Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Happy Holiday!

Posted: 21st December 2012 by Jacqui in news
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1372575_modern_christmas_treeI’m taking off for a few days. I’ll be back after the New Year, refreshed, with new ideas, ready to go. I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season. May all of your wishes come true.

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-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, Technology in Education featured blogger, 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.

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Subscribers: Your Special is Available

Posted: 15th November 2012 by Jacqui in news
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Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a free/discounted something to help them with their tech teaching.

This month:

K-6 Technology Curriculum S&S

This 14-page K-6 technology curriculum Scope and Sequence itemizes over 250 tech ed skills taught to complete a technology curriculum based on ISTE National Standards. It’s organized by standard and grade level, showing for each grade level what is introduced, worked on, mastered, and completed. It’s in a convenient Word format so users can edit and format as needed for their unique school needs. Additionally, it:

  • Aligns with ISTE National Standards
  • Shows you what skill and standard is addressed at which grade level
  • Denotes each grade level as Introduced, Working on, Mastered, Completed
  • Includes a variety of tools, from software to iPads

Price: $6.95 (+p&h)

Digital delivery within 24 hours.
  • Click the PayPal button.
  • Let us know in the message box what your subscriber email is

Check Out My Post at TeachHUB

Posted: 12th November 2012 by Jacqui in news
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I’m going to be writing a column for TeachHUB, about twice a month. If you’d like to check out my first article, Friday Five: Top Five iPad Apps for Your Classroom, click and visit. There are some other interesting articles over there, so plan on staying a while.

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, a columnist for Examiner.com, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to TeachdHUB and Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

Yes, I’m Resilient, but I Wish Computers Were More Dependable

Posted: 29th October 2012 by Jacqui in classroom management, news
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I read a post by Bill Ferriter on Education Week Teacher (which I read in ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology) where he says in his article, “Our never-ending reliance on digital resilience” that yes, he’s resilient, but he’s tired of it. He thinks that because tech teachers are so quick to adapt to problems (computers don’t work so we pair up students–that sort of thing), that we’ve enabled the chronic problem.

It made me think about the many times I’ve had to adapt because things didn’t work–despite the efforts of my excellent tech people:

  • a website doesn’t work so I try it in a different browser
  • a website doesn’t load correctly so I go in with my admin log-in and download fixes to get the computer running, but in class, that’s an eternity
  • class computers won’t print despite that my lab printer is loaded to their list. I’ve learned to load the IP address of my printer as a more reliable connection, but why don’t they print? And a bigger question: Why periodically–with regularity–do the printers I’ve loaded disappear from the computer?

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Happy July 4th!

Posted: 4th July 2012 by Jacqui in news
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It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. What I write today will be… anything I want–gibberish, a short story, guest articles on crazy topics. I have no idea. My son’s in Kuwait protecting America’s distant shores. My daughter’s in San Diego preparing her LPD for some future battle. I’m here, thanking both of them and every other service member who accepted the calling to protect our nation’s freedoms.

God be with all of you.

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What’s a Tech Teacher Do With Their Summer Off?

Posted: 23rd June 2012 by Jacqui in news
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Are you going on road trips? Are you playing with your children, seeing friends you forgot existed, or engaging in retail therapy?

If I have time in between what I HAVE to do, I’ll join you. It might be a virtual trip, but we’ll make it happen.

Here’s what’s on my plate (so far) this summer of 2012:

  1. Attending ISTE 2012. It’s in my backyard this summer–San Diego.
  2. Attending training my school signed me up for on UbD, our new grading program (forgot the name), and robotics. One of the training sessions comes with a free lunch.
  3. Editing a K-6 technology curriculum and a keyboard book for Structured Learning (a great publisher of edtech resources for the classroom)
  4. Working on a tech thriller I hope to finish and get off to publishers. Of course it has lots of cutting edge technology in it and a quirky AI named Otto.
  5. Picking the brains of my two children. One works in cybercom for the Navy; the other the Signal Corps for the Army. Most of the stuff they can’t tell me, but I love hearing what they can.
  6. Working with tech teachers at my local school district on a technology curriculum for their K-6 classes.
  7. Presenting at several schools on tech ed topics. If you’re interested in working with me on that, please contact me at this link.
  8. Consulting with a Denver school district online to train their new tech teachers in what to teach in their computer labs next year.
  9. Getting back to my inquisitive, curious roots. I used to spend hours figuring out how to solve problems, find solutions, determine what made something tick. Now, I’m too busy. I can feel the rift in my spirit, my sapped energy, my fuzzy brain. This summer, I’m getting back to that. Here’s my promise:

For the next six weeks, when I see something techie I don’t understand, I’ll stop and ask the essential questions:

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I’ve been Nominated for the Fascination Award

Posted: 4th June 2012 by Jacqui in business, news
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[caption id="attachment_8527" align="alignright" width="176"]most fascinating blog Vote for me[/caption]

Woah. This is cool.

But what is the Fascination Award? Here’s what they say:

In order to be fascinating, content can’t just be useful, valuable, entertaining, educational, or interesting. These are all great traits to have but fascinating content is a mixture of these things and much more.

Fascinating content is best quantified by the physical and emotional reaction that it instills in its audience rather than particular traits of the content. Put simply, fascinating content:

  • Inspires its audience.
  • Creates conversation around the topic.
  • Creates a strong emotional reaction (positive or negative)
  • Gets shared both online and off.
  • Contain genuinely fascinating content
    • Voting Starts: June 04, 2012 (12:01 EST)
    • Voting ends, 1st place winner is chosen: June 11, 2012 (11:59 PM EST)

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Happy Memorial Day

Posted: 28th May 2012 by Jacqui in news
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I’m taking the day to honor our soldiers. Without their sacrifice, where would we be? (more…)

Weekend Website #98: TED-Ed

Posted: 18th May 2012 by Jacqui in classroom management, news
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Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, been excited to use. This one is a math app. Since ‘math’ is by far the most popular search term of readers who seek out my blog, I know you’re going to enjoy this review.

[caption id="attachment_8405" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Lessons worth sharing"]TED ed[/caption]

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How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards

Posted: 17th May 2012 by Jacqui in classroom management, news
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[caption id="attachment_8132" align="alignleft" width="300"]common core standards Common Core standards–adopted in 46 states[/caption]

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

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

Anchor Standards

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

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