Group items tagged

"The idea of students sitting in front of PCs learning how to use Word is as dead as the proverbial dead parrot. It is already an antiquated model of learning - like chalk or fountain pens with ink-wells; it has a whiff of the twentieth century about it, rather than preparing our students for the future. Whilst the DfE dithers about what they should do with technology (Mr Gove clearly wants to reboot the chalk and talk bygone age), schools are left with a rapidly changing world, where budgets are at a premium and ICT often stretches what budgets now allow. All the while, students are learning on their iPads, Android tablets and smart phones, writing more in texts and tweets daily than in their collective writing experience during the school week. We aren't harnessing this expertise, never mind guiding it to a place of higher learning!"

You may well be aware of the hundreds, no, thousands of websites and tools that are available to use within the classroom. Many of these have popped up in the past few years and it can be hard to keep up with them all, particularly when many require logins or may need software to be installed too. So here are a few sites that are perfect for using with a range of children and all of them can be accessed from any web browser.

All K-12 and Higher Ed Teachers, Administrators, IT Directors, and Tech Coordinators! Have you heard about the New Zealand Summit? Are you interested in how Google Apps in Education can promote student learning and motivation? The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team. Register now to send teachers, administrators, tech directors, library media specialists, tech support staff, CTOs, and anyone who is interested in finding out more about leveraging Google Apps for Education to support student learning.

"This Contemporary Literacy Practices of Preps e-book has been developed to showcase the range of learning opportunities possible when digital technologies become an integral part of children's' learning and development. The e-book is also a testament to the amazing capabilities of young learners to acquire the necessary digital literacy skills necessary for participation in life. The e-book highlights how technologies can help support sharing, collaboration and communication in and beyond the classroom."

"The term "digital natives" when applied to young people's use of technology and the term 'digital immigrants' for older people has almost become a commonly held and popular notion in discussions about the use of digital technologies. And education is not immune to such populist although distorted ideas which have been driven by some education technology evangelists. In reality, what does research contribute to the view of this type of technological determinism?"

"There are people like myself, Steve Wheeler and others who think that blogging is a good thing to do for a number of reasons. I won't rehearse theme here because you can read them in the articles referenced at the end of this one. However, blogging is not necessarily easy. Even if writing itself is not a problem, there are several other factors that need to be taken into account. Steve has admirably listed them and discussed them in these articles:"

"If you are looking at why you might consider class blogging you might find it helpful to see what others have said. Here are some links to helpful resources which provide guidance about the benefits of creating a class blog."

Have a look through this post related to class blogging for some great ideas and tips to setting up class based blogs.