Tag: tech teacher

UPDATE

Are you going on road trips? Are you playing with your children, seeing friends you forgot existed, or engaging in retail therapy?

If I have time in between what I HAVE to do, I’ll join you. It might be a virtual trip, but we’ll make it happen.

Here’s what’s on my plate (so far) this summer of 2012:

1. Attending ISTE 2012. It’s in my backyard this summer–San Diego.
   
2. Attending training my school signed me up for on UbD, our new grading program (forgot the name), and robotics. One of the training sessions comes with a free lunch.
   
3. Editing a K-6 technology curriculum and a keyboard book for Structured Learning (a great publisher of edtech resources for the classroom)
4. Working on a tech thriller I hope to finish and get off to publishers. Of course it has lots of cutting edge technology in it and a quirky AI named Otto.
   
5. Picking the brains of my two children. One works in cybercom for the Navy; the other the Signal Corps for the Army. Most of the stuff they can’t tell me, but I love hearing what they can.
6. Working with tech teachers at my local school district on a technology curriculum for their K-6 classes.
7. Presenting at several schools on tech ed topics. If you’re interested in working with me on that, please contact me at this link.
8. Consulting with a Denver school district online to train their new tech teachers in what to teach in their computer labs next year.
9. Getting 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:

For the next six weeks, when I see something techie I don’t understand, I’ll stop and ask the essential questions:

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If you are the tech teacher and teach in a lab, there’s a fundamental truism about students and tech that you know: Students don’t make the connection that tech in the lab is the same as tech in the classroom–just smaller. Whether the classroom has a laptop cart or a pod of desktops, students think that they’ve never seen the programs and icons before and none of the rules they learned two doors down (or wherever your lab space is in relation to the student classroom) applies to tech use in the classroom.

It requires your physical presence in their classroom, speaking to them for the transfer of knowledge to take place.

Here’s how I do it:

Before going:

• Make sure the class computers work
  • CPU turns on
    
  • monitors work
  • headphones works

• Make sure class computers have all the links required for class work and that are used in the lab. Ask the class teacher what those are and make sure they are on both the lab computers and the classroom laptops/pod. These are some favorites:

• • The school website

• • Tech lab class internet start page
  • Typing practice program
  • Google Earth
  • Starfall

• • A math program

If it’s not possible, be ready to explain the differences to students so they can reach a comfort level

• Find out what the class teacher understands about the computers. Is she comfortable? How are students using them? Has she had problems? If there are reasons she doesn’t use them, what are they and can you solve them?

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I get thousands of visitors a day–three-quarters of a million since I started. The most common reason why you-all drop by is for resources. I have lots of them–leson plans, tips and tricks–but one area I have little of is tech ed book reviews. I thought we could build a community library, right here on Ask a Tech Teacher!

I’m looking for:

• reviews of technology-in-education books or ebooks
• essays on tech ed topics
• White papers on tech ed topics
• Education pedagogy

Here are a few examples:

• Disrupting Class
• Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think And What We Can Do About It
• My Evernote
• Savvy Cyberkids at Home
• Second Grade Technology–32 Lessons –by Structured Learning
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

These will be collected and offered as a resource to readers on my blog under Great Books.

If you’ve written a review and posted it on your blog, please send the link to me.  I will provide a link back to your blog and we’ll develop a Book Group right here on Ask a Tech Teacher.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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A couple of months ago, I posted an article called Should Tech Teachers be in the Classroom or the Lab? I got the question from a reader and wanted to see what the tech ed community thought about what has become a hot topic among technology teacher, coordinators and integration specialists. I summarized the common thoughts on the subject and received quite a few thoughtful responses from readers.

I also cross-posted the article to LinkedIn and wanted to share those responses with my blog readers. You’ll find them an important contribution to your knowledge on this subject, with lots of anecdotal stories and varied viewpoints. Enjoy!

Gail Flanagan • Using technology as a tool in all parts of the school day integrating it into the students and teachers day. We implemented 1:1 iPad for a 6th grade team and mini pilot of iPad carts for the rest of the school. Digital natives use the iPad intuitively for collaboration, organization, creativity, productivity and communication. Keyboarding, word processing, spreadsheets and multimedia presentation tools are still used with laptops and desktop computers.
Lucky to be a teacher of Middle School ~ Allied Arts computer class. We reassess the standards to adapt to essential questions of what to know using technology in everyday lives and 21st century skills,

Dale McManis • Around classroom technology integration and professional development for teachers I really like the work of Dr. Karen Swan-Research Professor, Research Center for Educational Technology / College & Graduate School of Education, Health and Human Services, Kent State University. 

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I found this on my G+ stream from my new efriend, Lisa. It’s from Jeff Foxworth (I had to google him to be sure it wasn’t a typo for Jeff Foxworthy). Tell me these don’t apply to you…

1. You get a secret thrill out of laminating things.
2. You can hear 25 voices behind you and know exactly which one belongs to the child out of line.
3. You walk into a store and hear the words, “It’s Ms./Mr. ____________ and know you have been spotted.
4. You have 25 people who accidentally call you Mom/Dad at one time or another.
5. You can eat a multi-course meal in under 25 minutes.
6. You’ve trained yourself to go to the bathroom at two distinct times of the day, lunch and planning period.
7. You start saving other people’s trash, because most likely, you can use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the classroom.
8. You believe the Teacher’s Lounge should be equipped with a margarita machine.
9. You want to slap the next person who says, “Must be nice to work 7 to 3 and have summers off”.
10. You believe chocolate is a food group.
11. You can tell if it’s a full moon without ever looking outside.
12. You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if anyone says, “Boy, the kids are sure mellow today.”
13. You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behavior when you are out in public.
14. You believe in aerial spraying of Ritalin.
15. You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
16. You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own children.
17. You can’t pass the school supply aisle without getting at least 5 items!
18. You ask your friends to use their words and explain if the left hand turn he made was a “good choice” or “bad choice.”
19. You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils.
20. You are secretly addicted to hand sanitizer.
21. You understand, instantaneously, why a child behaves in a certain way after meeting his/her parents.

