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
AUGUST 14, 2015
Working as a productive and sensitive member of a team is looked upon by STEM-based companies as being a requirement to being an effective and contributing employee: As technology takes over more of the fact-based, rules-based, left-brain skills—knowledge-worker skills—employees who excel at human relationships are emerging as the new “it” men and women.
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.
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.
STEM Education Central brings together the best content for STEM education professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
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
JUNE 29, 2015
I’ve been on the hunt for a good– scratch that : excellent –Learning Management System for several months. There are a lot of options out there, but none had enough of the characteristics that most teachers I know look for with an LMS, namely: delivers content to students in a variety of formats. tracks student progress on assigned activities. assesses student learning (both formative and summative). provides for teacher-student and student-student communication. intuitive to u
Ask a Tech Teacher
AUGUST 13, 2015
The first day of class can be daunting. Students are curious about the new faces around them, intimidated–even frightened by the prospect of so many people they know nothing about. As a teacher, you might feel the same way. You knew everything about last year’s students, got excited when their baseball team won the playoffs, cried with them when a favorite pet passed away, cheered when they got an A in math.
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
JULY 24, 2015
Natural disasters is a related discussion to any number of topics–geography, ecology, Earth Day, even problem solving. Here are 16 websites that bring the power of these natural forces to students: Avalanches. Earthquake simulations. Earthquakes. Earthquakes for Kids. Earthquakes–USGS. Hurricanes. Natural disaster videos. Natural disasters—National Geographic.
Ask a Tech Teacher
APRIL 17, 2015
'April 22nd is Earth Day. Celebrate it with your students by letting them visit these websites: Breathing Earth. Breathing Earth YouTube Video –of CO2 use, population changes, and more. Conservation Game. Earth day collection. Earth Day—NASA Ocean Currents. Eco-friendly house. Eeko World. Ecotourism Simulation–for grades 4 and above. Electrocity.
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.
Ask a Tech Teacher
AUGUST 8, 2015
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
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
OCTOBER 9, 2015
CanaryFlow is a classroom workflow platform that makes it easy for K-12 teachers to create lessons, add and grade assignments, upload resources, comment on student work or class activities, and schedule events. Class set-up is intuitive, with guided instructions as needed. Users (students and teachers) can access materials and submit work using the camera, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
Ask a Tech Teacher
SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
School’s back and it’s more important than ever to integrate technology into your curriculum. Why? Consider these thirteen changes to technology-in-education since 2013: Windows has updated their platform—again. IPads have been joined by Chromebooks as a common classroom digital device. There is a greater reliance on internet-based tools than software.
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
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
JUNE 24, 2015
Pedagogic experts have spent an enormous amount of time attempting to unravel the definition of ‘educated’ It used to be the 3 R’s–reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. The problem with that metric is that, in the fullness of time, those who excelled in the three areas weren’t necessarily the ones who succeeded. As long ago as the early 1900’s, Teddy Roosevelt warned: “C students rule the world.” It’s the kids without their nose in a book t
Ask a Tech Teacher
MARCH 23, 2015
'After you’ve looked at these 29 sites, there’s no reason to print student work and stick it on a wall. You have too many options: Book Cover creator. Create a magazine cover. Flipboard—organize ideas into mag. Glogster—posters. Go animate. Issuu ([link]. Newspaper—create a newspaper. Newspaper—create a newspaper clipping. Newspapers around the world.
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