It’s hard to run an inquiry-based classroom. Don’t go into this teaching style thinking all you do is ask questions and observe answers. You have to listen with all of your senses, pause and respond to what you heard (not what you wanted to hear), keep your eye on the Big Ideas while stepping in when needed, aside when required. You aren’t a Teacher, rather a guide. You and the class find your way from question to knowledge together.

Because everyone learns differently.

You don’t use a textbook. Sure, it’s a map, showing how to get from here to there, but that’s the problem. It dictates how to get ‘there’. For an inquiry-based classroom, you may know where you’re going, but not quite how you’ll get there and that’s a good thing. You are no longer your mother’s teacher who stood in front of rows of students and pointed to the blackboard. You operate well outside your teaching comfort zone as you try out the flipped classroom and the gamification of education and are thrilled with the results.

And then there’s the issue of assessment. What your students have accomplished can’t neatly be summed up by a multiple choice test. When you review what you thought would assess learning (back when you designed the unit), none measure the organic conversations the class had about deep subjects, the risk-taking they engaged in to arrive at answers, the authentic knowledge transfer that popped up independently of your class time. You realize you must open your mind to learning that occurred that you never taught–never saw coming in the weeks you stood amongst your students guiding their education.

Let me digress. I visited the Soviet Union (back when it was a nation) and dropped in on a classroom where students were inculcated with how things must be done. It was a polite, respectful, ordered experience, but without cerebral energy, replete of enthusiasm for the joy of learning, and lacking the wow factor of students independently figuring out how to do something. Seeing the end of that powerful nation, I arrived at different conclusions than the politicians and the economists. I saw a nation starved for creativity. Without that ethereal trait, learning didn’t transfer. Without transfer, life required increasingly more scaffolding and prompting until it collapsed in on itself like a hollowed out orange.

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How do schools detect AI in student writing? It’s easier than it used to be. So what can students do to ensure their writing is assisted by AI, not written by it? The Ask a Tech Teacher team explains:

How can schools detect your AI writing?

If a teacher questions whether you used AI, a detector score may be only part of the concern. They may also ask about a source you cited or why your essay sounds different from your classroom work. Knowing what schools look for can help you review an assignment before you submit it.

This guide explains those checks and walks through a practical editing process: assess the draft, rebuild weak arguments from your notes, then work on wording and grammar. Writing tools can help with specific tasks along the way. Check your teacher’s rules first, since permission to correct spelling does not necessarily include permission to rewrite whole paragraphs. (more…)

In 169 Tech Tips, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address class tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

Today’s tip: Encourage the use of audio notes

Every opportunity, encourage students to use the audio mike (instead of the keyboard) to record their ideas, thoughts, and notes. Why? It will suit some students perfectly and differentiate for needs you may not even be aware of. Of course, if everyone used audio notes, the class would get quite noisy.

Prefer video of lessons? Try these:

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Assistive devices for special needs students have improved dramatically over the last decade. Ask a Tech Teacher has a summary of the current status:

• Why the right technology matters
• AAC Communication devices
• Table mounts and access tools
• Visual schedules and timers
• Sensory regulation tools

The Essential Learning Devices and Technology for Special Education Classrooms

Every student deserves meaningful opportunities to participate in classroom learning, regardless of their communication, mobility, sensory or developmental needs. The right assistive technology can help you adapt lessons, support independence and give students more ways to express themselves. However, choosing suitable equipment requires balancing individual student needs with school budgets. You also need to identify reliable special education classroom assistive technology suppliers to ensure product quality and long-term usability.

Why the Right Learning Technology Matters in Special Education

Choosing assistive technology for a special education classroom can be challenging when you need to match affordable equipment to individual abilities and choose suppliers that offer reliable products and support. (more…)

Ask a Tech Teacher has a passel of online resources to introduce, teach, and reinforce digital citizenship. Here’s our long list–click here for updates if you arrive at this page late: (more…)

Digital Citizenship Week — October 19-23, 2026

Here at Ask a Tech Teacher, we will offer a variety of Digital Citizenship resources and lessons. I’ve provided links, but they won’t work until live:

• Digital Citizenship Week: What to Teach When–a video (this one)
• Digital Citizenship Resources–from our Library
• 8 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship–by Grade (a pillar post)

We’ll start with a great video (40 minutes) we use in training, available for free today to Ask a Tech Teacher readers. There are many digcit topics–it’s easy to miss some. The summary–

1. Cyberbullying
2. Digital citizenship
3. Digital commerce
4. Digital communication
5. Digital footprint
6. Digital law—plagiarism, copyrights, fair use, public domain
7. Digital privacy
8. Digital rights and responsibilities
9. Digital search/research
10. Fair use/Public domain
11. Image copyrights
12. Internet safety
13. Netiquette
14. Online plagiarism
15. Passwords
16. Social Media
17. Stranger danger

Note: This video is a reprint so you may have seen it last year. Enjoy!

Digital Citizenship: What to Teach When

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9zmOECZl6c

Summary

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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, written off as “s/he doesn’t like to read”. If this sounds familiar to you, maybe before you became a writer you struggled with adopting the love of reading, check out the International Dyslexia Association’s Dyslexia Awareness Month in October.

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. (more…)

In our ongoing series on college-to-career, the Ask a Tech Teacher team has three new topics to share ideas on how t prepare for sought-after careers. Today, “How to Develop the Skills, Portfolio, and Experience Game Design Careers Require“:

Game design looks like one of the most appealing lines of work in the creative world, and in many ways it is. It joins storytelling, art, systems thinking, and technology into a single craft, and the people who do it well shape how millions of players spend their free time. It is also competitive. Studios receive far more applications than they can consider, and the people who stand out are rarely the ones with the most enthusiasm alone. They are the ones who can show what they can do. Building that kind of readiness takes a deliberate plan, and the earlier you start, the stronger your position will be.

Source: Pexels

Why Game Design Careers Ask for More Than Talent

Plenty of people grow up loving games and assume that passion will carry them into the industry, only to find that studios hire on evidence rather than interest. The obstacle for many of them is that a bachelor’s degree in game design can feel out of reach once work, family responsibilities, and distance from a campus all pull in different directions. Completing that degree online removes most of those barriers, because the learning travels with the student instead of tying them to one place and one timetable. Studying for a Game Design Bachelors degree online keeps the practical work employers look for within reach of people who cannot put the rest of their lives on hold. That accessibility is what turns an early interest in games into a serious path toward the work itself.

How a Portfolio Shows the Way You Think

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In our ongoing series on college-to-career, the Ask a Tech Teacher team has three new topics to share ideas on how t prepare for sought-after careers. Today, “How Online Education Programs Are Reshaping the Path to Teaching“:

If you’re thinking about becoming a teacher, the route into the classroom no longer looks the way it did ten or even five years ago. Online education programs have changed how you can study, train, and balance real life with career goals. That matters even more in places like Missouri, where working adults, paraprofessionals, and rural students often need flexible options that still lead to serious professional outcomes.

Source: Pexels

Flexibility helps more people enter the profession

One of the biggest advantages of online study is that it widens access. If you live in a rural area, commute long distances, or already work in a school support role, flexibility can be the difference between starting a degree and putting it off for another year.

This is where programs like online schools for education become relevant in a practical sense. They give aspiring teachers options to earn credentials while managing jobs and personal responsibilities. For many students, that setup isn’t a luxury. It’s the only workable path.

You can also see why this appeals to career changers. Someone moving from childcare, corporate training, or community work may already have teaching-adjacent skills. A flexible degree format lets them build formal qualifications without hitting pause on rent, bills, or family obligations. (more…)

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October

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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, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.