Technology Support Included in My Book

Teachers have the weight of the world on them.  Increasingly, they are responsible for more material including educating students in the common core, social skills, emotional intelligence, morality and citizenship, and the ever-changing world of technology.  Additionally, teachers must maintain a website, a blog, an electronic grade book, while constantly collecting and disseminating data on each of their students in their overfilled classrooms. (Wow! Just writing all that made me tired!)

In the mind of making teachers' burdens a little lighter, I insisted my book, Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects, include access to instructional slideshows and student examples.  I am pleased to say that my publisher created an amazing webpage that includes links to the very slideshows I use to teach my Interest Project curriculum in my own classroom.

Here is instructional slideshow for Activity 3 -  Would this help you teach?  If you answered yes, please buy my book!

Great Teaching Technology Sites

Start the week off right 

by learning something new!  

Let's face it, technology will outstrip us in the great race if we don't stay in touch with new developments each week.  In my never ending search for excellent sites for students and teachers, I have found few that I would like to highlight each Monday.

I'll start with some free stuff:

Free Tech for Teachers delivers excellent news on the latest in technology and how to download some freebies.

Free Scratch Download works on practically any computer and any computer operating system.  Scratch is the best critical thinking activity for ages 7-97 that I have found on the Internet.  Created by students at MIT (that's Massachusetts Institute of Technology- one of the most prestigious universities in the world), SCRATCH makes computer programming as easy as stacking Legos.  Use your stacks to program custom animations to tell a joke or teach a class about your Interest Project.  I love this program so much that I included it in my Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects resource book.  Click to see a sample Scratch Interest Project.

Student Documentary - Interest: Guitars

Here's an excellent example of a fifth grade student using his interest to motivate learning.  

• See how he researched his topic using the Internet and books.  
• Watch as he synthesizes his newfound knowledge into a documentary movie - with planned preproduction of shots and written narration script.  
• Finally, he demonstrates his understanding of technology through the application of iMovie to produce his video.  

Excellent work, Wyatt!

Letting Students Teach Technology

When I became a teacher, I was amazed at how my understanding of subject matter increased by my sharing it with others.  Recently, I discovered an effective way to teach technology to both students and teachers: let the students teach the teachers.   New York technology teacher, Rob Zdrojewski, has empowered his students by enlisting them to teach social media skills for professional development.   The sessions, called "Tech under 90 seconds", enable a teacher to learn valuable tools, such as gmail, Google Doc and Google+,  in small pockets of time.

"We talk about not having enough time in our day to do stuff; well, now if you can find those pockets of time and you have 90 seconds or less, you can scroll through our mobile blog site, check out different videos, and learn something right on the spot," Zdrojewski says. 

This is great news for the teachers, and gratifying for the students.  "The kids are really proud of knowing they're not just teaching kids in Amherst Middle School," Zdrojewski said. "It's on the web, so anybody that searches 'how to share a Google Doc' potentially could come across their video and learn it from there--and it's all thanks to screencasting technology."

Screencasting is using screen capturing technology by videoing the screen of a person taking the viewer through the program or application step-by-step.

Way to TEACH TECHNOLOGY, Rob Zdrojewski!

View his students' videos on his blog.  Read the full article from the journal.com. 

Need more techniques for teaching technology?  Purchase my award-winning book, Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects, visit The Critical Thinking Company. 

How Do You Teach Technology?

I was an educator for 15 years in a school system that invested millions in technology.  Day after day, I witnessed exactly the same uses of technology: drill and practice for state tests.

In my grades 3-6 gifted and talented classroom, I chose to utilize the power of technology for more.  Differentiating based on student's individual interests, I allowed my students to research independently to become resident experts on any topic of their interest and develop innovative ways to share their expertise.  My job as facilitator was to teach the students how to research on the Internet (finding reliable sources and correctly cite the sources) and to introduce them to innovative presentation technology such as documentary movie making and animation programs like MIT's Scratch.

