This video was made for families of children entering kindergarten in the Boston Public Schools. Although kindergarten in other districts may be different in some ways, much will be similar.
When it comes to educational technology, the great teacher isn't the one who merely uses technology in education. The great teacher is the one who experiments and who teaches the spirits within students to experiment. It's sad to see many teachers still thinking they are using technology with their classes but are still not getting it into the students hands.
When will the state catch up? It would be wonderful to concentrate on guiding students in self-inquiry through technology if our feet weren't mired in standardized testing.
I think it is very hard for teachers to trust new technology and give it to the students to use. The students are most likely ready and willing to try the technology, now we just have to jump on board.
I think the districts need to provide more technology in the classroom in order for teachers to take advantage of the new technology to go paperless. I currently have two computers in my classroom and we do not have a computer lab.
I know my district is in need of providing technology to teachers and students so that we can use technology more. It makes it more difficult when you only have two computers in the classroom and no computer lab for students to experiment.
Sometimes its the fear of the teacher to let go- give the students the opportunities to try to use the technology! I still struggle with how do you go paperless at the early elementary level? Love to incorporate more technology and get it into my students hands!
Teachers a educational coaches, gleefully running amok admist constantly changing technology, leading their students to think and act outside of the box. Whould be interesting.
This article had a great point about the use of Web 2.0. It isn't just that we progress to a new level and use the newer technologies. Rather, we allow them to be used as a tool by students to encourage them to become more engaged learners.
This is a great article and I am taking a class right now on PLN's to help push me in the right direction of doing more and having the students do more with technology.
Articles like this make you think. Paperless? Is that the goal? I believe the goal is to help our students become better learners. Learners that can discover, adapt, create, communicate, lead and follow. Technology has a huge role in this. More than time to jump on board.
At the company I work at - we are paperless in handling claims and I do have to say it is nice. The system we use - you can mark pages, highlight, attach sticky notes, and several other options. It is a great system and can fax and email right from your desk - so if the paperless in school can correlate - it could be a great addition. I do think that when it is in teaching - you can lose the benefit of face to face, etc as well as penmanship could become a lost art.
Have you read Friedman? I have a little...there's also plenty of push-back on this guy's ideas.
(1) critical thinking and problem solving; (2) collaboration and leadership; (3) agility and adaptability; (4) initiative and entrepreneurialism; (5) effective oral and written communication; (6) accessing and analyzing information; and (7) curiosity and imagination.
I think these are all great...but think back to the '5 essential characteristics' and formative assessment, etc. How will we be able to "assess" these skills? It's tough to assess these soft skills, in my opinion.
The ICC is definitely working hard to get us where we need to go. We need to get our staff, school board, and community to understand that doing nothing is not an option.
We also need to be very supportive of each other during this process. It will definitely be a change for many (most?) teachers. We need to celebrate our successes and build upon them. We also need to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it when things do not turn out how we hoped/planned.
I know I should be more positive, but I am still not sold on it. I don't have the answer,and agree we need to do something, but I don't know if this is it. Time will tell.
The Core 21st century standards are imperative skills that students need to experience and practice. Every teacher is responsible for making the changes necessary so that we can meet the needs of workers/society/families/businesses currently in place and in the future.
With the research that shows the importance of building student creativity, it is concerning to see so many districts eliminating or de-funding arts programs.
While watching the video, I had kind of an a-ha moment (many of you have probably reached this point years ago). I imagined the schools of long ago -- think one room prairie school houses. For many kids this was the only place they would see books or be exposed to anything beyond merely existing. At some point, school and home began switching places. As stated in the video, without allowing the new available technology into the classroom and teaching them how to manage it, school will become a one room schoolhouse and home will be the place they can explore the world and expand their intellect. What we need to work for is a seamless meshing of the two. They come to school to get inspired and motivated to continue learning on their own time.
"Iowa is fortunate to have not only state core content standards, but also the Iowa Core Curriculum, which provides rigorous expectations for all students and gives teachers the tools to change teaching and learning in this state," Jeffrey said. "With our recently passed Iowa Core Curriculum, Iowa can easily incorporate national standards because the Core Curriculum provides more explicit guidance to reach high expectations."
I find this whole discussion of 'common core standards' to be pretty intriguing. Not too long ago, Iowa was the only (?) state that did not have statewide standards - each district was charged was creating its own. Now we're on board with joining a coalition to create national standards. Things change quickly!
They need to be adapted to special education students that are severe and profound....we have to adapt our curriculum to meet these standards, but it would be nice if all schools in Iowa are using the same adaptations.
I find it interesting as well...We (Iowa) should be well on the way with the Iowa Core Curriculum.
The goal is to have a common core of state standards that states can voluntarily adopt. States may choose to include additional standards beyond the common core as long as the common core represents at least 85 percent of the state's standards in English language arts and mathematics. The second phase of this initiative is to ultimately develop common assessments aligned to the core standards developed through the process.
moving towards national assessments?! I wonder what companies like Pearson think of this idea. Not that it really matters, but I could see some special interest groups becoming...'interested' in getting these contracts. Plan on keeping an eye on how all of this progresses.
