If you attend edtech conferences, you know how motivating, energizing, and forward-thinking they are. I always come away feeling ready to use the latest and best edtech tools in my lesson plans. Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Christian Miraglia, attended Spring CUE 22 in Palm Springs, California. Here are some of the great ideas he collected from colleagues and presenters:

#CUE22 and Trending Edtech

Conferences always bring new ideas, energy for changes in instructional practices, and new networking opportunities. I recently attended the Spring CUE 22 conference in Palm Springs, in which over two thousand educators gathered to share ideas, connect and view the latest in education technology.  The CUE (Computer Users in Education) conference is the highlight event for California educators using technology. Much of the presentations indicated that changes are happening in classrooms spurred by the pandemic. Being that there were many topics of importance this post will focus on student agency with later posts focusing on feedback, E-Sports, and assessments. 

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“Eighty-seven percent of teachers and 77% of parents agree teaching that inspires creativity has a bigger payoff for students”

This according to Gallup research (To read more of the report, click here). No one is surprised by this. Teachers and parents have long known that if students are engaged, they learn faster and remember more.

Our Ask a Tech Teacher crew has some interesting thoughts on mainstreaming this in your classroom:

How to Encourage Creativity in the Classroom: Best Tips to Inspire Your Students

Kids don’t go to school just to learn classical subjects such as history, math, or geography. They also need to understand how to be social, how to create connections, and how to develop their creativity.

Plus, in the current work environment, creativity is considered the skill of the future and many employers devise training sessions to help their employees think outside the box. So why not start at an early age, when the brain is more eager to learn and creative pathways easier to forge? 

Also, in today’s day and age, teachers can use a wide range of tech tools to connect with and inspire their students. Now, if you’ve run out of ideas, here are a few tips (with and without technology) to help your students embrace their creative side. 

Use Fun Tools

Have you ever thought about using 3D printing to help students express their creativity?

Up until a few years ago, 3D printing wasn’t an easily accessible technology. However, due to lowered prices for printers, materials, and even pens, nowadays it’s rather easy to get hold of some tools. All you need is a reliable supplier of educational resources, such as Springboard Supplies. 

3D printing allows kids to improve spatial visualization and understand better geometric concepts. It’s also a lot of fun and can inspire all sorts of creative projects!

Turn Boring Topics Interesting

More often than not, the topics studied in school tend to be dry and factual (even for the younger students). This is also one of the reasons why some students may have trouble retaining the information. 

Still, teachers can take a dry concept and, using creativity, turn it into a fun and easy-to-understand experience. Let’s take polygons as an example – children learn about this geometric concept throughout their primary years.

So, to help them solidify the information and increase creativity, ask them to draw a few polygons on a piece of paper (it doesn’t matter the shape). Once they’re done and you have a chat about their drawings, ask them to turn those polygons into something they love – it can be anything from their cat/dog to flowers, cars, toys, and so on. 

Encourage Their Curiosity

Kids and teenagers are some of the most curious people you’ll ever meet. Plus, nowadays they have easy access to resources and educational materials (no more time spent in the library).

So encourage them to explore the topics in which they show interest. Help them find the resources they need by using mediums that are familiar to them (Google, social media, YouTube, and so on).

Let’s take the “water freezes at 0℃” lesson that discusses the concept of freezing. To pique their curiosity, ask “Do you think only water freezes when temperatures drop?”. As kids try to come up with other things that freeze, propose and experiment. 

Everyone should name three regular household items (of small sizes) that they think will freeze. Next, when they get home, they should ask their parents to place the three items in the freezer overnight. The next day, discuss what happened to each item, why it didn’t freeze, and their thoughts on their colleagues’ experiments.

Problem-Solving with Multiple Solutions

Unless we’re talking about a mathematical concept, most problems have a multitude of solutions. Now, apply this idea to the classroom and ask your students to come up with solutions to a simple problem.

