Category: Teacher resources

lesson plans

Tech Ed Resources–Lesson Plans

I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m taking a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are from members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, from tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.

Today: Lesson Plans

There are lots of bundles of lesson plans available–by theme, by software, by topic, by standard. Let me review a few:lesson plans

Who needs this

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Tech ed Resources–Online Classes

Ask a Tech Teacher offers a variety of classes throughout the year. These can be taught individually (through coaching or mentoring), in small groups (of at least five), as school PD, or through select colleges for grad school credit. All are online, hands-on, with an authentic use of tools you’ll want for your classroom.

For questions, email [email protected]


online classesThe Tech-infused Teacher

Certificate

Minimum enrollment of 5; delivered digitally to your school or District

The 21st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.

Students join a Google Classroom-based class and meet weekly with instructor to discuss class activities and assignments.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration and all necessary materials. Can also be taken for college credit (see below, MTI 562)


online classesThe Tech-infused Class

Certificate

Minimum enrollment of 5; delivered digitally to your school or District

The 21st Century classroom blends technology with traditional teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. This three-week course is a follow-on to the introductory class, Tech-infused Teacher, digging into the digital ideas and tools used by innovative teachers to extend and enrich student learning. This includes topics like how to build your tech-infused classroom, using tech to differentiate for student needs, teaching reading and writing with tech (you can learn more about that in the class, Teaching Writing with Tech),  and favorite digital tools.  You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Professional Learning Network.

Students join a Google Classroom-based class and meet weekly with instructor to discuss class activities and assignments.

Pre-requisite: the 21st Century Tech-infused Teacher or permission of the instructor.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.


summer online classesTeach Writing with Tech

Certificate

Minimum enrollment of 5; delivered digitally to your school or District

Educators participate in this three-week hands-on quasi-writer’s workshop as they learn to use widely-available digital tools to help their students develop their inner writer. Resources include videos, pedagogic articles, lesson plans, projects, and virtual face-to-face meetings to share in a collaborative environment. Strategies introduced range from conventional tools such as quick writes, online websites, and visual writing to unconventional approaches such as Twitter novels, comics, and Google Earth lit trips. These can be adapted to any writing program be it 6+1 Traits, Common Core, or the basic who-what-when-where-why. By the time educators finish this class, they will be ready to implement many new tools in their classroom.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker. Student joins a Google Classroom-based class and meets weekly with instructor to discuss class activities and assignments.

Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.


Building Digital Citizens

Certificate

Delivered digitally to you

If students use digital devices (iPads, Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, or another), they need to become familiar with the rights and responsibilities required to be good digital citizens.  In this class, you’ll learn what topics to introduce at what age and how to make these authentic to student lives.

Topics include:

  1. cyberbullying
  2. digital citizenship
  3. digital commerce
  4. digital communications
  5. digital footprint
  6. digital law
  7. digital privacy
  8. digital rights and responsibilities
  9. digital search/research
  10. fair use/public domain
  11. image copyrights
  12. internet safety
  13. netiquette
  14. plagiarism
  15. passwords
  16. social media

Class is student-paced with no direct instructor involvement or meetings. Student joins an ongoing Google Classroom-based class.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration and all necessary materials. Can also be taken for college credit (see below, MTI 557)


online classes20 Webtools in 25 Days–for the K8 SL Tech Curriculum

Certificate

Minimum enrollment of 5; delivered digitally to your school or District

Participants in this four-week online class will explore twenty digital tools educators use in their Structured Learning technology curriculum. Participants will review between one and four during the class (by themselves or in groups) and present their review to classmates in a weekly Google Hangout. Participants will respond to the reviews of their classmates with comments, suggestions, personal experience, and questions.

This is a high-energy, innovative, and motivating class that can be reproduced in a Professional Development setting or with students in your classroom. Assessment is project-based so participants should be prepared to be fully-involved and eager risk-takers. Student joins a Google Classroom-based class.

Price includes course registration, certificate, and all necessary materials.


certificate class20 Webtools in 20 Days

Certificate

Minimum enrollment of 5; delivered digitally to your school or District

Participants in this four-week online class will explore up to twenty popular digital tools educators use in their classrooms to extend learning and differentiate for student needs. Participants will review between one and four during the class (by themselves or in groups; this depends upon enrollment) and present their review to classmates in a weekly virtual meeting. Participants will respond to the reviews of their classmates with comments, suggestions, personal experience, and questions. All tools can be used by participants in their classroom during the upcoming school year.

