I’ve taught edtech for almost twenty years to a lot of different grade levels–elementary school, middle school, and educators. Teaching technology is as much about the tech skills as overcoming the dread associated with geeky subjects like computer, science, and math. I usually spend a good bit of time make it user friendly before I can even get into the what’s and how’s.

Turns out there’s a trick to teaching this subject. The Ask a Tech Teacher team put some ideas together for you below:

What Makes a Great EdTech Teacher?

Educational technology, or EdTech, is much more than a buzzword. It’s become a building block of modern classroom teaching. Blackboards and textbooks have been accompanied (or replaced) by things like digital whiteboards, learning apps, virtual reality, and AI tutoring tools. These advances continue to redefine how students engage with learning — but being a great EdTech teacher is about more than just introducing or using apps — it’s about understanding how students learn and how technology can supplement meaningful teaching.

So what makes a good EdTech teacher great? Here are a few key qualities to consider. (more…)

Here are the most-read posts for the month of October: (more…)

Here are the most-read posts for the month:

1. Be Featured on Ask a Tech Teacher
2. Here’s How to Get Started with Ask a Tech Teacher
3. #9: How to Look Like a Photoshop Pro–in Fifth Grade
4. 20+ Back To School Websites
5. Online Sites to Teach Mouse Skills
6. 50+ Websites on Keyboarding
7. The Quiet Power Of Puzzles In A Noisy Classroom
8. Should You Unschool?
9. Autumn Websites
10. Tech Ed Resources–Mentoring and Coaching

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up: (more…)

How AI is Giving Teachers Back Their Weekends: A Peek Inside the Classroom Revolution

In the whirlwind of a teacher’s day—juggling lesson tweaks, student IEPs, and that inevitable stack of assessments – it’s easy to feel like the weekend is just a myth. I remember my first year teaching middle school science in a diverse urban district. I’d spend Friday nights hunched over my laptop, piecing together slides from outdated textbooks, scrambling to adapt activities for English language learners, and crossing my fingers that the lesson would actually land with my mixed-ability class. It wasn’t just exhausting; it chipped away at the joy of why I got into teaching in the first place. Fast-forward to today, and tools like TeachAid are flipping that script, turning hours of drudgery into minutes of magic. If you’re a teacher staring down another unit plan, this is the friendly nudge you’ve been waiting for. (more…)

Here are the most-read posts for the month:

1. 10 Unexpected Truths About Teaching
2. Tech Ed Resources–Lesson Plans
3. 22 Ways Any Teacher Can (and Should) Use Technology
4. Fifth grade lesson plans in Photoshop (click on website  for these)
5. Gamification of Assessments: Fun or Flawed?
6. How to teach the hard to teach class — the video.
7. Tech Ed Resources for your Class–Digital Citizenship
8. 10 Ways to Become a Better Geek
9. Teacher-Authors–Long List of my Favorite Writing Websites
10. Windows Skills: Make Your Own Wallpaper

Here’s what’s coming up: (more…)

In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to daily tech-infused education.

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If you’re the tech teacher, this is a must. If you’re a classroom teacher trying to infuse your class with technology, here are ten steps to help you geek out:

Sign up for a new tip each week or buy the entire 169 Real-world Ways to Put Tech into Your Classroom.

What’s your favorite tech tip in your classroom? Share it in the comments below.

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The best rules for teaching aren’t found in a textbook, a teacher training class, or even the advice of older colleagues. It’s found inside of you, in your gut, your instinct, your intuition. Here are ten rules no one will teach you, but will get you through the darkest times in your teaching career:

1. I HODL which is nothing like Yodel. It’s an acronym for Hold On for Dear Life. If I hang a sign around my neck saying, I’m HODLing. Leave me alone, everyone knows to avoid me.
2. When coloring between the lines doesn’t work, I try a bigger paintbrush. What I mean is, when those multitudinous rules about genre writing bog my story down, it’s time to try breaking the rules.
3. If something that used to work no longer does, change it. My husband used to kill flies by snapping them with his fingers. Then he got old(er), tired of his miss rate, and switched to a dishrag.
4. Every once in a while, I sit in a hard chair and reflect. I don’t do this one often.
5. I pick carefully who I trust about my teaching. That’s also my attitude toward boneless fish.
6. For difficult days, I don my I Am a Teacher t-shirt, take half a baby aspirin, and howl at the detractors.
7. Don’t get tricked into measuring what you can’t define. Know the problem. Investigate solutions. Ask for help if necessary.
8. Take advantage of the most important of human freedoms: You have the ability to choose your attitude in a given set of circumstances. If others are frustrated, you can be positive, others angry, you can smile.
9. Figure out your North star and stick with it. It doesn’t move. Don’t pretend it does.
10. Help students see around corners.

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Here are the most-read posts last month

1. Need a New Job? Here’s What You Do
2. Photoshop Skills–Custom Shapes
3. Tech Tip #88: Use Shortkeys with Students
4. Tech Ed Resources–K-8 Keyboard Curriculum
5. Is Online Schooling a Good Fit for Teens?
6. USA Moon Landing July 20 1969
7. Photoshop for Fifth Graders–Change Backgrounds

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up (more…)

Here are the most-read posts for the month:

1. #4: Photoshop for Fifth Graders: The First Step is Word
2. World Environment Day: Living Responsibly with Nature
3. Online Summer Educational Activities
4. How to Inspire High School Students to Pursue a Career in Software Engineering
5. June is Internet Safety Month
6. K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum
7. Need Summer Activities? Try These
8. 7 tips for Netiquette
9. Preparing for the College Interview
10. Tech Ed Resources–K-12 Tech Curriculum

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up (we slow down in summer so you find less articles): (more…)

You’ve been teaching for five years and love what you’re doing. You consider yourself darn lucky to be working with colleagues that are friends and a boss who always puts your needs first. Most of the teachers at your school have been there years — even decades — and you have no doubt that, too, will be you. So, you don’t bother to keep your resume up-to-date or expand your teaching skills other than what is required for your position. In short, you found the square hole that fits your square peg.

Until the day that changes. There are dozens of reasons, from new bosses who want to shake things up to your husband gets a job in a different state. The only good news: Your boss told you already, giving you time to job hunt for the new school year. For many schools, if they’re going to make staffing changes, early Spring is when they start looking for the new people. For you as a job hunting educator, this becomes the best time of year to find a job.

Digital portfolio sites

Rather than a two-page printed document that can be lost and serves only one user, a digital portfolio posts your resume online, in an easy-to-understand format. This makes it more available, transparent, robust, and quickly updated. This tells future bosses you can use technology as a tool and can give you an edge in a competitive job market. It organizes your qualifications, evidence, and background in one easy-to-reach online location. Interested parties can check it without bothering you and decide if the fit is good. You do nothing — which can save the disappoint of sending out a resume and getting nothing but silence back.

Here are suggestions for digital portfolio sites:

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