Tag: tech teacher

Teacher Appreciation Week: The First Full Week of May

There’s always been something mystically cerebral about people in technical professions like engineering, science, and mathematics. They talk animatedly about plate tectonics, debate the structure of atoms, even smile at the mention of calculus. The teaching profession has our own version of these nerdy individuals, called technology teachers. In your district, you may refer to them as IT specialists, Coordinators for Instructional Technology, Technology Facilitators, Curriculum Specialists, or something else that infers big brains, quick minds, and the ability to talk to digital devices. School lore probably says they can drop a pin through a straw without touching the sides.

When I started teaching K-8 technology, people like me were stuffed in a corner of the building where all other teachers could avoid us unless they had a computer emergency, pretending that what we did was for “some other educator in an alternate dimension”. Simply talking to us often made a colleague feel like a rock, only dumber. When my fellow teachers did seek me out — always to ask for help and rarely to request training — they’d come to my room, laptop in hand, and follow the noise of my fingers flying across the keyboard. It always amazed them I could make eye contact and say “Hi!” without stopping or slowing my typing.

That reticence to ask for help or request training changed about a decade ago when technology swept across the academic landscape like a firestorm:

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In about a month, I’ll be starting a new series of tech tips. These will be from my upcoming ebook, 169 Real-World Ways to Put Tech Into Your Class Now (expected publication date: August 2016) where I provide 1) an overview of the tech topics most important to your teaching, and 2) practical strategies to address common classroom tech problems. Each tip is less than a page long–many only a third of a page. The goal: Give you the tech you need to know without a long learning curve. Topics include iPads, Chromebooks, assessment, differentiation, social media, security, writing, and more.

Note: This is the updated version of 98 Tech Tips so if you’re considering purchasing 98 Tech Tips, wait a few weeks until 169 Real-World Ways to Put Tech Into Your Class Now is available. Or, just read them here, on Ask a Tech Teacher, though it will take more than three years to get through all of them!

OK, I see all the hands. You want a preview. Here are the top three solutions to any tech problem you encounter in your classroom:

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School’s been out for at least a few weeks and I just finished up three online classes that started in June. Next week, I’ll feel like I have an endless span of hours to do all the activities that got sidelined by grading,  projects, training, and general ‘school’ stuff. Once I get through reading until I’m bored (or  I run out of food) and straightening up the house (I won’t get carried away), I’ll start on the meat of my summer activities. Truth, that list is more of an overstuffed file cabinet than a carefully-constructed To Do page, but here’s what it looks like:

1. Finish a tech thriller I’ve been working on this for four years. I’m 99% there (10% to go). Of course, it has lots of cutting edge technology and a quirky AI named Otto (a palindrome). If you follow my blog, you know this is on my list every summer, as predictable as the Golf Channel. This time, I’m doing it!
   
2. Under the file folder, “The world doesn’t change in front of your eyes; it changes behind your back,” I realize a few tech trends are passing me by. This includes 3D printing, Maker Spaces, and Google Classroom for starters. They are seeping into tech conversations regularly on my social media and there’s little I can contribute other than questions. I need to fix that this summer. Any suggestions?
3. Learn a new tech tool every week. This also I do every summer. I’ll share a video, a project, and academic tie-in each week.
4. Get back to my inquisitive, curious roots. I used to spend hours figuring out how to solve problems, find solutions, determine what made something tick. Now, I’m too busy. I can feel the rift in my spirit, my sapped energy, my fuzzy brain. This summer, I’m getting back to that. Here’s my promise:

When I see something techie I don’t understand, I’ll ask:

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I love summer. I sit at home, reading, researching, chatting with friends. I make my own schedule, own my own time, start and finish a project without interruptions.

That is a massive high to me.

Why? I’m a tech teacher. That is like a geek+. I teach–yes–but I’m also the first line of defense (sometimes offense) for colleagues as they struggle to use the digital devices populating their classrooms. From the moment I step foot on campus, life spins out of my control. Here’s a typical day–does it sound familiar:

6:45    arrive at school

6:47    a student enters to use lab

6:48   I greet student with a friendly hi and begin work on a lesson plan

6:49    Student asks for help

7:00   Student finishes and leaves; I return to my lesson plan

7:02   Frantic teacher calls–her computer won’t boot up. She came in early to work and now what’s she supposed to do can I come right away?

7:03   I arrive in teacher classroom to help

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I get lots of questions on how to deliver a tech class. What’s included? How do teachers blend it with other learning? How do you answer all the student questions?

Here’s a video with the answers to those questions and more. I’d love to hear how your tech class runs–add a comment at the bottom:

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Last week, I shared ideas on how to set up your tech classroom. Today, I want to share a video:

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I’m reposting this for the start of a new school year–as a reminder to all my fellow tech teachers. Go geeks!

If you teach technology, you want to set the lab up so it’s inviting, non-intimidating, but doesn’t hide from the core ‘geek’ theme. In fact, from day one, exclaim that fact, be proud of your nerd roots. Even if you didn’t start out that way–say, you used to be a first grade teacher and suddenly your Admin in their infinite wisdom, moved you to the tech lab–you became a geek. You morphed into the go-to person for tech problems, computer quirks, crashes, and freezes. Your colleagues assumed you received an upload of data that allowed you to Know the answers to their every techie question. You are on a pedestal, their necks craned upward as they ask you, How do I get the Smartscreen to work? or We need the microphones working for a lesson I’m starting in three minutes. Can you please-please-please fix them?