At the end of this course, participants get 24 hours of professional development credit and a Certificate of Completion itemizing their accomplishments.

This is a high-energy, innovative, and motivating class that can be reproduced in a Professional Development setting or with students in your classroom. Assessment is project-based so participants should be prepared to be fully-involved and eager risk-takers.

This is a group enrollment via Google Classroom.

Price includes course registration, certificate, and all necessary materials.


mti 557Building Digital Citizens

College credit MTI 557

Click link and scroll to MTI 557

If students use the internet, they must be familiar with the rights and responsibilities required to be good digital citizens.  In this class, you’ll learn what topics to introduce, how to unpack them, and how to make them authentic to student lives.

Topics include:

  1. copyrights, fair use, public domain
  2. cyberbullying
  3. digital commerce
  4. digital communications
  5. digital footprint, digital privacy
  6. digital rights and responsibilities
  7. digital search/research
  8. image—how to use them legally
  9. internet safety
  10. netiquette
  11. passwords
  12. plagiarism
  13. social media

At the completion of this course, you will be able to:

  1. Know how to blend digital citizenship into lesson plans that require the Internet
  2. Be comfortable in your knowledge of all facets of digital citizenship
  3. Become an advocate of safe, legal, and responsible use of online resources
  4. Exhibit a positive attitude toward technology that supports learning
  5. Exhibit leadership in teaching and living as a digital citizen

Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker. Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary materials. To enroll, click the link above, search for MTI 557 and sign up. If you don’t find the listing, it means it isn’t currently offered. That usually occurs in May-September-January. Email [email protected] for upcoming dates.


mti 558Teach Writing with Tech

College credit MTI 558

Click link and scroll to MTI 558

Experiment with a wide variety of available digital writing tools to help your students develop their inner writer. Understand the secrets to picking good digital writing tools while working with classmates in a hands-on and non-threatening writer’s workshop format. Resources include a blend of videos, pedagogic articles, lesson plans, projects, and virtual face-to-face meetings to share suggestions with classmates in a collaborative environment. Strategies introduced range from conventional tools such as quick writes, online websites, and visual writing to unconventional approaches such as Twitter novels, comics, and Google Earth lit trips. These can be adapted to any writing program be it 6+1 Traits, Write Source, IB, Common Core, or other popular language arts curricula.

At the completion of this course, you will be able to:

  1. Use technology to drive authentic writing activities and project-based learning.
  2. Use traditional and non-traditional technology approaches to build an understanding of good writing and nurture a love of the process.
  3. Guide students in selecting writing strategies that differentiate for task, purpose and audience.
  4. Assess student writing without discouraging creativity via easy-to-use tech tools.
  5. Provide students with effective feedback in a collaborative, sharing manner.

Be prepared for and enthusiastic about using technology tools in the writing class.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker. Price includes course registration and all necessary materials. To enroll, click the link, search for MTI 558 and sign up. If you don’t find the listing, it means it isn’t currently offered. That usually occurs in May-September-January. Email [email protected] for upcoming dates.


tech-infused teacherThe Tech-infused Teacher: The 21st Century Digitally-infused Teacher

College credit (MTI 562)

Click link and scroll to MTI 562

(email [email protected] for more information)

The 21st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.

Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects, so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary materials. To enroll, click the link, search for MTI 562 and sign up. If you don’t find the listing, it means it isn’t currently offered. That usually occurs in May-September-January. Email [email protected] for upcoming dates.


Diffeentiated TeacherDifferentiation: How Technology Makes Differentiation Fast and Easy

College credit (MTI 563)

Click link and scroll to MTI 563

(email [email protected] for more information)

Differentiation in the classroom means meeting students where they are most capable of learning. It is not an extra layer of work, rather a habit of mind for both teacher and student. Learn granular approaches to infusing differentiation into all of your lesson plans, whether you’re a Common Core school or not, with this hands-on, interactive class. Ideas include visual, audio, video, mindmaps, infographics, graphic organizers, charts and tables, screenshots, screencasts, images, games and simulations, webtools, and hybrid assessments.

Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects, so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary material. To enroll, click the link, search for MTI 563 and sign up. If you don’t find the listing, it means it isn’t currently offered. That usually occurs in May-September-January. Email [email protected] for upcoming dates.

Tech Ed Resources–Mentoring and Coaching

I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m going to take a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are edited and/or written by members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, by tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.

