Author: Jacqui

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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I had to reformat my computer and lost my For Follow Up folder in Outlook, the one that lives in the pane on the left-hand side. How do I bring this back, or is it impossible?

A: This is isn’t important until it happens to you. In my case, it became critical last week when I lost mine to a reformat of my hard drive (I hate viruses). As with many of my tips, I had no idea how to solve this or if I could. I Googled it and got this great answer from PC Magazine.

This is an easy one, as long as you know where to look. The folder in question is a search folder, one of the standard ones. To re-create it, choose File | New | Search Folder. You can also open this feature by pressing the unlikely key combination Ctrl+Shift+P. Highlight Mail flagged for follow up and click OK. It’s back!

(more…)

The 2008 Leadership and Learning Center reported on the importance of note-taking in the classroom:

In schools where writing and note-taking were rarely implemented in science classes, approximately 25 percent of students scored proficient or higher on state assessments. But in schools where writing and note-taking were consistently implemented by science teachers, 79 percent scored at the proficient level.

Starting in fourth grade, Common Core expects students to use books, periodicals, websites, and other digital sources to conduct research projects. That means they not only read, but research, review, distill knowledge, and catalogue. The Standards assume students will accomplish this by taking notes—

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others … (from Common Core)

But don’t sharpen the pencils and refresh the classroom supply of lined paper. Consider a digital approach to note-taking. Why? Let’s do an experiment. Ask students to develop a pro and con list for note-taking with paper and pencil. Make a deal with them: If they can provide sufficient evidence that pencil-and-paper notes are better than alternatives, you’ll let them continue in that way. I’ll get you started:

(more…)

It used to be simple to post grades. Add up the test scores and see what the student earned. Very defensible. Everyone understood.

It’s not that easy anymore, especially in technology. Here are all the factors I take into consideration when I’m posting grades:

• Does s/he remember skills from prior lessons as they complete current lessons?
• Does s/he show evidence of learning by using tech knowledge in classroom or home?
• Does s/he participate during class discussions?
• Does s/he complete class goals?
• Does s/he save to their network folder?

(more…)

The British-based Telegraph recently posted an article about how technophobia could hold back the use of technology in the classroom. Their experts (including Lord David Puttnam, Member House of Lords and Chancellor of Open University) had this to say:

“We are watching a massively disruptive evolution within education, possibly for the first time in 100 years,” he continued. “A lot of people are finding that very uncomfortable…”

I recently had a conversation with my PLN about how they like technology in their classrooms. Few contest it’s presence (though some teachers absolutely refuse to allow it in the front door–some whole schools even), but is it used because we find it helpful or we’re forced to?

My PLN’s answers were all over the place, but far too many along themes like these–

• unable to squeeze one more thing to learn into my daily schedule
  
• are teachers prepared well to be effective facilitators
• training needs to be ample, effective, constructive, continuous and mandated
• serious lack of training and I’m so over loaded that I do not have the ability to add on one more thing
• we oooh and ahhh ANY TIME technology is used and label it innovative, creative, etc. when in reality it is not
• it is simply about common sense and using the tool that the teacher and the students get the best results with

(more…)

As a homeschool mom, today’s guest, Catherine Ross, has to juggle lots of activities–and do it by herself. I’m always in awe of those parents who choose this route. In the fullness of time, they are modeling the best traits that education can teach–problem-solving, critical-thinking, and tenacity, and perspective-taking.

Here are Catherine’s ideas on squeezing the most out of every activity her children participate it:

As moms of very young kids, we certainly appreciate the luxury of being able to make a phone call or read a book without a dozen interruptions every other minute. I homeschool my little ones, and I have come to realize that my kids’ online time can actually be productive. Here are five handy distractions – a.k.a. online activities – to keep your kids busy and constructively engaged.

(more…)

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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: The file I’m trying to use say’s ‘read only’. I need to edit it. What do I do?

A: A ‘read only’ document does not allow editing the author’s original work. You can read, but not make any changes–or save it.

Here’s how you solve that: Save it by a different name, say, call it ‘edited’, and then you can edit it. There might be an amber bar at the top of the document asking you to do just that.

Questions you want answered? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll answer within the next thirty days.

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.

