Tag: lists
Keyboarding 101
When students — and adults — think of learning to keyboard, it usually generates images of rote drills where you sweat over a keyboard as you’re graded on speed and accuracy.
Trying to change that image is what has driven many teachers to online sites but these too often teach in an automated, undifferentiated way — logon, do exercises, repeat — that bores some and doesn’t work for others.
The feedback I often get on these sorts of sites is that students do improve speed and accuracy but only on the site. When they apply the knowledge to authentic situations (like typing a book report or an essay), students return to hunt-and-peck, watching their hands, and hating what they’re doing.
There’s a better way to learn keyboarding: Blended Learning. When I teach keyboarding, I use a variety of approaches, none too long and never too much, so each remains fresh and challenging rather than boring and repetitive. Here are some of the methods I mix up in my classes:
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18 Thanksgiving Sites and Apps and 4 Projects for the Holiday
Need a few websites and apps to fill in sponge time? Here are Thanksgiving websites that will keep students busy and still teach them:
- Canadian Thanksgiving
- Online/Offline Thanksgiving activities
- Plimoth Plantation–a field trip of a Pilgrim’s life. Included on this real-life site is a video of the Pilgrim’s crossing to the New World.
- Starfall–Silly Turkey
- Thanksgiving edu-websites–CybraryMan
- Thanksgiving Games
- Thanksgiving games and puzzles
- Thanksgiving games–Quia
- Thanksgiving information–history, more
- Thanksgiving Jigsaw
- Thanksgiving Jigsaw II
- Thanksgiving Lesson Plans
- Thanksgiving Tic-tac-toe
- Thanksgiving video–Brainpop
- Thanksgiving Wordsearch
- The First Thanksgiving
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169 Tech Tip #98: 13 Tips for Email Etiquette
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: #98–13 Tips for Email Etiquette
Category: Email
Sub-category: Assessment
Here’s a poster with 13 email etiquette tips to share with new users:
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Great list of Top Education Blogs
10Greatest.com has a comprehensive list of the top education blogs. It covers everything from grade-level resources to topic-specific. I’m proud to say that Ask a Tech Teacher is the first blog on the list–but we have a lot of august company, everything from Richard Byrne to Alice Keeler.
Here are a few:
ASK A TEACHER
LEARN LEAD GROW
COOL CAT
PBS PARENTS
LARRY FERLAZZO’S ENGAGING PARENTS IN SCHOOL
ED TECH FOR BEGINNERS
CAITLIN TUCKER
TEACHER TECH WITH ALICE KEELER
SCHOLASTIC
FREETECH4TEACHERS
PARENT CUE
THE EDUCATOR
If you’re wondering who to follow to be sure you are up to date on the latest in education, definitely check this list.
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19 Websites and 3 Posters to Teach Mouse Skills
Many of my most popular articles are about mouse skills. Every year, tens of thousands of teachers visit Ask a Tech Teacher to find resources for teaching students how to use a mouse. No surprise because using a mouse correctly is one of the most important pre-keyboarding skills. Holding it is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.
The earlier posts are still active, but I’ve updated this resource with more websites and posters to assist in starting off your newest computer aficionados.
Mouse Skills![mouse skills](https://askatechteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/kozzi-6116833-Cute_Cartoon_Rat-1870x2031-276x300.jpg)
- Bees and Honey
- Drawing Melody–draw in many colors with the mouse and create music
- Hover skills–drag mouse over the happy face and see it move
- Left-click practice while playing the piano
- MiniMouse
- Mouse and tech basics–video
- Mouse practice—drag, click
- Mouse skills
- Mouse Song
- Mr. Picasso Head
-
OwlieBoo–mouse practice
Puzzles
Kids love puzzles and they are a great way to teach drag-and-drop skills with the mouse buttons. Here are some of my favorites:
- Digipuzzles–great puzzles for geography, nature, and holidays
- Jigsaw Planet–create your own picture jigsaw
- Jigsaw puzzles
- Jigzone–puzzles
- Jigsaw Puzzles–JS
Adults
Posters
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169 Tech Tip #126: 7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech
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: #126–7 Tips to Differentiate with Tech
Category: Differentiation
Sub-category: Teaching, Pedagogy
Here are seven ways to differentiate instruction every day:
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13 Websites That Provide Lots of Digital Books for Summer Reading
At the beginning of the 21st century, the definition of digital equity revolved around the provision of a digital device to every student. Usually, that meant desktop computers, iPads, and laptops, either in small groups or 1:1. As digital equity discussions matured and hyperbole became reality, educators found that those loudly-touted digital devices often became paperweights. The reasons were varied (teacher training, infrastructure, and professional support to name a few), but one of the most prominent was money. Good intentions to give all students access to the world’s knowledge were derailed by the cost of the websites and webtools that made that happen. Turns out — and not really a surprise — the cost of the digital devices was minor compared to the cost of the websites and webtools required to meet goals.
