I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m going to take a few days this summer to review them with you. Some are edited and/or written by members of the Ask a Tech Teacher crew. Others, by tech teachers who work with the same publisher I do. All of them, I’ve found well-suited to the task of scaling and differentiating tech skills for age groups, scaffolding learning year-to-year, taking into account the perspectives and norms of all stakeholders, with appropriate metrics to know learning is organic and granular.
Today: Classes
Ask a Tech Teacher offers a variety of classes throughout the year. All are online, hands-on, with an authentic use of tools you’ll want for your classroom.
To find out more, email [email protected]
The Tech-infused Teacher
Certificate
By request; delivered digitally to your school or District
The 21st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials
The Tech-infused Class
Certificate
By request; delivered digitally to your school or District
The 21st Century classroom blends technology with traditional teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. This three-week course is a follow-on to the introductory class, Tech-infused Teacher, digging into the digital ideas and tools used by innovative teachers to extend and enrich student learning. This includes topics like how to build your tech-infused classroom, using tech to differentiate for student needs, teaching reading and writing with tech (you can learn more about that in the class, Teaching Writing with Tech), and favorite digital tools. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Professional Learning Network.
Pre-requisite: the 21st Century Tech-infused Teacher or permission of the instructor.
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.
Teach Writing with Tech
Certificate
By request; delivered digitally to your school or District
Educators participate in this three-week hands-on quasi-writer’s workshop as they learn to use widely-available digital tools to help their students develop their inner writer. Resources include videos, pedagogic articles, lesson plans, projects, and virtual face-to-face meetings to share in a collaborative environment. Strategies introduced range from conventional tools such as quick writes, online websites, and visual writing to unconventional approaches such as Twitter novels, comics, and Google Earth lit trips. These can be adapted to any writing program be it 6+1 Traits, Common Core, or the basic who-what-when-where-why. By the time educators finish this class, they will be ready to implement many new tools in their classroom.
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.
Building Digital Citizens
Self-paced via Google Classroom
If students use digital devices (iPads, Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, or another), they need to become familiar with the rights and responsibilities required to be good digital citizens. In this class, you’ll learn what topics to introduce at what age and how to make these authentic to student lives.
Topics include:
- cyberbullying
- digital citizenship
- digital commerce
- digital communications
- digital footprint
- digital law
- digital privacy
- digital rights and responsibilities
- digital search/research
- fair use/public domain
- image copyrights
- internet safety
- netiquette
- plagiarism
- passwords
- social media
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.
20 Webtools in 25 Days–for the K8 SL Tech Curriculum
Certificate
By special request; delivered digitally to your school or District
Minimum enrollment: 5
Participants in this four-week online class will explore twenty digital tools educators use in their Structured Learning technology curriculum. Participants will review between one and four during the class (by themselves or in groups) and present their review to classmates in a weekly Google Hangout. Participants will respond to the reviews of their classmates with comments, suggestions, personal experience, and questions.
This is a high-energy, innovative, and motivating class that can be reproduced in a Professional Development setting or with students in your classroom. Assessment is project-based so participants should be prepared to be fully-involved and eager risk-takers.
Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary materials.
Building Digital Citizens
College credit MTI 557
Click link and scroll to MTI 557
If students use the internet, they must be familiar with the rights and responsibilities required to be good digital citizens. In this class, you’ll learn what topics to introduce, how to unpack them, and how to make them authentic to student lives.
Topics include:
- copyrights, fair use, public domain
- cyberbullying
- digital commerce
- digital communications
- digital footprint, digital privacy
- digital rights and responsibilities
- digital search/research
- image—how to use them legally
- internet safety
- netiquette
- passwords
- plagiarism
- social media
At the completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Know how to blend digital citizenship into lesson plans that require the Internet
- Be comfortable in your knowledge of all facets of digital citizenship
- Become an advocate of safe, legal, and responsible use of online resources
- Exhibit a positive attitude toward technology that supports learning
- Exhibit leadership in teaching and living as a digital citizen
Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker. Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary materials.
Teach Writing with Tech
College credit MTI 558
Click link and scroll to MTI 558
Experiment with a wide variety of available digital writing tools to help your students develop their inner writer. Understand the secrets to picking good digital writing tools while working with classmates in a hands-on and non-threatening writer’s workshop format. Resources include a blend of videos, pedagogic articles, lesson plans, projects, and virtual face-to-face meetings to share suggestions with classmates in a collaborative environment. Strategies introduced range from conventional tools such as quick writes, online websites, and visual writing to unconventional approaches such as Twitter novels, comics, and Google Earth lit trips. These can be adapted to any writing program be it 6+1 Traits, Write Source, IB, Common Core, or other popular language arts curricula.
At the completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Use technology to drive authentic writing activities and project-based learning.
- Use traditional and non-traditional technology approaches to build an understanding of good writing and nurture a love of the process.
- Guide students in selecting writing strategies that differentiate for task, purpose and audience.
- Assess student writing without discouraging creativity via easy-to-use tech tools.
- Provide students with effective feedback in a collaborative, sharing manner.
Be prepared for and enthusiastic about using technology tools in the writing class.
Assessment is project-based so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker. Price includes course registration and all necessary materials.
The Tech-infused Teacher: The 21st Century Digitally-infused Teacher
College credit (MTI 562)
Click link and scroll to MTI 562
The 21st Century lesson blends technology with teaching to build a collaborative, differentiated, and shared learning environment. In this course, you will use a suite of digital tools to make that possible while addressing overarching concepts like digital citizenship, internet search and research, authentic assessment, digital publishing, and immersive keyboarding. You will actively collaborate, share knowledge, provide constructive feedback to classmates, publish digitally, and differentiate for unique needs. Classmates will become the core of your ongoing Personal Learning Network.
Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects, so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary materials.
Differentiation: How Technology Makes Differentiation Fast and Easy
College credit (MTI 563)
Click link and scroll to MTI 563
Differentiation in the classroom means meeting students where they are most capable of learning. It is not an extra layer of work, rather a habit of mind for both teacher and student. Learn granular approaches to infusing differentiation into all of your lesson plans, whether you’re a Common Core school or not, with this hands-on, interactive class. Ideas include visual, audio, video, mindmaps, infographics, graphic organizers, charts and tables, screenshots, screencasts, images, games and simulations, webtools, and hybrid assessments.
Assessment is based on involvement, interaction with classmates, and completion of projects, so be prepared to be fully-involved and an eager risk-taker.
Price includes course registration, college credit, and all necessary material
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.
