Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Through Service for Others

Every year, on the third Monday of January, our nation stops to honor and recognize the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.  His “I Have a Dream” speech urging all people to fight peacefully for democracy and brotherhood is known by all, and is the basis for many classroom lessons on MLK and Civil Rights. … read more »

Being Re-sourceful, When More Is Not Better, Part One

In today’s world of instant information, students often are overwhelmed by the myriad of resources available to support research assignments. When teaching students to use search engines, I emphasize the importance of asking the right questions, finding the best keywords, and, most importantly, using advanced searching techniques to retrieve limited results containing the information they … read more »

TechBytes: Build Google Slides Like a Master With These Four Design Tips

Build Google Slides like a master. Watch this episode of TechBytes for four great design tips. Participants will learn to: maximize the power of the SHIFT key to nudge, select, resize, move, and recolor objects; use design guides to align objects on the slide canvas; insert special characters as part of a text box or … read more »

What’s the Buzz: Computational Thinking

When ISTE unveiled the refreshed ISTE Standards for Students in June, there were a number significant changes. The addition of “Computational Thinking” was one of them. I’ve overheard some teachers trying to understand the concept and have come to realize that we’re not all as clear on the concept as we should be.  Some have … read more »

Tech Tool of the Month: Animoto

From time to time I learn about or rediscover a tech tool that is really versatile.  When that happens, members of the TeachersFirst team know that for at least the next month they will find the tool strategically placed in emails, mentioned in conversation, and suggested for inclusion on all types of projects that we … read more »