Category: Teacher resources

End of Year Maintenance: 11 Ways to Update Your Online Presence

This week, I’ll post my updated suggestions for three holiday activities that will get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of teaching that starts after the New Year. Here’s what you’ll get (the links won’t be active until the post goes live):

For regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher, these are yearly reminders. For new readers, these are like body armor in the tech battle. They allow you to jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb. Your choice.

Today: 11 Ways to Update Your Online Presence

For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with lesson planning, teaching, meeting with grade-level teams, chatting with parents, attending conferences (to stay UTD), and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.

That includes your online presence and all those personal profiles. But, that must happen or they no longer accomplish what we need. If they aren’t updated, we are left wondering why our blog isn’t getting visitors, why our social media Tweeple don’t generate activity, and why you aren’t being contacted for networking. Here’s a short list of items that won’t take long to accomplish:

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Holiday Gifts for Teachers

Holiday gifts for teachers are a challenge. If your child has many teachers, it’s difficult to find a personalized gift for each that is both affordable and valued. For me, as a teacher, I am always happy with a gift certificate that works anywhere but there are time-proven ways to get more creative than a gift that sounds like “money”.

When I chat with teacher friends, here are the most popular gifts they’ve gotten over the years. Many are free and others allow you to spend only what you can afford while still giving a gift the teacher will love.

Most popular gifts

Let’s start by stipulating that what defines a great teacher gift is subjective. It depends upon the teacher’s subject, how long they’ve taught, their personal style, and so much more. The seven suggestions below provide ample ways to provide a gift your child’s teacher will love regardless of how well you know them.

A Helping Hand

Probably the most popular gift with most teachers is the gift of time. Sure, money is nice but when parents are willing to give of themselves to organize class events, chaperone, help out on lesson plans, or any number of other activities, that’s priceless. As a tech teacher, my ideal is to have two parents for every K-2 class I teach. That’s a lot of helpers and a huge commitment from parents. I rarely found that many so was thrilled whenever parents offered to assist.

Compliments to the Administration

Happy parents often forget to share their joy with the teachers’ administrators. Too often, Principals hear from parents only when they’re angry about the teacher or some class activity. Providing unsolicited good news about the teacher’s effectiveness is a wonderful treat for both the teacher and the school’s administrators.

A Thank You Letter

Handwrite a note to the teacher telling them how much you and your child appreciate what they do. There’s little more valuable to a teacher than the acknowledgment from stakeholders that what they work on nights and weekends is working.

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Did You Miss These in November?

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

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9 Good Collections of Videos for Education

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When I started teaching, videos were a rarity. Common practice was to assign a chapter to read in a textbook and then a worksheet to assess student knowledge. This placed the responsibility for learning on the students, using teacher-prescribed methods, even though decades of research screamed that lots of kids perform better with images than pages filled with black-and-white text. But the excuse I used, as did most of my colleagues, was: It takes too much time to find the right videos to support so many different personal demands.

Back then, that was true. It’s not anymore.

Now there are dozens of online free educational videos that address most every academic topic imaginable. And they’re put out by recognized names in education — Khan Academy, BBC, Microsoft, Teacher Tube, as well as textbook providers like Origo. Here are ten of my favorite virtual places to find clear, effective educational videos that not only support teaching but can be used to enrich lessons for students who want more and/or backfill for those who might need a bit more help:

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16 Back-to-School Articles

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On everything from get-to-know-you activities to getting yourself ready:

For the entire list, click this Back-to-School category tag.

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What You Might Have Missed in August

Here are the top five posts for the month of August:

Basics of internet safety
Why Kindergartners Must Learn Technology
Classroom tech resources
How Behaviorism can turn your classroom around
eSpark–Self-paced Learning for Math and Reading

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.

What You Might Have Missed in July

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

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What You Might Have Missed in June

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

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Last Chance for this College-credit Class 558

MTI 558: Teach Writing With Tech

Starts Monday, July 8, 2019! This is the last chance to sign up. Click this link; scroll down to MTI 558 and click for more information and to sign up.

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.

What You Get

5 weeks
3 college credits
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.

Course Objectives

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

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

Who Needs This

This course is designed for educators who:

are looking for new ways to help students unlock their inner writer
have tried traditional writing methods and need something else
need to differentiate for varied needs of their diverse student group
want to—once again—make writing fun for students

What Do You Need to Participate

Internet connection
Accounts for Canvas (free–you’ll get an invite to respond to)
Ready and eager to commit 5-10 hours per week for 5 weeks to learning tech
Risk-takers attitude, inquiry-driven mentality, passion to optimize learning and differentiate instruction

NOT Included:

Standard software assumed part of a typical ed tech set-up
Tech networking advice
Assistance setting up hardware, networks, infrastructure, servers, internet, headphones, microphones, phone connections, loading software (i.e., Office).

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Here’s a Preview of July

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

Curriculum-based Assessments–a Powerful Diagnostic Tool
Innovative Ways to Co-Author a Book
Great New Reading App: Word Zoo
Upcoming online college-credit classes
Constructivism and How it fits your class
Tech Tips You Can Use
Wonder Workshop–the Amazing Dash
How to Help Students Find Their Passion
Assessing Student Work with Student-led Conferences
Behaviorism and How it Can Turn Your Classroom Around

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 TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.