Subscriber Special: 25 Digital Tools for Your Class

Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching.

January 8th-11th

the 53-page PDF, “25 Digital Tools for the Classroom”

for free!

“25 Digital Tools for the Classroom” is a thorough discussion on which are the most useful tools in a K-8 classroom. This includes popular digital tools such as blogs, backchannel devices, vocabulary decoding tools, avatars, digital portfolios, digital notetaking, as well as others you may not have thought of. Here’s what you do:

  • Sign up for our newsletter, Weekly Websites, Tech Tips, and Tech Ed News. If you already subscribe, qualify by purchasing one of our resources on the Structured Learning website. Any product, any price qualifies.
  • Email us the welcome message or receipt you receive (we’re at askatechteacher at gmail dot com). Make the subject line read, “Please send free ’25 Digital Tools for the Classroom'”.
  • We’ll send you the collection.
  • If the newsletter doesn’t work for you, there’s an ‘unsubscribe’ at the bottom of each email.

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Happy New Year! And Public Domain Day

Also on January 1st: It’s Public Domain Day! Every year, January 1st is Public Domain Day. This is an observance of when copyrights expire and works enter into the public domain–free for all to use. According to Public Domain Review, here are some of the newly-available artistic works you might like a/o January 1, 2025:

The picture above is interactive on the website. If you click it, you enter Public Domain Review’s website and can then explore each of these new sources of inspiration, free to use.

A few recently released that caught my attention:

[gallery type="slideshow" size="large" ids="70637,70639,70638,70632,70631,70635,70636,70634,70633"]
Copyright ©2025 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, 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.

New Year, New Mindset

Here’s the outline for a seminar I teach in schools before the holiday break, to excite teachers about what they can accomplish “the second half” of the school year:

Every year, I make New Year resolutions and ignore them. I don’t promise to fulfill them. I don’t even check my progress and revise as needed. I make-and-forget, check it off the New Year’s To Do list and move on.

This year, I’m trying something different: resolutions that aren’t quantified, that won’t take extra time from my too-busy schedule. Resolutions that are, instead, about my teaching mindset. Here’s my list:

I will learn one new tech tool a month

There are so many. I get massive lists of webtools, websites, apps, extensions, and links in my inbox, mostly proclaimed as “the tool I can’t do without”. Every month, I’ll pick one and try it.

Just to be clear: Today’s tech ed tools aren’t like they used to be. The ones I’m interested in are easy-to-use, intuitive, easily differentiated for varied student needs, and free or inexpensive. Anything that requires a time commitment to learn and buckets of creativity to use is off the list. My schedule is too packed for that sort of commitment. And, I’ll unpack them with the students, authentically, as part of a project we do.

To get me started, add a comment with your favorite tool — the one I should start in January.

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A Shout Out for My Donate Button

Ask a Tech Teacher is a small group of tech-ed teachers with a big goal: provide free and affordable resources and insight to anyone, anywhere on how to integrate technology into education. It’s an ambitious goal and we rely on donations from readers like you to make that happen.

About this time of each year, when several of our larger bills come due, we give a shout out for help. This year, we thought we’d share some of the costs of running Ask a Tech Teacher:

  • Site hosting–we use GoDaddy–an excellent company that keeps the site up and running over 99% of the time.
  • Domain name hosting--for that, we also use GoDaddy. They always take my calls, walk us through how to fix problems in terms we understand. we’re teachers, not network geeks, but they don’t hold that against us.
  • Legal images–to avoid problems with illegal images, we buy ours through a service.
  • Constant and chronic techie problems–such as IPNs and plug-in updates and so much more. Again, we’re teachers. This double geek stuff makes our heads hurt. We have a monthly maintenance service for that who can solve 99% of the problems we face.
  • Plan B–problem solvers for techie stuff beyond the monthly stuff, including hardware issues
  • The geeky tools and programs that deliver content–like the apps we review and the programs we use for webinars.

We could sell ads (like Google does), but clutter on the pages distracts readers from why they arrive at our destination–to search out resources for your classroom. We rely on donations. Any amount you can contribute–$5… $10… using the PayPal Donate button below or in the sidebar, would be appreciated.

BTW, we love sponsors!  If you’re an edtech company interested in helping spread Ask a Tech Teacher resources to everyone, contact us at [email protected]. We can add you to the sidebar, review your product, or another sponsor sort of activity.

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Holiday Gifts for Teachers

Holiday gifts for teachers are a challenge. If your child has many teachers, it’s difficult to find a personalized gift for each that is both affordable and valued. For me, as a teacher, I am always happy with a gift certificate that works anywhere but there are time-proven gifts that don’t sound sounds like “money”.

Most popular gifts

When I chat with teacher friends, here are the most popular gifts they’ve gotten over the years. Many are free and others allow you to spend only what you can afford while still giving a gift the teacher will love.

Compliments to the Administration

Happy parents often forget to share their joy with the teachers’ administrators. Too often, Principals hear from parents only when they’re angry about the teacher or some class activity. Providing unsolicited good news about the teacher’s effectiveness is a wonderful treat for both the teacher and the school’s administrators.

A Thank You Letter

Handwrite a note to the teacher telling them how much you and your child appreciate what they do. There’s little more valuable to a teacher than the acknowledgment from stakeholders that their efforts are appreciated.

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