Year: 2011

In my fifteen years of teaching and tutoring tech, I’ve seen everything–and come up with solutions for most of it. I’ll share those with you. My goal: That students (of all ages) feel empowered not frightened by technology, that it is fun not frustrating. These tips will get you there with you and your kids.

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: (more…)

Drawings are done in KidPix. Assign topics (me, my family, etc) for grades K-1 to reinforce the concept of following directions. With 2^nd 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)

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Are you planning to get  your child(ren) a computer for Christmas or Hanukkah? Here are some suggestions from one who’s worked with thousands of younger children. In a nutshell: Keep it simple.

[caption id="attachment_2255" align="alignright" width="322"] What should you include on a young child’s computer?[/caption]

What Should You Include on a Younger Child’s Computer

This is a question I get from parents all the time, with the addendum: At what age does a child need a computer at home, and what should be included? Most parents want to get what their child needs as affordably as possible, but they don’t want to save a few bucks at the expense of their child. If that sounds like you, here are my suggestions:

1. Start by talking to the classroom teacher. What are their expectations of the child? If they’re like the ones in my school, they will want him/her to have access to basic software and the internet for research, maybe email. That’s it.
2. You’re wondering whether a desktop is good for your child, or do they need a laptop? There are lots of reasons why a laptop might be a good decision for your particular family dynamics, but in general terms, a desktop is fine for a younger child (K-5). They don’t need to take it to friend’s house for group projects much until they reach middle school, and I would not suggest gearing a more-expensive laptop decision around an occasional project. I guarantee, the teacher won’t.
3. There are other reasons why a desktop is a good decision. It is more durable (it isn’t carried around, so can’t be dropped). If the monitor breaks, you don’t have to replace the entire computer–just the monitor. Because it’s cheaper, it can be replaced if your child somehow destroys it or part of it (this should be expected of new users). And, a desktop has a larger hard drive, more memory and more drives/ports for input devices. That makes it more adaptable to unexpected needs.
4. Now you need to select which level of desktop your child requires. Does s/he need the basic $350 on sale version or the everything-in-it upgrade? My suggestion is to start simple. Basic. See what the child uses, what else he needs before making an expensive decision. Most kids are fine with the lower end of productivity. Some, though, want the works. You’ll know by the time you’re ready for an upgrade.

Once you’ve selected laptop vs. desktop computer, here’s what you’ll want to be sure that piece of hardware includes:

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In my fifteen years of teaching and tutoring tech, I’ve seen everything–and come up with solutions for all of it. I’ll share those with you. My goal: That students (of all ages) feel empowered not frightened by technology, that it is fun not frustrating. These tips will get you there with you and your kids.

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? Don’t as many people start a paragraph with a tab indent as a double space between paragraphs?

Now I have to fix that every time I open a Word doc. Here’s how to do it (in Word 2010):

• Go to Page Layout
• Go to Paragraph, Spacing
• Make sure ‘after’ is set to 0–not 10.

To make this the default:

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This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and 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.

I love giving my material away for free. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

A 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.

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Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

[caption id="attachment_5559" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Here’s my internet start page for kindergarten–you’ll see the websites we focused on at the end of this school year[/caption]

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In my fifteen years of teaching and tutoring tech, I’ve seen everything–and come up with solutions for all of it. I’ll share those with you. My goal: That students (of all ages) feel empowered not frightened by technology, that it is fun not frustrating. These tips will get you there with you and your kids.

I 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. She was so excited–an epiphany! What fun to share that with her. She was so happy about it, I’m going to email it to all the teachers in the school (I’m the tech teacher). (more…)

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE. To be sure you don’t miss any of these:

• Subscribe to Ask a Tech Teacher by Email
• Sign up to the RSS feed

…and 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.

I love giving my material away for free. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

A Holiday Newsletter

Have students collaborate on a newsletter for a classroom unit of inquiry or a theme (colonies, animals, etc). Pick a template. Add text and pictures. Pay attention to layout details. Allow several class periods to complete

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Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Blackle.com is a search engine. It’s pretty much like Google–in fact, it’s run by Google–but you notice right away you’re not at Google.com or Yahoo or any other search engine you’ve every used. Why?

The background is black.

That itty bitty change in surfing saves energy. In fact, Blackle had saved 2,440,165.420 Watt hours as of the hour I checked. (more…)

As webmaster and an active tech teacher, I am sometimes asked to review products for my readers. Since

[caption id="attachment_6635" align="alignright" width="145"] Luna’s simplified document camera Photo credit: Learning Resource’s website[/caption]

I don’t work for the company doing the asking and receive no compensation (other than the product), I am able to provide an unbiased review of my experiences and conclusions based on the 400 students I teach.

Recently, I had the opportunity to review Learning Resource’s Luna™ Interactive Projection Camera. I don’t have a document camera in my classroom and there are times when I would trade all the chocolate in my snack drawer for the ability to share a 3D object or picture with students. So, when Learning Resource’s marketing group asked, I quickly agreed. The box arrived containing the projection camera, a CD with the Easi-View software, and a few pages of documentation (very very brief).

The projection camera is a lightweight, gooseneck contraption exactly like the inset shows. It has a sturdy base that includes a snapshot button, a light and the microphone, and a wide head that holds the camera. I wanted to test the intuitiveness of installation so rather than read the directions, I just jumped in. The cord was obviously for a USB port, so I popped that into my computer, loaded the CD and started. Easy-view installed quickly with no hitches. Here’s a screen shot:

My school was in the middle of accreditation (which went well), so I didn’t have a lot of time to play. I decided to experiment as the need arose. In most cases, the process was easy to figure out, and worked as I hoped it would. Here’s a run down of how I used the Luna during the first two weeks:

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