Here are the skills fifth graders can learn in Photoshop if you’ve prepared them with basic computer skills:

• Photoshop artwork–already live
• Photoshop actions–already live
• Photoshop basics
• Photoshop filter and rendering tools
• Photoshop starters–auto-correct with the auto-correction tools–those quick fixes that make a photo look cleaner (coming up)
• Photoshop crop tool–with the lasso and the magic wand
• Photoshop clone tool– within a picture and to another picture
• Photoshop–change the background (put yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower or on top of Hoover Dam)
• Photoshop tools–add custom shapes
• Photoshop–start with Word (a little dated but still useful)

Get started

(more…)

How do schools detect AI in student writing? It’s easier than it used to be. So what can students do to ensure their writing is assisted by AI, not written by it? The Ask a Tech Teacher team explains:

How can schools detect your AI writing?

If a teacher questions whether you used AI, a detector score may be only part of the concern. They may also ask about a source you cited or why your essay sounds different from your classroom work. Knowing what schools look for can help you review an assignment before you submit it.

This guide explains those checks and walks through a practical editing process: assess the draft, rebuild weak arguments from your notes, then work on wording and grammar. Writing tools can help with specific tasks along the way. Check your teacher’s rules first, since permission to correct spelling does not necessarily include permission to rewrite whole paragraphs. (more…)

In 169 Tech Tips, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address class tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Encourage the use of audio notes

Every opportunity, encourage students to use the audio mike (instead of the keyboard) to record their ideas, thoughts, and notes. Why? It will suit some students perfectly and differentiate for needs you may not even be aware of. Of course, if everyone used audio notes, the class would get quite noisy.

Prefer video of lessons? Try these:

Click here to accept Marketing cookies and load this content

Click here to accept Marketing cookies and load this content

(more…)

Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they research projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with options come responsibility for their use. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. You can find grade-specific lesson plans in our K-8 curricula. This for K we post free, as a sample. Use the lines in front of the steps to check off completed work:

Overview/Big Ideas

Students learn how to live in the digital world of internet websites, copy-righted images, and virtual friends who may be something different.

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

Objectives and Steps

The objectives of this lesson are:

(more…)

In an era when students spend hours each day staring at glowing screens, the simple act of making something with their hands offers a powerful antidote to digital overload. Hands-on crafts provide a restorative, screen-free break that reduces stress, sharpens focus, and reawakens creativity by engaging the senses in ways no device can match. Looking for the why and how? Ask a Tech Teacher has both for you. Read on:

Why Hands-On Crafts Are the Ultimate Screen-Free Break for Students

Take a quick look at any student’s desk today. You will almost certainly spot a screen—or three. Between school-issued Chromebooks, research tabs, online portals, and digital textbooks, screens have completely taken over learning. Edtech has brought plenty of perks, sure. But let’s be real: staring at a flat sheet of glowing glass for six hours straight is downright exhausting.

By the time study time rolls around, eyes are dry, shoulders are hunched, and brains feel completely fried. And what’s the go-to move when it’s finally time for a break? Most students pick up a phone, open TikTok or YouTube, or jump straight into a video game.

It feels like taking a breather, but here’s the problem: your brain isn’t actually getting a rest.

To feel genuinely refreshed, students need a break that switches gears entirely. That is where basic, hands-on crafting comes in. Stepping away to make something real with your hands isn’t just a fun pastime—it’s the single best way to clear out the mental cobwebs and reset your focus. (more…)

Assistive devices for special needs students have improved dramatically over the last decade. Ask a Tech Teacher has a summary of the current status:

• Why the right technology matters
• AAC Communication devices
• Table mounts and access tools
• Visual schedules and timers
• Sensory regulation tools

The Essential Learning Devices and Technology for Special Education Classrooms

Every student deserves meaningful opportunities to participate in classroom learning, regardless of their communication, mobility, sensory or developmental needs. The right assistive technology can help you adapt lessons, support independence and give students more ways to express themselves. However, choosing suitable equipment requires balancing individual student needs with school budgets. You also need to identify reliable special education classroom assistive technology suppliers to ensure product quality and long-term usability.

Why the Right Learning Technology Matters in Special Education

Choosing assistive technology for a special education classroom can be challenging when you need to match affordable equipment to individual abilities and choose suppliers that offer reliable products and support. (more…)

Ask a Tech Teacher has a passel of online resources to introduce, teach, and reinforce digital citizenship. Here’s our long list–click here for updates if you arrive at this page late: (more…)

Digital Citizenship Week — October 19-23, 2026

Here at Ask a Tech Teacher, we will offer a variety of Digital Citizenship resources and lessons. I’ve provided links, but they won’t work until live:

• Digital Citizenship Week: What to Teach When–a video (this one)
• Digital Citizenship Resources–from our Library
• 8 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship–by Grade (a pillar post)

We’ll start with a great video (40 minutes) we use in training, available for free today to Ask a Tech Teacher readers. There are many digcit topics–it’s easy to miss some. The summary–

1. Cyberbullying
2. Digital citizenship
3. Digital commerce
4. Digital communication
5. Digital footprint
6. Digital law—plagiarism, copyrights, fair use, public domain
7. Digital privacy
8. Digital rights and responsibilities
9. Digital search/research
10. Fair use/Public domain
11. Image copyrights
12. Internet safety
13. Netiquette
14. Online plagiarism
15. Passwords
16. Social Media
17. Stranger danger

Note: This video is a reprint so you may have seen it last year. Enjoy!

Digital Citizenship: What to Teach When

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9zmOECZl6c

Summary

(more…)

Surprisingly, 15-20% of the population has a language-based learning disability and over 65% of those are deficits in reading. Often, these go undiagnosed, written off as “s/he doesn’t like to read”. If this sounds familiar to you, maybe before you became a writer you struggled with adopting the love of reading, check out the International Dyslexia Association’s Dyslexia Awareness Month in October.

Dyslexia is a condition that affects people of all ages, male and female equally, and causes them to mix up letters and words they read making what for most is a joy-filled act challenging and frustrating. (more…)

In our ongoing series on college-to-career, the Ask a Tech Teacher team has three new topics to share ideas on how t prepare for sought-after careers. Today, “How to Develop the Skills, Portfolio, and Experience Game Design Careers Require“:

Game design looks like one of the most appealing lines of work in the creative world, and in many ways it is. It joins storytelling, art, systems thinking, and technology into a single craft, and the people who do it well shape how millions of players spend their free time. It is also competitive. Studios receive far more applications than they can consider, and the people who stand out are rarely the ones with the most enthusiasm alone. They are the ones who can show what they can do. Building that kind of readiness takes a deliberate plan, and the earlier you start, the stronger your position will be.

Source: Pexels

Why Game Design Careers Ask for More Than Talent

Plenty of people grow up loving games and assume that passion will carry them into the industry, only to find that studios hire on evidence rather than interest. The obstacle for many of them is that a bachelor’s degree in game design can feel out of reach once work, family responsibilities, and distance from a campus all pull in different directions. Completing that degree online removes most of those barriers, because the learning travels with the student instead of tying them to one place and one timetable. Studying for a Game Design Bachelors degree online keeps the practical work employers look for within reach of people who cannot put the rest of their lives on hold. That accessibility is what turns an early interest in games into a serious path toward the work itself.

How a Portfolio Shows the Way You Think

(more…)