Author: Jacqui

I’ve used flipped classrooms in my Middle School classes. After the initial excitement that something changed, it fell into a routine with not much better results than any other teaching method. But not worse, either. I tossed it into the category of something to try when whatever I was using didn’t work.

That’s why this article from EdSurge caught my attention:

Does ‘Flipped Learning’ Work? A New Analysis Dives Into the Research

A new meta-analysis looked at the effectiveness of flipped learning, a model that asks students to watch lecture videos before class so that class time can be used for active learning. The authors argue that while the approach can be done well, there’s lots of hype and failed attempts.

Read more…

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Two math celebrations are coming up on March 14th: Pi Day and World Maths Day

Pi Day

Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form.

Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant, holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.

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This is a topic every teacher I know is talking about. BAM Radio has a couple of podcasts you’ll enjoy:

Why Some Educators Are Convinced Artificial Intelligence Can Make Teaching Less Stressful

Millions of schoolchildren walked into their classrooms at the start of the academic year missing one crucial element that should have set them up for success: the prior knowledge they needed to take on a new grade level.  In search of answers,  we asked education psychologists, technologists, and teachers how artificial intelligence help make learning recovery more effective and less stressful.

9 Creative Ways to Engage Teen Students With ChatGPT: The More We Use It, the More Possibilities We Discover 

We are discovering many engaging ways to use ChatGPT to engage teenage students in the classroom.  My guests agree that once you begin to experiment with the platform, the more your mind begins to find additional possibilities.

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In 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: 19 Tech Problems Every Student Can Fix

Category: Problem-solving

Here are the nineteen problems that cause eighty percent of the tech stoppages in your classrooms. Review these authentically with students and expect them to master all nineteen before graduating from fifth grade:

Deleted a file

Open Recycle Bin (or Trash) and restore.

Can’t exit a program                                      

Alt+F4 works 95% of the time.

Can’t find MS Word                                             

PC: Right-click on desktop—select ‘New>Word Document’.

Keyboard doesn’t work                                 

Push ‘Num Lock’ to see if it lights up. If it does, the problem is other than the keyboard. If it doesn’t, re-plug cord into digital device and reboot.

Mouse doesn’t work                                       

Move it around to see if the cursor moves. If it doesn’t, re-plug cord into digital device and reboot.

Start button is gone                                        

PC: Push Windows button.

No sound        

Unmute the sound or turn it up from the lower right corner of the screen; plug headphones in (or unplug); reboot.

Can’t find a file                                              

PC: Start>Search; when you find the file, notice where it is and/or resave to a location you’ll remember.

iPad: Open the app it was created in or go to the Cloud storage associated with the device.

Chromebooks: Push Alt+Shift+M to access File Manager.

Menu command grayed out                           

Push escape 3 times. This gets you out of wherever you were and activates the command you’d like to use.

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Here are the most-read posts for the month of February:

1. #WorldReadAloudDay February 1st
2. Groundhog Day and the 100th Day of School
3. 14 Tech Assessment Strategies
4. 72: Check Your Math in Excel
5. Is ChatGPT Writing Your Students’ Homework? New Tech Will Detect It
6. Tech Tip #45 My Screen is Sideways!!
7. 57+ Kindergarten Websites That Tie into Classroom Lessons
8. You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…
9. 3 Projects to Teach 1st Grade Architecture
10. Teach Vocabulary with the Frayer Model

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In 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: Software vs. Online Tools

Category: Pedagogy

Here are relevant criteria for evaluating software vs. online tools in your classroom:

For more detail on comparing software and online tools, visit “8 Reasons For and 8 Against Revisiting Software in Your Classroom” on Ask a Tech Teacher.

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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Here are popular puzzles resources teachers are using to teach mouse skills, critical thinking, and more. There are a few for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day:

1. Digipuzzles–great puzzles for geography, nature, and holidays
2. I’m a Puzzle–create your own puzzles
3. Jigsaw Explorer–make your own
4. Jigsaw Planet–create your own picture jigsaw
5. Jigsaw puzzles
6. Jigzone–puzzles
7. Jigsaw Puzzles–JS
8. Kindergarten puzzles
9. Puzzle—St. Pat’s Puzzle
10. Puzzle—drag-and-drop puzzle
11. Puzzle—St. Pat’s slide puzzle

Copyright ©2023 usna.wordpress.com – All rights reserved.

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.

Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

March 1-3, 2023

65 Tech Ed Posters

$2.99

This set of sixty-five posters is a varied collection you can use to share critical issues dealing with technology and education. Print them out and hang them on your classroom walls or share them out digitally on a Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram feed.

Copyright ©2023 usna.wordpress.com – All rights reserved.

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.

Many Fridays, I report on a wonderful website or project my classes and parents love. This one is teaching architecture to youngers:

Lesson Plan:

Three projects over six weeks and your students will learn about blueprints, room layout, dimensions, and more. Plus, they’ll understand how to think about a three-dimensional object and then spatially lay it out on paper. This is challenging, but fun for first graders.

Spend two weeks on each projects. Incorporate a discussion of spaces, neighborhoods, communities one week. Practice the drawing, then do the final project which students can save and print. Kids will love this unit.

• First, draw a picture in your drawing program of the child’s home. If you don’t already have a class favorite, check this list. Many have architecture tools so show students how to find them. Have kids think about their house, walk through it. They’ll have to think in three dimensions and will soon realize they can’t draw a two-story house. In that case, allow them to pick which rooms they wish to include and concentrate on what’s in the room.

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I have to reblog this wonderful post by my efriend, Lisa. How many of these fit you? Can you add to this list?

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

1. You can’t remember the last time you printed a classroom document.
2. Plurking, tweeting, and playing with your wiki in public are acceptable behaviors.
3. Your Notebook isn’t spiral bound – it plugs into the wall.
4. Forget the garden…you spend more time on the weekend weeding out your Inbox.
5. You can recite your school’s Acceptable Use Policy by heart.
6. On parent/teacher night, instead of exchanging business cards, you Bump.
7. You express yourself with emoticons.
8. You no longer consider it graffiti to write on someone’s wall.
9. Your significant other gets jealous of your PLN.
10. It’s not creepy to have lots of followers.
11. Your students call you the “cool” teacher.
12. The other teachers are jealous of your Instagram.
13. YouTube is blocked in your school, and you know how to get around it.
14. The Tech Department is sick of your constant requests to unblock Twitter.
15. You’ve Googled your principal.
16. You know that TweetDeck is not a patio with a lot of birds.
17. You correct your friends’ grammar when they text you.
18. “Casual Fridays” means logging into the EdTech UNconference in your bunny slippers.
19. You wear your “I Heart EdTech” button everywhere you go.
20. You read this blog post then tweet it, like it, and pass it on to a friend (more…)