Group items tagged

"Last year we introduced Hangouts On Air to a limited number of broadcasters, enabling them to go live with friends and fans, for all the world to see. Since then, this small community has grown the feature in lots of creative ways. And they've made one thing crystal clear: when groups of passionate individuals can broadcast live, together, the results are truly remarkable:"

"News, insights and big moments with fascinating videos - The Documentary Network"

"This week I'd like you to meet top-notch STEM program developer Dr. Susan Pruet. I was fortunate enough to work with Susan as she developed and directed two remarkably successful NSF-funded school reform efforts involving STEM education: the Maysville/Mobile Math Initiative and, more recently, the middle grades program Engaging Youth through Engineering. Susan - best described as a high-energy dynamo - has a talent and a well-designed process for establishing successful STEM reform initiatives. And she is masterful at joining hands with teachers, administrators, and community & business leaders to make it happen. In this guest blog post, Susan passes along some of her wisdom on how to design and implement a successful, sustainable STEM program. Here are 7 tips Susan thinks you should know up front."

"We've introduced you to a variety of quality image sites where you can find Creative Commons images, but the Creative Commons license goes far beyond just images. Different types of content are licensed online using Creative Commons - videos, music, and even blog content. You'll find plenty of it online to share, remix and use commercially. When it comes to Creative Commons music - there are certainly no shortage of websites with audio you can use for any occasion."

"One of the most wonderful things about working with 5- and 6-year-olds is their ability to talk and communicate how they feel, their opinion, their ideas and what they understand. They have an amazing ability and willingness to communicate. The communication is spontaneous, contagious, fun and so important as we begin to learn together. Their language is encouraged, enriched and enhanced through authentic opportunities to engage"

"Here's a fun thought experiment for teaching current events: With infinite class time and thinking time, how could I reach every single eighth-grade U.S. history student where he or she is most curious and invested? If one student can't get enough of foreign policy accords and another wants to read only feel-good stories about human nature, what could I do for each of them in class? How could this attention play out in their lives, now and in the future?"

"When done right, school can provide each individual child with experiences that will advance and deepen his or her problem-solving capacity, creativity, caring, and ownership of learning. Besides ensuring that all students have compassionate, effective teachers creating classroom conditions and opportunities for these things to occur, a school principal's primary responsibility is to allocate the scarce resources of time, space, and funding to maximize children's positive and productive experiences of school."

"On April 1st, a sold-out crowd of 250 students, teachers and civic, business, philanthropic, nonprofit, education and technology leaders flocked to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for STEMposiumTM - a celebration of excellence in K-12 STEM education innovation presented by the nonprofit EnCorps Teachers Program with co-host Citizen Schools. "

"My third truth. Data are not best analyzed alone, while you are sitting in front of a computer screen staring at Excel spreadsheets or colorful graphs. Data analyses are most effective when they are performed with other teachers who share the same standards and assessments, and who can discuss concretely and specifically, based on student results, what is working and what is not working to increase student learning in their context."

"It's no surprise that students are obsessed with their mobile devices. What may come as a surprise, though, is the fact that these digital devices may someday replace textbooks all together-and it may be sooner than we think! South Korea recently announced that by the year 2015, all paper textbooks will be replaced with digital textbooks available on mobile devices such as tablets and e-readers. As students become more and more dependent on digital, will textbooks become extinct? Learn more about this trend in the below infographic."

"XW1W uses today's instant technologies to share answers to the same question across the world once a week. XW1W is a simple, social way for students to learn about real life in other cultures from real kids all across the world. By simply "hashtagging" Twitter or blog responses to a weekly question about daily life, students can share and learn about other cultures from their international peers."

"Not all that long ago, the term "mobile learning" implied laptop computers and mobile carts that were wheeled from classroom to classroom. Now, as a growing number of students carry smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices that can connect to the internet wirelessly through a cellular as well as a Wi-Fi connection, the definition of "mobile learning" is expanding-and with it, the possibilities inherent in the term."

"The rapid adoption of devices in the classroom has fundamentally changed the way we can create video. Every part of the creation process -- writing, recording, editing, and distributing -- is possible on the devices that can fit in our pocket. Vision is the most dominant of the five senses. Research shows that concepts are better remembered if they are taught visually. This is called the pictorial superiority effect, and it's why video is such a powerful learning tool. A video is created three times: when you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. "

"Looking for tools and strategies for effective assessment in project-based learning? To support you, we've assembled this guide to helpful resources from Edutopia and beyond."

"NEW YORK - Technology is in every room at P.S. 101 in Brooklyn - it's even in the hallways. Scan the QR code with your phone outside of the fourth-grade classroom of co-teachers Vanessa Desiano and Jamie Coccia and a video will pop up of a student giving a history presentation on early explorers. Step inside, and fourth-grade students are working together to discover the themes of chapter 13 in their latest book, The Birchbark House, and typing what they find on iPads."

"In the summer of 2011, I was handed an opportunity to design and teach a course loosely based on Apple's in-store Genius Bar. The driving force behind this course was the impending launch of our 1-to-1 iPad environment. That summer, the Burlington Public Schools (MA) tech team was preparing to deliver iPads to every student in the high school. We were a five-person team, and three of those positions covered every school and device in the district. We were taking on these additional devices without additional support. "

Excellent post by Steven Weber! Provides links to worthwhile reads and resources related to digital citizenship

"When four South Carolina districts joined forces in 2013 to compete for a federal Race to the Top grant, their shared educational vision was clear: Teaching students to be creative innovators and independent learners will improve school performance. The challenge was finding a model to encompass all the sweeping changes they wanted to implement. What the districts' leaders eventually settled on was the term "enterprise learning," which refers to both a popular public education program overseas, and a model for professional development in corporate America. The South Carolina schools-working collectively as the Carolina Consortium for Enterprise Learning (CCEL)-are now trying to blend the two programs together with the help of $24.9 million in federal funding."

Included "grading" of states from A+ to F

As a teacher, it's strange to think of New Year's resolutions in January because we tend to think more about setting goals in time for the new school year, instead. However, in the spirit of the start of the calendar year, I'll ignore the master calendar and talk about my resolutions as if they weren't already in place, or already drifting from my crosshairs.