Teachable Moment: Twitter for Summer PD

Since it is summertime, I thought I'd take a slightly different approach to my typical Teachable Moment Monday and make it for the teacher (instead of for the students)! I personally use the summer to pursue some new professional development opportunities and catch up on hot topics I noted during the school year but didn't have an opportunity to try out. The power of Twitter has been one of these surprising hot topics that has transformed the way I approach my summer professional development.

Teachable Moments: Digital Manners

Inspired by my current graduate classes which are focused on global perspectives and virtual schooling, I will be highlighting a few easy ways to impress on young learners the necessity for using their manners when interacting online.

Teachable Moments: Printing

Have you ever gotten to the end of computer lab time and asked your students to press the print button only to watch all of their hands go up multiple times as they walk their way through the series of print screens? Take a moment to check your students knowledge of how the printing process works and provide them with a foundation for how machines communicate with one another!

Teachable Moments: The Mouse/Touch Screen

So, I have a pretty good feeling that most early childhood educators are probably raising an eyebrow and going "huh?" over the mention of trying to teach young learners about the different clicks on a mouse or gestures on a touch screen. However, if you teach the basics about the tools your students use to operate a computer their ability to troubleshoot in the computer will greatly increase!

Teachable Moments: The URL

Has a student ever asked a question during class that has caused you to stop and "Google it?" This is an almost daily occurrence in my classroom especially when we are reading any sort of text (especially non-fiction) or observing a special holiday. If you left it up to your students to choose the best result to find the answer to their question, would they make a good choice?

Teachable Moments: The Password

Every Monday I will be highlighting a small moment during the school day that could be easily used for teaching educational technology skills and content with minimal interruption to your scheduled lesson plan. These teachable moments are valuable opportunities to help your young learners become digitally literate! I will also be including some ideas to transform these moments into stand alone lessons, as well.