Here are the most-read posts last month:

1. Halloween Projects, Websites, Apps, Books, and a Costume
2. 1 Ways to be an Inquiry-based Teacher
3. Photoshop for Fifth Graders–Autofixes
4. How can schools detect your AI writing?
5. Encourage the use of audio notes
6. How to Teach Digital Citizenship in Kindergarten
7. The Essential Learning Devices and Technology for Special Education Classrooms
8. Digital Citizenship Week
9. October is Dyslexia Awareness Month
10. National Bullying Prevention Month

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

National STEM Day is November 8 every year, the unofficial holiday that celebrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education throughout the United States. Many add ‘art’ to the celebration for the acronym, STEAM.

Here are some great ideas that remind your students of the excitement that is these core subjects:

Ten Ways to Celebrate National STEM Day with NASA

National STEM Day focuses on helping students advance in STEM fields, a priority of NASA as we continue to push the boundaries of exploration and soar into the future. In celebration of National STEM Day, we challenge you to engage and inspire the Artemis generation as we go forward to the Moon and continue to innovate in Earth science and aeronautics. To help you join in on the festivities, click for 10 ways to celebrate National STEM Day.

49 STEM Activities for Students 

On November 8^th, we will celebrate National STEM Day to get kids excited about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Together the STEM subjects represent some of the fastest-growing and most in-demand fields in the United States.

While STEM topics seem a natural fit in high schools and post-secondary curriculum, education experts are promoting a focus on STEM subjects for younger and younger children. 

12 Projects for your STEAM program

Twelve favorite STEAM projects where artistic thinking becomes the engine for unpacking solutions. 

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Three holidays are fast-approaching–Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. If you’re a teacher, that means lots of tie-ins to make lessons festive while remaining relevant.

Here are ideas for Halloween projects, lesson plans, websites, and apps (check here for updated links):

Websites and Apps

1. 30-day Halloween fitness challenge
2. Build a Jack-o-lantern (in Google Slides)
3. Carve-a-Pumpkin from Parents magazine – Resolute Digital, LLC (app)
4. Enchanted Learning
5. Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
6. Halloween Kahoot Games (video for teachers)
7. Halloween Science
8. Halloween Voice Transformer (app)
9. Make A Zombie – Skunk Brothers GmbH (app)
10. Meddybemps Spooky
11. Pumpkin Patch Games
12. WordSearch Halloween – AFKSoft (app)

Projects

1. ASCII Art–Computer Art for Everyone (a pumpkin–see inset)
2. Lesson Plan: Halloween letter for grades 2-5
3. Make a Holiday Card
4. A Holiday Card
5. A Holiday flier

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Here are the skills fifth graders can learn in Photoshop if you’ve prepared them with basic computer skills:

• Photoshop artwork–already live
• Photoshop actions–already live
• Photoshop basics
• Photoshop filter and rendering tools
• Photoshop starters–auto-correct with the auto-correction tools–those quick fixes that make a photo look cleaner (coming up)
• Photoshop crop tool–with the lasso and the magic wand
• Photoshop clone tool– within a picture and to another picture
• Photoshop–change the background (put yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower or on top of Hoover Dam)
• Photoshop tools–add custom shapes
• Photoshop–start with Word (a little dated but still useful)

Get started

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Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they research projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with options come responsibility for their use. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. You can find grade-specific lesson plans in our K-8 curricula. This for K we post free, as a sample. Use the lines in front of the steps to check off completed work:

Overview/Big Ideas

Students learn how to live in the digital world of internet websites, copy-righted images, and virtual friends who may be something different.

Essential Questions

• What is a ‘digital citizen’?
• How is being a citizen of the internet the same/different than my home town?
• What are the implications of digital citizenship in today’s world?

Objectives and Steps

The objectives of this lesson are:

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In an era when students spend hours each day staring at glowing screens, the simple act of making something with their hands offers a powerful antidote to digital overload. Hands-on crafts provide a restorative, screen-free break that reduces stress, sharpens focus, and reawakens creativity by engaging the senses in ways no device can match. Looking for the why and how? Ask a Tech Teacher has both for you. Read on:

Why Hands-On Crafts Are the Ultimate Screen-Free Break for Students

Take a quick look at any student’s desk today. You will almost certainly spot a screen—or three. Between school-issued Chromebooks, research tabs, online portals, and digital textbooks, screens have completely taken over learning. Edtech has brought plenty of perks, sure. But let’s be real: staring at a flat sheet of glowing glass for six hours straight is downright exhausting.

By the time study time rolls around, eyes are dry, shoulders are hunched, and brains feel completely fried. And what’s the go-to move when it’s finally time for a break? Most students pick up a phone, open TikTok or YouTube, or jump straight into a video game.

It feels like taking a breather, but here’s the problem: your brain isn’t actually getting a rest.

To feel genuinely refreshed, students need a break that switches gears entirely. That is where basic, hands-on crafting comes in. Stepping away to make something real with your hands isn’t just a fun pastime—it’s the single best way to clear out the mental cobwebs and reset your focus. (more…)

Here are the most-read posts last month:

1. World Letter Writing Day
2. Happy Productive Labor Day
3. How to Teach Writing to Non-writers
4. How Parents Can Inspire Curiosity and Spark Lifelong Learning in Kids
5. Is a Liberal Studies Degree Online Actually Worth It?
6. 5 Cures for Technophobia
7. Be Featured on Ask a Tech Teacher
8. Here’s How to Get Started with Ask a Tech Teacher
9. Autumn Websites
10. Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills

We’re almost half way through October already–hard to believe–but here’s what’s still to come in this Halloween month: (more…)

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Bullying is no longer relegated to the playground or the neighborhood. It now regularly happens in the cyberworld. Kids don’t expect that and often don’t know how to handle it. In fact, according to StopBullying.gov, 52 percent of young people report being cyberbullied and over half of them don’t report it to their parents.

Everyone knows what bullying is — someone being taunted physically or mentally by others — and there are endless resources devoted to educating both students and teachers on how to combat bullying. But what about cyberbullying? Wikipedia defines “cyberbullying” as:

the use of information technology to repeatedly harm or harass other people in a deliberate manner

Cyberbullying occurs on not just social media like Twitter, Facebook, and topical forums, but multiplayer games and school discussion boards. Examples include mean texts or emails, insulting snapchats, rumors posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing photos or videos.

How serious is it? (more…)

It sounds easy, but to a five or six year old, holding the mouse, clicking that left button, dragging and dropping while holding a finger down is darn difficult. Here’s a list (click for updates):

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I get thousands of visitors a day–over six million since I started. The most common reason why you-all drop by is resources. I have lots of them–lesson plans, tips and tricks–but one area I have not enough depth is the experiences of fellow teachers:

• your personal teaching
• your informed take on tech ed topics
• education pedagogy

If you’re interested in guest posting on this blog or start your own column, email me at askatechteacher at gmail dot com (comments often don’t work) and I’ll be in touch. It’s a challenging time but one we-all can get through if we talk to each other.

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