Here are the basic skills fifth graders can learn in Photoshop if you’ve prepared them with basic computer skills. I’ve provided links but they aren’t live until publication:

• 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

Getting Started

Before we get into Photoshop, we’ll start with a program your fifth grader is most likely comfortable with: MS Word. For basic image editing, Word does a pretty good job, so we’ll start with a project using Word’s tools. Each version of Word has slightly different tools so adapt your lesson to what is available in your school. Plus, if you’re using a different word processor (i.e., Google Docs), adapt this to its tools:

• Open a blank document. Insert a picture with multiple focal points (see samples).
• Duplicate the image once for each focal point.
• Click one image to activate toolbar.
• Crop each duplicate to show just one of the focal points available in the Picture toolbar
• Use other tools available on the toolbar. This will vary, but may include
  • add a border
  • wrap
  • change background
• Rotate picture creatively.
• Resize and move to fit on page
• Test picture effects available
• If you use pictures from the internet, be sure they’re royalty free.

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Here are the most-read posts last month:

1. May is Homeschooling Awareness Month
2. Tech Teacher Appreciation Week
3. 20+ Online Resources for Screenshots, Screencasts, Screenshares
4. Happy Mother’s Day!
5. How to Set Yourself Up for Success Toward a Career in Electrical and Computer Engineering
6. Top Grant Sources to Bring Technology to Under-Resourced Classrooms
7. 17 Video Creation Online Tools
8. Tech Tips to End the School Year
9. 50 Websites About Animals
10. Photoshop Artwork

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up next month (our publications will be slower in summer to reflect readers): (more…)

Photoshop reputation as a photo editor ignores its many other tools that enable you to draw like a pro with a wide variety of brushes, textures, and scintillating extras. This side of Photoshop is perfect for creative projects that tie in with many different classroom lesson plans.

Want more Photoshop projects available in this project book? Check these out, then click the link below:

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By fourth grade, my students are so good at PowerPoint, I don’t even teach it in fifth grade (I move on to Photoshop). They’ve learned enough to get them through school. Here’s how I do that: (more…)

Wrapping up your school technology for the summer is as complicated as setting it up in September. There are endless backups, shares, cleanings, changed settings, and vacation messages that — if not done right — can mean big problems when you return from summer vacation. If you have a school device, a lot of the shutdown steps will be done by the IT folks as they backup, clean, reformat, and maybe re-image your device. If you have a personal device assigned by the school but yours to take home, the steps may be more numerous but really, not more complicated.

Here’s a list. Skip those that don’t apply to you and complete the rest. I won’t take time in this article for a how-to on each activity so if you don’t know how to complete one, check with your IT folks or DDG (Duck Duck Go–or Google) it:

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Mother’s Day in the United States is annually held on the second Sunday of May. This year, that’s May 11th. It celebrates motherhood and it is a time to appreciate mothers and mother figures. Many people give gifts, cards, flowers, candy, a meal in a restaurant or other treats to their mother and mother figures, including grandmothers, great-grandmothers, stepmothers, and foster mothers (click for updates to the list):.

1. Mother’s Day activities
2. Mother’s Day Activities from 
3. Mother’s Day cards
4. Mother in different languages
5. Mother’s Day Quotes
6. Mother’s Day Sayings
7. Mother’s Day Templates from Canva

Anyone have some favorite websites to share? My list isn’t terribly robust.

Enjoy your day with your children! (more…)

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

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Tech Teacher Appreciation Week

If you wonder what’s so hard about being a teacher, look at this list of challenges they faced the last few years: (more…)

Here are the most-read posts for the past month:

1. National Library Week–Resources, Links, Ideas
2. 17 K-8 Digital Citizenship Topics
3. April is Financial Literacy Month
4. 15 Best Technology Careers for the Future in 2025
5. Basics in Every Lesson Plan
6. Join me to launch my Indie Book
7. Easter Classroom Resources
8. Great App to Teach Spelling
9. Summer STEM at USNA
10. Earth Day Class Activities

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

Every year, the United Nations recognizes April 22nd as International Mother Earth Day. It is a day we can all participate in making our air clean, water fresh and land unlittered rather than accepting the trash-filled oceans, the smoggy skies, and the debris-laden land that is becoming the norm.

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 to do something. 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.”

Before I go any further, listen to Earth’s song, recorded by NASA in space. It is stunning: (more…)