Avoid giving them the answer and don’t shut down any of the solutions they come up with. If the solution isn’t viable, explain why and help them find a workaround. Also, encourage them to investigate alternatives, do research on the topic using available resources, and debate the issue amongst themselves. 

This exercise may seem frustrating at first (especially for the teacher), but it encourages kids to change their point of view and consider different factors when they find themselves at a dead end. It’s also a great way to teach them resilience and the concept of “try until you succeed”. 

Wrap Up

Creativity is a beautiful skill and once you get the kids going, you’ll be amazed at how their thinking changes and evolves. Plus, as you gear your lessons towards a more creative setting, you’ll end up with a nice toolkit of resources and digital tools that make your job easier and a lot more interesting.

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.

Here are the most-read posts for the month of April

1. National Library Week April 3-9
2. Preparing for College or Career
3. Long-Term Benefits of Bilingual Education
4. How to Become a Tech Teacher
5. Tech Tools for Reading Fluency
6. Assistive Technology in Colleges
7. Resources to Teach Taxes
8. How to Make a Program Easy to Find
9. 18 Easter Websites and Apps
10. Earth Day Classroom Activities

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up in May:

• Kiddom’s New Lesson Launch
• Websites on Architecture and Engineering
• End of School Year Tasks
• 5 Tips to Involve Parents
• Does MS Word Have ‘Research’?
• Memorial Day Websites and Projects
• Must-have Apps for Curious Students
• Digital Reading for Summer

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I posted this article last year, got lots of reads, so am republishing with some updates. I’ve included information about:

• How tech teachers are different than other teachers
• Why tech and the teacher who manages it in your school has become more important than ever
• How to talk to a tech teacher (hint: they’re a little different; heed these suggestions)
• Gifts tech teachers will love

Tech Teacher Appreciation Week: The First Full Week of May

There’s always been something mystically cerebral about people in technical professions like engineering, science, and mathematics. They talk animatedly about plate tectonics, debate the structure of atoms, even smile at the mention of calculus. The teaching profession has our own version of these nerdy individuals, called technology teachers. In your district, you may refer to them as IT specialists, Coordinators for Instructional Technology, Technology Facilitators, Curriculum Specialists, or something else that infers big brains, quick minds, and the ability to talk to digital devices. School lore probably says they can drop a pin through a straw without touching the sides.

When I started teaching K-8 technology, people like me were stuffed into a corner of the building where all other teachers could avoid us unless they had a computer emergency, pretending that what we did was for “some other educator in an alternate dimension”. Simply talking to us often made a colleague feel like a rock, only dumber. When my fellow teachers did seek me out — always to ask for help and rarely to request training — they’d come to my room, laptop in hand, and follow the noise of my fingers flying across the keyboard. It always amazed them I could make eye contact and say “Hi!” without stopping or slowing my typing.

That reticence to ask for help or request training changed about a decade ago when technology swept across the academic landscape like a firestorm:

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April 25th-30th

My wonderful sister is visiting from Marion, Indiana. She is uncomfortable flying, hasn’t been back here since my mother’s funeral. I can’t overstate how excited I am to see her. As a result, I won’t be around much the next week–a bit, but mostly, we’ll be talking, visiting, exploring, walking…

See you-all in a week!

A lot of teacher-authors read my WordDreams blog. In this monthly column, I share the most popular post from the past month on that blog:

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The A to Z Challenge asks bloggers to post 26 articles on a themed topic. It’s supposed to be every day in April except Sundays, but I find that too busy and decided to post mine ‘about’ once a month. Yes, it’ll take me a couple of years. Sigh.

My topic, like the last three times, will be writing genres.

This genre:

Quiet Memoir

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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: Create a Macro

Category: MSO, Problem-solving, Keyboarding

Here are basic steps for MS Word:

1. Click View – Macros – Record Macros.
2. Specify a name for the macro.
3. Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.
4. Once you click OK, your mouse becomes a cassette tape. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.
5. Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Here’s a video on how to create a macro in MS Word.

