - How to Organize the First Grade Class
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (Click for more on twitter). Wikis are the most thorough. Take a look at my first grade class wiki . I have room for student and parent resources, homework, What we did Today (for absent students or parents), grade-level skills, favorite links. You can even add student pages, created by students.
• 09/17/11 - Weekend Website #66: What’s Your Carbon Footprint
  
  This is a fun, albeit simplistic approach to carbon counting. As a teacher, I find it a wonderfully simply way to deliver the message to students that the size of their carbon footprint matters. This site has a few easy fill-ins about family cars, travel and where the reader lives, then calculates an average carbon footprint. For example, when I answered the four or five easy questions about my home (with lots of prompts about 'average' which I can see students defaulting to), it gave me a rundown on my profile:
• 09/14/11 - MS Word for Grades 2-5
  
• 09/13/11 - Tech Tip #50: The Easiest Way to Outline
  
  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:
• 09/12/11 - I Love my Kindergarten Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (Click for more on twitter). Wikis are the most thorough. Take a look at mykindergarten grade class wiki . I have room for student and parent resources, homework, What we did Today (for absent students or parents), grade-level skills, favorite links.
• 09/11/11 - Our Children Remember…
  
• 09/10/11 - Weekend Website #64: Khan Academy
  
  One final note, the ISTE tech conference I attended back in June of over 15,000 educators chronically listed Khan Academy as among the most-important websites for video tutorials on the web. Attendees and presenters constantly raved about Khan Academy as a self-help site far beyond any other available, on a par with MIT's offering of free videos of their course offerings. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.
• 09/08/11 - #39: Google Earth Board
  
• 09/07/11 - Back to School–Tech Makes it Easy to Stay On Top of Everything
  
• 09/06/11 - Tech Tip #48: Quickly Switch Between Windows
  
  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.
• 09/01/11 - School’s Back–Do Your Children Need Computers?
  
• 08/31/11 - Free Ebook Anyone? Can I Ask a Favor?
  
• 08/30/11 - Tech Tip #45: Your Screen Upside Down?
  
  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.
• 08/26/11 - Weekend Website #63: Teach Keyboarding
  
  If you've been thrown into the slot of tech teacher at your school, or just want to shake up the program you've been teaching for years, this wiki will take you through how to teach keyboarding to grades 2-8. It's a real-time wiki, meaning I'm using it right now, so you'll see lots of changes every day. Currently, I'm teaching a summer keyboard class to 4th graders, so that's what's under What We Did Today. When the school year returns, it'll be more of a monthly approach to guide students through skills they need to learn in thirty days.
• 08/26/11 - Weekend Website #62: Teach Parents Tech
  
  Everyone can use a little help in technology. this amazing website lets you pick the videos you feel a friend/family needs help with and send them their way. It has categories like basics, communications, internet, media, find information, and each category has about eight videos to pick from. You make your choices, fill out who you're sending it to and--send! Here's the email friends will get from you:
• 08/24/11 - Teach Animal Adaptations with an MS Word Diagram
  
• 08/23/11 - Tech Tip #46: The Easiest Way to Explain Right and Left to (Little) Kids
  
  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:
• 08/22/11 - 31 Human Body Websites for 2nd-5th Grade
  
• 08/19/11 - Weekend Website #61: Brainy Widgets from Wolfram Alpha
  
  Wolfram Alpha has a boatload of educational widgets you can put on your website to amaze your students. Simply go to their widget gallery, select the category you prefer (I picked technology) and pick your widget. I picked creating QR codes because I can see my students adding this to their wikis next year as another way of sharing their name:
• 08/17/11 - Tech Tip #47: Tool Tips
  
  Q: 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.
• 08/15/11 - 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms
  
• 08/12/11 - Weekend Website #60: Google Tools and Bloom’s Taxonomy
  
  Bloom's Taxonomy has long been accepted as the de rigueur classification of learning objectives. Its consideration as a foundational and essential element within the education community is memorialized in the 1994 yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Lesson plans are written with a focus on which of these objectives are met and how to achieve all of them within a school year.
• 08/10/11 - Tech Tip #49: The Fifteen Second Slideshow
  
  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:
• 08/08/11 - 3 Projects to Integrate Tech into an Animals Unit–Part I
  
• 08/05/11 - Weekend Websites #59: 62 First Grade Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
  
  These are my 62 favorite first grade websites. I sprinkle them in throughout the year, adding several each week to the class internet start page, deleting others. I make sure I have 3-4 each week that integrate with classroom lesson plans, 3-4 that deal with technology skills and a few that simply excite students about tech in education. Here's the list:
• 08/04/11 - 19 Free Posters For Your Tech Lab
  
• 08/04/11 - Tech Ten Commandments–the Christian Version
  
• 08/03/11 - 10 Great Virtual Field Trips
  
• 08/03/11 - Book Review: 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom
  
  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.
• 08/02/11 - Tech Tip #44: Clean Your Computer Weekly
  
  Q: I'm afraid of getting slammed with viruses, malware, all that bad stuff that comes with visiting the internet. What do I do? A: If you take reasonable precautions, the chances of being hit are minimized. Here's what I do:
• 08/01/11 - #112: 10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer
  
• 07/30/11 - Weekend Websites #58: 12 Music Websites for the Non-Geeks in Your Class
  
  My students aren't always geeks who live and breath tech as I do. Some of them have other hobbies--art, sports, even music. For them, I offer websites that will enhance that experience in ways they hadn'[t imagined. Here's my list of music websites for elementary school-age students as young as first grade:
• 07/29/11 - Weekend Websites #57: 28 Websites to Teach Tech to Kindergarten-First Grade
  
• 07/28/11 - Are you as Tech-Smart as a Fifth Grader?
  
