Year: 2016

Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

This month:

If you donate to my blog drive, I’ll send you FREE

The 18-page two-lesson plan bundle to blend your class into Martin Luther King Day January 18, 2016.

We’re close, but not there yet. To those who have donated–Thank You! I sang your praises from the roof of our building and sent a special appreciation prayer your way. Any amount you can contribute–$5… $10… using the PayPal Donate button below or in the sidebar, would be appreciated.

Here’s the one-time donation button, or you can find it in the sidebar:

Here’s the button for a monthly donation–the price of a cup of coffee and a donut:

Support : $5.00 USD – monthlySponsor : $10.00 USD – monthlySidebar ad : $50.00 USD – monthly

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BTW, we’re always open to sponsors, too. We love sponsors!  If you’re an edtech company interested in helping spread Ask a Tech Teacher resources to everyone, contact us at [email protected]. We can add you to the sidebar, review your product, or another sponsor sort of activity.

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Probably, of all computer functions, backing up data is the most critical and the most likely to make you tear your hair out. Hard drives crash, files get corrupted, your computer is lost or stolen, a virus and malware forces you to reformat (which can lose all of your data), what you thought you saved you didn’t–I could go on. There are dozens of reasons why you should–really–backup your data.

And as a teacher, it’s even more critical because it’s not just you who suffers if you can’t find student projects or report card comments. It’s parents, students, and your colleagues.

Despite that, backing up is a step too many of the educators I know skip. The top reasons:

• it takes too long
• I forget
• I’ve never had a problem

The only reason I hear from those who lost data because they didn’t back up:

“Because I’m an idiot!”

It’s as G. Silowash said while participating in his school’s disaster drill to a faculty question about forgotten report card files:

“Don’t worry, your data is securely burning inside with the rest of the building.” 

Let me make it easy for you. Here are the top four ways I back-up data–and I do all of them:

Automatic back-up service

By far, the most reliable approach to backing up your data files is with an automatic cloud service. These are easy to access, safe, and quick. There are many options, but a new one I just met is Windows-based Cloud Backup Robot (when they responded to my donation request). Considered by some as one of the best data backup software, it’s easy to use, intuitive,, backs up everything from files to SQL databases, and can zip and/or encrypt files. You create an account, download a bit of software, configure the back-up schedule for automatic or manual, and then push the button to get started. You can back-up data to your computer, a network, or the cloud. One feature I particularly like is that you can store to any number of familiar clouds–Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive and Amazon S3. Price varies between a highly-affordable lite edition to a fully-featured professional version. When you’re ready to sign up, pick the version best suited to your needs.

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At some point in your child’s education journey, you’re going to feel the need for tutoring. Riley Patterson, one of our Ask a Tech Teacher team has experience with this.  She’s a freelance writer who–in her free time–helps students with their homework. She lives in Illinois with her two-year-old Bridgette (who already knows how to count from one to ten) and a pet dog. Riley wrote a great summary of the critical elements to consider as you make that homework helper decision:

Online tutoring service has become very popular in recent years. The internet and the rapid technological improvement are making the world a little bit smaller and are eliminating barriers to learning. Students can now meet with private tutors, who are maybe from another country, through Skype, Google Hangouts, and other mobile communication applications. Online tutor or homework help companies even have their own website and own application for communication. Tutors, especially online, are now easy to find and easy to engage with. Numbers of online tutorial services are popping up everywhere on the internet these.

However, as parents how and when can you determine if your child needs extra help in their studies? Will you have your child be tutored even though they are doing okay in school? Alternatively, do you wait until their grades are already slipping down? Deciding whether your children need tutoring is a major family decision. Do you have the time to arrange a tutorial session for your child? Do you have the resources of financial capability to pay for the service? Would it really benefit your child? Will it affect their self-esteem? These are some of the questions that you need to answer when coming up when the decision whether or not hire a tutorial service for your child. Nevertheless, once you have made the decision to hire an online tutor, comes now another hurdle: How can you have the assurance that you are engaging the services of a legitimate and qualified tutor? Just like in any other services on the internet, the chances of encountering a scam artist are always there.

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Starting January 18th, I’ll be teaching a class on blending technology into your classroom:

• the Tech-Infused Teacher— January 18th-February 21st

Click the link and scroll down to MTI 562 to sign up.

Here are the basics:

Course Description

The 21^st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, teachers will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, critical thinking, and immersive keyboarding. Teachers will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, and publish digitally. Classmates will become the core of the teacher’s ongoing Personal Learning Network. Assessment is project-based so participants should be prepared to be fully-involved and eager risk-takers.

Course Objectives

At the completion of this course, the teacher will be able to:

1. Use blogs, wikis, Twitter, and Google Hangouts to collaborate and share.
2. Guide students to safely and effectively search and research on the internet.
3. Use technology to support teaching and achieve Common Core Standards.
4. Blend keyboarding skills into classroom activities and prepare for yearly assessments.
5. Assess student technology use organically.
6. Use digital portfolios to store, share, and curate classwork.
7. Rely on a Personal Learning Network.
8. Solve common tech problems that arise in the classroom.

What do students say?

At the beginning of the class, I had to contact Jacqui several times because I was so confused. I had no idea what a digital portfolio was, or how I was expected to create one. Throughout the course of the five weeks, I was able to take the knowledge that she instilled in me, and begin importing different assignment on my own into my digital portfolio using widgets (I did not even know what these were before this class!) and links.   I was able to participate in the “tweet-up” with my classmates and several Google Hang Outs with Jacqui. I completed daily and weekly goals by reading the assigned articles and lesson plans, as well as watching the videos that accompanied each topic. Reading all of the valuable information, creating a blog and a wiki, exploring different websites, creating projects, and creating a digital portfolio, will greatly benefit my students this year and in the years that follow.

LOVING all I’m learning!!

 To say I have learned a lot in the past five weeks of my online class is an understatement. I have attended Google Hangouts, learned about wikis, back channels, created a blog, and even tweeted!

I would like to close by saying how much I enjoyed this class. I truly learned so much. As a technology teacher I was not sure what to expect from this course. I found that much of what I currently do in the classroom has been validated. However and more importantly, I learned many new instruction and assessment strategies (along with some new tech tools) that I can now use and apply to improve the learning in my classroom. Thanks everyone!

As a technology teacher I wasn’t sure what to expect from this course. While this course validated much of what I already do in the classroom the The 21st Century Digitally-infused Teacher course also showed me ways in which I can improve and modify my instruction. I enjoyed the course format and feel the instructor was not only very knowledgeable but provided great resources as well. Thank you!

I loved this class! Jacqui was very knowledgeable and helpful whenever I was stuck.

“MTI 562 really opened my eyes and made me think about how to put technology into my lessons. Jacqui Murray encouraged me to be a tech-infused teacher! I can not wait to try these newly learned skills in August”

Click here for 15 take-aways from the last class.

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