September, 2019

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21 Websites and 5 Posters to Teach Mouse Skills

Ask a Tech Teacher

Mouse resource list constantly updated here. Many of my most popular articles are about mouse skills. Every year, tens of thousands of teachers visit Ask a Tech Teacher to find resources for teaching students how to use a mouse. No surprise because using a mouse correctly is one of the most important pre-keyboarding skills. Holding it is not intuitive and if learned wrong, becomes a habit that’s difficult to break.

Teaching 270
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Tips on Good Writing from Stephen King

Educators Technology

" On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft" is the culmination of Stephen King's prolific writing odyssey. After several decades of writing fiction, Stephen finally decided to aggregate all the tips and.

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Learning in the Making: The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator

User Generated Education

I have been working with ASCD for the past few years to publish my book, Learning in the Making: How to Plan, Execute, and Assess Powerful Makerspace Lessons. It has finally been released for sale! Below is an except – Chapter 5: The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator. The process of bringing maker education into formal and informal educational settings involves different approaches and strategies than in a more traditional educational setting.

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Making Print Documents & Posters Accessible

The Innovative Educator

There are times when innovative educators use print documents such as when displaying posters, student work, or infographics on a wall or bulletin board. Another common reason for print is when information is handed out, mailed, or back packed home to families. Usually this material is not accessible to all people with disabilities or who speak languages other than English, but it doesn't have to be that way.

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Can Brain Science Actually Help Make Your Training & Teaching Stick?

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.

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Publishing Success with Digital First Publishing – Part 2

Magic EdTech

In our first blog on the evolution of digital first publishing Publishing Success with Digital First Publishing , we discussed how the publishing industry led by decreased sales in education textbooks initially adopted a general digital first workflow. This second blog will discuss how technology entrepreneurs facilitated the implementation and reach of the workflow. .

More Trending

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College Credit Classes in Blended Learning

Ask a Tech Teacher

Through the Midwest Teachers Institute , I offer four college-credit classes that teach how to blend technology with traditional lesson plans. They include all the ebooks, videos, and other resources required so you don’t spend any more than what is required to register for the class. Once you’re signed up, you prepare weekly material, chat with classmates, respond to class Discussion Boards and quizzes, and participate in a weekly video meeting.

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3 Good Lesson Planners for Teachers

Educators Technology

After posting about lesson plan resources for teachers, we received a request from one of our readers asking about lesson planners, so we decided to share with you our favourite free tools for.

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Design a Cardboard Chair Challenge

User Generated Education

In Learning in the Making: How to Plan, Execute, and Assess Powerful Makerspace Lessons, I discuss a Framework for Implementing Maker Experiences as depicted in the following diagram. I recently asked my 9th grade students to do a cardboard chair challenge. What follows is how the students went through this framework. Framing or Frontloading the Experience.

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Heading Structure Guidance to Make Content Better & Accessible

The Innovative Educator

Proper heading structure not only helps to make content accessible, it also helps to make content better for everyone. Here's why content is better with headings Structure Headings allow those visiting your content to see the structure more easily. It allows screen readers to identify the structure and read it aloud. Table of Contents When you create proper heading structure, it automatically generates a table of contents that you can insert into your document.

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Harnessing The Power Of Math Manipulatives

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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Importance of Accessibility for People with Dyslexia

Magic EdTech

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability, characterized by difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition, spelling and decoding reading. Dyslexic learners need support, and technology can go a long way in making content more accessible and learner friendly. Understanding Dyslexia. Language-based learning disabilities (LBLD) are fairly common, given that one in five American students are likely to experience language-learning disability, who find it hard to communicate.

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Esports coming to schools

STEMx

Have you heard about esports? If not, you might soon. Esports is competitive videograming, and it’s a wildly popular global phenomenon with a growing professional level. Among U.S. colleges and universities, many are forming teams, hiring coaches and granting scholarships to the best players, just as they do for athletes in traditional sports. Ohio State University is developing an. interdisciplinary curriculum spanning five colleges. to focus on video-game studies and esports.

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We Remember… 9/11

Ask a Tech Teacher

America, we love you.

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43: OTT: First Week Activities for Back-to-School

Trina Deboree Teaching and Learning

First Week Activities for Back-to-School Now if getting ready for school was really as easy as listening to 5 podcasts life as an educator would be so much better! Let's get real. You and I both know it isn't. We know that it takes more than the time given us to get everything all set. Most teachers I know have to go back weeks before school actually begins.

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Categorizing the Multiple Literacies/Perspectives Learned in PK-12

Wisconsin Science and STEM Education

At the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, we see the inherent problem of putting out 25 (!) different sets of standards , but we don’t always do a good job of helping districts see how to integrate and simplify these guidance documents. One area of connection we’re currently working on is STEM – discussing a goal of transdisciplinary STEM literacy that we hope all students gain by the time they graduate from high school.

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Simple Way to Determine Your Website's Accessibility

The Innovative Educator

The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 say the websites of all government agencies and those that receive federal funding must be accessible to everyone including those with disabilities. This means all public schools and schools that receive any federal funding. Making your website accessible requires content contributors to know strategies such as using meaningful hyperlinks, proper color contrast, using alt text for images, and formatting with proper heading st

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Exploring the Possibilities in Digital EdTech

Magic EdTech

In the past, learners took in information through books and lectures. Presentations and texts started at the beginning of a theme or topic and proceeded in a linear fashion to the end. Teachers who wanted to enrich the learning experience led real-time live discussions, labs, or other forms of interactive collaboration. While this approach served the needs of some students, many were left behind.