• 07/27/11 - Don’t Miss This Westward Expansion Website
  
• 07/27/11 - Book Review: Fifth GradeTechnology
  
  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 133 pages, it's much more like a tech lab-in-a-binder than a mere 32 projects. The Amazon blurb says it all:
• 07/25/11 - #40: Wonders of Google Earth
  
• 07/24/11 - Weekend Websites #56: 23 Websites to Support Math Automaticity in K-5
  
• 07/22/11 - Weekend Website #55: Science for Fifth Graders
  
• 07/21/11 - About Me
  
  I'm glad you asked that question because, they absolutely do stand out. They start kids in kindergarten with age-appropriate and challenging skills in programs such as keyboarding and KidPix, and that wonderful online reading site, Starfall.com.
• 07/20/11 - Book Review: Third Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
  I am one of the editors for this series, though it's a collaboration of a team of technology teachers. We've included links to free versions of software so users aren't forced to purchase expensive software. We've included many how-to's on timely technology topics like when to start keyboarding, how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into classrooms and more. We've also connected the Fourth Edition to this Ask a Tech Teacher blog so users can stay up-to-date on tech in their classes and can get immediate assistance with lessons should they get stuck. And, we've put the entire workbook in a three ring binder making it easy to remove reproducibles for copying without ruining the book.
• 07/19/11 - Tech Tip #43: Back Up Often
  
  Q: How often should I back up my current project? How about my whole hard drive? A: I teach my students to save early, save often when they're working on a project. You decide what you can tolerate losing. Ten minutes or Ten hours. After all, if the computer loses your work, you're the one who has to start over.
• 07/18/11 - Discount on Technology Curriculum
  
• 07/16/11 - Weekend Website #54: 20 Great Research Websites for Kids
  
• 07/15/11 - Weekend Website #61: Brainy Widgets from Wolfram Alpha
  
• 07/14/11 - Sign Up for Weekend Websites
  
• 07/13/11 - Lesson Plans for the Web 2.0 Classroom
  
• 07/12/11 - Tech Tip #42: How to (Re)Set Your Homepage
  
  Q: My homepage got hijacked! I mean, it no longer opens up 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:
• 07/11/11 - A Note to Readers From My Publisher
  
• 07/10/11 - Weekend Website #53: 41 Websites for Teachers to Integrate Tech into Your Classroom
  
• 07/09/11 - Weekend Website #52: 7 Sites About Coin Counting
  
• 07/07/11 - ISTE Debrief: Don’t Hide the Internet from Today’s Kids
  
• 07/06/11 - Book Review: 1st Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
  he 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
• 07/05/11 - Tech Tip #41: Repair Your Computer With System Restore
  
  Q: I don't know what I did, but my computer doesn't run right anymore. What can I do? A: With access to the internet, computer malfunctions have become even more prevalent than ever. Sometimes you download a program--or your child mistakenly pushes a button that allows malware on your computer. Suddenly, through no fault of your own, things just aren't working right anymore.
• 06/30/11 - #35: Sponge Activities for Vocabulary Building
  
• 06/29/11 - Book Review: Fourth Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
• 06/24/11 - Weekend Website #51: 17 Story Sites for First and Second Grade
  
• 06/22/11 - #10: Drawing in Photoshop
  
• 06/22/11 - Book Review: Second Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
  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:
• 06/20/11 - Click the Square, Create Music
  
  Way too cool
• 06/17/11 - Weekend Website #50 Visuword
  
  Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary where you can look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. The tool enables you to produce diagrams and learn how words associate and is another of the great Open Source websites (yes, they give their source code as well as the web site away for free)--like Visual Thesaurus, Wordle, Tagxedo--that makes the study of words as visual as a picture.
• 06/14/11 - #38: Introduction to Google Earth
  
• 06/14/11 - Tech Tip #40: Where Did Windows Explorer Go?
  
  Q: I have Windows 7 and I can't find Explorer anymore. Where did it go? A: Right click on the start button and select 'Explore'.
• 06/11/11 - Book Review: Kindergarten Technology–32 Lessons
  
  Disclaimer: I am one of the editors for this series, though it's a collaboration of a team of technology teachers. We've included links to free versions of software so users aren't forced to purchase expensive software. We've included many how-to's on timely technology topics like when to start keyboarding, how to integrate Web 2.0 tools into classrooms and more. We've also connected the Fourth Edition to this Ask a Tech Teacher blog so users can stay up-to-date on tech in their classes and can get immediate assistance with lessons should they get stuck. And, we've put the entire workbook in a three ring binder making it easy to remove reproducibles for copying without ruining the book.
• 06/09/11 - #36: My First Report
  
• 06/08/11 - #33: Grow Your Story
  
• 06/06/11 - #30: A Cover Page in Publisher
  
• 06/03/11 - Weekend Website #49: Tux Paint
  
  In my classroom, we use KidPix. It's a wonderful program to introduce students to tools, toolbars, text, drag-and-drop mouse skills and all the basics required to use the computer. It's the gold standard for acclimatizing children to computers. Students always love it and parents always want to know how to get it for them.
• 06/02/11 - 5 Best Online Keyboarding Programs
  
• 06/01/11 - #5: Photoshop Basx
  
• 05/30/11 - Thank You
  
• 05/26/11 - Use MS Word Diagrams to Teach About Animals
  
• 05/25/11 - #4: Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word
  
• 05/24/11 - Tech Tip #39: My Computer Won’t Turn Off
  
  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
• 05/23/11 - Nineteen Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time
  
• 05/20/11 - Weekend Website #48: Wolfram|Alpha for Educators
  
• 05/19/11 - #4: Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word
  
  Before we get into Photoshop, we'll start with a program your fifth grader is most likely comfortable with: MS Word. For basic image editing, Word does a pretty good job, so we'll start with a project using Word's tools:
• 05/18/11 - A Story About a Bear and a Pig
  
