Year: 2013

Common Core notes:

New technologies have broadened and expanded the role that speaking and listening play in acquiring and sharing knowledge and have tightened their link to other forms of communication. Digital texts confront students with the potential for continually updated content and dynamically changing combinations of words, graphics, images, hyperlinks, and embedded video and audio.

The underlying theme can’t be ignored by teachers any longer: A 21^st Century learner requires technologic proficiency. Proof enough is that Common Core summative assessments will be completed online—only possible if students use technology as comfortably as paper and pencil to demonstrate knowledge.

But how do you do that if you aren’t a ‘techie’, a ‘geek’, if you barely use a Smartphone much less the myriad of online tools. I have ten strategies that will make your teaching life easier, bump up your effectiveness with students, and save time complying with Common Core standards. Try these ten tech uses. Watch what a difference they make:

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Today, I have a guest post from Matt Quibly, webmaster for a fascinating website called Qui.bly. It has a forum sort of set-up that enables parents to ask child-related tech questions and get answers from like-minded parents and/or professionals. If they don’t want to post inquiries, parents can peruse a list of topics on areas such as gaming, ebooks, the digital future, and more. We were echatting the other day and Matt shared a list of skills he believes kids develop from exposure to technology. See what you think:

Research Skills: Knowing how to use search engines can significantly improve a child’s research skills, while browsing can also improve their resourcefulness. If children know how to access useful information and feel engaged in the activity they are more likely to retain information than if they were bored.

Logic and problem solving skills: Online games, apps and video games may actually help to exercise the side of the brain responsible for logic skills. There are many constructive apps and games that challenge a child’s mathematical abilities, hidden object games that can help with improving focus and puzzle games where they may be able to improve spatial reasoning skills, just to name a few.

Responsibility: Real life simulation games like The Sims or Oregon Trail can teach children about responsibility. In The Sims, for example, the player is expected to take care of their character by ensuring it eats, showers, goes to work on time, pays the bills. It also shows that it takes repetitiveness and determination to improve the character’s skills like cooking, gardening, athletics and more.

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December 9-15, Computer Science Education will host the Hour Of Code–a one hour introduction to students on coding, programming, and why they should love it. It’s a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify “code” and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, an innovator. They’ll include a variety of self-guided tutorials that anybody can do, on a browser, tablet, or smartphone. No experience needed. Watch this “how to” video for more information.

http://youtu.be/hfZrX5YDltU

http://youtu.be/nKIu9yen5nc

In honor of the upcoming Hour of Code, here are a list of websites to practice everything from basics to advanced:

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Here’s a free lesson plan from the newest Ask a Tech Teacher book, How to Achieve Common Core with Tech–the Language Strand. This covers K-8, 87 Standards, and has 8 projects.

BTW, the lines at the front of each step are to check off the skill–track progress in case you don’t complete it in one class period. Feel free to print to out for your classroom use:

Essential Question

Why is appropriate vocabulary essential to academic success?

Lesson Summary

Students teach each other domain-specific words through presentations. This reinforces vocabulary, as well as presentation skills.

By the end of this unit, 3^rd-middle school students will review up to 7 L, 4 SL, and 1 WHST, as well as authentically use and review Tier 3 vocabulary (or optionally, Tier 2).

Big Ideas

• Words are beautiful.
• Knowing Tier 3 vocabulary helps students understand the subject.

Materials

Internet, Speak Like a Geek assessments, Speak Like a Geek sign-ups

Teacher Preparation

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Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Tracy in South Africa:

I am doing Movie Maker with my Grade 6 girls. (age 12) How would you suggest I assess this?

It depends upon your needs, Tracy. Tech ed is at times expected to be assessed quantitatively and other times, on a qualitative, effort-based platform. If your school requires the former of you, you might want to create a rubric that includes the Movie Maker features you expect to be included (i.e., storyboard, transitions, images, length, integrated sound), make that available as a checklist to students prior to completion, and then let them grade each other. You can then take that completed rubric and use it for your grading. As for the rubric: Here’s a link to one of my posts with some ideas on that.

Here’s a free lesson plan from the newest Ask a Tech Teacher book, How to Achieve Common Core with Tech–the Language Strand. This covers K-8, 87 Standards, and has 8 projects.