As you organize your classroom, celebrate your geekiness. Flaunt it for students and colleagues. Play Minecraft. Use every new techie device you can get your hands on. That’s you now–you are sharp, quick-thinking. You tingle when you see an iPad. You wear a flash drive like jewelry. When your students walk into your class, they should start quivering with the excitement of, What new stuff will we experience today?

Here’s a summary of what happens your first day with a class. From this, you’ll figure out how to set up your classroom (no owl themes here. It’s all about bits and bytes):

• Introduce yourself—establish your bona fides. Share your blog, your background, your awards. Give them website addresses or post them to the class internet start page. You want to be easy to find.
• Tour the classroom with students. I walk K-2 around—they like getting out of their seats. Demystify any of the tech tools you will expect them to use—where they can get help in solving problems, what’s on the walls, where’s the printer/scanner/iPads/etc.

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Are you applying to be a tech teacher–wondering whether you know enough or have what it takes? Is it making your stomach churn and your head throb?

I understand–I went through that when I applied. I’ve learned a lot since then and I want to share some tips that will help you with what could be a life-changing conversation.

Before I get into the tips, I want you to remember: Your students will know less than you. You’ll start the year with tech training that provides students with tools for learning, that integrates into the school curriculum. If you are learning these the day before so you can teach them–you will know more. Your adult brain will absorb, sort, problem-solve, connect the dots, develop relationships much faster than the students who sit in your classroom. There are so many tech tools out there, many (many) teachers stay just a step ahead of their students, relying on their ability to see patterns based on the transfer of knowledge from prior learning. Every year after the first, you’ll adapt to what students know–go faster or slower. You will learn along with the students.

Here’s what you do for the interview:

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This is inspired by Jennifer Cohen over at Forbes who wrote a wonderful article on “5 Things Super Successful People Do Before 8am” (few of which I do, though I can claim #5). She includes chores like exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, map out the day–all great ideas, but not pithy enough for the average teacher I know.

Here’s my list of what the average teacher accomplishes before her first class of children crosses the threshold of her domain. These are gathered from chatting with friends and efriends on how they start their days:

1. Research the answers to sixteen ‘why’ questions students asked during yesterday’s classes.
2. Figure out how to run that dang iPad app students want to use.
3. Wash Superman (or woman) cape.
4. Close eyes for three seconds to invoke the memory of Emma [replace ‘Emma’ with the name of the Poster Child for why you’re a teacher].
5. Accomplish the equivalent of stuffing twenty people in a phone booth–which means find son/daughter’s lost iPad which must be brought to school every day, get kids off to school with packed lunches and completed homework, arrange household repairs, sort dog and husband/wife, talk significant other down from an emotional cliff, and figure out how to make coffee by pouring hot water through yesterday’s grounds (oops–forgot to buy coffee).
6. Eat breakfast–real food, not leftovers or peanut butter from sandwiches.
7. Move what wasn’t accomplished yesterday to today’s To Do list, which is most everything.
8. Promise that today, unlike yesterday and the day before, and the day before that, you won’t say D*** five times before the first class arrives. Set a goal of only four times.
9. Do emergency morning yard duty instead of the project set up you’d planned to do this morning—and the reason you came in early.
10. While doing emergency morning yard duty, imitate someone being patient rather than someone chewing on their last nerve.
11. Keep an open mind to all nature of miracles, no matter the shape or size.
12. Answer parent email and voicemail from the prior day because you promised the Principal you would–again.
13. Paste on your Reasonable face when a parent drops in for an impromptu conference, shoehorned in after s/he dropped off her/his child and before the 8am start-of-day. Stow the one that says, ‘Leave me alone’.
14. Take a nap, especially if you’ve been up most of the night grading papers or preparing lesson plans.
15. Smile at the parent who always talks with that irritating tone reserved for women they consider delicate.
16. Solve the education problems of the world.
17. As Paul Harvey said in Broadcast, “In times like these, it is good to remember that there have always been times like these”.
18. Remember that–as Edwin Louis Cole once said, you don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

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When you accepted the job to be your school’s tech teacher, you were probably excited, visions of cutting edge equipment at your disposal, training in the latest Google Apps, and a chance to collaborate with colleagues on extending the reach of education.

Well, maybe that happened, but so did a whole lot more. I sat down with about twenty of my ecolleagues over a virtual cuppa and asked them, really, what do they do all day? The answers may surprise you:

• teach classes, anywhere from 22-35 a week (that’s right–35. I offer up a little prayer for that colleague every morning), 30-45 minutes per class.
• grade assignments
• run the school’s tech-based programs (i.e., report cards, grade books, Everyday Math Online, Type to Learn 4 Online, Fountas and Pinnell, the online writing program)
• set up online accounts for teachers (on websites like KidBlogs, wikis, Google Apps, online tools)
• try–and fail–to get teachers to troubleshoot their own problems
• help faculty teach tech in their classes (because they don’t quite understand the geeky stuff)
• help faculty write lesson plans that integrate tech
• troubleshoot tech problems for teachers: tech teachers are the first stop with tech problems. It may start with fellow teachers running into the tech teacher’s class–even if s/he has students–and begging for help. If they can’t solve it (after they’ve spent an unspecified amount of time trying), it gets bumped up.

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