If you are the tech teacher and teach in a lab, there’s a fundamental truism about students and tech that you know: Students don’t make the connection that tech in the lab is the same as tech in the classroom–just smaller. Whether the classroom has a laptop cart or a pod of desktops, students think that they’ve never seen the programs and icons before and none of the rules they learned two doors down (or wherever your lab space is in relation to the student classroom) applies to tech use in the classroom.

It requires your physical presence in their classroom, speaking to them for the transfer of knowledge to take place.

Here’s how I do it:

Before going:

• Make sure the class computers work
  • CPU turns on
    
  • monitors work
  • headphones works

• Make sure class computers have all the links required for class work and that are used in the lab. Ask the class teacher what those are and make sure they are on both the lab computers and the classroom laptops/pod. These are some favorites:

• • The school website

• • Tech lab class internet start page
  • Typing practice program
  • Google Earth
  • Starfall

• • A math program

If it’s not possible, be ready to explain the differences to students so they can reach a comfort level

• Find out what the class teacher understands about the computers. Is she comfortable? How are students using them? Has she had problems? If there are reasons she doesn’t use them, what are they and can you solve them?

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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 Leanne:

I am a Middle School teacher. Many of the teachers in my school want to use websites that state you need to be 13 or above. So far we have avoided them but as technology becomes more pervasive in our school and cooler and cooler websites become available, this is getting harder to stand by. How do you approach using websites that require 13 or above access?

Thank you, Leanne

And my answer:

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A big part of my job as technology teacher is IT coordinator, which means I must keep up with tech ed widgets and tools so I know what to recommend to the teachers at my school. I have a robust PLN that constantly shares what they are using in their classrooms, programs like PowToon, Dipity, Tikatok, Yacapaca, Glittertools, Chart Gizmo, Noteflight–you get the idea. Still, there are more than any one teacher can test properly.

In a perfect world, here’s how I determine which of these hundreds (thousands?) of tools are student-ready:

• I try it myself. Does it work easily and as promised? Is it intuitive? Are there intrusive ads that will distract students as they work through the steps?
• Next, I query my social networks. Have my fellow tech teachers had success with this tool? What problems did they run into? Is it stable? If my e-colleagues find the glamor is only skin deep, I move on.

If a tool passes these two tests, I try it in class. Since I teach over 430 students every week, that’s the true barometer. If a program survives the hands-on grade-level labor of dozens of students, if they can create a project that supports their learning in new creative ways and still have fun, I’ve found a good tool.

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I get thousands of visitors a day–three-quarters of a million since I started. The most common reason why you-all drop by is for resources. I have lots of them–leson plans, tips and tricks–but one area I have little of is tech ed book reviews. I thought we could build a community library, right here on Ask a Tech Teacher!

I’m looking for:

• reviews of technology-in-education books or ebooks
• essays on tech ed topics
• White papers on tech ed topics
• Education pedagogy

Here are a few examples:

• Disrupting Class
• Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It
• My Evernote
• Savvy Cyberkids at Home
• Second Grade Technology–32 Lessons –by Structured Learning
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

These will be collected and offered as a resource to readers on my blog under Great Books.

If you’ve written a review and posted it on your blog, please send the link to me.  I will provide a link back to your blog and we’ll develop a Book Group right here on Ask a Tech Teacher.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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Understanding how to use the internet has become a cornerstone issue for students. No longer do they complete their research on projects solely in the library. Now, there is a vast landscape of resources available on the internet.

But with wealth comes responsibility. As soon as children begin to visit the online world, they need the knowledge to do that safely, securely, responsibly. There are several great programs available to guide students through this process (Common Sense’s Digital Passport, Carnegie CyberAcademy, Netsmart Kids). I’ve collected them as resources and developed a path to follow that includes the best of everything.

Here’s Fourth Grade:

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I read a post by Bill Ferriter on Education Week Teacher (which I read in ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology) where he says in his article, “Our never-ending reliance on digital resilience” that yes, he’s resilient, but he’s tired of it. He thinks that because tech teachers are so quick to adapt to problems (computers don’t work so we pair up students–that sort of thing), that we’ve enabled the chronic problem.

It made me think about the many times I’ve had to adapt because things didn’t work–despite the efforts of my excellent tech people:

• a website doesn’t work so I try it in a different browser
• a website doesn’t load correctly so I go in with my admin log-in and download fixes to get the computer running, but in class, that’s an eternity
• class computers won’t print despite that my lab printer is loaded to their list. I’ve learned to load the IP address of my printer as a more reliable connection, but why don’t they print? And a bigger question: Why periodically–with regularity–do the printers I’ve loaded disappear from the computer?

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

Q: Sometimes, I just can’t remember how to accomplish a task. Often, I know it’s simple. Maybe I’ve done it before–or even learned it before–and it’s lost in my brain. What do I do?

A: One of the best gifts I have for students and colleagues alike is how to solve this sort of problem. Before you call your IT guy, or the tech teacher, or dig through those emails where someone sent you the directions, here’s what you do:

Google it.

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…with your child’s computer education?

• Show your child how to do something rather than allowing him to discover
• Do for them rather than let them do it
• Say ‘no’ too often (or the other enthusiasm-killer, Don’t touch!)
• Don’t take them seriously
• Take technology too seriously. It’s a tool, meant to make life easier. Nothing more.
• Underestimate their abilities
• Over-estimate their abilities
• Give up too quickly
• Think there’s only one way to do stuff on the computer

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Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, and become excited to use. This one is tools available for teachers to help their students maneuver the often-tricky machinations of the internet.

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