It’s hard to run an inquiry-based classroom. Don’t go into this teaching style thinking all you do is ask questions and observe answers. You have to listen with all of your senses, pause and respond to what you heard (not what you wanted to hear), keep your eye on the Big Ideas while stepping in when needed, aside when required. You aren’t a Teacher, rather a guide. You and the class find your way from question to knowledge together.

Because everyone learns differently.

You don’t use a textbook. Sure, it’s a map, showing how to get from here to there, but that’s the problem. It dictates how to get ‘there’. For an inquiry-based classroom, you may know where you’re going, but not quite how you’ll get there and that’s a good thing. You are no longer your mother’s teacher who stood in front of rows of students and pointed to the blackboard. You operate well outside your teaching comfort zone as you try out the flipped classroom and the gamification of education and are thrilled with the results.

And then there’s the issue of assessment. What your students have accomplished can’t neatly be summed up by a multiple choice test. When you review what you thought would assess learning (back when you designed the unit), none measure the organic conversations the class had about deep subjects, the risk-taking they engaged in to arrive at answers, the authentic knowledge transfer that popped up independently of your class time. You realize you must open your mind to learning that occurred that you never taught–never saw coming in the weeks you stood amongst your students guiding their education.

Let me digress. I visited the Soviet Union (back when it was a nation) and dropped in on a classroom where students were inculcated with how things must be done. It was a polite, respectful, ordered experience, but without cerebral energy, replete of enthusiasm for the joy of learning, and lacking the wow factor of students independently figuring out how to do something. Seeing the end of that powerful nation, I arrived at different conclusions than the politicians and the economists. I saw a nation starved for creativity. Without that ethereal trait, learning didn’t transfer. Without transfer, life required increasingly more scaffolding and prompting until it collapsed in on itself like a hollowed out orange.

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Here are the skills fifth graders can learn in Photoshop if you’ve prepared them with basic computer skills:

• Photoshop artwork–already live
• Photoshop actions–already live
• Photoshop basics
• Photoshop filter and rendering tools
• Photoshop starters–auto-correct with the auto-correction tools–those quick fixes that make a photo look cleaner (coming up)
• Photoshop crop tool–with the lasso and the magic wand
• Photoshop clone tool– within a picture and to another picture
• Photoshop–change the background (put yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower or on top of Hoover Dam)
• Photoshop tools–add custom shapes
• Photoshop–start with Word (a little dated but still useful)

Get started

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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: 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 askatechteacher@gmail.com and I’ll answer within the next thirty days. (more…)

Hello! Ask a Tech Teacher is a group of tech ed professionals who work together to offer you tech tips, advice, pedagogic discussion, lesson plans, and anything else we can think of to help you integrate tech into your classroom. Our primary focus is to provide technology-in-education-related information for educators–teachers, administrators, homeschoolers, and parents.

Here’s how to get started on our blog (or click this link):

Read our varied columns

They include:

• Tech tips
• Dear Otto–questions from educators on tech questions
• Pedagogy that impacts tech in ed
• Reviews of books, apps, web tools, websites, tech ed products used in your classroom
• Subscriber Specials–monthly discounts (or FREE) on tech ed products
• Humorous life of a tech teacher

Find tech ed resources you need

Here’s where to look:

• Free Lesson Plans–on software programs, core tech principles, subject-specific topics
• Website reviews–on products you want to use in your classroom
• K-12 Digital Tools–for your digital devices
• Structured Learning--where all the Ask a Tech Teacher crew’s tech ed books are published; there’s an insane number of topics and formats. Some free, most fee

Subscribe to our newsletter

It’s mostly weekly and always free. (more…)

Tired of Paperwork? The Easiest Ways to Requisition School Supplies Online

Back-to-school season brings a long to-do list for educators and administrators. Between preparing classrooms, coordinating with staff and ensuring students have the resources they need, paperwork shouldn’t slow you down. The last thing you want is to spend hours navigating forms just to order basic supplies. Online school supply requisition systems offer a faster, more organized way to manage purchasing and free up time for what matters most.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/coloring-pencils-in-green-and-yellow-containers-8441845/

The Hidden Costs of Paper-Based Procurement

Many schools still depend on paper-based workflows or disconnected systems for ordering classroom supplies, and while these methods may feel familiar, they often create unnecessary holdups and frustration. The traditional procurement process involves multiple handoffs, manual signatures and physical forms that can easily get lost between departments.

Common challenges include tracking down missing approval forms and deciphering unclear handwriting on requisition sheets. Orders can sit for days or weeks waiting to move through the approval chain. Paper-based systems also make it difficult to maintain accurate budget records or ensure compliance with district purchasing policies. The result is wasted time and energy that could otherwise support student learning and engaging classroom environments. (more…)

• Online sites to build a resume
• What to include in your resume
• Formatting tips
• Additional tips

Digital portfolio sites

• Take-aways
• Pros
• Cons
• Seminars

Take-aways

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Summer is a great time to reset your personal pedagogy to an education-friendly mindset and catch up on what’s been changing in the ed world while you were teaching eight ten hours a day. My Twitter friends gave me great suggestions, but first:

A comment on the selections: I did get more suggestions than I could possibly list so I avoided books that involved politics or hot-button subjects that teachers are divided on and focused on positive and uplifting reading. Yes, there is a lot wrong with education around the world but I wanted a selection of books that would send me — and you —  back to teaching in the fall with a can-do attitude for how to accomplish miracles with your next class of students.

Having said that, here’s a granular list of teacher-approved books to keep you busy this summer:

10 Books for Summer Reading for Educators 

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I  calculate what’s trending on my blog by which of my posts are popular in a particular time period. Here’s the run-down so far this year:

• 33 Great Research Websites for Kids
• K-12 Digital Tools
• How to Find Old Elementary School Teachers
• 100th Day of School — It’s about Learning
• Start Here (to use AATT)
• 17 Websites on Natural Disasters
• 14 Websites to Teach Mouse Skills
• How Students Can Build Their Own Apps
• Robot Teachers vs Human Teachers
• Want to Write for Us?

More top posts

Click here; scroll down the sidebar to “Top Posts”:

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Earlier, we posted books you might like to read this summer. Now, we’ll focus on what to accomplish with your summer. Here are popular AATT articles. Pick the ones that suit you:

How to Keep Learning Fresh Over the Summer

15 Skills To Learn this Summer and Use Next Year

6 Tech Activities for Your Summer School Program

12 Tech Tasks To End the School Year

Here’s How to Motivate Summer School Students

Seven Fun Math Activities for the Summer Break

How to Blend Learning with Play for a Kid-friendly Summer

6 Tech Activities for Your Summer School Program

15 Skills Teachers Can Learn this Summer and Use in Next Year’s Classroom

5 Apps to learn this summer

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