Tips for Teachers to Balance Work and Life During the Busy Parent-Teacher Conference Season

The parent-teacher conference season often demands your full attention since you will have to create and update records as well as give specific feedback to every parent about their child. The workload during this season is often bulky, and one may not have adequate time to focus on personal commitments. It’s one of the reasons why some teachers advancing their studies choose to use dissertation writing services. These services help them free up time for personal engagements while ensuring they graduate.

During the busy parent-teacher conference season in the school calendar, teachers usually have to multitask. Thus, there is a need to create an exclusive schedule that covers your personal and work commitments specifically for this period. Here are some ways to balance your work and life during this busy period. (more…)

I get thousands of visitors a day–over six million since I started. The most common reason why you-all drop by is for resources. I have lots of them–lesson plans, tips and tricks–but one area I have not enough depth is the experiences of fellow teachers:

• your personal teaching experiences
• your informed take on tech ed topics
• Education pedagogy

If you’re interested in guest posting on this blog or start your own column, leave a comment below and I’ll be in touch. It’s a challenging time but one we-all can get through if we talk to each other.

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A lot of teacher-authors also read my WordDreams blog (for writers). In this column, I share the most popular post from the past month. 

AI in Writing

I use AI judiciously and never without adult supervision. It is efficient if well directed, provides good summaries of articles on a factual level, and is fast if I’m not looking for clever, creative, complex, or any sort of conscience. Accepting those limitations, I find it good for summaries of articles on my education blog and lists for just about anything. AI loves lists.

What AI can’t do is at the absolute core of fiction writing:

• provide personal experience
• act with any sort of moral compass
• make judgments
• bare its soul
• bleed on a page
• put the lion in a character’s heart
• sacrifice, say, the easy wrong for the hard right 
• choose the right attitude in a given set of circumstances
• find a North star
• put charisma in a story or character–or setting

As a result, I use it where it suits, avoid it where it fails. How about you?

Copyright ©2024 askatechteacher.com – All rights reserved.

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”

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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, 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.

In the past, I’ve gotten emails like this from teachers:

I am a tech teacher, going on my fifth year in the lab. Each year I plan to be more organized than the last, and most often I revert back to the “way things were.” I’m determined to run the lab just like I think it should be! … Could you please elaborate on how you run your class? I love the idea of having kids work independently, accomplishing to do lists, and working on different projects. You mention this in Volume I, but I want to hear more!

Currently, I see close to 700 students, grades 1-6. I want to break out of the routine (the “you listen, I speak, you do” routine), and your system seems like it would work well. Just hoping you can share some details.

I decided to jot down my typical (as if any planned lesson ever comes out the way it’s written–you know how that goes!) daily lesson. You can tweak it, depending upon the grade you teach. Here goes:

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:

• STEM Lesson Plans
• Coding Lesson Plans
• By Grade Level
• 30 K-5 Common Core-aligned lessons
• 110 lesson plans–integrate tech into different grades, subjects, by difficulty level, and call out higher-order thinking skills.
• singles–for as low as $.99 each. Genius Hour, Google Apps, Khan Academy, Robotics, STEM, Coding, and more.
• Holiday projects–16 lesson plans themed to holidays and keep students in the spirit while learning new tools.

Who needs this

These are for the teacher who knows what they want to teach, but need ideas on how to integrate tech. They are well-suited to classroom teachers as well as tech specialists.

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Hello! Ask a Tech Teacher is a group of tech ed professionals who work together to offer you tech tips, advice, pedagogic discussion, lesson plans, and anything else we can think of to help you integrate tech into your classroom. Our primary focus is to provide technology-in-education-related information for educators–teachers, administrators, homeschoolers, and parents.

Here’s how to get started on our blog (or click this link):

Read our varied columns

They include:

• Tech tips
• Dear Otto–questions from educators on tech questions
• Pedagogy that impacts tech in ed
• Reviews of books, apps, web tools, websites, tech ed products used in your classroom
• Subscriber Specials–monthly discounts (or FREE) on tech ed products
• Humorous life of a tech teacher

Read Hall of Fame articles

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Here are popular online resources to teach about digital storytelling (click here for updates to list):