Today our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded
onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones ... So why are
California's public school students still forced to
lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
Today our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded
onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones ... So why are
California's public school students still forced to
lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
"That has probably been achieved mostly in the past 10 years. Ever since Tony
Blair came in and talked about 'education, education, education,' at least £2bn
has been invested in learning technology, and if things carry on in the same
vein, perhaps 40% of educational resources will be digital in 10 years time."
Publishers such as Hodder Education already offer a range of online resources
alongside conventional textbooks, and Pearson sells electronic versions of most
of its textbooks, either in interactive form, or as a straight portable document
format (pdf). Last year, Pearson earned £960m revenue from its digital products
and services – around a fifth of its total revenue.
replicate.
"You can flick back and forth in them quickly, you can scribble in them, it's
easy to share one between a number of students," she said. "Though theoretically
electronic textbooks can be much more interactive, the current reality is that a
lot of them are little more than pdf versions of the paper book," she added. "A
colleague of mine the other day got it right when he said that if you could
invent anything that's as powerful as the book in the next hundred years we'll
have done well."
"You can flick back and forth in them quickly, you can scribble in them, it's
easy to share one between a number of students," she said. "Though theoretically
electronic textbooks can be much more interactive, the current reality is that a
lot of them are little more than pdf versions of the paper book," she added. "A
colleague of mine the other day got it right when he said that if you could
invent anything that's as powerful as the book in the next hundred years we'll
have done well."
This is an interesting concept. I think it would save a lot of time not to have to copy from textbooks, but I wonder how long it will actually take before it becomes a reality. Unfortunately, as the article states, there are still quite a few people (students) who do not have access to the internet. That alone will cause some problems with the paperless classroom concept.
Formative assessment has been described as the systematic process of gathering student evidence and providing feedback about how learning is progressing while instruction is underway
This keynote will provide a framework for the rationale and development of formative assessment practices that will make instruction in Iowa secondary settings more focused and effective.
The Iowa DE will be contracting with Margaret Heritage for formative assessment as the Iowa Core Curriculum is rolled out. This is a video of a keynote she gave at the 2008 Iowa HS Summit.
In schoolhouse lingo, I could only declare teachers and students 'absent' from the board of P21. And until that absence is rectified, the board will only symbolize the top-down old-fashioned 20th century style of management that's gotten us into so many of the problems that as a nation we currently face.
Collaboration is so key to the world our students will grow up in. I feel there is a mentality that collaboration = cheating with the kids I've learned with (and when I was in high school). It will be important to change the connotation of the word.
What I will say is that any comparison of the Iowa Core to the Common Core is not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Iowa Core is not standards and benchmarks and has never pretended to be.
"What I will say is that any comparison of the Iowa Core to the Common Core is not an apples-to-apples comparison. The Iowa Core is not standards and benchmarks and has never pretended to be."
Students will receive statuses of "beginning," "developing," "secure" or "exceeds" in 10 to 12 objectives - or standards - per subject instead of traditional letter grades.
"It's a very emotional topic," Reeves said. "A big thing is it's not standards versus grades. It's, 'Are we giving parents and students better information to improve their performance?' "
It's critical that before you move students on in their learning, you actually know what it is that they have control of and at what level," he said. "This method does that."
There is a law in organizational theory called Parkinson’s law which says that work will expand to fill the amount of time we are willing to devote to it.
Sometimes we work better under pressure and get more done in a shorter amount of time if we know where we are going.
Which of my students is still struggling with this essential skill?
Which of my students has mastered the essential skill?
What is an area in which my students excelled, what strategies led to their success, and how might I share those strategies with my colleagues, and conversely what is an area of weakness where I might seek help from my colleagues?
Is there an area where students struggled regardless of the teacher to whom they were assigned and if so, what steps can our team take to address our own professional learning regarding teaching that skill?
Teams should create their own assessments rather than using textbooks or commercial assessments and should use performance-based assessments when the skill or concepts requires such an assessment.
Ken Kay (@kenkay21 on Twitter) is CEO of EdLeader21, a professional learning community for district and school leaders committed to 21st century education. He resides in Tucson, Arizona.
Posted by Jason Rand on August 26, 2011 - 2:15 pm As educators and students head back to school, we wanted to highlight a few ways Ning is used in the classroom as an e-learning tool.
Instead, school leaders should ask that teachers meet with ONE collaborative group and one collaborative group only. Then, they should require that collaborative groups make formative assessment a priority.
Meetings should focus on studying formative assessment data, creating exemplars, improving rubrics, and designing remediation and enrichment opportunities for kids.
The simple truth is teachers just don’t have the time to do formative assessment correctly if their attention is divided between the kinds of traditional meetings we’ve always been required to attend.
This article made me smile, as our district has sent out this very type of communication on more than one occasion. I enjoyed Evan's daughter's point about our fascination with stalking the eagles for hours. Small clips of a couple minutes each should suffice. I have noticed that this has been a difficult lesson for some in our district to learn. We will likely have individuals asking their entire class to watch streaming videos of something in the near future as well.