Tag: lists

Here are the most-read posts for the month of January

1. Public Domain Day and Happy New Year!
2. How to Change the Dynamics of Peer-to-peer Learning with Tract
3. Top 10 Hits and Misses for 2021
4. Ready To Go Back To School? 7 Fun Lesson Ideas To Start The New Year
5. 4 (free) Posters About Reading
6. Practices of Tech-savvy Teachers
7. 23+ Websites on Animals
8. 5 YouTube Features for Teachers
9. Google Earth Lesson Plans
10. How Minecraft Teaches Reading, Writing and Problem Solving

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

• Groundhog Day
• World Read Aloud Day
• Simulations as a Teaching Strategy
• Grading Practices
• 3D Printing Websites
• Tech Tips
• Valentine’s Day Online Resources
• Free Posters
• The Metaverse and Education
• President’s Day Activities
• Teacher Training: Model Teaching
• Random Acts of Kindness Day
• Instagram: A Student Vehicle for Social Change

Here are a few of the popular resources teachers are using to teach about animals (click headings for more resources):

Animals

1. African animals–research site for these animals
2. Alphabetimals–learn the alphabet with animal sounds
3. Animals
4. Audobon Bird Guide: North America (app)
5. BrainPop Jr.
6. Herd Tracker–watch the great migrations of East Africa in real time
7. Plum’s Creaturizer--create new creatures; build a world around them (app)
8. Shape of Life–videos for download
9. Virry–animal cams (app)
10. Yellowstone animal migrations--video

Dinosaurs

Food Chain

1. Canadian Farm to Food
2. Food Chains

Games

1. Animal Games II
2. Animal Games III
3. Mystery Animal--using Google Home or online, guess the animal in 20 questions

Habitats

Life Cycle

1. 1. Cockroach Life Cycle and more

Click here for updates to this list.

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Because Ask a Tech Teacher is a resource blog, we share lots of tips our group comes across in their daily teaching as well as materials shared by others we think you’d like. Here’s a run-down on what you thought were the most valuable in 2021:

Top 10 Tech Tips

1. Tech Tip #34: My Program Froze
2. 12 Tips for Teaching Middle School Tech
3. Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem
4. Tech Tip #31: 10 Best Keyboarding Hints
5. Tech Tip #161: Ten Most Important Keyboard Keys
6. Tech Tip #103: 16 Spring Cleaning Steps for Computers
7. Tech Tip #9–Quickly Hide Your Screen
8. Two Tech Tips for Everyday Life
9. Tech Tip #105: Create Shortkeys for Windows Tools
10. Tech Tip #118–Top 10 iPad Shortkeys

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Since we at Ask a Tech Teacher started this blog thirteen years ago, we’ve had almost 5.6 million views from visitors, about 10,000 followers who have read some or all of our 2,731 articles on integrating technology into the classroom. This includes tech tips, website/app reviews, tech-in-ed pedagogy, how-tos, videos, and more. We have regular features like:

• Weekly Websites and Tech Tips (sign up for the newsletter)
• Edtech Reviews
• Lesson plans

If you’ve just arrived at Ask a Tech Teacher, start here.

It always surprises us what readers find to be the most and least provocative. The latter is as likely to be a post one of us on the crew put heart and soul into, sure we were sharing Very Important Information, as the former. Talk about humility.

Here they are–my top 10 hits of 2021 (though I’ve skipped any that have to do with website reviews and tech tips because they’re covered in separate posts):

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Need a few websites to fill in free minutes? Here are Holiday websites that will keep students busy while teaching them:

1. 12 Days of Christmas
2. Christmas Celebrations Across the World (video)
3. Christmas puzzles and games
4. Christmas—history—fun video
5. Christmas Traditions Around the World (video)
6. Gift Hunt–updated version of 12 Days of Christmas–just as much fun
7. Holiday Crossword
8. Holiday Elf Games
9. Holiday Hangman II
10. Holiday music II–sing along with the music–the site provides the words
11. Holiday—Math Facts
12. Holiday—North Pole Academy
13. Phone call from Santa
14. Santa Tracker

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Here are a few of the popular resources teachers are using to

