Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

The start of a new school year is always busy. New students, new parents, new rules at school–but there’s one more piece that shakes up my education ecosystem: new webtools. I get so many recommendations from colleagues, trusted forums, and my Twitter feed. I recently previewed one I think you’ll like called Education Galaxy. It’s online assessment, practice, and instruction for K-6 students with a tagline: Curiously fun, amazingly effective, refreshingly affordable.

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Educators Technology

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Annotating is a key reading skill that enables you to actively and critically engage with text. Besides using it to comment on and capture your thoughts as you read, annotation can also be used as an.

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The Innovative Educator

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

Innovative educators are generally good fact checkers and don't fall for chain social posts like the one making its rounds about seeing the same 26 people on Facebook. They know to verify and that even a basic search on The Google will help you find out if what you are reading is fact or fake. A reason so many people were quick to believe "the same 26 people" story is because Facebook does have an algorithm that limits the posts you see.

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STEMx

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

How do America’s STEM scientists and researchers dismantle the “ivory tower” idea? What potentially game-changing breakthroughs are these dedicated men and women working on? Answering such questions is the aim of a program at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility operated by Battelle, is training some of its scientists and researchers how to explain their work to regular folks.

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Speaker: Andrew Cohen, Founder & CEO of Brainscape

The instructor’s PPT slides are brilliant. You’ve splurged on the expensive interactive courseware. Student engagement is stellar. So… why are half of your students still forgetting everything they learned in just a matter of weeks? It's likely a matter of cognitive science! With so much material to "teach" these days, we often forget to incorporate key proven principles into our curricula — namely active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice.

Teaching

Wisconsin Science and STEM Education

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

When I taught eighth grade in California, our administration started talking about implementing standards-based grading. I was skeptical to say the least! I could not imagine how I would manage that type of scoring for 120+ students. I moved away from those initial conversations when I came to Wisconsin to start a graduate program, and I did not find out how things progressed.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 19, 2018

There’s a reason why the brain uses 25% of the calories you eat: Thinking is hard work. Subjects like math and science — the ones only “smart” kids do well in — demand that you find patterns, unravel clues, connect one dot to another, and scaffold knowledge learned in prior lessons. Worse, you’re either right or wrong with no gray areas.

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Educators Technology

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

Google Drive is in a continuous flux in terms of the functionalities and built-in features it offers to its users. A great deal of these features are especially useful for us in education. In this.

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The Innovative Educator

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

Cross posted at the #NYCSchoolsTech blog. Educators share the value in developing expertise and showing what they know via #EdTech recognition programs like the #NYCSchoolsTech Partner Certification Program. This program allows educators to develop expertise and receive recognition from companies like Common Sense Education, Google, Apple, Microsoft, PBS/WNET, BrainPop, SoundTrap, and more.

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Magic EdTech

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

Accessibility is a buzzword today, with minds across the globe thinking of how they can make their digital learning products more accessible according to international standards. Enter WCAG. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is an internationally established set of guidelines for accessible content on the Internet. This act ensures that access to communications, services, and the information is protected as a fundamental human right.

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Mathematics, a subject steeped in abstract concepts, often poses challenges to students, especially those in grades 5-10. But imagine a bridge that transformed this intricate maze into an interactive adventure.

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Wisconsin Science and STEM Education

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

I have yet to find or figure out a standards-based grading (SBG) system that I feel fully aligns to the intent of the NGSS (or, by extension, the Wisconsin Standards for Science - WSS). That being said, several districts across Wisconsin are thoughtfully working to make this connection, and they deserve recognition for the effort. I am going to share the basics of four systems and some positive attributes of each.

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Technology Tidbits

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Digital Storytelling is the process of telling a story through the use of digital means. Also, it happens to be one the easiest ways to integrate technology into the classroom. Educators can use digital storytelling w/ almost any subject and can even "flip" their classroom by using mobile apps. Below is my comprehensive list of sites/apps that can be used for digital storytelling.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

The first thing most teachers think about when discussing gamified learning is the online math games kids play. Maybe Vocabulary.com and its spelling games come to mind next. But those webtools exemplify where the gamification of education started. Their approach is good but way down the SAMR pyramid to what can be done today, easily, in classrooms.

