Tag: Book Reviews
Tech Ed Resources for your Class–Digital Citizenship
I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m going to take a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are edited and/or written by members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, by tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.
Today: K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum
Overview
K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum–9 grade levels. 17 topics. 46 lessons. 46 projects. A year-long digital citizenship curriculum that covers everything you need to discuss on internet safety and efficiency, delivered in the time you have in the classroom.
Digital Citizenship–probably one of the most important topics students will learn between kindergarten and 8th and too often, teachers are thrown into it without a roadmap. This book is your guide to what children must know at what age to thrive in the community called the internet. It blends all pieces into a cohesive, effective student-directed cyber-learning experience that accomplishes ISTE’s general goals to:
- Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology
- Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity
- Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning
- Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship
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How to Grow Global Digital Citizens
With the rise of online games, web-based education, and smartphones that access everything from house lights to security systems, it’s not surprising to read these statistics:
In 2013, 71 percent of the U.S. population age 3 and over used the Internet
- 94% of youth ages 12-17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with schoolwork.
- 41% of online teens say they use email and instant messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork.
- 87% of parents of online teens believe that the Internet helps students with their schoolwork and 93% believe the Internet helps students learn new things.
Since so many kids come to school with a working knowledge of the Internet, teachers feel comfortable using it as a teaching tool but just because students use the Internet doesn’t mean they do it safely and wisely. In fact, despite that the UN considers access to the Internet a human right, many adults and even more kids don’t know how to act as good digital citizens when visiting this sparkly and exciting world. When they first arrive, all of life’s rules seem to be upended. Users can be anyone they want, break any cultural norm and even be anonymous if they’re careful, hiding behind the billions of people crowding around them.
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3 Important Books for Kids
Summer’s approaching. Kids love playing outside, visiting friends–and reading! To encourage that last activity, here are three great books that will entertain, motivate, and educate–all in one fun experience.
- Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Dough Bees Story and Cookbook — a clever blend of baking and reading. This is one of several Robby Cheadle and family have written
- Why are There Bullies and What Can You Do About Them — an interactive Q&A about bullying and its solutions
- The Piper Morgan Series — addresses issues youngsters are curious about, told in first person through the eyes of delightful Piper Morgan
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3 Book Reviews about Anthropomorphized Computers
I know a lot of bloggers who are both geeks and authors. Often, their books including those techie topics I love to read (and ended up critical to my recently-published novel, Twenty-four Days). Here are a few I think you might like:
- Digital Dick — an AI takes it upon himself to solve the murder of his creator
- Little Computer People — an AI takes an interesting turn as she attains sentience
- Hyperion Web — Jack Crockett and an AI named Moses fight for what may be the soul of America.
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8 Essential Books Every Tech-Minded Teacher Should Read
I love reading, but there are so many books out there, it’s challenging to pick the right one for my education needs. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Karen Dikson, came to the rescue. She curated a great list of essential tech-minded books for today’s teachers. Here are her suggestions:
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We live in an extremely stimulating and dynamic era, and it’s hard to predict what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone in the next few years.
Modern teachers and educators need to adapt and keep up with the trends because that’s what their students are doing. In order to be able to reach them better, teachers not only have to be up to date with the latest strategies and teaching methodologies, but also with modern technology and new ways of connecting with their students and engaging them, both inside and outside the classroom.
Fortunately, there are plenty of resources they can turn to. I recommend the following eight books which were written with tech-minded teachers in mind.
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Book Review: Common Core Literacy for ELA
Common Core Literacy for ELA, History/Social Studies, and the Humanities: Strategies to Deepen Content Knowledge (Grades 6-12)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dr. Katherine McKnight is an author, educator and consultant. She regularly publishes in professional journals and has written eleven books including titles like The English Teacher’s Survival Guide and The Elementary Teacher’s Big Book of Graphic Organizers--recipient of the 2013 Teachers’ Choice Award.
Three of her books are on Common Core, the latest being Common Core Literacy for ELA, History/Social Studies, and the Humanities: Strategies to Deepen Content Knowledge (Jossey-Bass 2014). When I saw this book on my Amazon Vine list, I was excited to read her thoughts on effective delivery of these far-reaching Standards.
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Book Review: Endangered Minds
Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I discovered Dr. Jane Healy’s Endangered Minds (Simon and Schuster 1987) researching a novel I was writing on early man. I wanted to better understand what parts of our brain show significant evolution since our species appeared (like the increasing size of the frontal lobe, the evolution of the Wernecke and Broca areas). I admit, part of it was also that I was a new mother and there are so many competing opinions about when kids should read, write, what they should learn when, I didn’t want to make a mistake and mess up my kids. (more…)
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Common Core Writing–Digital Quick Writes
Here’s a free lesson plan from the newest Ask a Tech Teacher book, How to Achieve Common Core with Tech–the Writing Strand. This covers K-8, 208 Standards, and has 28 projects.
BTW, the lines at the front of each step are to track progress in case you don’t complete it in one class period. Feel free to print out for classroom use:
Essential Question
How does writing often and briefly improve skills?
Summary
Students use digital Quick Writes to integrate writing and critical thinking practice into any discipline. They use a variety of age-appropriate digital tools to prepare their work. Through these short, fun writings, students develop fluency, build the habit of reflection, and informally assess thinking.
Big Ideas
Writing routinely for short periods of time, for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences, makes students better writers.
Materials
Internet, drawing program, quick write links
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Book Review: Google Apps Meets Common Core
by Michael J. Graham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Michael Graham’s Google Apps Meets Common Core (Corwin 2013) is exactly what I hoped it would be. As a teacher, there couldn’t be two bigger topics than ‘Google Apps for Education’ and ‘Common Core’. Juxtaposing the two instantly caught my attention. My only question was whether Graham would be up to the task.
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Book Review: Photoshop Elements 12
Photoshop Elements 12: The Missing Manual
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Photoshop CS, but my school will no longer support the cost of a license. At first, I refused to teach image editing, feeling like any program I used would be inferior to what I should be teaching. I continued with the decade-old CS (not the up-to-date CS 5). No problem with that. Students loved it, found it easy, extended learning to home–and that’s when the problem arose. They–of course–had to buy the upgrade and wondered why I was using such an old program.