Author: Jacqui
How Tech-savvy Teachers Do It
Education Week had a great article on how teachers are expanding their use of technology in the classroom. Here’s a peak:
5 Practices of Truly Tech-savvy Teachers
Education Week caught up with select teachers and instructional coaches who shared their thoughts on some essential practices to effectively implement technology into the practice of teaching. Some were discovered or honed during the pandemic. All offer lessons for job seekers wanting to present in-demand knowledge and skills, as well as districts and schools that are seeking truly tech-savvy teachers.
Here are some articles from Ask a Tech Teacher about teachers using technology in their classes:
19 Ed Websites to Fill Spare Classroom Time
Digital Assistants in the Classroom
Tech Ed Resources for your Class–K-12 Tech Curriculum
Classroom Activities for Earth Day
How teachers address cell phones in class
Dyslexia Awareness Month is October
Surprisingly, 15-20% of the population has a language-based learning disability and over 65% of those are deficits in reading. Often, these go undiagnosed as students, parents, and teachers simply think the child is not a good reader, is lazy, or is disinterested. Thankfully, the International Dyslexia Association sponsors an annual Dyslexia Awareness Month in October aimed to expand comprehension of this little-understood language-based learning condition.
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a condition that affects people of all ages, male and female equally, and causes them to mix up letters and words they read making what for most is a joy-filled act challenging and frustrating.
“Dyslexia refers to a cluster of symptoms, that result in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia often experience difficulties with both oral and written language skills. … It is referred to as a learning disability because dyslexia can make it very difficult for a student to succeed… ” — the International Dyslexia Foundation
There is no cure for dyslexia. Individuals with this condition must instead develop coping strategies that help them work around their condition. In education, it is not uncommon to accommodate dyslexic students with special devices, additional time, varied format approaches (such as audio or video), and others. Most prominent educational testing centers (like SAT, ACT, PARC, and SBACC) make these available for most of the tests they offer.
Subscriber Special: October
Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.
October
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.
National Bullying Prevention Month
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 October 2006, thirteen-year-old Megan Meier hung herself in her bedroom closet after suffering months of cyberbullying. She believed her tormentors’ horrid insults, never thought she could find a way to stop them, and killed herself. She’s not the only one. 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?
The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center estimates that nearly 30 percent of American youth are either a bully or a target of bullying. 7% of high school students commit suicide, some because of cyberbullying:
On October 7, 2003, Ryan Halligan committed suicide by hanging himself [after being cyberbullied by high school classmates]. His body was found later by his older sister.
What You Might Have Missed in September
Here are the most-read posts for the month of September
- Lesson Plan: Online Art Sites
- 19 Ed Websites to Fill Spare Classroom Time
- Creative Options for Remote Learning
- 9/11… We Remember
- Does Mindfulness Make Your Class Better?
- 16 Websites and 5 Posters to Teach Mouse Skills
- Technology and Teaching: A Conversation with Teachers
- 16+ Websites on Assessments
- SEL in Your Classroom
- Do you need a career coach?
Here’s a Preview of October
Here’s a preview of what’s coming up on Ask a Tech Teacher in October:
- Tract–new peer-to-peer learning platform
- National Bullying Prevention Month
- Subscriber Special
- Special Education
- Dyslexia Awareness Month
- Google Earth Lesson Plans
- Apps for Curious Students
- Free Posters
- Websites about Habitats, Biomes, Landforms
- Digital Storytelling
- Digital Citizenship Week
- AI in Ed
- Halloween Resources
Comics–an underused tool to boost SEL skills
Comics have long been considered not just to gamify education but to teach writing skills that are challenging for some students. SmartBrief Education tells Dan Ryder’s story,
How comics curriculum boosts SEL
Dan Ryder, a learning facilitator at Community Regional Charter School in Skowhegan, Maine, says he uses comics to support students’ social and emotional learning. In this blog post, Ryder shares several ways he will use comics in the classroom during the first weeks of school, including to help foster discussion about choices and different perspectives on social issues.
You can create comics in dedicated webtools or with tools you probably already have, like Google Drawings:
For excellent online comic creator tools, check this list:
- Book Creator–(iOS/Android) templates to create digital comic books and graphic novels.