• 05/17/11 - Tech Tip #38: My Desktop Icons Are All Different
  
  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.
• 05/16/11 - #12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel
  
• 05/13/11 - Weekend Website #47: Online Keyboarding
  
  Everything you need to run your classroom keyboard program. It includes:
• 05/12/11 - 3 Projects to Integrate Tech into an Animals Unit–Part I
  
• 05/11/11 - Tech Tip #37: My MS Word Toolbar Disappeared
  
  Q: My tools for formatting disappeared from the top of my MS Word (2003). Where'd they go and what do I do? A: They do disappear at times, for no good reason. Here's the simple fix: * Right-click in the toolbar area at the top.
• 05/10/11 - 20 Problems Your K-5 Kids Should be Solving Themselves
  
• 05/09/11 - #3: Windows Skills: Make Your Own Wallpaper
  
• 05/07/11 - #101: Don’t Print Homework–Email it!
  
• 05/06/11 - Photoshop for Fifth Graders: the Basics
  
• 05/05/11 - #30: A Cover Page in Publisher
  
• 05/04/11 - What are Your Favorite Summer School Keyboard Activities
  
• 05/03/11 - Tech Tip #36: The Internet Toolbar Disappeared
  
  Q: My internet toolbar disappeared. All I see at the top of the screen is, more of the page I'm on. No tools. What do I do? A: Push F11. You can hide the internet toolbar or unhide with F11. It's that simple.
• 05/02/11 - Book Review: 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom
  
  The all-in-one K-8 toolkit for the lab specialist, classroom teacher and homeschooler, with a years-worth of simple-to-follow projects. 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.
• 05/02/11 - Book Review: First Grade Technology: 32 Lessons Every First Grader Can Accomplish
  
• 04/29/11 - Weekend Website #46: Computer Lab Favorites
  
• 04/28/11 - #95: Teach About Inventions with PowerPoint
  
• 04/27/11 - #75: Tessellations in Excel
  
• 04/26/11 - Tech Tip #33: My Desktop Icons are Messed Up
  
  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:
• 04/25/11 - #67: Teach PowerPoint in Elementary School
  
• 04/22/11 - Weekend Website #45: Google Art Project
  
  Explore museums from around the world with Google's incredible Street View technology. Discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.
• 04/21/11 - #9: How to Look Like a Photoshop Pro–in Fifth Grade
  
• 04/19/11 - Tech Tip #34: My Program Froze
  
• 04/18/11 - #29: A PowerPoint Slideshow for Third Graders
  
• 04/16/11 - Weekend Website #44: Mission US
  
  Mission US is a FREE multimedia project featuring free interactive adventure games set in different eras of U.S. history.
• 04/15/11 - Weekend Website #43: Google Search
  
  I teach K-5 technology. A constant problem is finding websites that communicate in language elementary school students can understand. I've tried the kid browser, but they are sometimes too limited in their content. Google's advanced search, rolled out in December 2010, is a better solution.
• 04/14/11 - #45: How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography
  
• 04/13/11 - Tech Tip #35: My Program Closed Down
  
• 04/12/11 - Tech Tip #32: My Taskbar Got Moved to the Side
  
  Q: The taskbar at the bottom of my screen got moved. I liked it at the bottom. How do I move it back?
• 04/11/11 - #7: Fifth Grade Cropping in Photoshop
  
• 04/10/11 - Weekend Website #42: Yuckiest Site on the Internet
  
  Find out all about the human body with Wendell the Worm, Yucky's Ace Reporter. My students love learning all about the gross and cool stuff humans' bodies create--burps, snores, gas and more on the Yucky site. It includes:
• 04/09/11 - Weekend Website #41: Spanish Help
  
  This starts as a dictionary, but it's so much more.
• 04/08/11 - Weekend Websites #39: Big Huge Labs
  
  This site definitely lives up to its tagline--Helping you do cool stuff with your digital photos. It includes over two dozen projects that can be printed and/or posted on the web. What a plethora of tools. You can:
• 04/07/11 - #27: Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs
  
• 04/06/11 - #28: My Storybook
  
• 04/05/11 - Tech Tip #31: What’s Today’s Date
  
• 04/04/11 - #12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel
  
• 04/03/11 - Weekend Website #38: DSpace@MIT
  
  MIT has stepped to the front of education equity issues. For the past year, they've made their scholarly articles FREE to the public through an open source platform called DSpace, a scholarly repository for over one-thousand organizations (if you have a favorite University, i.e., Notre Dame or USC, check to see if it's listed here).
• 04/02/11 - Weekend Website #37: Microsoft Dreamspark
  
• 04/01/11 - Weekend Website #36: LearnItIn5
  
  The challenge as the tech coordinator at my school is to persuade teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. Kids are easy. I know that first-hand because I teach K-8 technology classes also.
• 03/31/11 - #3: Windows Skills: Make Your Own Wallpaper
  
• 03/30/11 - Tech Tip #30: Menu Command is Greyed Out
  
  Q: I pushed the menu command I wanted to use (in MS Office 2003). I got the drop-down list, but the command I needed was greyed out. When I pushed it, nothing happened. What do I do?
• 03/29/11 - Tech Tip: I Deleted a File!
  
