Group items tagged

"One of the key results of flipping my writing and literature classes has been that my students do much of their writing in-class on computers provided by the college. All of these computers have Microsoft Word on them, but I prefer to use Google Docs/Drive instead. Given that MS Word is the standard word processor for my college and most of the rest of the world, then this preference may require some defence. After all, my colleagues expect all of their papers to be submitted in doc or docx format, and my students are most familiar with Word, so what are the benefits of Google Docs that make it worth swimming against the tide?"

"THE ULTIMATE WORD SEARCH MAKER Step 1) Add words to your puzzle Step 2) Copy and paste the code into your website It's that easy to make free word search puzzles!"

A free online PDF to Word converter that converts and emails your Word document to you!

""Librarian and blogger Megan Egbert suggests a redirection of how we perceive the word 'cyberbullying' and how it can positively effect our fight against this horrible crime.""

"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!"

"Gingko is an online word processor, that lets you work on structure & content at the same time."

"A good blog post delivers its message by combining words with visual interest in a well-structured format that's easy to read. Follow the basics in this article to start writing posts that attract and hold your readers' attention."

"This formula has been proven in my class over the last 6 months. PBL is my favourite thing at the moment, and if you've read my personal blog you'd think I had the words edmodo and PBL tattooed onto my brain. (I don't, I promise!) PBL is a tough nut to crack when you're working for a public school with limited resources and the pressure of external standardised tests breathing down your neck. PBL is hard because it requires quite a lot of planning as well as quite a lot of guts - you need to have faith in yourself as an educator and faith that your students will 'go with' your radicalised view of teaching and learning. Getting your students to work in small groups to complete a project that will be shared with a real-world audience is pretty daunting. But it is made so much easier, and made so much better, thanks to edmodo."

Check out how this Aussie teacher works with her class in Edmodo, especially step 5 the reflections.

"Google has made it possible for us to have instant information gratification. Just start typing the first letters of your search word and the site intuits your question and offers you the smartest choice of answers. Seems simple enough. But as quick and facile as the process is, there are ways to be even more efficient, more search-savvy. And it's our responsibility to teach kids how to find and research information, how to judge its veracity, and when it's time to ask for a grownup's help. I spoke to Daniel Russell, Google's "search anthropologist" in charge of Search Quality and User Happiness (yes, really), who brought to light some important tips you may not have known."

If you use Google to search you need to check this out

"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."

"Google Alert allows you to create alerts around topics you are interested in and start receiving emails with updates about your search query. For instance as a doctoral student with a research interest in emerging literacies , I have created an alert with the name " emerging literacies" and each time something new published online with those key words in it I get an email with a link to it. This keeps me abreast of the latest releases in my area of research. I also use Google Alert to track down authors and scholars whose works are related to my research areas. I simply create a Google Alert with their names as the alert titles and next time they publish something I get it first. Another way to use Google Alert is to create an alert about yourself by using your full name and anytime somebody mentions you somewhere online you will instantly receive an email with a link to it. Here is how to create a Google Alert"

"What is the connection between Social Networks and Being Lonely? Quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk - Connected, But Alone."

"On March 21, 2006, a simple messaging service was born with a five-word tweet. In honor of the 140-character limit per post on Twitter, here are 140 things you didn't know about the service."

""I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate" picks up on the education topic but takes a different stance and angle from "Why I Hate School But Love Education". This poem talks about how we have been made to think about how education and getting university degrees can give us opportunities to have a better chance in making our dream careers a reality. It also touches on how as individuals we are judged and tested by how well we perform on exams, but not all people perform well in exams so why are they made out to feel like they're dumb? The inconsistencies of the education system are really peeled open to reveal a deep problem that needs to be addressed and how society's needs have changed to make this even more apparent. "