Netherlands-based Digipuzzle is an online educational resource that offers hundreds of G-rated learning games for younger audiences, many in both Spanish and English.  Topics include math, animals, typing, geography, spelling, letter recognition, holidays, seasons, dinosaurs, USA, other games, and more.  Many of these are divided into subcategories — for example: Math includes games and counting, fractions, addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Digipuzzle even offers holiday games.  The site is easy to navigate, fun to use, and completely free. It is the labor of love from Marcel van de Wouw. It includes not only lots of themed puzzles, but Sudoku, line puzzles, search puzzles, dot-to-dot, tangrams, mosaics, and more.

You can use Digipuzzle on the web or as a mobile app.

Pros

Each game includes a sidebar with easy-to-understand icons that answer questions, access settings, and click you through available games.

Each game can be played at the level a student is comfortable — easy, normal, or hard — and can include audio or silent.

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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.

Today’s tip: #116–How to Take Screenshots

Category: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Sub-category: Keyboarding, PC, Mac, iPad, Chromebook

Here are the screenshot shortkeys for five platforms:

• Windows: a tool included in Windows called the Snipping Tool
• Chromebooks: Ctrl+Window Switcher key
• Mac: Command Shift 3 for a full screenshot; Command Shift 4 for a partial screenshot
• Surface tablet: hold down volume and Windowsbutton
• iPad: hold Home button and power button simultaneously

There are also screenshot programs you can download like Jing and Printkey (the latter uses your keyboard’s Print Scr key) or use from your browser (like Nimbus or Snagit). Each has a different selection of annotation tools. You may find this works better for your needs.

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The engine of learning is not always fueled by reading. In fact, knowledge is often acquired via audio, video, role-playing, and other approaches that address the varied learning styles of today’s students.

One communication method that has seriously grown up from even a generation ago is video. Where movies used to be considered babysitting — the activity of last resort for tired or unprepared teachers — that’s no longer true. Today, done well, they become real teaching tools that use optics to communicate ideas, unpack granular concepts,  and connect students to information.

For many teachers, though, there’s the rub: How do they use this tool to agilely and effectively deliver content? Let’s start with five clever video edit/format tools:

EdPuzzle

Edit, quizzify, and add your voice to any video. Pick a video, personalize it for your group, add your voice, and then track student understanding. You can even include quizzes.

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Here are some fun Valentine sites to fill those few minutes betwixt and between lessons, projects, bathroom breaks, lunch, and everything else:

• Dress up the heart
• ‘I love you’ in languages Afrikaans to Zulu
• Line up the hearts
• Valentine games and puzzles
• Valentine Day games and stories
• Valentine Day poem generator
• Valentine drag-and-drop
• Valentine match
• Valentine mouse skills

• Valentine projects from Winter Wonderland
• Valentine puppy jigsaw
• Valentine rebus game
• Valentine rebuses
• Valentine Sudoku
• Valentine tic-tac-toe
• Valentine typing
• Valentine unscramble
• Valentine’s Day apps
• Write in a heart

Do you have any I missed?

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One of my go-to sources for classroom speakers is Nepris. Not only do experts come to your class, but they interact with students and take their questions (see my review of Nepris). Here’s a great free event available for February’s Black History Month:

Meet an Expert on the History of African American Presidential Candidates

Students can meet and talk with an expert in American history during a free virtual chat on The History of African American Presidential Candidates hosted by Nepris on Friday, February 17 at 10:00 a.m. ET. Go to Nepris to sign up for free.

For 40 minutes, Matthew Drayton, a decorated combat veteran turned motivational speaker and author, will talk with students about prominent African Americans who have run for the nation’s highest executive office. Students will learn about history and politics and be able to ask questions.

Nepris brings this virtual chat and thousands of others to classrooms. Teachers can view archived sessions for free and participate in a limited number of free “industry offered” chats on topics from STEM to the Arts. Additional industry chats being offered include Drones and Facetime on March 16. Learn more at nepris.com/industry/talks.

More on virtual field trips:

16 Great Virtual Field Trips

9 Field Trips Free to Students

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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.

Today’s tip: #115–Three-click Rule

Category: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Sub-category: Teaching

Q: Some websites require so many clicks, I get lost. What’s with that?

A: I hadn’t put a lot of thought to this until I read a discussion on a teacher forum about the oft-followed 3-click rule made popular by Web designer Jeffrey Zeldman in his book, Taking Your Talent to the Web. This claims that no piece of content should ever be more than three clicks away from the main page.

This applies to teaching tech to students, also. During my fifteen years of teaching tech, I discovered if I keep the geeky stuff to a max of three steps, students remember it, embrace it, and use it. More than three steps, I hear the sound of eyes glazing over.

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Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

February 4th-13th:

20% discount on Early Bird sign-up for online professional development offered this summer:

20 Webtools in 20 Days

with coupon code SUBSCRIBERSPECIAL

What You Get With Enrollment

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Here’s a collection of Ask a Tech Teacher articles addressing individual Google Apps:

Google Docs

Google Drawings

Google Forms

Google Hangouts

Google Keep

Google Voice

This isn’t meant to be comprehensive. Yet. If your favorite Google App isn’t listed and you’d like me to review it, fill out the form below:

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Seven million students took the SAT test last year. While it traditionally is an assessment tool for college-bound seniors, more and more high schools are choosing it as an exit exam for graduating seniors (such as these changes in Ohio and the State of Washington). Driven in part by the educational imperative to minimize student testing, what better solution than a test already heavily vetted as being inclusive and cross-cultural that many students are familiar with.

In this article, I’ll focus on preparation for the SAT essay portion. General preparation hints include:

• practice good writing with every school essay students write
• use academic-specific vocabulary whenever possible
• take practice tests
• read a lot — and let that inform your writing

Here are three different approaches to preparing for the essay portion:

• Khan Academy — work on the students’ unique writing problems experienced in their PSAT or earlier SATs
• Revision Assistant — practice writing over a long term and receive targeted feedback to improve skill
• Mindsnacks SAT vocabulary — develop depth in academic vocabulary that improves not only student writing but their understanding of what they’re reading

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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.

Today’s tip: #80–17 Ways to Add Tech without Adding Time

Category: CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

Sub-category: Teaching, Writing

Let’s start with seven ways to blend technology into your everyday teaching:

1. Include digital ebooks in your class library.
2. Include online libraries with student resources.
3. Expect digital class presentations to include video, audio, music, or a mixture of digital tools.
4. Encourage students to tape class presentations to replay later and/or study from.
5. Allow students to join the class virtually–through Skype or Google Hangouts–in emergencies.
6. Make research tools like dictionaries and thesauri accessible from all digital devices.
7. Empower students to solve common tech problems.

Then, add these next ten to redefine your classroom:

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