• 03/28/11 - #2: How to KidPix II
  
• 03/27/11 - Weekend Website #35: Dance Mat Typing
  
• 03/26/11 - #33: Grow Your Story
  
• 03/26/11 - Weekend Website #33: Wild on Math
  
  This program has a clean, simple interface with none of the vibrant colors, constant motion and advertising of so many other math websites.
• 03/25/11 - Weekend Website #34: Block Posters
  
  What a great way to upsize student projects. Simply upload a digital picture created by students. Tell the program what size you'd like the poster and the program automatically figures out how to lay it out on 8x10 sheets and its ready to print.
• 03/24/11 - Help! I Need Your Input
  
• 03/23/11 - 10 Great Virtual Field Trips
  
• 03/22/11 - Tech Tip #28: 5 Ways to Fix a No-Sound Problem–For Free
  
  Q: I can't get any sound out of my computer. Do I need a new sound card? A: Before you invest that kind of money, try these easy fixes:
• 03/21/11 - How to Hack Passwords
  
• 03/20/11 - Weekend Website #32: SqoolTube
  
  While YouTube has some of the best training videos around, if your school's like mine, you can't access it on campus. Which means, I'm constantly on the look-out for a good alternative in this video-oriented education world I find myself. I found Sqooltube.
• 03/18/11 - Weekend Website #31: Elementary Tech Teachers Ning
  
  Of all the social networks I belong to, this is the most helpful. It has a wonderful group of teachers with real-life experience handling tech lab problems. Here's a sampling:
• 03/16/11 - Five More Must-have Freebies For Your Computer
  
• 03/15/11 - Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program
  
  Q: I can't find the Word icon that opens MS Word. What do I do? A: Let's say
• 03/14/11 - More Homeschoolers are Military Families
  
• 03/13/11 - Weekend Website #30: Breathing Earth
  
  When you arrive at Breathing Earth, it’s not obvious what to do. You see a map of the world, browns and oranges with a few darker shades. Occasionally, a nation lights up, painted red. Bursts of blue and black explode here and there, seemingly randomly. Look closer. There’s order to the chaos.
• 03/11/11 - Weekend Website #29: Storybook Maker
  
  There are lots of story makers out there, but this one is a cut above. It was developed by graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University to increase literacy rates among young children while appealing to their techno-gene in this fast-moving society.
• 03/10/11 - 10 of the Best Math Websites Out There
  
• 03/09/11 - Tech Tip #27: My Taskbar Disappeared
  
  Q: My taskbar disappeared. What do I do? A: Push the flying windows key (it's located between Ctrl and Alt on the bottom left of your keyboard). That brings up the start button
• 03/08/11 - Tech Tip #26: My Mouse Doesn’t Work
  
  Q: My mouse stopped working. Do I need to buy a new one? A: Maybe, but try a few things first:
• 03/05/11 - Weekend Website #28: Bing Maps
  
  If you're a Google Earth/Google Maps fan--as I am--you probably haven't kept up with what Bing Maps is doing over there, in the competitor's home. I came across this video on TED and was blown away. Blaise Agüera y Arcas is the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft, building augmented reality into searchable maps.
• 03/04/11 - Weekend Website #27: TED
  
  TED, as its tagline says, is truly 'riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world'. T-E-D stands for Technology, entertainment, design, and gives you a good idea how they approach this avenue for sharing knowledge.
• 03/02/11 - Tech Tip #23: I Deleted a File By Accident
  
  Q: I deleted a file! I need it back! What do I do? A. Here's what you do:
• 03/01/11 - Tech Tip #25: My Keyboard Doesn’t Work
  
  You sit down to type, start in on that long project with an imminent deadline, and nothing happens. The cursor blinks... and blinks... and blinks... but goes nowhere.
• 02/28/11 - Where Would You Like to Go Today?
  
• 02/28/11 - 4 FREE Online Keyboarding Programs for K, 1
  
• 02/25/11 - Weekend Website #26: Tagxedo
  
  If you haven't discovered Tagxedo, you have a treat in store. As its tagline suggests, it is a tag cloud with style. Think Wordle on steroids. Tagxedo takes words and turns them into pictures, as does Wordle, but it has all those options you wanted and couldn't find on Wordle. Remember saying, "I wish I could turn this into a picture of a ____ (fill in the blank with your favorite)." Or, "I wish I could save this."
• 02/23/11 - Top Ten Free Apps to Install on a New Computer
  
• 02/18/11 - Weekend Website #24: Office Web Apps
  
  MS Web Apps is one of the stable of FREE online tools to replace or enhance installed software. Though MS Office has a gazillion percent of the marketplace, as we the people become more mobile, more interactive, MS Office has become tattered at the edges. It doesn't run with all versions of itself. It is linked to a specific computer--incompatible between Macs and PC (fixable), between Office and other word processing programs (fixable at times), documents aren't available online (you have to convert to a pdf to display the doc or upload as an icon). A document can't be shared.
• 02/17/11 - Four Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills
  
• 02/16/11 - 20 Websites to Learn Everything About Landforms
  
• 02/15/11 - Tech Tip #21: How to Make a Small Webpage Window Big
  
  Q: When I open the internet (or a document), the window is small. It barely fills half the screen. What's the quickest way to make it bigger? A: There are two easy solutions, one faster than the other
• 02/14/11 - How to Become Survivorman–or Bear Grylls–in Third Grade
  
• 02/13/11 - Weekend Website #23: Fourth Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 02/11/11 - Weekend Website #22: Webspiration
  
  Use Webspiration anywhere you'd use the software, Inspiration. It will map out ideas, organize with outlines and collaborate online with teams or colleagues. Webspiration allows you to appeal to students who are visual learners as it strengthens organizational skills, and transforms your ideas and information into knowledge.
• 02/10/11 - Solid Education Option: Homeschooling
  
  Twenty one percent don't like the environment in traditional schools. Another 17 percent are home schooled because their parents are dissatisfied with the academic instruction that’s available to them
• 02/09/11 - Tech Tip #20: How to Add A Link to Word
  
  Q: I want to link my Word document (or my Outlook email) to a website. How do I do that? A: Follow these easy steps:
• 02/08/11 - 20 Great Research Websites for Kids
  
• 02/07/11 - Sign up for Weekly Tech Tips
  
• 02/04/11 - Weekend Website #21: Test Your Typing Speed
  
  I use this as practice in my tech classes. Students love seeing their typing speed improve, and it shows them the importance of subtracting for errors (we all know how time-consuming correcting typos is). I often see them go to this site during free time, especially when the next speed quiz is imminent. I think your kids will enjoy it, too.
• 02/03/11 - Can Your Fifth Grader Answer This Math Problem?
  
