If you’re a teacher-author, I’d love for you to share this HS-level book with your community. In return, I’ll share yours with mine!

A boy blinded by fire. A woman raised by wolves. An avowed enemy offers help.

In this second in the Dawn of Humanity trilogy, the first trilogy in the Man vs. Nature saga, Lucy and her eclectic group escape the treacherous tribe that has been hunting them and find a safe haven in the famous Wonderwerk caves in South Africa, the oldest known occupation of caves by humans. They don’t have clothing, fire, or weapons, but the caves keep them warm and food is plentiful. Circumstances make it clear that they can’t stay, not with the rest of her tribe enslaved by the enemy. To free them requires not only the prodigious skills of Lucy’s unique group–which includes a proto-wolf and a female raised by the pack–but others who have no reason to assist her and instinct tells Lucy she shouldn’t trust.

If you’d like to know a little more about Laws of Nature, here’s the trailer.

https://youtu.be/gbyA9rDSy9k

If you’re an Indie teacher-author, you know that our most powerful marketing tool is word of mouth. We don’t have a big publisher behind us or an agent that pushes us out to the world. What we have is each other, telling our friends about the latest great book we’ve read.

I need your help

If you’re willing to help me promote my latest book, here’s how it works:

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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: Ten Best MS Word Tips

Category: MS Office, Problem-solving, Keyboarding

Here are popular MS Word tips and links to articles:

1. Turn an Address into a Link–push the space bar after pasting in an internet address–that activates it (or push enter)
2. What’s Today’s Date–press Shift+Alt+D in MS Word. Or, as you start typing the date, Word will populate it for you.
3. Menu command is grayed out–push escape four times (you’re probably in something you don’t know you are). This works 90% of the time
4. How to Undelete–push Ctrl+Z
5. #109: MS Word Skills Assessment for Grades 3-8
6. Dear Otto: How do I set the default font on MS Word
7. Tech Tip #37: My MS Word Toolbar Disappeared
8. Tech Tip #20: How to Add an MS Word Link
9. MS Word for Grades 2-5
10. #45: How to Use MS Word to Teach Geography
11. Easy Photo Editing in MS Word
12. Tech Tip #98: Speed up MS Office with Quick Access Toolbar
13. Tech Tip #24: How to Open A New Word Doc Without the Program
14. Tech Tip #102: Doc Saved Over? Try This

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’s a preview of what’s coming up on Ask a Tech Teacher in June:

• What is Genius Hour and Why Should I Love it?
• Internet Safety Month
• How to Motivate Summer School Students
• Tech Tips
• Coding Vocabulary
• Online PD
• 5 Steps to Personal Privacy
• Free Posters
• What’s the hardest tech problem?
• K-8 Tech Curriculum

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

June

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 May

1. Teacher Appreciation Week–Gifts for the Tech Teacher
2. Kids’ Computer Posture Explored
3. 10 Digital Platforms to Teach Remotely
4. 5 (free) Posters to Mainstream Tech Ed
5. What to Know Before Moving From High School Teacher to College Professor
6. 12 Websites for Digital Books Summer Reading
7. Is It Worth Teaching School Kids SQL?
8. 12 Tech Tasks To End the School Year
9. How To Move To Canada To Be A Teacher
10. World Password Day — It’s Today!

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.

Last year was a boom year for edtech web tools. There were so many, I couldn’t keep up. I would discover what seemed to be a fantastic tool (most likely discovered in FreeTech4Teachers, Alice Keeler, or one of the other tech ed blogs I follow), give it about five minutes to prove itself, and then, depending upon that quick review, either dig deeper or move on. If it was recommended by a colleague in my professional learning network, I gave the site about twice as long but still, that’s harsh. I certainly couldn’t prove my worth if given only five minutes!

Nevertheless, that’s how it is because there are too many options. Here’s what I wanted to find out in the five minutes:

• Is the creator someone I know and trust (add-ons by Alice Keeler always fit that requirement)?
• Is it easy to access? Meaning, does it open and load quickly without the logins I always forget?
• Is it easy to use? Meaning, are links to the most important functions on the start page? For example, in Canva, I can create a flier for my class in under five minutes because the interface is excellent.
• For more complicated tools, how steep is the learning curve? Does the site offer clear assistance in the form of videos, online training, or a helpline?
• Is the content age-appropriate for the grades I teach?
• Is it free or freemium, and if the latter, can I get a lot out of it without paying a lot? I don’t like sites that give me “a few” uses for free and then charge for more. Plus, free is important to my students who may not be able to use it at home unless there’s no cost attached.
• Is there advertising? Yes, I understand “free” probably infers ads so let me amend that to: Is it non-distracting from the purpose of the webtool?
• How current is it? Does it reflect the latest updates in standards, pedagogy, and hardware?
• Does it fulfill its intended purpose?
• Has it received awards/citations from tech ed groups I admire?

After all that, here are five websites that I discovered last year, loved, and will use to brighten the Spring months:

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I am out of pocket next week. I’m visiting my wonderful sister in rural Marion Indiana.

I can’t wait to live a measured, natural life for at least a week where we can veges, check on her bee hives, and eat indoors at a restaurant! I probably won’t do much commenting until next weekend but then, I’ll get everything caught up.

Have a wonderful week!

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There are more options for digital learning than Zoom. Check out these:

1. Big Blue Button–great conference app but embedded in LMS (not standalone)
2. Canvas–with their Conference option (Big Blue Button)
3. Draw Chat–virtual meeting with a whiteboard
4. FaceTime–from Apple
5. Google Meet–through Google Classroom or not; must use Google account and Chrome browser
6. Microsoft Teams
7. Skype
8. Webex–from Cisco
9. Webroom.net — virtual conference or meeting room
10. Zoom

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Every month, we’ll share five themed posters that you can share on your website (with attribution), post on your walls, or simply be inspired.

This month: Internet and Websites 1

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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: Backup Your Blog

Category: Maintenance, Social Media, Writing, Problem-solving

Q: I’m paranoid of losing my documents so I back them up to an external drive, a flash drive, and in the cloud. My blog–it’s become an important cog in my PLN. If it blew up, I’d be lost. What do I do about backing it up?

A: If you use WordPress, it’s easy; they provide a native tool for that. Here’s what you do:

• Go to Tools>Export.
• Select the bubble for ‘all’.
• It’ll back document files up as an XML file (you don’t have to understand what that is. Just know it’s the file that will save you if Wordpress crashes).
• Save that backup file somewhere safe in case you need it. Preferably where your Cloud automatic backup will grab it (assuming you have one of those. If you use Carbonite, you do).
• Do this once a month–or a week if you’re active.

This will backup posts, pages, comments, categories, and tags. For the entirety of the blog–similar to an image where you can restore the entire website–you’ll need an external service. My Wordpress.org blog is hosted by GoDaddy. Part of that service is a backup of the blog. It’s worth it to me to pay a bit extra for that function.

World Backup Day just passed. Mark your calendar for next year, March 31st, and be sure to perform all backups–your blog and everything else–on that day.

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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