This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll swear to accomplish in New Year resolutions. Here’s what you’ll get:

1. 12 Ways to Update Your Online Presence
2. 8+ Ways to a Speedier Computer 

Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know these are updated each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb. If you’re a teacher-author and read WordDreams, these are also posted there with some adaptations to writers.

8+ Ways to a Speedier Computer

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This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll accomplish in the New Year. Here’s what you’ll get (links won’t be active until the post goes live):

1. 12 Ways to Update Your Online Presence— December 4th (today)
2. 8+ Ways to a Speedier Computer — December 5th 

Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know I update these each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb. If you also read WordDreams, these are also posted there with some adaptations to writers.

Today: 12 Ways to Update Your Online Presence

For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with students, parents, meetings, grades, reports, reviews, and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.

That includes our online presence. But, if they aren’t updated, we are left wondering why our blog doesn’t attract visitors, why our social media Tweeple don’t generate activity, and why we aren’t being contacted for networking. Here’s a short list that won’t take long to accomplish. The ones from last year, consider a reminder!

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

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

1. Websites that Explain Elections
2. Subscriber Special: November Holiday Project Book (still going ond)
3. National STEM Day Nov. 8th
4. Geography Awareness Week November 17-21
5. A Day to Remember Veterans
6. How to Graph in Excel
7. Create a Timecard in a Spreadsheet for Grade Two+
8. 8 Tips to Teach Tomorrow’s Students
9. Thanksgiving Activities That Keep You in Charge of Learning
10. What Makes a Great EdTech Teacher?

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up in December:

It’s a short month because we’re dark for the second half, to prepare for the new year:

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I wish all of my American friends and efriends a wonderful Thanksgiving Break. Enjoy your family and friends, take time to rest.

I’ll be around only in a limited way until December 1. Then, I’ll be back fulltime.

–image credit Deposit Photos

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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…)

Teaching the days before big holidays is challenging. Students and teachers alike are ready for a break. Both struggle to pay attention regardless of how innovative and engaging are the lesson plans.

I’ve been there often. As a result, I’ve come up with fun ways to support learning while students power through the last few days of school. Here are seven I use during the pre-Thanksgiving season:

• ASCII Art
• Comics
• Holiday Widget
• Team Challenge
• Thanksgiving Poll
• Thinking Games
• Themed

ASCII Art

Time required: Less than one class

ASCII Art is the graphic design technique of creating images by typing the letters, numbers, and symbols defined by ASCII Standards. Holiday examples include this Thanksgiving pumpkin and these holiday bells. Here’s how you do it:

1. Open your word processing program (MS Word, Google Docs, or another).
2. Add a watermark of a picture you’d like to use, preferably a single image rather than one that includes a background. Silhouettes are perfect for this sort of project.
3. Type over the image with the letters, symbols, and numbers that best fit the outline. It’s fine to use one letter throughout (like an X).
4. Add color by highlighting the letters, numbers, and symbols typed over the parts you’d like colored (such as the stem of a pumpkin or the bow on Christmas bells in the linked samples above).
5. When you’ve covered the image with characters, delete the watermark. That leaves just your typing.
6. Save, print, share, publish as is customary in your classes.

Tie-ins: Use this not only for holidays but any academic class by creating an artistic image of the topic being discussed. This is also a fun and authentic way for students to practice keyboarding.

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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: 8 Tips to Teach Tomorrow’s Students

Tomorrow’s student is no longer a passive observer of his/her educational journey, expecting a teacher to impart knowledge that will shape his/her future. Tomorrow’s student takes charge of their learning, sifts through available options and selects what works for them, spirals up or down when required, asks for scaffolding when it’s lacking, accepts accountability for their progress as a stakeholder in the process, adapts to change as needed. They look for rigor in their learning environment and rise to the challenge when required.

Here’s a poster with 8 unique tips for teaching tomorrow’s students:

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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One of the most popular applications of math is through spreadsheets (like Excel) that make those numbers relevant to everyday life. We’re going to provide a series of lessons on spreadsheet basics you can use in your K-8 classroom. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

1. #74: Mastering Excel (for Beginners)
2. #71: Beginning Graphs in MS Excel
3. #70: Create a Timecard in Excel for Grade Two and Up
4. #73: How to Graph in Excel
5. #12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel
6. #75: Tessellations in Excel
7. #72: How to Check Your Math in Excel
8. How to Use Excel to Teach Math Arrays
9. #62: Email from Word (Or PowerPoint or Excel)
10. #79: Excel Turns Data Into Information

Today

Create a Timecard in Excel for Grade Two and Up

If you don’t use Excel in your classroom, adapt these steps to whichever spreadsheet program you use (more…)

One of the most popular applications of math is through spreadsheets (like Excel) that make those numbers relevant to everyday life. We’re going to provide a series of lessons on spreadsheet basics you can use in your K-8 classroom. Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:

1. #74: Mastering Excel (for Beginners)
2. #71: Beginning Graphs in MS Excel
3. #70: Create a Timecard in Excel for Grade Two and Up
4. #73: How to Graph in Excel
5. #12: Create Simple Shapes in Excel
6. #75: Tessellations in Excel
7. #72: How to Check Your Math in Excel
8. How to Use Excel to Teach Math Arrays
9. #62: Email from Word (Or PowerPoint or Excel)
10. #79: Excel Turns Data Into Information

–from 55 Technology Projects for the Digital Classroom. 

–5 bundled Excel lesson plans (for a fee)

Today

#73: How to Graph in Excel

Adapt this for your spreadsheet program if you don’t use Excel

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