If you use Chromebooks, you can adjust what some keys do (such as the Search key can become the Caps Lock) through Settings. Additionally, there are several add-ons like iMacro that will help you create macros.

Google Apps call them ‘scripts’ and they’re popular. Alice Keeler has a starter-project you can find on her website.

Mac calls them ‘substitutions’. Use the System Preferences.

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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This is a common complaint in my grad school classes. Yes, teachers know students don’t have all of the skills they need for the technology required in education, but who has time to teach it? Newsweek has an interesting article addressing exactly that:

How Schools Can Find the Time To Teach Digital Literacy Skills

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer science jobs are projected to grow 13% between 2020 and 2030. Still, less than half of all K-12 schools in the U.S. teach computer science as part of the curriculum.

Read on

More about tech skills in the classroom

• Digital Literacy–Too Important to Skip
• How to Assess Digital Literacy
• Digital Literacy–What is it?
• Beyond Digital Literacy: How EdTech Fosters Children’s Social-Emotional Development
• 5 Strategies to Assess Student Knowledge

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Every year, the world celebrates Earth Day on April 22nd, a day the United Nations recognizes as International Mother Earth Day. It is a day to remind ourselves of the importance of clean air, fresh water, and unlittered land. It’s when we can all participate in making that happen rather than accepting the trash-filled oceans, the smoggy skies, and the debris-laden land that is becoming the norm in our lives.

Despite the questionable health of our world, we have made progress. Back in 1970, when Earth Day was first celebrated, trucks spewed black smoke as they drove down the highways, toxic waste was dumped into oceans with no repercussions, and the general opinion was that the Earth took care of itself. That changed when U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day’s founder, witnessed the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara California and decided it was time for someone to do something. When he looked around for that “someone”, it turned out to be himself. He started with a “national teach-in on the environment” with a simple goal: Encourage people to recognize the importance of protecting the Earth:

“It was on that day [Earth Day] that Americans made it clear they understood and were deeply concerned over the deterioration of our environment and the mindless dissipation of our resources.”

Here are online resources (click for updates) to help you share the importance of Earth Day with your students:

1. Books for Earth Day
2. Breathing earth– the environment
3. Breathing Earth YouTube Video–of CO2 use, population changes, and more
4. Conservation Game
5. Earth Day Reading List
6. Eco-friendly house
7. Ecology Games from KoiKiwi
8. Ecotourism Simulation–for grades 4 and above
9. National Geographic Carbon Footprint Calculator

Here are some grade-specific resources:

1st Grade

2nd Grade

3rd Grade

4th Grade

Here are a few lesson plans from last year that still work well. Enjoy!

How effective is Earth Day

In the 49 years since the inception of Earth Day, there have been more than 48 major environmental “wins”. Here are some of those:

• The U.S. Clean Air Act was passed, a comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions.
• The U.S. Clean Water Act was passed to regulate the discharge of pollutants into U.S. waters.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was passed.
• The U.S. Endangered Species Act was passed to protect animal species that are disappearing.
• The Acid Rain (what happens when normal rain becomes loaded with offensive chemicals and scalds the skin) Program obtained emission reductions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
• The importance of the ozone layer to the health of the Earth is better understood.
• The consequences of too much plastic in the Earth’s oceans is coming home to roost.

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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 April 17, 2022.

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):

1. 18+ Interactive Easter websites
2. ABCYa Easter Egg Hunt
3. Classroom Easter Egg Hunt
4. Easter Color Me
5. Easter Fun
6. Easter games from Primary Games
7. Easter Lesson plans
8. Easter poems and songs
9. Easter Puppies
10. Easter puzzles
11. Easter Science Experiment
12. Easter Bunny Song
13. Easter Egg story
14. Easter Videos
15. Easter Word hunt
16. Here Comes the Easter Bunny
17. History of Easter
18. It’s Easter Little Critter

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