Category: Blogging

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up on Ask a Tech Teacher in August:

• Back-to-School Tips: A radio show
• Subscriber Special
• Online Class Starting–the Tech-infused Teacher
• Tech Tips
• Behaviorism–How it can Turn Your Classroom Around
• Tech Ed Resources
• 7 Apps that Inspire Students
• Why Kindergartners Must Learn Technology
• How to Assess Digital Literacy
• Videos: Why, How, and Options

(more…)

May 11th-24th

I’m taking a trip with my daughter to visit my son who is stationed in Okinawa with the Army. We’ll spend two weeks traveling the area. I haven’t done this in fifty years (when I traveled through the old Soviet Union and Europe) and am beyond excited! 

Here are the most-read posts for the month of April:

1. An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes
2. 11 Projects to Teach Digital Citizenship
3. The 15-second Slideshow
4. What to do when you lose a digital document
5. Have Google Takeout at Your End-of-Year Party
6. 12 Tech Tasks To End the School Year
7. Kindergartners need Technology too!
8. 10 Myths about Teaching with Tech
9. Here’s How to Get Started with Ask a Tech Teacher
10. 5 Favorite Activities to End the School Year

(more…)

Since we at Ask a Tech Teacher started this blog eight years ago, we’ve had over 5.3 million visitors to the 2,112 articles on integrating technology into the classroom. This includes tech tips, website/app reviews, tech-in-ed pedagogy, how-tos, videos, and more. We have regular features like:

• Weekly Websites and Tech Tips (sign up for the newsletter)
• Dear Otto Help Column
• Edtech Reviews
• Lesson plans

If you’ve just arrived at Ask a Tech Teacher, start here.

It always surprises us what readers find to be the most and least provocative. The latter is as likely to be a post one of us on the crew put heart and soul into, sure we were sharing Very Important Information, as the former. Talk about humility.

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This week, I’m sharing three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:

1. 19 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer
2. Update Your Online Presence
3. Backup and Image your computer

1. A note: The third link above won’t work until the article publishes!

Today: Update Your Online Presence

For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with lesson planning, meetings, classes, collaborations with their grade-level team, parent meetings, and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.

But, that must happen or they deteriorate and no longer accomplish what we need them to do. Cussing them out does no good. Buying new systems takes a long time and doesn’t fix the problem that the old one wasn’t kept up. If they aren’t taken care of, we are left wondering why our teacher blog or website isn’t accomplishing what it does for everyone else, why our social media Tweeple don’t answer us, and why our TPT materials languish. There’s a short list of upkeep items that won’t take long to accomplish. The end of the calendar year is a good time to do these:

(more…)

This week, I’ll share three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:

1. Update Your Online Presence
2. Backup and Image your computer
3. 19 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer

A note: The links won’t work until the articles publish!

Today: Update Your Online Presence

For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with lesson planning, meetings, classes, collaborations with their grade-level team, parent meetings, and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.

But, that must happen or they deteriorate and no longer accomplish what we need them to do. Cussing them out does no good. Buying new systems takes a long time and doesn’t fix the problem that the old one wasn’t kept up. If they aren’t taken care of, we are left wondering why our teacher blog or website isn’t accomplishing what it does for everyone else, why our social media Tweeple don’t answer us, and why our TPT materials languish. There’s a short list of upkeep items that won’t take long to accomplish. The end of the calendar year is a good time to do these:

(more…)

Here are eleven of the top classroom blogging tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

1. 1. Can We Eliminate Blogs–Teachers Hate Them!
   2. 6 Tips I Wish I’d Known When I Started Blogging
   3. 3 Problems to Address Before Blogging at Your School
   4. 7–no 10, wait 12–OK, 13 Skills I Teach With Blogging
   5. Once a Year Blog Maintenance–Are You Up to Date?
   6. 5 Great Tech Ed Blogs You May Not Have Heard Of
   7. What Are Good Guidelines for Younger Bloggers?
   8. Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs
   9. How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers
   10. What’s it Like to Be a Blogger?

(more…)

Blogging is a popular tool used in education to not only practice writing, but reinforce collaboration, perspective taking, speaking/listening skills, and a lot more. It’s grown up from its pedestrian start as a journaling platform, where writers share daily activities and don’t stress over spelling and grammar. Look at these reasons why teachers incorporate blogging across all academic topics and lesson plans:

Collaboration

Students collaborate by commenting on the posts of others and/or co-writing a blog themed to a particular topic, taking turns posting articles.

Developing a profile

Blog profiles–often found at the top of the sidebar–summarize what the blog will address in just a few sentences. They must be pithy, concise, and clear. This is a great way for students to think through the purpose of their blog and share it in a way suited to the task, audience, and purpose. I am constantly reworking my own as I figure out a better way to communicate the gist of what I am doing.

(more…)

I’ve noticed that the same people subscribe to both my weekly newsletter on Tech Tips and Websites. That means they get two emails a week in their email box from me, in what is probably already a cluttered, overcrowded bit of virtual real estate. That inspired me to make a change.

I’m going to merge the two lists and send one email a week that includes both a Weekly Tech Tip and a Weekly Website. No need to resubscribe though you may get a notification that you’ve been added to a list that will sound something like “Weekly Tech Tips and Websites”.  Here’s the new link:

I’ll still have a separate newsletter for resource announcements. Here’s that link:

Here’s to a wonderful, busy, productive, fulfilling new year!

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

This week, I’ll share three holiday activities that will get your computers, technology, and social media ready for the new year. Here’s what you’ll get:

1. Update Your Online Presence
2. Backup and Image your computer
3. 22 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer

A note: The links won’t work until the articles publish!

Today: Update Your Online Presence

For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with lesson planning, meetings, classes, collaborations with their grade-level team, parent meetings, and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.

But, that must happen or they deteriorate and no longer accomplish what we need them to do. Cussing them out does no good. Buying new systems takes a long time and doesn’t fix the problem that the old one wasn’t kept up. If they aren’t taken care of, we are left wondering why our teacher blog or website isn’t accomplishing what it does for everyone else, why our social media Tweeple don’t answer us, and why our TPT materials languish. There’s a short list of upkeep items that won’t take long to accomplish. The end of the calendar year is a good time to do these:

(more…)