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STEMx

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

In late July, President Donald Trump signed into law the reauthorization of the Perkins Act. Called Perkins V, the legislation authorizes federal funding to help increase access to high quality career and technical education for America’s students. To find out what’s in Perkins V, we contacted Advance CTE, a Silver Spring, Maryland-based organization that monitors federal legislation on career and technical education for its members, including STEMx and Battelle.

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These easy-to-use design briefs outline student objectives, challenges, and materials needed to complete each 30-minute to 4-hour lesson. ITEEA’s Integrative STEM curriculum, Engineering byDesign, includes many more standards driven hands-on activities just like these!

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The Innovative Educator

SEPTEMBER 16, 2018

Parent-teacher conferences provide a way for staff and families to better to connect to support students. They can also be stressful for all parties involved. Parents and teachers may be nervous about what the other will say to them about the child. To make conferences more pleasant and strengthen relationships remember the importance of promoting good will.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

It’s difficult finding kid-safe research websites that really are. Even Google SafeSearch has issues at times. Here’s my list of safe spots to send your students for research. Before rolling any of these out, preview them all to be sure they fit your unique student group: BrainPop –with the BrainPop characters, a launchpad to curiosity.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

I get a lot of questions from readers about what tech ed resources I use in my classroom so I’m taking 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, w

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

New teachers quickly realize that one size doesn’t fit all in the classroom. Students are wonderfully different in the way they learn, listen, and absorb. While teaching to the majority sounds good superficially, let’s look at the math: A majority is 51%. That means 49% may not get what you put out there. The popularity of personalized learning makes it abundantly clear that those numbers just aren’t good enough anymore.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

Homework has come under fire the last few years as data surfaced that seemed to support the conclusion that homework is a waste of time. The traditional goals — that homework reinforces school work, provides additional practice on difficult topics, and involves the family — seemed to fall away under the onslaught of naysayers and their numbers.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

The first week of school is different from all others. During this week, teachers and students alike spend time getting to know each other, become comfortable in the classroom where they’ll spend countless hours for the next nine months, and take time to reach a comfort level with leaving summer behind. I’ve gathered suggestions below from some of the leading education folks, those who are all about project-based learning rather than the application of pedagogy, to share with you.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 14, 2018

Every teacher knows that students do better with positive reinforcement. As tempting as “punishment” might sound when referring to that student who has scrambled your last nerve, to explain consequences of actions in positive terms goes much further toward student success not only in school but in the ongoing effort to build life-long learners. “Positive reinforcement, whether it be with your family, when following laws, or with students, can best be defined as the logical cons

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

For the past decade, schools have invested millions of dollars in technology. It started with a push for desktop computers which soon expanded to iPads and the wonderful apps (like art programs) that made tablets essential tools. Quickly after iPads, schools fell in love with Chromebooks and their amazing ability to allow students to collaborate and share, not to mention their ease of maintenance.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Here are the most-read posts for the month of August: Teaching Digital Rights and Responsibilities. The Important Morning Meeting. It’s Time to Make Your Classroom Paper-free. Wikispaces has closed. What are your alternatives? 11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School. Great Back to School Classroom Activities. 22 Websites and 4 Posters to Teach Mouse Skills.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

Here’s a preview of what’s coming up on Ask a Tech Teacher in October: Resources for Dyslexia Awareness Month. Resources for Digital Citizenship Week. Resources for National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. Qualities of an effective teacher. Purpose Driven Learning: Myths, Problems, and Education Applications. Online Classes. A list of education advisors you can trust.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

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

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

We’re hard at work on a high school technology curriculum. We’ve had a lot of requests for this and hope to have it available before the holidays.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 21, 2018

This is not part of the 169 tech tips for your class book but it will be when I update the ebook: Tech Tip #171: Ctrl+0 returns your screen to normal. Often, readers or friends push their computers in my face, frantic because they can’t see all of the screen. It bleeds off the edges. “I use Ctrl- to zoom out–like you said–but I can’t get it back to where it used to be, the way I like reading it!

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

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 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 stakehol

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Ask a Tech Teacher

SEPTEMBER 3, 2018

Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 3rd). 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.

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