The creative and informative work they produced with topics ranging from "The History of Dragons" to "The White Rose- Opposition to Hitler within Germany" could not have been possible without the freedom of student choice.   I certainly wouldn't have assigned the latter topic to a fifth grader, but she chose to assign it to herself. (To be honest, I had never heard of The White Rose Society before my student's presentation and learned much that day- a perfect example of the power of the Internet for education.)

My book, Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects, was written to share that power with other educators- public or private school teachers and home school parents.

Great Article on Education Technology

The Global Search for Education: Education Technology

Mom's Choice Award Gold Honoree!

I am proud to announce Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects has been named among the best in family-friendly media, products and services by the Mom’s Choice Awards®.  Teaching Technology is a Mom’s Choice Awards® Gold Recipient.  

What are the Mom’s Choice Awards®, you ask?

"The Mom’s Choice Awards are known for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family friendly media, products, and services. A panel of judges includes education, media, and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists and producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists, and others. Some of the board members include Dr. Twila C. Liggett, 10­time Emmy winner, professor, and founder of PBS’ Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner­ Clark, creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; LeAnn Thieman, motivational speaker and co­author of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books; Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language; Patricia Rossi, etiquette expert and host of NBC’s Manners Minute; Dr. Letitia S. Wright, author, movie producer and host of the Wright Place TV show; Catherine Whitcher, M. Ed., special needs expert and founder of Precision Education, Inc.; Bettie B. Youngs, Ph. D., Ed. D., Pulitzer Prize­ nominated author of 34 books and director of Professional Development, Inc.; and Carley Knobloch, certified life coach and founder of Mothercraft: Coaching the Modern Mom. The judges are bound by a strict code of ethics that ensures expert and objective analysis free of any manufacturer association." 

This is such an honor for my first book.  It is a stamp of approval that Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects is a valuable educational resource for teachers and parents.

Thank you, Mom’s Choice Awards® for naming my book a Gold Medal winner!

Interesting Choices

Zulu Children in Africa- An Interesting Choice of Topics

For the past two weeks, I had the pleasure of working with a terrific group of fourth grade gifted children at Bascomb Elementary School in Georgia.  They were enthusiastic to learn about interest projects and downright thrilled when they discovered each would get to choose his or her own topic.  I am always amazed by students' choices because of their varied subjects and how much their interests reveal about them.  To understand my point, here is a sampling of some recent interest project topics:

Neil Peart - A nine-year-old girl really chose the drummer for the rock band Rush as her topic.  Very interesting!

MIT - A boy thinking ahead to college chose the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

African Americans Living in Africa - One confused boy actually chose this and I had no idea what he meant.  After our one-on-one meeting, I discovered he wanted to research an African tribe, but didn't know the name of any and so wrote down African Americans living in Africa.  I tactfully explained that if they are from Africa and live in Africa, they are just Africans- not Americans.  I suggested several tribes and he chose the Zulu.

As I continue to share my curriculum with more schools, I will share more INTERESTING CHOICES.

Book Released!

Check it out!  My book is now released and available at www.criticalthinking.com .  So exciting!  Please view support materials at my book's support website.

Book Now Available at Critical Thinking Company!

All the writing is complete.  All the edits have been made.  All the samples are uploaded and the companion website is finished (for now - updates will be ongoing.)  The trials are over.  The book is back from the printers and is ready for purchase at the Critical Thinking Company's website.

Get'em while they're hot!

Book Finally to Printers!

We finished our final updates and the book is off to the printers.  The companion website is complete and online.  Today, the Critical Thinking Company announced the book's availability date as May 24 and they are currently accepting preorders.  Sample pages of the book may be viewed on their website.

What an incredible experience this has been!

New Cover!

An updated look...Now I'm a blond!

Available in June!  Just two months away...

Release Date Announced! June 2012

Check out the publisher's page for my book: (This is so cool!)

The Critical Thinking Co.™ - Teaching Technology

Editing Book...

The Cover

The Critical Thinking Company's editorial staff and I have been feverishly working on the final edits of my book, Teaching Technology through Interest Projects.  I am so pleased to announce that their 2012 catalog is out and my book is in it!  If you have a catalog, check out page 23.  If you need a catalog or would like to view it online, check out my book's page on their site.

I am so excited to see my years of work and development in a real book!