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169 Real-World Ways to Put Tech into Your Class–NOW

In about a month, I’ll be starting a new series of tech tips. These will be from my upcoming ebook, 169 Real-World Ways to Put Tech Into Your Class Now (expected publication date: August 2016) where I provide 1) an overview of the tech topics most important to your teaching, and 2) practical strategies to address common classroom tech problems. Each tip is less than a page long–many only a third of a page. The goal: Give you the tech you need to know without a long learning curve. Topics include iPads, Chromebooks, assessment, differentiation, social media, security, writing, and more.

Note: This is the updated version of 98 Tech Tips so if you’re considering purchasing 98 Tech Tips, wait a few weeks until 169 Real-World Ways to Put Tech Into Your Class Now is available. Or, just read them here, on Ask a Tech Teacher, though it will take more than three years to get through all of them!

OK, I see all the hands. You want a preview. Here are the top three solutions to any tech problem you encounter in your classroom:

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Get Your Summer Started with Ask a Tech Teacher

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Read the most popular articles

Find favorite articles in one spot–the Ask a Tech Teacher Hall of Fame. These are the ones we heard about the most from you, were reposted and referenced, and had the biggest impact on your classrooms. It includes topics on classroom management, digital citizenship, the future of education, how technology blends into the classroom, and more.

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Turnitin Opens Nomnations for 2016 Global Innovation Awards

I’ve written about Turnitin’s great programs for classrooms (see this review on Revision Assistant). Their focus is always on how to help teachers and students, and now they’ve announced their Global Innovation Awards, a way you can honor teachers readers think demonstrate excellence in the field. Here’s their press release:

Turnitin has opened nominations for the 2016 Global Innovation Awards program, which recognizes educators who demonstrate excellence in promoting academic integrity, student engagement and the innovative use of Turnitin to support learning in their schools, colleges, and institutions. The Global Innovation Awards includes a category recognizing students demonstrating excellence in writing, improvement of their own skills or those of their peers, and the promotion of academic integrity at their school or institution.

Educators and administrators can nominate themselves or their peers, and students. The nomination process gives educators an opportunity to share lessons, classroom examples, instructional screenshots and videos. Award finalists and winners will receive recognition among the 1.6 million Turnitin educators, 30 million student users, and hundreds of thousands of followers of Turnitin.

“To be honored with a Turnitin Global Innovation Award has validated both my research and teaching practice,” said Dr. Zeenath Khan, assistant professor, University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE, a 2015 winner. “Motivating students to write and revise their work, and to understand the value of academic integrity, will help them throughout their academic and professional lives.”

Nominations for educators will be accepted until August 8, 2016 in three categories: overall innovation, academic integrity and student engagement. Winners and finalists in seven regions (Africa & Middle East, Asia, Australia & New Zealand, Europe, Latin America & Caribbean, United Kingdom, United States & Canada) will be selected after an interview and evaluation by an international panel of academic experts. Students will be evaluated on writing improvement and commitment to academic integrity. Winners will be announced in October 2016.

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Ten Tech Problem-Solving Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Here are the top ten problem-solving tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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Happy Memorial Day!

I’m taking the day to honor our soldiers. Hang the American flag and call my two soldier children. Say hi, how are you. When are you coming home to visit? (more…)

Thirteen Writing-with-Tech Tips You Don’t Want to Miss

Here are thirteen of the top writing-with-tech tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:

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Use the SAMR Model to Spearhead Technology in Your Classroom

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This is a question I get often from teachers: Technology is always an extra layer of work in my classroom. How can I blend it into what I already do without taking time I don’t have? When I first addressed this issue fifteen years ago, it was all about replacing traditional classroom tools with one on a computer. For example, book reports were typed on the computer instead of handwritten, or math facts were practiced with a math game instead of flash cards. But that quickly became cumbersome. Teachers didn’t know how to use the digital tools and there was never enough training to untip that balance. At the end of the day, paper-and-pencil was easier, faster, and perfectly understood. Soon, even the most stalwart tech-infused teachers discovered it was just as effective to use traditional tools and pull out the tech stuff for special occasions.

What happened? How did such a good idea go so wrong? The problem was four-fold:

students didn’t have the technology foundation to smoothly incorporate digital tools into projects. Too often, the effort to provide evidence of learning suffered as students (and teachers) became mired in efforts to get the technology to work. Where is the tool? How do you do **? Why is the program not working?
teachers didn’t have training in the tools. Even schools that made herculean efforts to train teachers in technology found themselves flailing. Even teachers who understood the tool would struggle with the inadequate infrastructure, the undependability of the technology itself, and the non-intuitive nature of so many of the programs they wanted to use. As a result, they used tools they understood rather than those best-suited for the project and learning.
projects always–really, always–took longer using technology than the traditional low-tech approach.
school infrastructure often struggled to support the exciting plans that tech-savvy teachers wanted to try. Computers froze or the network became over-burdened or the internet went down just as students required them the most. The money required to fix these problems was measured in the thousands of dollars–tens of thousands. Too many schools just didn’t have that budget.

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15 Memorial Day Websites for Students

Memorial Day is the time we remember all of those soldiers (and anyone in the Armed Forces) who gave their lives in the defense of American freedom. In war and peace, they made the ultimate sacrifice, and because of them we are privileged to live the American Dream.

Once a year, we honor them, their sacrifice, and those they left behind. Here are some activities to help students understand the import of this day:

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10 Things Students (and Teachers) Can Do With Buncee

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Buncee is a web- and iPad-based creation tool for both teachers and students. With it, teachers can prepare engaging lessons, newsletters, and how-tos. Students can write interactive digital stories, easy-to build presentations, and more. The drag-and-drop interface makes it simple to put exactly what you want where it fits. If you ever struggle with getting PowerPoint to do what you want, you won’t with Buncee. It’s intuitive, aligned with other programs you already know how to use, with virtually no learning curve.

Here’s how it works: You log into your account and set up your class. You can invite up to thirty students (no student email required) and then manage their activities, assignment responses, and classwork from the teacher dashboard. A project is built like a slideshow–add new slides that appear in the sidebar and build them out with a wide variety of searchable multimedia–Buncee artwork, stickers, photos, videos, freehand drawings, audio, text, animations, YouTube videos, and links. You can add images from the web, your computer, or your DropBox account. You can even record your own voice as an overlay (requires premium) for a how-to video or a digital storybook. Completed projects can be saved as jpgs or PDFs, and then shared via email, QR Code, social media, or embedded into blogs and websites.

Pros

I love that the site is easy enough for kindergartners, but sophisticated enough for teacher lesson planning. It’s the rare tool that blends simplicity with suave well enough that all stakeholders can feel proud of their work.

The site provides a library of prepared projects that teachers can use on everything from reading to math to science. Slide backgrounds include KWL charts, chalkboards, lined paper, calendars, desktop, outer space, and more. There are also a vast number of YouTube videos showing how to do many of the Buncee features (though most are simple enough, you won’t need the help).

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