Blog Archives

Flawless File Management

25/1/2019

This week, I have been sharing some tips to help teachers start the year well with classroom technology. In this Blog, I share some advice about teaching kids how to manage their files well.

So often I hear “I cannot remember where I saved it”. Taking a little time to teach kids how to manage their files well at the start of the school year will prevent their computers being turned into a mess of random files and help them to find what they are looking for more easily.

Depending on the service your school uses, whether it be OneDrive, Google Drive or iCloud, get your students using the cloud to save their school files. This makes it easier to share and recover.
Set up a 2019 folder and then sub-folders for either subjects, terms or semester.
Teach them to name and rename files – don’t leave things as “Untitled 1” etc…
Teach students to create a shortcut to their 2019 files and place it on the desktop for easy access.
Show them how to empty their recycle bin and their downloads folder to clear the clutter.

Building file management into your technology pedagogy is important in ensuring these skills stick. If you start something new in the classroom, spend the last 5 minutes ensuring students save their work to the correct place. I suggest even setting a the name for the file. You can check out this past blog, which covers this topic a little more deeply.

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Encouraging Good Email Etiquette

23/1/2019

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This week, I have been sharing some tips to help teachers start the year well with classroom technology. In this Blog, I share some advice about establishing good email etiquette in your students.

Student email is common in schools and can be a fantastic tool to facilitate collaboration between teachers and students. Often students are provided a school email address without really being taught how to use it. Spending a little time teaching students the following expectations will help communication flow a little more smoothly for the year ahead.

Have them use the subject line – what is this email about? Some teachers have many classes and a little more information can be very helpful.
Show them how to begin and end an email correctly - "To Mrs Bain" and "From Thomas Smith" is all you need. You may like to help your students create an email signature that does some of the work for them.
Advise students to NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS as this is the email equivalent of yelling.
Set the expectation that emails written to you should be similar to the way they speak to you in the classroom. Advise them to avoid using abbreviated or the type of language they might use when chatting to friends on social media. Remember punctuation, correct spelling and capital letters too!
Remind students that manners still apply in emails. Please and thank you can change the tone of an email considerably.
Teach students the difference between reply and reply all. Everyone in the class may not need to see their reply to the teacher. Knowing this can prevent embarassing situations.
Teach students to manage their emails well. Do you need to keep this email or can it be deleted? Check out this blog post about managing your emails. These are good approaches to teach your students too.
Set time expectations – If you send an email to me after 9pm, you are not likely to get a response until the next day.
Encourage students to keep their school email addresses for school only. Remind them not to use it for social communication or to sign up to websites or mail list that are not related to school.

It is important to model these expectations in your own emails to students. Good email etiquette is a valuable skill to develop in students and one that will continue to serve them into the future. It is worth spending a little time on it at the start of the school year.

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Pro Password Management

22/1/2019

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This week, I am sharing some tips to help teachers start the year well with classroom technology. In this Blog, I share some advice about student passwords.

Single sign on (SSO) allows students to log into multiple platforms with the one set of credentials. This is usually a Microsoft or Google account and although it is becoming increasingly used, many schools will find they are not quite there yet. This usually means that students have a collection of passwords for the many different platforms they log into. Especially in the years of primary schooling, students will have a tough time remembering all their different passwords.

Password Cards

Although many services allow you to print out neat little login cards for your students, these are often misplaced during the year. One idea is to laminate and collect all a student’s login cards on a keyring or loose leaf binder ring. These can be attached to a student laptop bag or lanyard in the classroom. You can download the pictured password cards from the Upper Elementary Shots website.

Letting the browser do the work

Google Chrome, Safari and Edge browsers both have the capability to remember passwords. Teaching your students how to create and edit the passwords their computers remember is a good skill to develop. While you are at it, teaching students to create internet favourites or bookmarks to the websites you will be using frequently during the school year is also a great time-saving idea. You could even create a splash page of links to your most frequently used websites yourself and have your students browers set to open that page whenever they open a new internet browser window.

Taking the time to teach students about managing their passwords, will save you headaches during the school year. You are also teaching students to be responsible for a lifetime of password management.

Do you have some other suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

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Classroom Tech Storage Wars

21/1/2019

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There is so much to get organised at the start of a school year. This week many teachers are creating resources, labelling, cleaning, organising furniture, planning units and making their classroom generally spectacular for their new classes this year. Amidst the tornado of activity, the management of classroom technology is easy to overlook. With so many schools adopting BYOD models or laptop schemes, teachers are increasingly required to manage 1:1 classrooms. For many teachers, this is not something they are used to considering. However, a little bit of prep and time spent at the start of the year will make 1:1 classroom life a lot easier as the year progresses.

This week, I will be sharing some tips to help teachers start the year well with classroom technology. In this Blog, I share some advice about storage.

"....as the children started arriving, I realised I had no place for their computers. They ended up in a pile on my reading table. Later that day, a child went to pull his laptop out of the pile and several computers slid off onto the floor. Two broken screens later, I wish I had given it some more thought..."
- Melissa (Year 4 Teacher

When you suddenly have 30 student devices, finding a way to store them can be a nightmare - sometimes an expensive nightmare. My favourite solutions are cubby style shelves or pigeon holes, but these can go into the hundreds of dollars for a professionally constructed piece. Fortunately, frugal teachers everywhere are developing clever ways to store student devices. Check out a collection of ideas I have gathered on Pinterest here. Don’t underestimate the humble plastic crate or magazine rack either. Just because it isn’t an overly fancy solution doesn’t mean it won’t work. As long as students can access their device easily and it keeps them all safe, you are onto a winner. Avoid stacking devices or allowing children to keep them in their desks. Even though it may seem like a no brainer, don’t store the class devices next to the water bottles.....yeah, it has happened...

How do you invite children to go and get their computers? Sending the whole class at once will result in chaos and perhaps even end in broken devices. Send children in small groups to retrieve their device or designate classroom tech assistants to hand them out.

Consider creating a classroom charging station. No matter how much you remind students to bring a fully charged device to school, someone always forgets. Aging devices also don’t hold charge like they did when they were new. "Well, I guess you just cannot do this activity then" is not an acceptable way to handle this. As frustrating as it can be for a classroom teacher, punishments should never be at the expense of a student's learning. Technology is no longer an added extra in the classroom and is a legitimate learning tool. For continually forgetful students consider motivating them in other ways or allowing so many free charges per term. One fun idea I saw was a fuel card that the teacher punched. Students who didn’t go over their limit were rewarded at the end of the term.

"Punishments should never be at the expense of a student's learning."

There is more to classroom technology storage than students’ devices. Headphones, USB sticks, styluses, mice and other peripherals may round out what the children use each day. Can they also go into a cubby or tray? Or could they be hung on hooks? Regardless of how you decide to store these smaller items.... label...label...label! It can be a nightmare trying to work out who a USB belongs to and the sharing of earbuds is just not hygienic.

Do you have any great ideas for technology storage in your classroom? Share in the comments below!

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