  Teaching Math In 1950: A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? Teaching Math In 1960: A logger sold a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
• 02/02/11 - Is Handwriting Like Camera Film–So Last Generation
  
  * 1 in 10 Americans are endangered by the poor handwriting of physicians. * citizens miss out on $95,000,000 in tax refunds because the taxman can't read their handwriting * Poor handwriting costs businesses $200,000,000 in time and money that result in confused and inefficient employees, phone calls made to wrong numbers, and letters delivered to incorrect addresses.
• 02/01/11 - Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
  
  Q:I see a blue phrase on my page. It's underlined. I'm told that's a link to a website. How do I make it work? A: Activating a link in MS Word or most of the MS Office products is pretty simple.
• 01/31/11 - Find Great Kids Websites
  
• 01/28/11 - Weekend Website #20: Kindergarten Class Wiki
  
• 01/27/11 - Google Earth: User Friendly in the Classroom
  
• 01/26/11 - Will All Twitter Users Please Twand Up
  
• 01/25/11 - Tech Tip #23: I Deleted a File By Accident
  
  Q: I deleted a file! I need it back! What do I do? A. Here's what you do:
• 01/24/11 - How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers
  
• 01/21/11 - Weekend Website #19: First Grade Class Wiki
  
• 01/20/11 - Secrets About Your Mobile Phone
  
• 01/19/11 - Tech Tip #20: How to Add A Link to Word
  
  Q: I want to link my Word document (or my Outlook email) to a website. How do I do that? A: Follow these easy steps:
• 01/18/11 - Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
  
  Q:I see a blue phrase on my page. It's underlined. I'm told that's a link to a website. How do I make it work? A: Activating a link in MS Word or most of the MS Office products is pretty simple.
• 01/17/11 - Just Another Day In Computer Lab
  
• 01/14/11 - Weekend Website #18: Second Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 01/13/11 - #32: How to Use Art to Teach Grammar
  
• 01/12/11 - 10 Hits and 10 Misses for 2010
  
• 01/11/11 - Tech Tip #16: Email That Document
  
  Q: I want my home/business/classroom to be as paperless as possible. What's a good first step? A: Do you make fliers or announcements in Publisher, then print them? Don't do that. Use the email tool on the toolbar:
• 01/10/11 - 10 Top Click-throughs from Ask a Tech Teacher
  
• 01/07/11 - Weekend Website #17: Third Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 01/06/11 - Tech Tip #19: How to Activate a Link in Word
  
  Activating a link in MS Word or most of the MS Office products is pretty simple. * hover over the word or phrase * Push Ctrl+click to activate
• 01/05/11 - Ask a Tech Teacher Receives an Award
  
• 01/04/11 - 2011, I Resolve…
  
• 01/01/11 - Weekend Websites: Best Sites of 2010
  

2010 (127)

• 12/21/10 - Tech Tip #18: No Excuse for Spelling Errors
  
  When you see a red squiggly line in a Word doc--or lots of other docs too, even online--it indicates a possible spelling error. I've found that most times, it's true. Y
• 12/21/10 - Track Santa Christmas Eve
  
  There's so much to like about this website. Target users are young children, so I like that this website requires little reading. Once they get to the site (I have a link on our classroom start page for NORAD Santa), they can watch a Santa video while I get everyone else logged on.
• 12/18/10 - Weekend Website #17: Third Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 12/15/10 - What is Authority and How Did I Get It?
  
• 12/14/10 - Tech Tip #17: Don’t Know the Date? No Problem
  
  Q: I don't know why, but I never remember the date. Unfortunately, I have to type it often at school/work/home. Is there a shortcut for people like me?
• 12/13/10 - Can Technology Help Teachers Plan?
  
  One of the engines helps teachers do what I had presented about years ago and it helps them make those four choices of activities in less than 10 minutes!
• 12/10/10 - Weekend Website #15: A Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 12/09/10 - #20: A Holiday Card in KidPix
  
• 12/03/10 - Weekend Website #14: The Internet Start Page
  
  I include everything that my students might need to start their tech class experience--a Todo list, links to projects, sponges, a calendar--and I change it weekly, sometimes daily.
• 12/02/10 - Using an Internet Start Page
  
• 12/01/10 - #72: How to Check Your Math in Excel
  
• 11/30/10 - Tech Tip #16: Email That Document
  
  Do you make fliers or announcements in Publisher, then print them? Don't do that. Use the email tool on the toolbar:
• 11/29/10 - Using the Internet–K-2
  
• 11/23/10 - Tech Tip #15: Save Early Save Often
  
  A: Saving is easier than you think. I know, you're thinking it is easy, so what's the deal? Do you save every ten minutes?
• 11/22/10 - 18 Online Keyboard Sites for Kids
  
• 11/20/10 - Buy a Book Get a FREE PDF
  
  Buy a book; get the PDF free--limited time offer
• 11/20/10 - World’s Fastest Typist
  
• 11/19/10 - Weekend Website #13: MS Office
  
  Hover over the 2003 tool that you are trying to find in 2007. It will show a tool tip that tells you where it is in 2007.
• 11/18/10 - *8: Fifth Grade Cloning in Photoshop
  
• 11/17/10 - #46: How to Use Technology to Teach Landforms
  
• 11/16/10 - #16: A Holiday Memory in Word or KidPix
  
• 11/15/10 - #15: A Holiday Letter for Grades 2-6
  
• 11/12/10 - Weekend Website #12: Wacky Faces
  
  This one is pretty freaky. The faces are realistic. They smile at you, react to your mouse movement, wink, stick their tongues out. You have to see it to believe it.
• 11/11/10 - A Veteran’s Day Thank You to Our Servicemen and Women
  