A new page-–Getting Started–-to guide you through. It includes:

• newsletters available
• columns available
• Hall of Fame articles
• how/where to find tech ed resources
• where/how to find video resources
• Questions for Dear Otto
• Free K-5 curriculum companion

Go ahead–check it out!

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.

Recently, Common Sense Media named Ask a Tech Teacher as one of the 2014 blogs to watch on the topic of Digital Citizenship. It reminded me what a massive topic this is! To my count, it includes at least 19 topics (check here for updated links):

1. Cyberbullying–Harassment that happens on the Internet
2. Digital citizenship–Live in the digital world safely, responsibly, and ethically
3. Digital commerce–Electronic buying and selling of goods
4. Digital communications–Electronic transmission of information including email, IM, SMS, chatrooms, forums, and multi-player games
5. Digital footprint–Trail left in cyberspace by the use of digital communication
6. Digital law–Legal rights and restrictions governing technology use
7. Digital privacy–Protection of citizen information, reputation, and rights   while using digital mediums
8. Digital rights/ responsibilities–Privileges and freedoms extended to all digital users and behavioral expectations that come with them. (Ribble & Bailey, 2007)
9. Digital search and research–Search and research that relies on online sources
10. Effective Passwords–Make these easy to remember but hard to guess
11. Fair use–Legal use of copyrighted materials without permission of the owner provided the use is fair and reasonable, does not impair the value of materials, and does not curtail profits expected by owner
12. Image copyright–Exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of an image
13. Internet safety–Security of people and their information when using the Internet
14. Netiquette–Electronic ‘etiquette’ on the net
15. Online Plagiarism–Wrongful appropriation of another author’s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions”
16. Online presence–An individual’s collective existence online including any activity that takes place on the internet
17. Public domain–The realm embracing rights to online material that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and can be appropriated by anyone
18. Social media–Online platforms like Facebook and Twitter by which individuals and communities create and share content
19. Stranger Danger–Perceived danger by strangers

(more…)

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Terry:

Any help for identifying and re-enforcing tech skills needed to take the online PARCC tests (coming in 2014-15)? Even a list of computer terms would help; copy, cut, paste, highlight, select; use of keys like tab, delete, insert; alt, ctrl and shift. There does not seem to be any guidelines as to prepping students on the “how to’s” of taking an online test and reading and understanding the directions. It would be great to take advantage of the time we have before the PARCC’s become a reality. Thanks!

Between March 24 and June 6, more than 4 million students in 36 states and the District of Columbia will take near-final versions of the PARCC and Smarter Balanced efforts to test Common Core State Standards learning in the areas of mathematics and English/language arts. Tests will be administered via digital devices (though there are options for paper-and-pencil). Though the tests won’t produce detailed, scaled scores of student performance (that starts next year), this field-testing is crucial to finding out what works and doesn’t in this comprehensive assessment tool, including the human factors like techphobia and sweaty palms (from both students and teachers).

After I got Terry’s email, I polled my PLN to find specific tech areas they felt their students needed help with in preparing for the Assessments. I got answers like these:

“They had to drag and drop, to highlight, and they had to compare and contrast. They had to write a letter. They had to watch a video, which meant putting on headphones. They had to fill in boxes on a table. There were a lot of different mouse-manipulation tasks.”

“Students are asked to retype a paragraph to revise. My students can’t type fast enough!”

“…questions [are] a mix of multiple-choice, problem solving, short-answer responses, and other tasks. Students had to drag and drop answers into different boxes.”

It boils down to five tech areas. Pay attention to these and your students will be much more prepared for Common Core assessments, be it PARCC or Smarter Balanced:

Keyboarding

Students need to have enough familiarity with the keyboard that they know where keys are, where the number pad is, where the F row is, how keys are laid out. They don’t need to be touch typists or even faciley use all fingers. Just have them comfortable enough they have a good understanding of where all the pieces are. Starting next school year, have them type fifteen minutes a week in a class setting and 45 minutes a week using keyboarding for class activities (homework, projects–that sort). That’ll do it.

(more…)

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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My picture file is a .bmp and I need a .jpg. What do I do?

A: Blogs and wikis and lots of online sites won’t accept .bmp image files. I no longer even save pictures in that format because so much of what I do is collaborative, which means online.

If you have an image you want to use, but it’s in this .bmp format, here’s what you do:

• Open it in MS Paint (which comes with Windows) or Photoshop
• save-as a .jpg.

(more…)