Author: Jacqui

Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please complete the form below and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names.

Here’s a great question I got from Linda:

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’m off school for two weeks and am backing everything up ‘just in case’. I know how to copy-paste and do Windows back-up , but how do I protect all my posts on my blog?

A: If you use Wordpress, it’s easy. Here’s what you do:

• Go to Tools>Export
• Select the bubble for ‘all’
• It’ll back it 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 back-up 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

My business website is a Wordpress theme with a ton of widgets. I can back it up exactly the same. Which I do, even though it has an automatic back-up.

That’s it. Now you’re safe.

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Sure, we all know that as a subjective, gut-level judgment, but is there data to prove it?

Oh yeah. Look at this infographic from Cool Infographics:

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I get a lot of questions from readers about affordable document cameras. They’re hard to come by, but I think I found one–HUE HD…

Age:

Any age

Topic:

Digital hardware

Address:

Hue HD Camera

Review:

Students are used to digital cameras, phone cameras, and the ones that come with laptops and iPads, but not a colorful camera-with-built-in-microphone that has a friendly-looking bubble head (my students put eyes on ours) that can be twisted any direction. The Hue HD webcam was an instant success in my classroom. The body is sturdy and the gooseneck that connects the camera to the weighted base is rigid enough it stays in place even when flexed. And, the USB cable that connects the camera to the computer is long–six feet-giving lots of range for creative work.

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Need a few websites to fill in sponge time? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days Gift Hunt
2. 12 Days of Christmas
3. Christmas—history—fun video
4. Holiday collection
5. Holiday Elf Games
6. Holiday hangman
7. Holiday Hangman II
8. Holiday music
9. Holiday—Design Gingerbread House
10. Holiday—find the word
11. Holiday—match game
12. Holiday—Math Facts
13. Holiday—North Pole Academy
14. Holidays–various
15. NORAD Santa
16. Penguin Show
17. Reindeer Orchestra
18. Santa Tracker

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Here’s a free lesson plan from the newest Ask a Tech Teacher book, How to Achieve Common Core with Tech–the Reading Strand. This covers K-8, 315 Standards, and has 14 projects.

BTW, the lines at the front of each step are to track progress in case you don’t complete it in one class period. Feel free to print out for classroom use:

Essential Question

How can games help me learn reading skills?

Summary

Students play an online game (i.e., Samorost) to hone reading and math skills. By end of unit, 5^th through Middle School will review up to 7 math anchor standards, 8 reading anchor standards, 6 RST standards, 4 reading informational standards, and 1 reading foundational standard.

Big Idea

Games encourage students to read closely, determine and analyze central ideas, interpret meaning, assess point of view/purpose, differentiate between arguments, and understand sometimes complex material.

Materials

Internet, class Twitter account, student blogs, digital citizenship links

Teacher Preparation

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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: English isn’t my first language. How do I go to Google in other languages?

A: To visit the foreign language Google search engines, type:

www.google.co

Then add the country extension you would like to visit. For example, Japan is .jp, so if I typed:

www.google.co.jp

…I’d get this:

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Before I discuss Twitter, Tweets, and the K-12 teacher, watch this video (click the image), see what you think:

 I don’t speak Spanish, so I’m relying on a CNN story to summarize what happened. Here is the gist of it:

After a student made obscene comments about a high school teacher in northern Mexico, she taught a lesson with an online post of her own: a video showing her confronting the girl in class. Now the teacher is on administrative leave. The student has been suspended. The video has gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.

In the balance of the article, you find out that a student in the teacher’s class posted defamatory comments about her on Twitter and the teacher confronted the student in front of the class as part of a discussion on the power/potency of social media in people’s lives. The teacher admittedly crosses a line when she sinks to the student’s level and says to her (in front of the class), “Listen to me well: I will not allow anyone to call me that, especially a young brat like you and you.”

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It’s the time of year when inquiring young minds want to know–Where’s Santa? Here’s a great website to answer that question.

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I’m taking next week off. I’ll be preparing for my daughter’s holiday visit from her new home in DC. I am so excited!

I’ll be back December 2nd. Any emergencies–drop me a line at [email protected].

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.