EdTech 40
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Seven state Tennessee Valley region offered classroom STEM grants

STEMx

The 2019-2020 TVA STEM Classroom Grant Program is now accepting. applications. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provides electricity to nearly 10 million people in seven southeastern states. Since 2012, TVA has worked through the. Tennessee STEM Innovation Network. to provide grant opportunities to help teachers. In partnership with . Bicentennial Volunteers Incorporated. , TVA STEM Classroom Grant Program funds STEM learning projects in classrooms and schools in TVA service areas.

STEM 40
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Great Activities for the First Week of School

Ask a Tech Teacher

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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Boddle Learning

Technology Tidbits

Boddle is a new online platform that uses Game Base Learning to help teach core subjects to students. Right now Boddle is in a pilot phase where they only have Math (grades 1st-6th) but will be adding more subjects soon. Best of all, Boddle has an educational portal which tracks students progress, generates detailed reports, and makes it easy to differentiate instruction.

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Must Have Items for your Science Supply Order with Ward’s Science

Mrs. Harris Teaches

This post is sponsored by Ward’s Science. All opinions are my own. Hey science teacher, I’m so grateful to be able to present to you, courtesy of Ward’s Science , a 15% Off Your Order Total Plus Free Shipping * exclusive promo code: WardsWorld15MH (see the end of this post for the fine print for using this code). This code is good until 10/31.

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3 Steps to Creating An Accessible Website

The Innovative Educator

Website owners want all visitors to their site to be able to access the content. This requires ensuring the site is accessible so no one is left out. Making a site accessible is not intuitive, but once you understand the basic concepts you'll discover: It is not difficult, it becomes second nature, and accessible content is better content. Fortunately, more and more platforms support the ability to create and maintain websites that are compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCA

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Exploring the Possibilities in Digital EdTech

Magic EdTech

In the past, learners took in information through books and lectures. Presentations and texts started at the beginning of a theme or topic and proceeded in a linear fashion to the end. Teachers who wanted to enrich the learning experience led real-time live discussions, labs, or other forms of interactive collaboration. While this approach served the needs of some students, many were left behind.

EdTech 40
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Virginia prepares to launch state STEM network

STEMx

Work is underway in Virginia to create the state’s first STEM network. A coalition, led by the Virginia Department of Education, is bringing together stakeholders to create the STEM plan that will guide the formation of the network. We talked with Dr. Tina Manglicmot, Director of STEM for the Virginia Department of Education, about the state’s growing progress.

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12 Favorite PC Shortkeys

Ask a Tech Teacher

Here’s an update to my Favorite PC Shortkeys poster: 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 autho

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Walnut

Technology Tidbits

Walnut is a excellent new site/app for finding educational videos and then taking quizzes to assess learning. This is done through a very easy-to-use interface where all the videos are curated for education where student's can then take quizzes that uses a game based learning interface. Best of all, Walnut makes it easy for teachers to assess student learning and differentiate instruction. below is a brief demo.

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45: OTT: The First Step in Behavior Management: Building Rapport Part Two

Trina Deboree Teaching and Learning

The First Step in Behavior Management: Building Rapport Part Two This week we are continuing the conversation on classroom management with a focus on proactively building rapport. In the next few weeks we will cover classroom management, behavior management, and discipline. We will cover it all! It’s a tough topic for many teachers. We are seeing more and more behavior issues in our schools, and they are even leading to some life and death events.

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Replace Gifted & Talented with Inclusive Programs

The Innovative Educator

In places like New York City students as young as four-years-old can take high stakes entrance exams for gifted and talented programs. To help their children get in to the gifted and talented programs, parents may pay for expensive test prep to give their child an edge. While this is one approach, there is a more inclusive approach that provides opportunities for all students including those with disabilities, those for whom English may not be their first language, and those of all socioeconomic

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Work Hard–it’s Labor Day!

Ask a Tech Teacher

Labor Day is annually held on the first Monday of September (this year, September 2nd). 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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Teacher-Author? Me too! Let’s talk

Ask a Tech Teacher

This week, my wonderful efriends and fellow teacher-authors are helping me launch my latest prehistoric fiction novel, The Quest for Home. Driven from her home. Stalked by enemies. Now her closest ally may be a traitor. An early review… “I can’t begin to imagine the hours of research, not to mention the actual writing time, that went into this wonderful gem of a story.

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20 Back-to-School Articles

Ask a Tech Teacher

On everything from get-to-know-you activities to getting yourself ready: 11+ Back-to-School Night Tips. 11 Back-to-school Activities for the First Month of School. Great Back to School Classroom Activities. Back to School Bundle of Lesson Plans at a Great Price. Plan a Memorable Back to School Night. New School Year? New Tech? I Got You Covered. 5 Top Ways to Integrate Technology into the New School Year. 5 Ways to Involve Parents in Your Class. 3 Organizational Apps to Start the School Year. 6

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Tech Ed Resources for your Class–Digital Citizenship

Ask a Tech Teacher

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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College Credit Classes in Blended Learning

Ask a Tech Teacher

Through the Midwest Teachers Institute , I offer college-credit classes that teach how to blend technology with traditional lesson plans. They include all the ebooks, videos, and other resources required so you don’t spend any more than what is required to register for the class. Once you’re signed up, you prepare weekly material, chat with classmates, respond to class Discussion Boards and quizzes, and participate in a weekly video meeting.