35+ Easter Websites and Apps

Many Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. To non-Christians (or non-traditional Christians), that event signifies a rebirth of spring that is filled with joy and gifts — and chocolate! Overall, it is America’s most-popular holiday with Christmas a close second. The date depends on the ecclesiastical approximation of the March equinox. This year, it’s March 31, 2024.

Here’s a good mixture of games, lesson plans, stories, and songs that can be blended into many academic subjects (for updates on this Easter-themed list of websites, click here):

18+ Interactive Easter websites

Preschool-2

This website includes a colorful collection of Easter (and Spring) games and information that is visual and enticing to youngers. Games are Easter Math, Easter Egg Hunt, Easter Egg Dress-up, Easter Word hunt, complete-the-sentence, and more. Also, viewers will find websites about the history of Easter around the world.

ABCYa Easter Egg Hunt

Preschool-Kindergarten

Like all of ABCYa’s games and activities, Easter Egg Hunt is a colorful and intuitive educational game for young children.  It is easy-to-understand, playful, with favorite Easter symbols and energetic music that will engage children. The five Easter-themed games are easy-to-understand (no directions required) with a countdown clock to motivate activity. Nicely, it also aligns gameplay with the national standards met.

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Cultivating a culture of collaboration in engineering education

National Engineers Week is just behind us. The Ask a Tech Teacher team has one more article discussing an oft-forgotten piece of engineering education: culture:

Cultivating a culture of collaboration in engineering education

The engineering education landscape is shifting because learning is no longer confined to classrooms. Schools and learners recognize that quality education must encompass holistic learning that nurtures academic excellence and cultivates essential life skills. Colleges and universities offering engineering programs are adjusting to the evolution by cultivating a culture of collaboration in education. An inclusive and collaborative environment empowers students to nurture curiosity, continuously improve engineering skills, explore new technologies, and create high-quality engineering solutions. In this post, we’ll explore the value of collaboration in engineering education and top strategies that schools can implement to cultivate a collaborative learning culture.

The case for collaboration in engineering education

Collaboration in engineering education is more than just teamwork; it entails cultivating a mindset that fuels a sense of shared purpose. Creating a culture of collaboration in learning is an indispensable skill in our interconnected world. Here are some of the ways that a collaborative learning culture helps engineering students to learn better and develop personal skills. (more…)

Tech Tip #5: Where Did the Taskbar Go?

tech tipsIn 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:  Where Did the Taskbar Go?

Category: PC, Keyboarding

Q: Some programs hide the taskbar when they open. How do I access the Start button when that happens?

A:  Push the flying windows (between Ctrl and Alt) to bring up the Start button.

It might have disappeared because it’s set to Autohide. Here’s how to fix that:

  • Hover over the area where the taskbar lives.
  • If it appears, right click on it and select Properties. Go to the Taskbar tab.
  • Make sure the box that says Autohide isn’t checked.

If the taskbar doesn’t appear, hover over the extreme bottom edge of the screen. If a double-headed arrow appears, click and drag up to bring your toolbar back from the edge.

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

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#9: How to Look Like a Photoshop Pro–in Fifth Grade

Before trying this lesson, start with Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word, Autofixes,  cloning, and cropping. Don’t worry. It’s not hard–just the basics.

Ready? Let’s start with what Adobe Photoshop is–a grown-up KidPix, and the default photo-editing program for anyone serious about graphics. This series of projects (available in 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom Volume I) introduces students to a traditionally-challenging program in an easy to understand way, each scaffolding to the next, thus avoiding the frustration and confusion inherent in most Photoshop training.

Adobe Photoshop has an impressive collection of tools to add pizazz to pics. You might have students open their school picture for this project. They love working with their own image.

  • #1: Artistic Renderings—artistic overlays that add flair to pictures. Go to Filter—artistic and it brings up dozens of choices. Try some (it gives a preview of the result) and select a favorite.

 

[gallery columns="2" ids="68588,68589"]

 

  • #2: blur and smudge tools on left tool bar to soften the background, and sharpen a focal point.
[gallery columns="2" ids="68590,68591"]
  • #3: Use Filter-render-clouds to create a cloudy background (the colors of your foreground and background tool)
[gallery columns="2" ids="68592,68593"]

 

Troubleshooting Tips

  • I can’t get the right colors for the clouds (check your foreground and background tools. That’s where Photoshop takes the colors)
  • I’m trying to drag the picture but I get an error message (Check your layers. Do the have the correct layer highlighted?)
  • I don’t have Photoshop. (Try GIMP–it’s free)

Do you have questions? Please add a comment and I’ll answer. Thanks.

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm




Copyright ©2024 worddreams.wordpress.com – All rights reserved.

“The content presented in this blog is the result of my creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”


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, 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.

Keyboarding Pedagogy

Keyboarding for Youngers

A while ago, I participated in an online discussion about keyboarding for kids. The host thought it would be a yawner, but any tech teacher knows keyboarding is a controversial subject. In my classroom, it’s the most-asked question from parents, concerns like:

  • When do students start?
  • What are some of the developmental considerations about keyboarding?
  • Why learn keyboarding?
  • How do I know what questions parents are interested in about keyboarding?
  • Why is it a ‘hot topic’ with parents?
  • How do I teach keyboarding?
  • Will keyboarding replace cursive?

The list goes on. On my blog, Ask a Tech Teacher, posts about keyboarding are read about thrice as often as any other topic.

So I enthusiastically answered every question the producer had with my thoughts from thirty years of teaching. One of the other guests was a children’s education expert who believed technology (and I guess, by transference, keyboarding) was the root of much of the increase in ADHD among children and this was her big opportunity to make her case. The last participant was the mom of a first grader there to share her keyboarding experiences (turns out, she was also the director of the early learning initiative at the New America Foundation, an author, and a prominent blogger). Surprisingly–or not–we agreed on many points and ended up having a good discussion where everyone learned.

Here’s a synopsis of the questions discussed: (more…)

What’s a Backchannel and Is it Right For Your Class?

A backchannel refers to a secondary, often informal, communication channel that runs parallel to the main communication channel. In the classroom, it provides students with an outlet to:

  • ask questions when the teacher is talking–isn’t at a lesson point where she can pause
  • engage in conversation with other students without disturbing the class
  • add comments to a conversation even after the class has moved on in the lesson plan.

This video is from a series I taught for school districts. It is now available for free, here on Ask a Tech Teacher:

What is a backchannel in your classroom? Why? What are some options you might use? Here’s a sixteen minute video I use with my online classes to address these topics: (more…)

9 St. Patrick’s Day Resources For Your Class

St. Patrick’s Day is a cultural and religious holiday celebrated on March 17th to honor St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to the country. The day is marked by parades, wearing green clothing and accessories, traditional Irish music and dance, feasting, and the symbolic consumption of foods and beverages like corned beef, cabbage, and Irish stout. It has become a global celebration of Irish culture and heritage.

st patricks day websites

Getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day? Try these fun websites with activities for different grade levels, different classes (click for updates on this list):

  1. Puzzle–St. Pat’s Puzzle
  2. Puzzle–St. Pat’s drag-and-drop puzzle
  3. Puzzle–St. Pat’s slide puzzle
  4. Puzzles and games
  5. Resources for St. Pat’s Day from Education.com by grade and subject
  6. St. Patrick’s Day history–video
  7. St. Pat’s Day songs–video
  8. Tic tac toe
  9. Wordsearch

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