Today: Mentoring and Coaching

Tech coaching/mentoring is available from experts who work with you via email or virtual meetings to prepare lesson plans, teach to standards, integrate tech into core classroom time. If you’re new to tech education and wonder how to teach kindergartners to use the mouse, first graders to keyboard, third graders to sagely search the internet, pick the brains of our seasoned team of technology teachers.

Note: If your District has purchased a license, you get some coaching for free. Check on that before signing up.

  • How do you start kindergartners who don’t know what ‘enter’, ‘spacebar’, ‘click’ or any of those other techie words mean?
  • What do you do with third graders who join your class and haven’t had formal technology classes before?
  • You’ve been thrown into the technology teacher position and you’ve never done it before. How do you start? What do you introduce when?
  • You’ve been teaching for twenty years, but now your Principal wants technology in  tegrated into your classroom. Where do you start?
  • How do you differentiate instruction between student geeks and students who wonder what the right mouse button is for?
  • How do you create a Technology Use Plan for your school?
  • How do you create a Curriculum Map?
  • As an edtech professional, what’s your career path?

For more information or to sign up, click here.

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5 (free) Keyboarding Posters

Every month, we’ll share five themed posters that you can share on your website (with attribution), post on your walls, or simply be inspired.

This month: Keyboarding

 


 

 

 

keyboarding stasges

 

 

keyboarding–for the entire collection of 65 posters, click here


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.

Tech Ed Resources–Certificate/College Credit Classes

I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m going to take a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are edited and/or written by members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, by tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.

Today: Classes

Ask a Tech Teacher offers a variety of classes throughout the year. All are online, hands-on, with an authentic use of tools you’ll want for your classroom.

To find out more, email [email protected]


online classesThe Tech-infused Teacher

Certificate

By request; delivered digitally to your school or District

The 21st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.

Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.

Price includes course registration and all necessary materials

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Delurk This Week–It’s Easy!

Delurking Week–the first full week of January

I joined Damyanti Biswa’s Daily [W]rite delurking week last year (though I regularly comment on her posts–she’s  a fascinating lady) and this year, thought I’d try my own.

I love the comments and interaction this blog gets, and today I’d like to catch on to the tail-end of the International Blog Delurking Week that traditionally takes place in the first full week of January, and is an opportunity for bloggers to find out who reads their blog  since, as Melissa the founder of this event says, “there is a huge discrepancy between the number of readers in actuality and the number of readers I actually know are reading. Or a tongue-twister like that.” Participation is easy: If you want to delurk, add a comment to this blog post. That’s it!

summer learning

Looking for Summer Activities? Try These

This summer will be different than other summers. COVID has changed how we address summer PD so I’ve collected the most popular AATT articles on how to spend your education time this summer. Pick the ones that suit your purposes:

6 Must-reads for This Summer–2020 edition

Summer for me is nonstop reading — in an easy chair, under a tree, lying on the lawn, petting my dog. Nothing distracts me when I’m in the reading zone. What I do worry about is running out of books so this year, I spent the last few months stalking efriends to find out what they recommend to kickstart the 2020-21 school year. And it paid off. I got a list of books that promise to help teachers do their job better, faster, and more effectively but there are too many. Since I covered a mixture of books in a past article, many on pedagogy, this time, I decided to concentrate on content that could facilely move from my reading chair into the classroom.

I came up with six. See what you think:

10 Books You’ll Want to Read This Summer–2019 edition

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, folks like @mrhowardedu and @Coachadamspe, gave me great suggestions on books to read that I want to share with you…

5 Favorite Apps for Summer Learning

Summer has a reputation for being nonstop relaxation, never-ending play, and a time when students stay as far from “learning” as they can get. For educators, those long empty weeks result in a phenomenon known as “Summer Slide” — where students start the next academic year behind where they ended the last.

“…on average, students’ achievement scores declined over summer vacation by one month’s worth of school-year learning…” (Brookings)

This doesn’t have to happen. Think about what students don’t like about school. Often, it revolves around repetitive schedules, assigned grades, and/or being forced to take subjects they don’t enjoy. In summer, we can meet students where they want to learn with topics they like by offering a menu of ungraded activities that are self-paced, exciting, energizing, and nothing like school learning. We talk about life-long learners (see my article on life-long learners). This summer, model it by offering educational activities students will choose over watching TV, playing video games, or whatever else they fall into when there’s nothing to do.

Here are favorites that my students love…

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