Ask a Tech Teacher
NOVEMBER 9, 2015
Here are ideas of apps and websites that teachers in my PLN used successfully in the past during Hour of Code: Kindergarten. Start kindergartners with problem solving. If they love Legos, they’ll love coding. BotLogic –great for Kindergarten and youngers. Code –learn to code, for students. Daisy the Dinosaur —intro to programming via iPad. How to train your robot –a lesson plan from Dr.
Educators Technology
MARCH 31, 2015
'April 1, 2015 One of the onerous parts in essay and academic writing is the bibliography section. Managing, organizing and citing references can sometimes be a real challenge especially if you don''t.read more.
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User Generated Education
MAY 6, 2015
I was recently asked what is was about my childhood that led to me being an adult who makes and who advocates that everyone should make in one form or another. I believe there were several childhood experiences that contributed to me becoming a lifelong maker. I was born a very curious and creative kid. This was accepted by my mother who gave me the freedom to be so.
The Innovative Educator
MARCH 15, 2015
'The Americas Society and Council of the Americas invited me to discuss scalable innovative practices for education with experts and leaders dedicated to advancing and shaping the political, economic, social and cultural agendas of the Western Hemisphere. The purpose was to take what works in New York City and bring it to other education systems. Here are some ideas I shared that global leaders can bring back to their countries. 1) Online Learning Communities for Education Resources It is no
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.
Technology Tidbits
JULY 24, 2015
Trending Words feature lets data guide teachers in 21st century vocabulary instruction. Last summer BoomWriter introduced WordWriter ( [link] ), which lets teachers conduct short interactive application activities allowing them to access and enhance their students' understanding of key terms, figures, phrases, and dates. BoomWrtier is now adding their Trending Words ( [link] ) feature to BoomWriter, allowing teachers to select from top trending vocabulary used by other BoomWriter teachers while
STEM Education Central brings together the best content for STEM education professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Ask a Tech Teacher
MARCH 17, 2015
'With technology moving out of the lab and into the classroom, it’s becoming a challenge for some teachers to infuse their teaching with tech tools such as websites, educational games, simulations, iPads, Chromebooks, GAFE, and other geeky devices that used to be the purview of a select group of nerdy teachers. Now, all teachers are expected to have students work, collaborate, research, and publish online.
Ask a Tech Teacher
AUGUST 28, 2015
Here are quick, safe spots to send students for research: BrainPop. Citation Machine. CoolKidFacts –kid-friendly videos, pictures, info, and quizzes–all 100% suitable for children. CyberSleuth Kids. Dictionary. Digital Vaults –research a topic, curate resources. Encyclopedia Interactica –visual encyclopedias. Fact Monster. Fun Brain. How Stuff Works.
Ask a Tech Teacher
MARCH 24, 2015
'Technology and the connected world put a fork in the old model of teaching–instructor in front of the class, sage on the stage, students madly taking notes, textbooks opened to the chapter being reviewed, homework as worksheets based on the text, tests regurgitating important facts. Did I miss anything? This model is outdated not because it didn’t work (many statistics show students ranked higher on global testing years ago than they do now), but because the environment changed.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 6, 2015
Mike Daugherty is the director of technology for a high-achieving public school district in Ohio, an occasional contributor to AATT (see his last post, 5 Things You Need to Know About 3D Printing), and the author of Modern EdTech Leadership , a discussion on how today’s administrators handle the blending of tech and ed. I asked him if he could distill this profile into bite-size chunks, consumable over coffee or between classes.
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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.
Ask a Tech Teacher
SEPTEMBER 8, 2015
Every Earth Day, someone in your school, maybe the parent group, raises the question of WHY NOT a paperless classroom? Everyone nods their heads, agrees this is a revolutionary idea, and moves on as Earth Day passes. Really, though: Why not? There are benefits to adopting web-based alternatives to paper: it’s easy to collaborate when everything’s online. nothing gets soda dripped on it or eaten by the dog. students can collaborate without requiring parent time and gas fumes. teachers
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 21, 2015
Too often, students–and teachers–believe learning comes from success when in truth, it’s as likely to be the product of failure. Knowing what doesn’t work is a powerful weapon as we struggle to think critically about the myriad issues along our path to college and/or career. As teachers, it’s important we reinforce the concept that learning has many faces.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 22, 2015
Classrooms are infused with technology. You rarely see a lesson that doesn’t ask for online this or digital that. Students are expected to collaborate and share online as young as kindergarten when they read digital books or draw pictures using iPad apps. By middle school, they work in online groups through forums, wikis, and Google Apps. Accomplishing this so it serves educational goals isn’t as much about knowing how to use the tools as constructing knowledge in an organic, scalabl
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 14, 2015
Digital portfolios have become a critical part of today’s classroom. Why collate student work into clunky 3-ring binders that can only be one place at a time, are subject to damage and page loss, and are difficult to update when there are so many easy-to-use, intuitive digital versions: Blogs–Kidblogs, WordPress, Edublogs. Digication. Dropr.
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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!