• 11/10/10 - #87: Use MS Word’s Diagrams to Teach Animal Characteristics
  
• 11/09/10 - ASCII Art–Computer Art for Everyone
  
  Here's how I did it: 1. Add a watermark of a picture you like, preferably a single image (I picked a pumpkin for Halloween) 2. Type over it with appropriate letters (if you're more patient than I, you can pick a variety of letters. That would provide more depth) 3. Delete the watermark
• 11/08/10 - #21: A Holiday Card in Publisher
  
• 11/07/10 - Weekend Website #10: Google Mars
  
  What it doesn't have that the software version has is the ability to fly a plane (using Google Earth's built-in Flight Simulator) all over Mars. My students love doing this. I didn't teach it to them at all. They were curious, motivated and figured it out on their own. I love student-led activities.
• 11/04/10 - How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography
  
  Create a diagram to represent the layers of where we are in the universe. Great for visual thinkers.
• 11/03/10 - #22: A Holiday Flier in Publisher
  
• 11/02/10 - Book Review: Fourth Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
• 11/01/10 - #17: A Holiday Story in MS Word for Grades 2-7
  
• 10/30/10 - #112: 10 Ways Twitter Makes You a Better Writer
  
• 10/29/10 - Weekend Website #11: Google Moon
  
  As with Google Mars, the online version doesn’t have that the ability to fly a plane or a jet (using Google Earth’s built-in Flight Simulator) all over the moon (BTW--my students fly all around our galaxy, to other planets, other stars. They think it's pretty amazing to land on the Sun!)
• 10/28/10 - #24: A Holiday Newsletter in Publisher for Elementary School
  
• 10/27/10 - #23: A Holiday Calendar in MS Publisher for Elementary School
  
• 10/25/10 - #6: Photoshop for Fifth Graders–Autofixes
  
• 10/23/10 - Book Review: Kindergarten Technology–32 Lessons Every Child Can Do
  
• 10/22/10 - Weekend Website #10: Google Mars
  
  What it doesn't have that the software version has is the ability to fly a plane (using Google Earth's built-in Flight Simulator) all over Mars. My students love doing this. I didn't teach it to them at all. They were curious, motivated and figured it out on their own. I love student-led activities.
• 10/21/10 - #25: Intro to PowerPoint–with KidPix Pictures
  
  Drawings are done in KidPix. Assign topics (me, my family, etc) for grades K-1 to reinforce the concept of following directions. With 2nd grade, use one picture for each of the parts of a story—characters, plot, setting, climax/resolution. Mix pictures and text. Students can show these to parents at Open House or a parent night using Windows slideshow function (something they can do without assistance after a bit of practice)
• 10/20/10 - Dr. Seuss–Techie Style
  
• 10/19/10 - Tech Tip #14: Desktop Icons Disappear?
  
  Q: My desktop icons disappeared for no known reason. What do I do? A: This is a question I get from parents more often than you'd think.
• 10/18/10 - #43: How to Teach Geography with KidPix II
  
  Use an Enchanted Learning template. Import it into KidPix. Students use the paint bucket to fill continents and oceans different colors. Then label them as detailed as is age appropriate.
• 10/16/10 - What’s it Like to Be a Blogger?
  
• 10/15/10 - Weekend Website #9: Talking Pets
  
  Dog's eyes follow your mouse and he speaks what you write--what could be better!
• 10/12/10 - Tech Tip #13: The Powerful Right Mouse Button
  
  Q: I need a faster way to access menus. Is there one? A: Yes, and you'll love it.
• 10/11/10 - Twenty-one Techie Problems Every Student Can Fix
  
• 10/09/10 - Weekend Website #8: Virtual Surgery
  
• 10/06/10 - Shake Hands with a Computer
  
  show them where each part connects to the computer. Have them plug in andMouse-02 disconnect the headphones, the microphone (if available).
• 10/05/10 - Tech Tip #12: Wrap Text Around a Picture
  
  Q: I want my text to wrap around the picture I inserted, but it goes under/above it. There's a big white space I can't type in. What do I do? A: I get this from students a lot.
• 10/04/10 - #44: How to Teach Geography with KidPix I
  
  Create a cross. Label the four directions. Place a picture that coordinates with that direction by it.
• 10/01/10 - Weekend Website #6: Cool Tools for School (and Homeschools)
  
• 09/28/10 - Tech Tip #11: How to Show the Entire Drop Down Menu
  
  Every time I click on a drop down menu in MS Office (Word, Publisher, Excel, PowerPoint), it shows only some of the choices. How can I see all of them?
• 09/27/10 - #71: Beginning Graphs in MS Excel
  
  Use a template with the topics at the bottom as pictures and numbers along the side. Students use the paint bucket to fill in cells to the right number/level. Great introduction to Excel and collaboration with classroom exploration of math concepts
• 09/25/10 - #26: Create a Storybook in KidPix
  
  Use the drawings completed in Project #25 and put them into a PowerPoint slideshow. Students learn the basics of PowerPoint including inserting pictures and text, animation, transition, inserting clipart, inserting internet pictures, auto-advance, sound. Have each students present their slideshow when completed to practice the unique skills of presentations using PowerPoint
• 09/24/10 - #103: Know Your Computer Hardware
  
  Review the parts of the computer so students will understand what they’re learning
• 09/21/10 - Tech Tip #10: How to Undelete
  
• 09/20/10 - #59: Reading + Keyboarding = Success
  
  I test my students speed every trimester. I use an age-appropriate document that will engage their interest so they worry less about their grade. I’ll share with you how I select the piece, what my expectations are for speed per grade and how I approach the test so kids are not stressed by it
• 09/18/10 - Weekend Website #19: First Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 09/15/10 - #102: 23 Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts
  