- Canva–excellent comic templates you can use from an individual or education account
- Friendstrip–use their library of pieces; create/publish/share
- MakeBeliefsComix–simple comic creation
- Marvel– create comic strips and books with Marvel characters.
- Pixton.com–offers a comic builder to simplify the process
- PlayComic–English or Spanish
- PowToon–try free, then fee
- Storyboard That!–the gold standard for comics; free or fee
Do you need a career coach?
Now more than ever, teachers are struggling with more questions about teaching than they can find answers for. Let’s start with those you may have about running your classroom. Maybe your school doesn’t offer mentors that will answer these on a daily basis. Maybe you’re new and don’t want to appear too new–or you’re experienced but not in some of the new teaching techniques. Does these sound like questions you have:
How do you start kindergartners who don’t know what ‘enter’, ‘spacebar’, ‘click’ or any of those other techie words mean?- How do you teach kindergartners to use the mouse? First graders to keyboard? Third graders to safely search the internet?
- What do you do with students who join your class and haven’t had formal technology classes before?
- You’ve been thrown into the technology teacher position and you’ve never done it before. How do you start? What do you introduce when?
- You’ve been teaching for twenty years, but now your Principal wants technology integrated into your classroom. Where do you start?
- How do you differentiate instruction between student geeks and students who wonder what the right mouse button is for?
- How do you create a Technology Use Plan for your school?
- How do you create a Curriculum Map?
- As an edtech professional, what’s your career path?
- How do you create lesson plans, teach to specific standards, or integrate tech into core classroom time?
I know from my network that teachers are struggling with the massive changes occurring in education. They wonder if they’ve burned out on what once was their passion. Should they keep trying or make changes?
If any of this applies to you, don’t feel you have to handle it alone. Consider a career coach. Check out these resources from colleagues:
Or feel free to contact me. My path may be like yours. I started teaching in a classroom, switched to online classes and then grad school classes. Now, I teach, coach, mentor, and write about education for a variety of ezines and ed companies. I’d love to talk to you about what you’re going through.
A Book New–and Veteran–Teachers Will Want to Read
They Call Me Mom
- How did i get here
- Setting up your classroom
- Working with students
- Working with colleagues
- Working with your boss
- Discipline
“Instead of saying, “Do everything my way, and you can become a successful teacher,” she was giving me her permission to find my way.”
“…storytelling was one of the most successful methods to get my students to pay attention.”
SEL in Your Classroom
SmartBrief, news on technology in education, recently published an article, Uniting technology and SEL to teach the whole child, on the importance of SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) in an educational landscape shaped by COVID-19. In part, they shared:
Social-emotional learning is seeing a surge in mentions in the educational landscape. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic clearly illuminated the fact that academic growth and social and emotional wellness are interdependent and that educators must take into account the social and emotional aspects of a student’s reality as they consider academic development.
I know firsthand the power of SEL, both as a teacher and as a former student. I was born and raised in the rural mountains of North Carolina and was greatly influenced by a teacher who led with compassion. This educator forever changed my life because she saw “the whole child” — she recognized me as more than my abilities in reading and math. She saw me as a hurt child from a broken home, although it was the only home I knew, and knew she could help me reach my potential by engaging me on a social and emotional level.
For more background on SEL, check out our article discussing “The Importance of SEL to Education Success“:
Life is much simpler when you — as a parent or teacher — can point to one solution for a problem, solve it, and everything is golden. Success in school was like that when grades were the barometer and studying harder was the tool. Now, we know academic achievement is much more complicated.
“Students are telling us there’s a big missing piece in their education” –John Bridgeland, CEO of Civic
Today’s educators realize learning has as much to do with academics as how students get along with themselves and others. This is called “Social Emotional Learning” or SEL. It’s akin to the importance of play in teaching preschool kids to socialize with others, develop tenacity, and learn respect for those around them. If you’re not convinced of the importance of SEL, here’s what students say:
“Students and young adults believe SEL schools would create a more positive social and learning environment” — report by the Collaboration for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
A positive attitude about themselves and others is linked to not only academic success but correlated to lessening the negative impact of future-ending problems such as drug use. It should surprise no one that as of mid-2018, two states have passed SEL measures, sixteen SEL-related bills and resolutions have been introduced, and twenty-three states are working on SEL standards.
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- What is SEL
- Why teach SEL in schools
- SEL exercises
- SEL resources
- Vocabulary
- More