Ask a Tech Teacher
FEBRUARY 18, 2015
'Assessments have become a critical piece to education reform. To prepare students well for college and career means they must deeply learn the material and its application to their lives and future learning.That means assessing student knowledge authentically and accountably. This doesn’t stop with quizzes, tests, and memorizing facts. Those approaches may be prescriptive, but they don’t measure results in a way that leverages learning.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 23, 2015
Here’s a short list of fun Halloween websites for your students. Enjoy! Websites: Ben & Jerry. Billy Bear’s. Carving Pumpkins. Enchanted Learning. Halloween games, puzzles –clean, easy to understand website and few ads! Halloween ghost stories. Meddybemps Spooky. Pumpkin Toss. Signing Halloween–a video. Skelton Park. The Kidz Page. Apps: Ace Math Halloween Games Free Lite.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JUNE 4, 2015
Eduporium ‘s Andy Larmand is the newest contributor to Ask a Tech Teacher. He graduated from Suffolk University with a Bachelor’s degree in Print Journalism. His knowledge of and interest in both the EdTech world and the importance of a STEM education highlight the importance of inquiry-based education, DIY cultures and technology for enhanced learning as crucial 21st century activities.
Educators Technology
JULY 13, 2015
July 13, 2015 Below is a selection of some of the best iPad apps we have reviewed in the last couple of years. These apps are particularly curated for student researchers and academics. They provide.read more.
Ask a Tech Teacher
SEPTEMBER 25, 2015
Here’s along list of websites that focus on math automaticity for the K-5 classroom. I’ve broken it down by grade level, but you can decide if your second graders are precocious enough to try the websites for grades 3-5: K. K Math Skills. Math Videos (not practice, but fun to watch). Money flashcards. Numbers. 1 st. First Grade math skills.
Educators Technology
AUGUST 30, 2015
August 30, 2015 We received a few requests in the past from teachers inquiring about apps for the visually impaired. Below are some of the popular apps we would recommend for teachers. We have.read more.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JUNE 26, 2015
Most elementary age kids I know love math, but that changes when they matriculate to middle school. If you ask seventh and eighth graders what their hardest subject is, they’ll hands down tell you it’s math. And that opinion doesn’t improve in high school. In fact, Forbes reported that 82% of public high schoolers in the well-to-do Montgomery County Maryland failed Algebra.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 29, 2015
Lesson planning used to mean filling in boxes on a standard form with materials, goals, expectations, assessments–details like that. Certainly this is valuable information, but today’s lesson plans–like today’s lessons –demand less rote fill-in-the-blanks and more conceptualization, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Ask a Tech Teacher
APRIL 30, 2015
Coding has become the poster child for a tech-infused classroom. Over 15 million kids participated in Hour of Code this past December. So many teachers took students to Code.org’s curriculum offerings, the website crashed. So what is ‘coding’? According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s another word for ‘programming’ which means: The art of turning caffeine into Error Messages.
Ask a Tech Teacher
FEBRUARY 27, 2015
'These are clever approaches to keeping order among avid learners: Bouncy Balls –balls bounce based on level of noise in the classroom. Calmness Counter –how noisy is your classroom? Let students see. Class Dojo— class behavior mgmt. Class Badges. Doodle—schedule meetings, polls. Forms—Adobe interactive pdf, collect results. Google Safe Search Preferences.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 30, 2015
When kids read that America’s $18 trillion+ debt is accepted by many experts as ‘business as usual’, I wonder how that news will affect their future personal finance decisions. Do they understand the consequences of unbalanced budgets? The quandary of infinite wants vs. finite dollars? Or do they think money grows on some fiscal tree that always blooms?
Ask a Tech Teacher
MARCH 30, 2015
'AATT contributor, Krista Albrecht, has a balanced evaluation of Chromebooks in the classroom I think you’ll find useful. Krista is a NY State certified Instructional Technology Specialist working in public education on Long Island, NY. She has over 15 years experience in the field ranging from classroom teacher to tech teacher, to Professional Developer, to 1:1 integration specialist.
Ask a Tech Teacher
FEBRUARY 26, 2015
'Let’s start by clearing up a misconception: Rigor isn’t unfriendly. Adding it to your class doesn’t mean you become boring, a techie, or overseer of a fun-free zone. In fact, done right, rigor fills your class with Wow , those epiphanies that bring a smile to student faces and a sense of well-being to their school day. Rigor provides positive experiences, is an emotional high, and engenders a pervasive sense of accomplishment students will carry for years–and use as a te
Ask a Tech Teacher
AUGUST 19, 2015
One thing we can all agree on is that there are tons of free tech tools available that enrich learning. I can’t keep up with them. I belong to several Tech Teacher forums, FB groups, G+ Communities, and every day I find more great tools I can’t wait to use in my classroom. Like many of you, this summer I attended several professional development conferences (ISTE, Teachers Pay Teachers, WordPress, Summer PD)–that bumped my total up to about a gazillion.
Ask a Tech Teacher
FEBRUARY 17, 2015
'There’s a secret to teaching kids how to use technology. It’s called ‘delegate’ I don’t mean sluff off the teaching to aides or parents. I’m referring to the importance of empowering students to be their own problem-solvers. Encourage them to be risk-takers and then expect it of them. Here are seven ways to make this happen: Let students know technology isn’t difficult.
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