• 09/14/10 - Tech Tip #9: Quickly Hide Your Screen
  
  Press "alt+tab" simultaneously on your keyboard (or Command-Tab on a Mac). It'll hide the window that's on your screen and bring up one from behind it. This trick is used most often by office personnel, hiding the fact that they're surfing the Net at work, but it's useful for any number of other reasons. It's also a verb, as in, "I had to alt+tab when my boyfriend dropped by."
• 09/10/10 - Weekend Website #17: Third Grade Class Wiki
  
  I have room for student and parent resources, homework, What we did Today (for absent students or parents), grade-level skills, favorite links. You can even add student pages, created by students. This is very popular.
• 09/09/10 - #99: Internet ABCs for Elementary Schoolers
  
  Review the basics of internet, including the address bar, forward/back buttons, links, favorites, plagiarism, and netiquette
• 09/08/10 - #34: How to Teach Dolch Words with KidPix
  
  Have students type three or four of their site-dolch words into KidPix. Create a quasi-sentence, filling in the missing nouns, verbs, etc with stamps from KidPix toolbars.
• 09/07/10 - #13: Great Online Art Sites
  
  Online resources for great worldwide museums. Take one lesson to introduce students to these six art sites (five to ten minutes on each) and then allow them to revisit when they have a few minutes at the end of a class projects, unit, before lunch, etc.
• 09/06/10 - Back to School–Tech Makes it Easy to Stay On Top of Everything
  
  As hard as parents try, it's difficult to dig through backpacks and uncover test scores, grading rubrics, and their ilk. It's likely grades will be available online. Take advantage of the ability to check your child's grades. Know there's a problem when there's still time to fix it.
• 09/05/10 - 5 Great Labor Day Websites
  
  he online version includes built-in tours of the moon which are fascinating, but doesn't have the flight simulator that my students can't get enough of. They fly all around our galaxy, to other planets, other stars. They think it’s pretty amazing to land on the Sun!
• 09/04/10 - What Should You Include on a Younger Child’s Computer
  
  If your child must have MS Office and you are trying to fit the price into a budget, start with Office Web Apps, the free online version of Office. It's compatible with MS Office, much like it but more limited. A good starter.
• 08/31/10 - #1: How to KidPix I
  
  Students learn about tools, toolbars, drag-drop, multi-media, menus—all tech basics
• 08/30/10 - Free Lesson Plans That Mix Tech and Ed
  
• 08/27/10 - Weekend Website #23: Fourth Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 08/26/10 - Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See
  
  Use your thumb for the space bar. That leaves your hands on home row, Curl fingers over home row—they’re cat paws, not dog paws, Use inside fingers for inside keys, outside fingers for outside keys
• 08/25/10 - #99: Internet ABCs for Elementary Schoolers
  
  Basics for elementary school includes maneuvering through websites, links and more. I also include troubleshooting tips
• 08/24/10 - Thirty-two More Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time
  
  This one covers language arts, math, science and technology
• 08/23/10 - Nineteen Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time
  
• 08/22/10 - Weekend Website #17: Fifth Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it.
• 08/20/10 - Weekend Website #20: Kindergarten Class Wiki
  
  Take a look at my kindergarten grade class wiki . I have room for student and parent resources, homework, What we did Today (for absent students or parents), grade-level skills, favorite links. You can even add student pages, created by students. This is very popular in the older grades.
• 08/19/10 - 20 Great Research Websites for Kids
  
  Includes almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias and more
• 08/18/10 - Tech Tip #8: Print a Selection off a Web Page
  
  Highlight the desired text, Press Ctrl+P, In the Print dialog box that appears, in Print Range area, click Selection, then click OK.
• 08/17/10 - How to Web 2.0 Accessorize Your Classroom
  
  A general overview of Web 2.0 tools, including blogs, wikis, what is a digital citizen, class internet homepages, class internet start pages, twitter, social bookmarks (i.e., delicious),podcasting, photo sharing (i.e., flikr)
• 08/16/10 - How to Teach Kids Email
  
  Used properly, email encourages collaboration among teachers, encourages conversations between parents-students-faculty and facilitates the paperless submittal of homework and projects (no more dog-ate-my-homework excuses).
• 08/15/10 - Book Review: Second Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
  I found it easy to use, straightforward, nonthreatening. I like the entire series.
• 08/13/10 - 18 Great FREE Online Keyboard Websites
  
  If you're picking an online program as an alternative to software, it's important to log in so the software remembers what your child has accomplished. If you're going to use online sites as part of an overall typing practice curriculum, here are some other good sites to try:
• 08/12/10 - Book Review: Third Grade Technology–32 Lessons
  
  a year's-worth of age-appropriate computer training in MS Word, PowerPoint, Publisher, Excel, Google Earth, keyboarding, vocabulary, and computer problem solving. Everything meets and exceeds ISTE, NCLB standards.
• 08/11/10 - Book Review: 55 Tech Projects for the Digital Classroom
  
  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.
• 08/10/10 - #57: Yes, You Should Assign Keyboarding Homework
  
  6 week of keyboarding homework
• 08/09/10 - 25 Tips to Make You Sound Like a Techie
  
  RSS feeds, blogs, animoto, podcasts and more
• 08/08/10 - Website #14: The Internet Start Page
  
  I include everything that my students might need to start their tech class experience–a Todo list, links to projects, sponges, a calendar–and I change it weekly, sometimes daily. It has tabs, too, so I offer a different tab for each class.
• 08/06/10 - Weekend Website #18: Second Grade Class Wiki
  
  You can organize a classroom with blogs, internet start pages (click for more on internet start pages), wikis, even twitter (this is the only one I have yet to use because my Admin shut me down on it. Click for more on twitter).
• 08/04/10 - Book Review: Fifth Grade Technology
  