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I have to reblog this wonder post by my efriend, Lisa. How many of these fit you? Can you add to this fun list?

You Know You’re a Techy Teacher When…

1. You can’t remember the last time you printed a classroom document.
2. Plurking, tweeting, and playing with your wiki in public are acceptable behaviors.
3. Your Notebook isn’t spiral bound – it plugs into the wall.
4. Forget the garden…you spend more time on the weekend weeding out your Inbox.
5. You can recite your school’s Acceptable Use Policy by heart.
6. On parent/teacher night, instead of exchanging business cards, you Bump.
7. You express yourself with emoticons.
8. You no longer consider it graffiti to write on someone’s wall.
9. Your significant other gets jealous of your PLN.
10. It’s not creepy to have lots of followers.
11. You’re in a constant battle to be Mayor of your school.
12. Your students call you the “cool” teacher.
13. The other teachers are jealous of your Prezi.
14. YouTube is blocked in your school, and you know how to get around it and still use the content.
15. The Tech Department is sick of your constant requests to unblock Twitter.
16. You’ve Googled your principal.
17. You know that TweetDeck is not a patio with a lot of birds.
18. You correct your friends’ grammar when they text you.
19. Never mind the fruit, you want a real Apple for Christmas.
20. “Casual Fridays” means logging into the EdTech UNconference in your bunny slippers.
21. You wear your “I Heart EdTech” button everywhere you go.
22. You read this blog post then tweet it, like it, and pass it on to a friend (more…)

The following question was posed by one of my blog readers:

I love your site and all the valuable information you put out to help others. I wish I would of found it sooner. Thank You!

I have a question and would love your insight ... I teach lower school Computer Class to grades 1-4 at a private school in Columbus, Ohio. Our Technology Vision for 2015 is to get the students out of the computer lab, where they now learn computer skills based on classroom themes, and move me into the classroom where I would be the “technology integration teacher” alongside the classroom teacher. I would help with Smartboard, Ipad, laptop lessons integration, etc. I think this is a good idea and have been told that this is the trend in education but have not gotten real clarity on why and how this transition should take place.

Here are my questions: Do you see the benefit of technology integration into classrooms as I stated above? Is this the trend in education? If so why and how do you make this big transition? My feeling is that students need to learn computer skills such as formatting a document, searching the web, tools within PowerPoint, etc…This is much easier in a lab setting than classroom. Should we have both a lab and an itinerant technology integration teacher?

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Today, my guest blogger is Kristi Richard of South Bend, IN (Go Notre Dame!) She’s a web designer, owns her own freelance business called Studio 545, and

volunteers one day a week to teach computer basics to grades six , seven and eight at Our Lady of Hungary Catholic School. In her words, “Our Lady of Hungary … received a nice donation of computers and internet service to get a computer lab up and running. I was asked to teach basic computer skills to the kids, and have enjoyed working with them for about four months now. I only work one day at week with the kids, but I have developed quite an appreciation for what teachers go through nine months out of the year!”

Kristi and I met online chatting about tech teacher experiences and she had me in stitches telling me about her escapades. I asked her to write a post so I can share it with you. Enjoy!

Sometimes the kids in my 6th – 8th Grade computer lab look at me as a computer genius, but I am thinking to myself “Whew, glad that worked, now remember what you did, Kristi”!

My second week of teaching this lab, my priority was trying to remember all the kid’s names. But shortly after the kids came in to the lab, all of a sudden four computers including mine went down. We are on a network, so I am thinking, “Now what do I do??” I kept myself under control and did what the tech guys always ask you to do. 1) are the cables plugged into the back of the computers (check!), 2) are the computers turned on (check!) . . . 3) are they plugged in correctly? So there I was, Mrs. Richard, on my hands and knees, ass in the air as I was looking under the lab desks to check the monstrous mess of cords, plugs and cables that hook up twenty computers along this section! I could hear the kids giggling at me while I continued to struggle in tight quarters trying to figure out which cord/cable/plug hooked to the computers that went out. Then came the hot flash . . . jeeze, not now!

After about seven minutes of searching, I saw it . . . the extension cord to a power strip was wrapped around a girls ankle and had come unplugged. She didn’t have a clue! She must have sat down and wrapped her ankle around the cord and just yanked the cord out of the power strip. NO CLUE as she sat there working away on her computer with this cord wrapped around her ankle! I unwrapped the cord, and debated for a second if this was the right cord, or if I would set off a huge power surge and kill a row of computers if i plugged it into the empty outlet. What did I have to lose? I was just a volunteer and I was dying under here! They applauded when I plugged in the cord and the computers went back on – it worked! “Mrs. Richard, you rock!!” (I thought to myself as i backed out from under the desks, face sweaty and red).

At 52, I am getting a bit old to be crawling around under desks. But somehow . . . I love it!

If you have a funny story you’d like to share with readers, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment here. Chances are, lots of other tech teachers and parents will relate to your experience.

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, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.