Author: Jacqui

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, an Amazon Vine Voice, 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.

Tech Tip #55: Find a Lost Shortcut

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I can’t find the shortcut for a program I want to open. It’s not on the desktop, on the start menu or in ‘all programs’. How do I open the program?

A: Try ‘Start button’, then type in the name of the program where it says ‘start search’. The shortcut shows up.

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sale

Monday Freebies #20: Make a Holiday Card

This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. Because of that, I’ve decided to give the lesson plans my publisher sells in the Technology Toolkit (110 Lesson Plans that I use in my classroom to integrate technology into core units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally-appropriate experience for students) for FREE.

I love giving my material away for free. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

#20: How to Make a Card for Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas

Kindergarten-2nd Grade

Throughout the year, offer opportunities for students to reinforce learned skills by creating holiday cards geared toward whichever holiday is occurring. They will be excited and work hard to remember how to use old skills so they can create the festive card. Limit your assistance as you challenge them to draw on their problem-solving skills. Always use skills (i.e., paint brush, pencil tool, backgrounds, spray can, etc.) that have been learned in prior lessons.

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Weekend Website #68: Live Like Bear Grylls

tornado and cityscape

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Age:

3rd-5th

Topic:

Landforms

Review:

If you want to spice up a unit on landforms, have students look into surviving these unique natural habitats. To get out with their lives, they’ll have to understand the flora and fauna, dangers and helpers. Here are some websites they can visit to improve their survival toolkit:

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Tech Tip #54: How to Auto Forward a PowerPoint Slideshow

Tech tipsAs a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My students are learning to use Powerpoint for presentations. They’ll stand in front of the class and the slideshow will play behind them. We want it to go automatically without requiring them to click the mouse or push the space bar. How do we do that?

A: Presentations are a great skill to teach students. I applaud you on this. Auto-forward isn’t difficult:

  • go to Transition on the menu bar
  • go to Timing on the right side
  • Leave ‘on mouse click’ selected (in case you as the teacher need to move it forward automatically. I’ve had students mistakenly put five minutes on a slide instead of five seconds and we would sit waiting forever if I didn’t do the mouse click)
  • set the timer to serve the needs of the slide. This will require students to practice before presenting so they can put the correct time in. A good default of 5-10 seconds.

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iPad wallpaper

Monday Freebies #3: How to Make Wallpaper

Today, I start a new program here on Ask a Tech Teacher. This year more than any before, classroom budgets have been cut making it more difficult than ever to equip the education of our children with quality teaching materials. I understand that. I teach K-8. To be sure you don’t miss any of these free lesson plans:

…and start each week off with a fully-adaptable K-8 lesson that integrates technology into core classroom subjects. Each has been tested on hundreds of students and includes step-by-step directions, as well as relevant ISTE national standards, tie-ins, extensions, troubleshooting and more. They’re all from the two-volume Technology Toolkit that integrates technology into classroom units of inquiry while insuring a fun, age-appropriate, developmentally–appropriate experience for students.

Eventually, you’ll get the entire book. If you can’t wait, you can purchase the curriculum here.

I love giving my material away for free. If everyone did, we would reach true equity in international education.

We’ll start with

#3: I Can Make My Own Wallpaper

Kids love personalizing their computer stations. Show them how to create their own wallpaper using internet pictures, pictures on the computer or their own photos or drawings (more…)

Weekend Website #72: 62 Favorite 1st Grade Websites

Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine. Click here for updates on these links.

Age:

1st Grade

Topic:

General academic

Review:

These are my 62 favorite first grade websites. I sprinkle them in throughout the year, adding several each week to the class internet start page, deleting others. I make sure I have 3-4 each week that integrate with classroom lesson plans, 3-4 that deal with technology skills and a few that simply excite students about tech in education.

Here’s the list: (more…)

book review

Easi-Speak Digital Microphone is Simple

One of the benes of being webmaster for Ask a Tech Teacher is I get to review products for tech ed companies. Recently, I was asked to review a digital microphone called Easi-speak USB recorder from Learning digital microphoneResources. I’ve been looking for an easy-to-use microphone for little ones as young as kindergarten that will inspire them to relax, communicate, and be themselves despite the intimidation of being taped. Easi-speak is an MP3 recorder in the shape of a microphone–a great way to make it user-friendly and intuitive to young children. It says it’s appropriate for children age four and up, but I was doubtful. I’ve read lots of reviews of products that claimed that kid-friendly mantle, but couldn’t deliver.

Right out of the box, Easy-speak appeared to be that sort of fun-and-easy educational tool that would meet its promises. It is colorful with bright, obvious buttons, the type that intrigue kindergartners and are intuitive enough for the more precocious of my second graders to figure out on their own. (I like guiding rather than lecturing. For me, it’s a more effective method of teaching.)

The mic is chubby, easy to hold for young hands, with a bright silver top that makes children want to speak into it. I like that the mic comes with a necklace to hang it around the neck, and the USB port cover is attached to the mic so it won’t disappear. It seems Learning Resources understands a child’s curiosity and propensity for distraction.

Here’s something else I love–the mic requires no batteries. You charge it using the USB port of your computer. The port, though, abuts to the microphone, which means it gets too fat to fit into a USB port if your bank of USB ports are (like mine) chock full of other peripherals (iPad, camera, USB drive, printer, etc.) and thus won’t allow the wideness of the mic to fit. Learning Resources solves that by providing an adapter which works wonderfully.

Here are some of the projects we used it on: (more…)