  This is a well-thought out approach that seems to insure (at least, according to the students I interviewed) the least amount of frustration and the greatest amount of learning. As a result, the students I talked to always felt prepared for what they learned next. The parents I talked with were across the board amazed at what students accomplished. No one felt their students were bored or that tech class was 'babysitting'--wasted time--as happens in some situations.
• 08/03/10 - Which Social Media Should Be Allowed in Schools?
  
  these are the sites that have kids excited about learning--excited about technology. So what are we doing? We're cutting off the most effective avenue for keeping students interested in school because we're afraid of them. Does that sound right to you?
• 07/31/10 - There Are No Bad Computers
  
  I'd chat a little longer, but my computer is telling me there's no printer installed. I know there is, so I'm going to reintroduce computer and printer. See you tomorrow!
• 07/30/10 - Spotlight on this Blog’s Author
  
  She’s the author of the career book for college-bound teens called Building a Midshipman: How to Crack the USNA Application
• 07/29/10 - Weekend Website #5: Get Tricky With Wikis
  
  Here's my class wiki, lots of formatting thanks to this website. Lenva (the author) tells you how to password protect it, add columns, change the name, embed a webpage and more.
• 07/28/10 - Tech Tip #7: Making Backgrounds Transparent
  
  Q: When I insert my picture, the background isn't transparent, so it covers everything behind it. I want it see-through. How do I do that? BTW, I'm using Publisher. A: There are two ways, one simpler than the other.
• 07/27/10 - #70: Create a Timecard in Excel for Grade Two and Up
  
  They’ll have no idea they’re using Excel. Olders can create the template themselves and then fill it in
• 07/26/10 - Life Wisdom From Your Computer #4: Hourglassing
  
  Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. (Napoleon Hill)
• 07/23/10 - God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World.
  
  what has been true all along: the vast majority of people outside the West, and many people in the West, are religious.
• 07/22/10 - Weekend Website #4: Hangman
  
  When I give my students five or ten minutes to select any website from our internet start page links, Hangman is the most popular. Kids play it with a neighbor or by themselves.
• 07/21/10 - Tech Tip #6: The (Horrid Annoying) Drawing Canvas
  
  Get rid of it. It's huge and designed to allow you to place multiple shapes that are moved and resized as one.
• 07/20/10 - #70: How to Keep a Timecard in Excel
  
• 07/19/10 - Help Kids Use the Internet Safely with a Start Page
  
  When you get yours set up, on the To Do list, put what the child should do to start each computer time. This gives them a sense of independence, adultness, as they get started while you’re wrapping something else up.
• 07/18/10 - You Have Permission to Disrupt Class
  
  Schools throw technology at their problems in hopes software, hardware, internet websites, will fix their shrinking test scores. Be Different.
• 07/16/10 - Does Homeschooling Work? Yes
  
  The average home schooled 8th grade student performs four grade levels above the national average.
• 07/14/10 - Tech Tip #5: Reveal a Program
  
  Push the Flying Windows key (it’s between Ctrl and Alt).
• 07/13/10 - Easy Photo Editing in MS Word
  
  I’ve put it all on one page for you if you want to print it out:
• 07/12/10 - Life Wisdom From Your Computer #3: Shortcuts
  
  Don't always feel you must reinvent the wheel. You're not capitulating if you take the road more traveled.
• 07/11/10 - Book Review: Integrate Technology Into First Grade
  
• 07/09/10 - Homeschool Day at the Getty
  
• 07/08/10 - Website #2: Zoopz
  
  Zoopz: Easy to understand, to maneuver. Bright colors that attract youngers and almost no ads.
• 07/07/10 - Tech Tip #4: Zoom In and Out
  
  Hold down the Ctrl and + to zoom in. Hold down Ctrl and – to zoom out.
• 07/06/10 - #1: How to KidPix I
  
  You want a program that teaches a bit about mouse functions, tools and toolbars, maybe even some text? You're looking for KidPix.
• 07/05/10 - Life Wisdom From Your Computer #2: Your Processor Speed
  
  Who cares what your processing speed is if your hard drive is to die for?
• 07/01/10 - Thirty-two Ways to Use Spare Classroom Time
  
  LA, Math, Research, Art--all in quick bursts
• 06/30/10 - Tech Tip #3: How to Turn a Website Address Into a Link
  
  When you have a website you want to send to people, copy it, paste it into the email/doc. Be sure to add a space or enter afterwards.
• 06/29/10 - #13: Art Online
  
  Websites for kids with minimum ads and maximum entertainment
• 06/28/10 - Five Great Summer Websites Your Kids Don’t Want to Miss
  
• 06/25/10 - Cornerstone Homeschool math team wins state competition
  
• 06/24/10 - Weekend Website #11: Google Moon
  
  I get students to the website and leave the rest to their curiosity and the explorative side of human nature. From first grade on, they figure out what to do.
• 06/23/10 - Tech Tip #1: Using the (Useless) Insert Key
  
  http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com/
• 06/22/10 - How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography
  
  Diagrams organize a students thinking and are fun and easy to create
• 06/22/10 - Life Wisdom From Your Computer #1: Consider RAM
  
  Don't be afraid to say, My RAM is full! That's what computers do.
• 06/18/10 - Sharon Angle Homeschooled Her Child
  
  After he failed kindergarten, I put him back in for that second year and he was completely demoralized
• 06/18/10 - Technorati
  
• 06/17/10 - Homeschool Website #1: Jing
  
  It not only grabs a picture, but a video of what you’re doing, allows you to add highlighting, arrows, text, and more.
• 06/16/10 - Tech Tip #61: How to Get Youngers to Use the Right Mouse Button
  
  Use the other right button--yeah, that makes sense to kids
• 06/15/10 - Summer Activities to Keep Kids in Tech