Tech Tuesday Archive 11

Tech Tuesday after school help will be pushed to tomorrow as I have a meeting.

Tech Tips:

-Twitter Contest continues! https://www.smore.com/s2hbh 1 more week to go! I'll draw a winner next monday.  So many more tweeters over the past couple weeks and I've seen a lot of things that are going on that I would never hear of otherwise.  

-If you are using Chromebooks - try to enforce a couple things with the students:

1.  Individual users should log in and out of the computer.  I've had several students who have siblings obviously using the computers at home, but logging in to gmail and other google services while the primary student is still logged into the Chromebook.  This is causing issues when the students are trying to log in to certain google services.

2.  Tell the kids to restart their chromebooks once in a while! Some kids seem to have no idea that there is a power button and, very honestly, restarting once in a while solves a lot of common issues.

3.  When using an app, if there is the ability to log in using their google login (Like a blue/red "G" button next to a facebook/twitter button) then you should tell the kids to do that.  It makes logging in during future sessions much easier.

- This article made the rounds on social media a few weeks ago, you may have seen it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html

-But if you do read it, I encourage you to also read this response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-nielsen/10-reasons-why-the-resear_b_5004413.html  

As a science teacher, I believe we can't promote ideas that aren't properly researched.  Extreme headlines get attention, unfortunately, whether it is our students reading or our peers.

I'm as guilty as the next person for thinking cell phones, video games, etc have a negative effect on the younger generation.  But when I sit back and see my 8 year old doing his spelling homework on an iPad and he wants to do it 3 extra times just to get a faster time, or when he knows more geography than I do because he's been managing his soccer team on FIFA '15, or he talks to his cousin, daily, who he would normally see every couple months, I see the flip side to these arguments.  We can't get caught up demonizing those things that are foreign to us.  At some point we have to embrace the change and realize it's not so much that its a difficulty to face, but something new that we have to learn more about.

As always, questions, comments, and concerns are welcome!

Have a great week everybody! See you on the Twitter!