1. Adobe Creative Cloud Express–digital stories that blend images and audio into a video
2. Adobe Voice–Show your story; free
3. Bluster–word matching game develops vocabulary and word understanding for school-aged children (app)
4. Book Creator
5. Book Writer--write books on an iPad; view in iBooks (fee) (app)
6. Comic Book!(app)
7. Create a story
8. Draw a Stickman–draw the main character of your story; the site turns it into a choose-your-own-adventure story, asking you to add detail. (app)
9. Newspapers, posters, comics—learn to create
10. Pixton–use their storytelling layout (picture at top, text at bottom)
11. Puppet Pals – Create simple animated stories with puppets and even yourself!
12. Shutterfly Photostory–self-published student books (app)
13. StoryBird—-storytelling with art–beautiful
14. Storyboard That–use their storytelling layout (picture at top, text at bottom)
15. StoryJumper–build a book
16. Sutori–use a variety of multimedia; fee/free accounts
17. VoiceThread (app)
18. Write About This–writing prompts for students (app)

Lesson Plans

1. Digital Quick Writes
2. Digital Quick Stories

Copyright ©2024 askatechteacher.com – All rights reserved.

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”

---

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, 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.

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: K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Overview

K-8 Digital Citizenship Curriculum—9 grade levels. 17 topics. 46 lessons. 46 projects. A year-long digital citizenship curriculum that covers everything you need to discuss on internet safety and efficiency, delivered in the time you have in the classroom.

Digital Citizenship–probably one of the most important topics students will learn between kindergarten and 8th and too often, teachers are thrown into it without a roadmap. This book is your guide to what children must know at what age to thrive in the community called the internet. It blends all pieces into a cohesive, effective student-directed cyber-learning experience that accomplishes ISTE’s general goals to:

• Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology
• Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity
• Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning
• Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship

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Creating and Using Curriculum Maps

This video is from a series I taught for school districts. It is now available for free, here on Ask a Tech Teacher:

Summary

Use technology for effective curriculum mapping in lesson planning, emphasizing its importance and ongoing updates.

Highlights

• 📚 Curriculum maps help organize teaching and enhance collaboration.
• 🔄 They are dynamic documents that require constant updates.
• 🗺️ A curriculum map serves as a guide for teachers and substitutes.
• 📅 It includes essential details like timelines, skills, and assessments.
• ✏️ Creating a curriculum map is a year-long process requiring collaboration.
• 💻 Technology tools can simplify the mapping process significantly.
• 🌱 A well-structured map evolves over time, improving lesson effectiveness.

Key Insights

• 📖 Curriculum Maps Enhance Clarity: They provide a structured overview of what is taught throughout the year, benefiting both teachers and students by clarifying expectations and content.
• 🤝 Collaboration is Key: Involving all teachers in the mapping process fosters teamwork and ensures that all perspectives are considered, leading to a more comprehensive educational approach.
• 🔄 Living Documents: Curriculum maps should be treated as evolving tools that adapt based on reflections and experiences from previous years, making them more effective over time.
• 📅 Planning with Purpose: Incorporating important dates and events into the curriculum maps allows teachers to create realistic and achievable goals for their lessons.
• 💻 Technology Integration: Using digital tools to create curriculum maps can streamline the process, allowing for better organization and easier sharing among educators.
• ⏳ Long-Term Investment: Developing a thorough curriculum map is a time-consuming process, but the long-term benefits for lesson planning and execution are invaluable.
• 🌟 Reflective Practice: Regularly reviewing and updating the curriculum map encourages reflective teaching practices, helping educators identify areas for improvement and celebrate successes.

–summarized by NoteGPT

Here are popular online audio resources (click for update to lists):

1. Audacity–free download for Windows, Macs, Linux
2. Audionote – Syncs audio with typed notes so you can hear what was said at any time (app)
3. AudioPal–records a message that is then embeddable into your website or blog
4. Audio Memos Free – The Voice Recorder (free with ads or $0.99 without ads) (app)
5. Beautiful Audio Recorder— record directly from your browser; pretty easy to use with some editing functions
6. DropVox (fee) (app)
7. HablaCloud–record directly from the browser using your Chromebook (must download the the ChromeMP3 Recorder); really simple
8. iTalk Recorder
9. MicNote–audio recorder and notepad; great for Chromebooks (app)
10. Online Voice Recorder–runs on Chromebooks, Macs, PC from your browser; few editing features
11. QuickVoice Recorder (free) (app)
12. SoundCloud–record and publish with Chromebooks using free accounts (app)
13. Soundtrap – the multi-platform, cloud based audio editor has a very decent iOS app.
14. SpeakPipe Voice Recorder–record directly from browser to your local machine, or on iPhone, iPad
15. TwistedWave–a browser-based audio file editor
16. Vocaroo–record yourself, intuitive even for youngers, embeddable; no log-in required
17. Voice Thread–Talk, type, and draw right on the screen (app)

Chromebooks–try these

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