August 14 as National Navajo Code Talkers Day.

During WWI, the Choctaw language had been used to transmit U.S. military messages. With this thought in mind, Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary grew up on a Navajo reservation and spoke the Diné tongue fluently, brought the suggestion of a similar code to General Clayton Vogel early in 1942. The Diné language has no alphabet, uses no symbols and one sound may hold an entire concept. The idea was tested and proved to be faster and more reliable than the mechanized methods. The language has more verbs than nouns, that helps to move the sentences along and makes it far more difficult for outsiders to learn – making it the most ingenious and successful code in military history.

(more…)

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

Today’s tip: The Easiest Way to Outline

Q:  My fifth graders are learning to outline. Can technology make it easier?

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

• Select the Numbered List or the Bullet List in the program toolbar. They’re usually grouped together.
• Once you press it, your first bullet or number appears on the screen. Type your item.
• When finished, push enter to add another number or bullet.
• Use the ‘indent’ tool or push tab to create a subpoint.
• Use the exdent tool or Shift+tab to push a subpoint up a level.

That’s it–three keys: 1) bullet list or numbered list 2) indent, and 3) exdent. (more…)

Tired of Paperwork? The Easiest Ways to Requisition School Supplies Online

Back-to-school season brings a long to-do list for educators and administrators. Between preparing classrooms, coordinating with staff and ensuring students have the resources they need, paperwork shouldn’t slow you down. The last thing you want is to spend hours navigating forms just to order basic supplies. Online school supply requisition systems offer a faster, more organized way to manage purchasing and free up time for what matters most.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/coloring-pencils-in-green-and-yellow-containers-8441845/

The Hidden Costs of Paper-Based Procurement

Many schools still depend on paper-based workflows or disconnected systems for ordering classroom supplies, and while these methods may feel familiar, they often create unnecessary holdups and frustration. The traditional procurement process involves multiple handoffs, manual signatures and physical forms that can easily get lost between departments.

Common challenges include tracking down missing approval forms and deciphering unclear handwriting on requisition sheets. Orders can sit for days or weeks waiting to move through the approval chain. Paper-based systems also make it difficult to maintain accurate budget records or ensure compliance with district purchasing policies. The result is wasted time and energy that could otherwise support student learning and engaging classroom environments. (more…)

10 Everyday Fun Moments That Teach Math Concepts Naturally

Your child tells you math is boring, or pointless, or asks when they’ll ever use it. You know that’s wrong, but with a worksheet on the table it’s hard to say why.

Math is the one subject that never announces itself. Language is how your child talks to friends, history is stories, art is on the wall. Math just looks like symbols on a page.

It’s actually the most applicable subject they study. In a late 2025 Education Week survey, top executives said the skills young workers most lack are complex problem-solving, adaptability, and making sense of complex information. All of that is math.

You don’t have to teach it, just point at it. Below are 10 everyday moments, each with a question to ask and the answer to expect, pitched at elementary and early middle school and tagged 2–4 or 5–7. (more…)

A lot of teacher-authors read both my Ask a Tech Teacher education blog and my writer’s blog, WordDreams. In this monthly column, I share a popular post from the past month: 

My last trilogy–Savage Land–dealt with a time 75,000 years ago when Neanderthals survived a natural disaster that should have wiped them off the planet. They found safe places around the planet, one of which was Gibraltar where Savage Land concentrates.

My next trilogy–In the Shadow of Giants–addresses their disappearance, when they became so few in number they could no longer sustain themselves as a species. Each book will deal with one way they attempted to cope with that inevitable end, when they were forced to find their future in the shadow of much more powerful human species. (more…)

The proliferation of tech tools and digital devices has dramatically changed how students prepare for testing. The Ask a Tech Teacher team looked into this hot topic with a focus on language exams. Here’s an overview:

How Technology Reshaped the Way Students Prepare for Language Exams

Any teacher who prepared students for a language proficiency exam a decade ago remembers the routine: a textbook, a stack of photocopied practice papers, a cassette or CD for the listening section, and very little way of knowing how a student was actually doing until the results arrived. The materials were fine. The feedback loop was terrible. What has changed since then is less about the exams themselves, which remain fairly stable, and more about the tools available for getting a student ready and for knowing whether it is working. (more…)

Here are the most-read posts last month:

1. How Technology Is Transforming Language Learning for Students and Adults
2. Subscriber Special: Free Hour of Code Bundle
3. Tech Ed Resources–K-8 Keyboard Curriculum
4. ISTE–Here’s how this hugely popular education conference went
5. How to Choose (and Test) Tutoring Software Before You Buy
6. Best Scratch Coding Classes for Kids: A Teacher’s Guide to the Top Programs
7. USA Moon Landing July 20 1969
8. Need a New Job? Update Your Resume
9. How to Start Your Teaching Career: A Clear Guide to Becoming a Teacher
10. How to Teach Middle School Students to Spot Deepfakes

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up: (more…)

Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

(more…)

I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m taking a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are from members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, from 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: Lesson Plans

There are lots of bundles of lesson plans available–by theme, by software, by topic, by standard. Here are a few with links to more detail:

• STEM Lesson Plans
• Coding Lesson Plans
• By Grade Level
• 110 lesson plans–integrate tech into different grades, subjects, by difficulty level, and call out higher-order thinking skills.
• singles–for as low as $.99 each. Genius Hour, Google Apps, Robotics, STEM, Coding, and more.
• Holiday projects–16 lesson plans themed to holidays and keep students in the spirit while learning new tools.

Who needs this

These are for the teacher who knows what they want to teach, but need ideas on how to integrate tech. They are well-suited to classroom teachers as well as tech specialists.

(more…)

I love sharing the personal experiences of educators. We all do things differently, in good ways, providing lots of options for diversity among students who don’t get the first or second way we teach a lesson. Brandon Collis, electrical engineer turned private tutor, founder of ClassQuill (https://classquill.com) has ideas on tutoring using AI.