Group items tagged

'I used to think… Now I think' is one of the most powerful thinking tools (Visible Thinking routines). It allows you to grow, without having to have been wrong. It allows me to develop my ideas, change my practice, increase my understanding, deepen my thinking… and change my mind. I used to think that the more tightly I kept control, the more efficiently time would be used in the classroom so that more learning could take place.

The Exploratree web resource has been developed by Futurelab and emerged out of our work on the Enquiring Minds project. It provides a series of ready-made interactive 'thinking guides' or 'frameworks' which can support students' projects and research. Thinking guides support the thinking or working through of an issue, topic or question and help to shape, define and focus an idea and also support the planning required to investigate it further. Exploratree guides can be used as a basis for whole class discussion, or emailed to individuals or groups to complete. They can also be used as a presentation tool to share your findings and thinking with others. As well as providing a set of ready to use thinking guides, which are completely customisable and shareable, Exploratree also enables teachers and students to create their own simply and easily.

"Join Howard Rheingold and other noted educators in creating a world-class resource for teaching critical thinking and Internet literacies. We are building a framework in the pages linked in the menu to the left. Get started by adding to the list of tools and the list of important vocabulary. Check out the latest bookmarks on the Diigo Resources page. You can join the Diigo group and subscribe to the RSS feeds."

"I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I could have simply used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me. But this was a limited view. I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation."

"My students create many different artifacts, but the most meaningful are those in which my students show their learning and their thinking in ways that are far beyond what a worksheet could do.  When they make a video or screencast of what they have learned, I can hear and see their thinking. I can also hear confidence or hesitation, self-corrections or errors in perception. Consider these math examples produced by my students."

"This year at my school we've begun to dip our toes into the waters of online communication (some staff are already swimming while others are still sitting on the edge thinking they'll drown without support). We've introduced both Edmodo and blogging to varying degrees this year. In a nutshell, I see Edmodo as an all encompassing classroom management/teaching and learning/collaboration system. Blogging, on the other hand, while it can be used for all the purposes just mentioned, is a tool for writing, publishing and sharing your body of work, be it major writing tasks or quick reflections on life or school work. While it aims to share and craves feedback, blogging is a personal tool. Edmodo, however, it more group oriented. Because of the differentiation between the two, I think they should both be part of classroom practice."

"WHILE education experts across Australia grapple with Gonski, high school graduates thinking of a career in teaching ought to think again - because in the future the traditional role may be gone-ski. Instead, tutoring is tipped to take on a very different form."

"It's Not Paranoia: The Internet Knows More Than You Think"

"Here is a handy cheat sheet made particularly for those of you who think they are not tech-savvy enough to carry out internet control safety planning for their kids. Check it out and share with us what you think of it. Enjoy"

"Blogging is an excellent way of motivating students to develop a lifelong love of learning. Writing is a process, and when they learn this they will be able to apply the skills to other aspects of their schooling. It also teaches children critical thinking skills which will help them as they progress through school. Along with the development of critical thinking skills, students will learn how to conduct research. This is particularly important both in school and in the workplace they will one day take part in."

"Published on 6 May 2013 Most of us are on the Internet on a daily basis and whether we like it or not, the Internet is affecting us. It changes how we think, how we work, and it even changes our brains. We interviewed Nicholas Carr, the author of, "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains," about how the Internet is influencing us, our creativity, our thought processes, our ideas, and how we think."

"Downloading videos from YouTube through a third-party service is a violation of section 4 of YouTube's terms of service. I don't want students thinking they can download anything they want without concern for copyright or a company's terms of service. Therefore, I think I should model for students the behavior of respecting copyright and a company's terms of service."

This binder is an attempt to collect and organize Digital Citizenship resources by age (grade level). Often when we think of Digital Citizenship, we only think about the safety aspects of it but being a digital citizen is much more than just being safe. The nine elements of Digital Citizenship as outlined in the book Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey are: Digital Etiquette Digital Communication Digital Literacy Digital Access Digital Commerce Digital Law Digital Rights & Responsibilities Digital Health & Wellness Digital Security (self-protection) Source: http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html If you would like to collaborate on this binder, please send the email address that you used when signing up with Live Binders to stmcomputers@gmail.com.

This Livebinder is a really comprehensive and up to date, (August 2011) collection of links to Digital Citizenship Resources

Sure, I can see the positives and negatives to handwriting but as a Kindergarten teacher I see great merit in developing fine motor skills, spelling skills (without spell check) and being able to write legibly. I remember back to my HCS and those exams where all you did was write was laborious but I think we need a balance of both.

"I have an issue with the word "e-learning". I was wondering at what point we are going to ditch the "e" in front of "learning". I assume "e" stands for electronic. Did we have "p-learning" before that, when kids used pens for learning? It seems, to some, at least, the tool that is used to make the learning happen is considered more important than the learning itself. People (like myself) who are considered accomplished in "e-learning" should be considered first and foremost as great teachers who happen to use technology quite a bit to enable the learning. If you truly want to integrate technology into your teaching, your first step is to stop thinking of it as something separate, and start thinking of it as a way to achieve your educational goals."

Andy Affleck is debating whether to allow his 11-year-old son, Jack, to have a Facebook account. Director of engineering at a small tech company near Providence, R.I., Affleck says he feels very strongly "that children need to be socialized in the online world just as much as they do in the real world."

"Discuss web-site or product interfaces with your team. Add visual materials and screenshots, mark-up, leave comments in mini-chat. Create simple sketches or complex infographics using shapes, texts and mark-up tools. Visualize any data and share it with others. Upload pictures and drawings of interior and exterior, discuss your design projects with your colleagues and clients using comments and chat. Plan and discuss your projects in RealtimeBoard - add your Google Docs and PDF-presentations, create mindmaps and collaborate in real time. Use business model template to structure your business activity. Add files, texts, pictures, comments and work together.

"Collect ideas, discuss and vote. That's how tricider works. Your team will make decisions faster without meetings or calls. Innovative solutions arise because everyone can contribute ideas and vote. Whether with friends or clients: taking advantage of all the opinions and ideas to find the best solution has never been easier."

This is the first of Russell Stannard's TeachertrainingVideos tutorial for Tricider brainstorming and voting space.