Category: Holidays

Next 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. Is Your Online Presence Up to Date?
2. Back up and Image your computer
3. 15 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer

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

Join me! You’ll come away feeling ready, re-energized, and geeky.

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I’m taking next week off. I’ll be preparing for my daughter’s holiday visit from her home in DC and my son who’s visiting from El Paso TX (Ft. Bliss–though, now he tells me he may not make it. Argh). I am so excited to see both of them!

I’ll be back November 30th. Any emergencies–drop me a line at [email protected].

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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, 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.

Need a few websites and apps to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving sites that will keep students busy and still teach them:

1. Canadian Thanksgiving
2. Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
3. Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
4. Primary Games Thanksgiving Apps
5. Starfall–Silly Turkey
6. Thanksgiving Coloring Book App
7. Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
8. Thanksgiving Games
9. Thanksgiving games–Quia
10. Thanksgiving information–history, more
11. Thanksgiving Jigsaw
12. Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
13. Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
14. Thanksgiving puzzle–by Digipuzzle
15. Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
16. Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
17. Thanksgiving Wordsearch
18. The First Thanksgiving

If you’re looking for projects, you’ll find two on Ask a Tech Teacher:

• A Holiday Card
• A Holiday Flier

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Greeting cards are easy enough for second graders–even early readers. Using MS Publisher, pick a template, add a picture to personalize, add their name–and they’re done. It takes about 15 minutes. Kids always feel great about creating these greeting cards: (more…)

In the USA, Veterans Day annually falls on November 11. This day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States on Veterans Day.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxipGYkYuy8&w=420&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s8Z4DspcO0&w=420&h=315]

This is the only project that’s easier than the holiday card in Publisher. There’s no folding and the templates are bright, colorful and exciting for kids as young as second grade: (more…)

Here’s a short list of fun Halloween websites for your students. Enjoy!

Websites:

1. Ben & Jerry
2. Billy Bear’s
3. Carving Pumpkins
4. Enchanted Learning
5. Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
6. Halloween ghost stories
7. Meddybemps Spooky
8. Pumpkin Toss
9. Signing Halloween–a video
10. Skelton Park
11. The Kidz Page

Apps:

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America, we love you.

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Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 2nd). It was originally organized to celebrate various labor associations’ strengths of and contributions to the United States economy. It is largely a day of rest in modern times. Many people mark Labor Day as the end of the summer season and a last chance to make trips or hold outdoor events.

Labor Day is a US holiday dedicated to workers across the country. The public holiday always falls on the first Monday in September. The first federal observation of the holiday occurred in 1894 however the first Labor Day observed in a state was in Oregon in 1887.

Today, I honor the warrior, his job to fight for America’s way of life, invisibly and heroically, across the globe.

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Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of dozens of technology training books that integrate technology into education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a tech ed columnist for Examiner.com, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB.

 

It’s America’s birthday and I’m celebrating. What I write today will be… anything I want–gibberish, a short story, guest articles on crazy topics. I have no idea. My son’s in Kuwait protecting America’s distant shores. My daughter’s in San Diego preparing her LPD for some future battle. I’m here, thanking both of them and every other service member who accepted the calling to protect our nation’s freedoms.

God be with all of you.

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