Group items tagged

"Using personal iPhones and iPads in the office leads many people to work from them while on vacation. Our iPhones and iPads, which enable us to work and be on call virtually anywhere at any time, will lead to more than half of us working while on vacation. That's the result of a new study that looked at how technology impacts the work/life balance. iOS devices are common players in the bring your own device (BYOD) era. As BYOD programs lead many of us to use our personal iOS devices and other mobile technology for work-related tasks, they also encourage an "always on" attitude from employers and employees alike."

"As you probably know, Google Drive is far more than a place to store files online. It also includes a suite of versatile creation tools, many of which perform the same functions as the ones we use in other spaces. These include Google Docs, a word processing program that behaves similarly to Microsoft Word, Google Slides, a presentation program similar to PowerPoint, and Google Forms, a survey-creation tool similar to Survey Monkey. Although Drive also includes other tools, these three are particularly useful for creating rigorous, academically robust projects. If your school uses Google Classroom or at least gives students access to Google Drive, your students are probably already using these tools to write papers or create slideshow presentations, but there are other projects they could be doing that you may not have thought of. Below I have listed 16 great ideas for projects using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms. (If you and your students want to learn more about how to use these apps, check out my Google Drive Basics course; more info at the end of this post!)"

"Want to make like Elton John and Billy Joel, dueling across from each other on two pianos, playing the hits from both of your huge ouvre of pop tunes? Well, except for the whole you're-not-either-one-of-those-guys part, you can play two piano-like keyboards across from another friend on your iPad, with new free app, Duette."

"So many of us teach the way we were taught. We may not even realize we're doing it. And that means certain practices get passed down year after year without question, methods that are such a normal part of the way we do school, we perpetuate them without realizing there are better alternatives. Today I'm going to roll out five of these for your consideration: five teaching practices used every day that are not backed by research. In many cases, these practices are not only ineffective, they can be downright harmful."

"I first became aware that there might be a problem a few years ago, when one of my kids was studying weather systems: high- and low-pressure systems, cold fronts and warm fronts. We were trying to help her prepare for a test and also do some sort of homework, and she didn't get it at all. We were really frustrated, my husband and I, because all we really had as a reference was the top half of this worksheet that explained the concept. So we were having trouble explaining it to her, and at one point I finally said to her, "You know, in your class, didn't your teacher ever draw a diagram on the board?" She said, "No.""

"If you've opened this post hoping to read something brand-new, you might be disappointed. There will be no fancy bells or whistles here. That's because a lot of the strategies we're going to talk about are things you've already done; some teachers have probably been doing them for decades. You just might not have known exactly why they worked or how to harness them in the most optimal way. That's what cognitive scientists have been doing, trying to pinpoint exactly which activities work best for storing concepts in long-term memory. Over the past few years, we've been following their progress: In our 2015 study of the book Make it Stick, we first talked about the concepts of retrieval practice, spaced practice, and interleaving. These concepts were also addressed in the 2016 post Six Powerful Learning Strategies You Must Share with Students, and in 2017, where I made a strong push again for using more retrieval practice in our teaching."

"But when I see what my kids do in school for "reading," it doesn't really look like reading. I ask them what books they are reading in school, and a lot of times they give me a blank stare. What they do in reading, they tell me, is mostly worksheets about reading. Or computer programs that ask them to read passages, not books, and answer multiple-choice questions." Some helpful tips to stop taking the fun out of reading. Enjoyment needs to be the priority.

"You've seen Stephen Spielberg's film, Minority Report, right? Tom Cruise's character stands in front of virtual screens, puts on a pair of gloves, and manipulates the data and the memories without touching a thing. Well, the super brains at MIT's media lab have taken the first step toward that reality, using Apple's magical device as a display screen and a special glove/attachment combo to interact with it."

"If you want to make pictures and words that the rest of the world can recognize as such, you need a little help. Luckily, iPad accessory makers also ignored Jobs' complaints and set out to fill the world with wonderful iPad pens. Here are the best you can buy."

"Apple recently followed Amazon's lead in unveiling a "Free App Of The Week" category, and this week's is a doozy: Nik Software's practically perfect image editor, Snapseed."

"Although Apple pitched iBooks Author as a tool for educators, the company fully supports anyone who want to create an ebook using iBooks Author to do so. Apple also lets anyone that creates an ebook with iBooks Author to distribute it through the iBookstore - the catch being that the iBooks Author edition of an ebook can't be published using another company's store (though the text of the title can be repackaged using other apps and sold elsewhere)."

"I don't know about you, but I spend too much time waiting for the Camera app shutter to open so I can take a photo with my iPhone. The problem with that, of course, is that I miss a lot of shots that way, even when I'm using the lock-screen camera swipe."

"A small study, carried out by Michelle Riconscente, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, offers some promising results, even with the necessary caveat that it was funded by the Motion Math app with a grant from the Noyce Foundation."

"Why the Emotional Criticism of iBooks Author Is Wrong"

"I've been teaching English for many years, across multiple grade levels, from middle school to high school to college. I've read (and have written) heaps of education books and research articles. And yet the premise for this post is so simple, I'm willing to bet that any one of our students can pin it down without a moment's hesitation. What is the most essential ingredient to a rockstar lesson? It's student engagement."

"Green screen technology (also known as chroma keying) offers so many engaging opportunities for students to learn.  It's pretty easy to do, it can be done on a very low budget, it works in lots of subject areas and grade levels, and it's even possible while teaching remotely. In my most recent podcast interview (listen or read the transcript above), I talked with teacher educator Justine Bruyère about the why and the how of green screen videos."

"I spend a lot of time in Safari, and odds are, you do too. For an app that's absolutely instrumental to my iPhone, any new tips and tricks I learn can feel life-changing. Here are a few of my favorite hidden features. These will help you browse the web faster, clean up your experience and restore tabs you accidentally close. I also have a handy Shortcut you can download at the end."

A well curated post of different tools for online teaching and learning during the COVID19 isolation.

"There are plenty of stories out there about schools that have already launched large-scale iPad programs or that are considering them for next year. Many U.S. school districts have yet to determine an iPad strategy, however, and are still moving forward cautiously."

"How many 7th Graders can say they best selling authors? Well this group of kids from Woodlawn Beach Middle School in Northern Florida can thanks to their teacher Andrea Santilli and iBooks Author."