Group items tagged

"The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below. "

"Alan November's "Digital Learning Farm" was the inspiration for my classroom jobs. The idea couldn't be more simple: people are empowered through meaningful work. Children used to be, in the times of farming, useful and necessary contributors to their families' farms and other livelihoods. Once children's work became going to school full-time, that feeling of usefulness and importance faded. Most teachers understand the importance of giving kids jobs to do, and many traditional classrooms do designate roles such as "line leader" and "pencil sharpener"to fulfill these needs. Digital tools offer the possibility of exciting upgrades to these jobs, allowing students to learn through doing while making authentic contributions to their communities."

"With the rise of MOOCs, Edupunks, and other radically transformative notations of school, I hear a lot of talk about building capacities for independent learning in our students. Where will this come from, I ask, if we do not re-awaken the desire and capacity for learning on our own within all of our teachers?"

"These days I'm a STEM curriculum writer and advocate, but I'll confess that each year when Middle Level Education Month rolls around, I feel an extra longing to be back in a science classroom with young adolescents elbowing their way through the door, eager to learn "stuff." It's a place where I spent 16 wonderful years of my professional life."

"The Common Core State Standards recognize that to thrive in the newly wired world, students need to master new ways of reading and writing."

""Design your own shoe." That's what high school students thought they were signing up to do when they volunteered for an immersive experience in design thinking. Truth be told, the course description was not quite accurate. Shoe design "is really a Trojan horse for solving problems in a new way," acknowledged Chad Faber, director of the Knight Family Scholars Program at Catlin Gabel School, an independent K-12 school in Portland, Oregon. He facilitated the four-day, hands-on learning experience along with Greg Bamford (@gregbamford) from the Leading is Learning collaborative in Seattle. Several more Catlin Gabel staffers took part to learn by doing, building a cohort of teachers with design chops. "

"In the past, I've had the very good fortune to work with both Destination Imagination and Odyssey of the Mind in my classroom. Both of these programs allow kids to explore creativity to the nth degree and offer engaging and learning-filled explorations beyond what is typically offered in school. The guiding philosophies of both programs are: In what ways can we be creative? How creative can we be? We often ask our students to be creative, but how often do we ask them to extend that creativity into previously unexplored territory? How often do we invite them to up the WOW Factor? I often muse about that when I think about Web 2.0 tools that I share in workshops. I'm always trying to brainstorm divergent ways to use these versatile tools at multiple cognitive levels as well as creative extensions beyond what the tool was designed for."

"he Someday/Monday dichotomy captures one of the core challenges in teacher professional development around education technology. On the one hand, deep integration of new learning technologies into classrooms requires substantially rethinking pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and teacher practice (someday). For technology to make a real difference in student learning, it can't just be an add-on. On the other hand, teachers need to start somewhere (Monday), and one of the easiest ways for teachers to get experience with emerging tools is to play and experiment in lightweight ways: to use technology as an add-on. Teachers need to imagine a new future-to build towards Someday-and teachers also need new activities and strategies to try out on Monday. Both pathways are important to teacher growth and meaningful, sustained changes in teaching and learning."

"For the past five years I have collaborated with a playwright who works with my students as they write original plays. Each year, on the first day that she has been in the room with us, Kate and I stage a conflict about what should come next in the lesson. "

"What happens when administrators throw out the rulebook and try fundamentally different models of education? The models are all different: In one successful school, kids help choose the lunch plan. In another, classes start at 10 a.m. (with less homework-and more field trips). And in a third school, physical education happens three times a day, instead of once a week. Sound like items from a third grader's wish list? Nope. These are initiatives from real schools where, instead of nibbling at the edges of curriculum and technology, administrators have embraced radically new approaches to the very idea of school itself. We caught up with leaders at three such schools to find out how it's working out for them-and to show you what you can steal for your own district, without necessarily ­turning your whole model upside down. "

"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."

"Updating and Focusing Curriculum Mapping: A Five-Step Process (interactive) Saturday, July 2, 8:30 a.m. ET"

"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. "

"Whether you're a technophobe or a geeked-out early adopter, there's no denying that the world is run on computers, and the language of computers is code. It seems only natural that there's a wave of interest in the idea of teaching kids to code -- some say it should be a requirement in every school. I think no one would argue that every kid is cut out to be a programmer, but a basic understanding of code couldn't hurt. In fact, this knowledge could give a leg up in an increasingly technology-centric society. Hopefully this playlist of videos will help you learn more about some of the people and organizations who are working to change the opportunities available for kids to learn code."

"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."