There is one bright spot in this story: Online books. Thanks to the efforts of many devoted professionals and the financial support of more, there are a wide variety of free/inexpensive sources for books that students can use for classroom activities as well as pleasure.
FREE
Here are eight sites that offer free books for kids to adults:
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11 Classroom Blogging Tips You Don’t Want to Miss
Here are eleven of the top classroom blogging tips according to Ask a Tech Teacher readers:
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- Can We Eliminate Blogs–Teachers Hate Them!
- 6 Tips I Wish I’d Known When I Started Blogging
- 3 Problems to Address Before Blogging at Your School
- 7–no 10, wait 12–OK, 13 Skills I Teach With Blogging
- Once a Year Blog Maintenance–Are You Up to Date?
- 5 Great Tech Ed Blogs You May Not Have Heard Of
- What Are Good Guidelines for Younger Bloggers?
- Internet Skills for K-8: Blogs
- How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers
- What’s it Like to Be a Blogger?
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19 Ways Students Keep Learning Fresh Over the Summer
Teachers have known for decades that ‘summer learning loss’ is a reality. Studies vary on how much knowledge students lose during the summer months–some say up to two months of reading and math skills–and results are heavily-dependent upon demographics, but the loss is real.
To prevent this, teachers try approaches such as summer book reports, but students complain they intrude on their summer time. When teachers make it optional, many don’t participate. The disconnect they’re seeing is that students consider these activities as ‘school’ rather than ‘life’. They haven’t bought into the reality that they are life-long learners, that learning is not something to be turned on in the schoolhouse and off on the playyard.
This summer, show students how learning is fun, worthy, and part of their world whether they’re at a friend’s house or the water park. Here are nineteen suggestions students will enjoy:
Math
- Youngers: Take a picture of making change at the store. Share it in a teacher-provided summer activity folder (this should be quick to use, maybe through Google Drive if students have access to that). Kids will love having a valid reason to use Mom’s smartphone camera.
- Any age: Take a picture of tessellations found in nature (like a beehive or a pineapple). Kids will be amazed at how many they find and will enjoy using the camera phone. Once kids have collected several, upload them to a program like Shadow Puppets where they can record audio notes over the picture and share with friends.
- Any age: Pit your math and technology skills against your child’s in an online math-based car race game like Grand Prix Multiplication. They’ll know more about using the program and will probably win–even if you do the math faster. You might even have siblings compete.
- Grades 2-5: Set up a summer lemonade stand. Kids learn to measure ingredients, make change, listen to potential customers, and problem-solve. If you can’t put one up on your street, use a virtual lemonade stand.
- Any age: If your child wants to go somewhere, have them find the location, the best route, participation details, and other relevant information. Use free online resources like Google Maps and learn skills that will be relevant to class field trips they’ll take next year.
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15 Memorial Day Websites for Students
Memorial Day (May 29, 2017) 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:
- Folding the American flag
- In Flanders Field--poem
- Memorial Day Messages, Speeches, Oaths, Poems, Anthems, and images
- Memorial Day Poems
- Memorial Day Poetry–poems
- Memorial Day Prayer
- Memorial Day puzzle I
- Memorial Day Puzzle II
- Memorial Day DigitPuzzle
- Memorial Day Quiz
- Memorial Day Word Search
- Primary source recollections of War
- Quotes about Memorial Day/Wars
- Remember our Warriors
- Who you are remembering–Americans killed in action