BTW, the lines at the front of each step are to check off the skill–track progress in case you don’t complete it in one class period. Feel free to print to out for your classroom use:

Essential Question

Why is appropriate vocabulary essential to academic success?

Lesson Summary

Students teach each other domain-specific words through presentations. This reinforces vocabulary, as well as presentation skills.

By the end of this unit, 3^rd-middle school students will review up to 7 L, 4 SL, and 1 WHST, as well as authentically use and review Tier 3 vocabulary (or optionally, Tier 2).

Big Ideas

• Words are beautiful.
• Knowing Tier 3 vocabulary helps students understand the subject.

Materials

Internet, Speak Like a Geek assessments, Speak Like a Geek sign-ups

Teacher Preparation

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In the USA, Veterans Day annually falls on November 11. This day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States on Veterans Day.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLa0jm-NQ4k&w=560&h=315]
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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

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.

I love giving my material away for free. Thankfully, I have a publisher who supports that. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

My Bookcover in KidPix

Draw a cover for a classroom project or unit of inquiry or use one of Kidpix’s templates. Have students nicely mix text and pictures for an attractive design. Introduce KidPix fonts, font sizes, font colors to grade 1

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving sites that will keep students busy and still teach them (check here for updates on links):

1. Various Thanksgiving websites–BillBear 4 Kids
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities–some require a computer, others not so much
3. Thanksgiving information–history, poems, and more
4. Starfall–Silly Turkey
5. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
6. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
7. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
8. Thanksgiving Games
9. Thanksgiving games–Quia
10. Thanksgiving educational websites from CybraryMan
11. Thanksgiving Wordsearch
12. Thanksgiving activities
13. The First Thanksgiving
14. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
15. Thanksgiving Online Coloring Book
16. Thanksgiving Webquest
17. You are the historian–Thanksgiving
18. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop

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How to keep their children safe online is a constant question from parents at my school. They ask about firewalls, filters, kidsafe desktops, nannycams. Should they keep their children away from computers or just off the internet? Do they have to sit with them while they work?

No. No. and No. What parents need to do is teach children to take care of themselves while visiting this vast, anonymous, addictive neighborhood called ‘the internet’. Just as they come to understand that they stay at your side in large busy stores, that they don’t talk to strangers, that they don’t open the door to people they don’t know, they will learn to be safe in the digital world. Because it’s part of our genome–to do what keeps us safe.

While they’re getting to that epiphany, here are some ideas you can employ:

1. Teach your children how to use the internet. They are digital citizens. They have rights and responsibilities. Just as in their neighborhood, they must learn to do it right. They aren’t born with that knowledge. Teach them to avoid ads, about online relationships, tell them again, and again. Sooner than you think, they will own it. Just as they don’t cross the street without looking both ways, they won’t cross the ‘digital street’ unless it’s safe.
2. Discuss with your child what they can and cannot do online. Discuss why. Help them to understand. They feel invincible. You want them to feel safe, but able to take care of themselves. Part of taking care of themselves is not putting themselves in harm’s way.
3. Use a parental control filter. Only you know the password which makes it your perogative what types of activities are available. Start by blocking ‘pornography’ because few little boys can resist the urge to type that whispered three letter word heard on the playground. From there, block everything you worry about–chicks, Minecraft, girls, Facebook, xxx, murder. It’s easy to unblock if your child needs a site that won’t come up. More importantly, it leads to a conversation with your child about what they’re researching, why they need it. You want your child comfortable with you involved in their lives–not as an arbiter of right and wrong, but as an interested loving party.
4. Do not assume parental controls are perfect. Assume they aren’t. Stay vigilant. Be aware when your child is too quiet or too noisy at the computer. Ask questions. Pop in unexpectedly.
5. Enforce rules. Don’t decide you’re too tired one night to go check a website your child tells you they need to visit. Always always always follow your own rules.
6. Check ‘history’ on your child’s computer. Do it with them so they understand you’re not hiding anything. This is part of the plan to keep them safe.
7. Know what their school does to keep your child safe online. Follow the same rules, or follow your own. Do explain the differences to your child. Children are flexible. They will be fine with varied rules.

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