1. Blendspace–if you create your lesson plans in BlendSpace, it includes opportunities to assess learning
2. Easy CBM
3. Educreations–video a whiteboard explanation of how students are completing a task (app)
4. Edulastic–formative assessments; work on any devices (app)
5. Flip — record a video question from your desktop; add attachments; students respond from the app with their answer and decorations; appears as a grid of answers to the question (app)
6. Flubaroo (app)
7. Gimkit–gamified assessment, like Kahoot; freemium
8. Go Formative (app)
9. Google Forms (app)
10. Kahoot–quiz-show-like format (app)
11. Nearpod–works on iOS and the web; free or fee; plan lessons and then assess; send an image and have students draw on the screen with their answers (app)
12. QR Stuff–send almost any type of file to a QR code–includes YouTube videos and audio files (create the QR online and scan with an app) (app)
13. Recap–create an account, sign students up, they log in and you’re ready for formative assessments (app)
14. Socrative (app)
15. Stick Around–turn questions into puzzles (app)
16. ThatQuiz.org

Click here for more

Click here for updates to this list.

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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. Check here for updates on links.

Mouse Skills

1. MiniMouse
2. Mouse and tech basics–video
3. Mouse practice—drag, click
4. Mouse skills
5. Mouse Song
6. OwlieBoo–mouse practice
7. Wack-a-gopher (no gophers hurt in this)

Puzzles

1. Digipuzzles–great puzzles for geography, nature, and holidays
2. Jigsaw Planet–create your own picture jigsaw
3. Jigsaw puzzles
4. Jigsaw Puzzles–JS

Adults

1. Mousing Around
2. Skillful Senior

Trackpad

Many of these are simply repurposing mouse skill sites to the trackpad. 

1. 1. Basics
   2. Practice
   3. Touchpad vs Mouse

Posters

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I keep a list of themed websites that are easy-in easy-out for students. They must be activities that can be accomplished enjoyably in less than ten minutes. In the parlance, these are called “sponges”. Here are 19 I think you’ll like:

Language Arts

• Contraction Games
• Contraction Crossword
• Contraction Practice
• Feast of Homonyms
• Grammar Gorillas
• Grammaropolis
• Plural Nouns
• Suffix Match

Math

• Math and Virtual Manipulatives
• Math—by Grade Level
• Math—game-oriented

Problem solving

1. The Crossing–attempts to cross a gorge; some fail; all result in success
2. Math Pickle–put student in a choatic situation and see how they solve the problem

Science

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Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 6th). It was originally organized to celebrate various labor associations’ strengths of and contributions to the United States economy. It is largely a day of rest in modern times. Many people mark Labor Day as the end of the summer season and a last chance to make trips or hold outdoor events.

Labor Day is a US holiday dedicated to workers across the country. The public holiday always falls on the first Monday in September. The first federal observation of the holiday occurred in 1894 however the first Labor Day observed in a state was in Oregon in 1887.

Here are websites to help students understand what Labor Day means to them:

1. History of Labor Day–Movie
2. Labor Day Facts for Kids
3. Labor Day for Kids: Read-aloud book
4. Labor Day’s Violent Beginnings
5. PBS Kids: Labor Day
6. Why Americans and Canadians Celebrate Labor Day–YT video

Teacher-Authors: Here’s a post from last year for you.

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Here are a few of the popular resources teachers are using to reinforce chemistry in MS and HS:

1. Beaker–a digital beaker app
2. Chemistry collection from Carnegie
3. ChemCapers
4. Chemistry instructional videos
5. ChemmyBear–resources for Chemistry and AP Chemistry classes
6. CK12 Chemistry simulations
7. Concord Consortium–chemistry, earth science, engineering, life science, physics
8. Crash Course: Chemistry (videos)
9. EMD PTE — periodic table
10. Interactive Periodic Table
11. Molecules–Molecules is an application for viewing three-dimensional renderings of molecules and manipulating them using your fingers.
12. NanoSpace Molecularium–virtual amusement park about atoms and molecules; from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
13. Periodic Table of Elements–interactive
14. Periodic Table videos 
15. PhET Simulations for chemistry and physics
16. Reactions–short videos on chemistry topics
17. Slow Motion Chemistry — videos on chemistry

Click here for updates to this list.

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