Do your students have these tech skills?

Before you can use technology to teach math...science...language arts...etc, you need to make sure that your students have mastered some basic skills.

Students may develop some of these skills in computer class (if your school offers it), but subject-area teachers will still need to teach some basics early in the year.

So what are the most important, basic, essential technology skills that your students need to master?
To help you answer this question I created a technology skills checklist.
This check list identifies the most basic things that you should teach in your classroom at the beginning of the school year.

These skills are so basic that most middle and high school students will be embarrassed to admit that they don't know them. You will need to think of a fun, creative, non-threatening way to weave these skills into the first 1-2 weeks of the school year.

Just because students are "digital natives" doesn't mean that they know how to use technology effectively. We need to help them.
One idea for teaching a lot of these basic skills is my "selfie trading card" activity. It's fun, easy, and will cross off a lot of the skills listed on my check list. Check out this video for details (the trading card template is in the description of the video!)!

If tech is an important component of your classroom, it's worth devoting some time early in the school year to help your students be successful.

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