Group items tagged

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"Last Sunday, I received a note via the contact form on my blog that was a first for me in many ways. It was the first time I had ever been contacted by a parent via my blog, the first time I could not put a comment out of my mind until I had addressed it, and the first time I ever thought about the impact a school's 1:1 take-home technology initiative could have on a family."

"The first day that the students receive their iPads is very exciting. While distributing iPads to students it is good practice to let them have about 20 minutes of exploration time to check out apps and share with each other things they discover. A lot of the learning that happens in the classroom is based on sharing amongst the students. This exploration time should happen daily for the first few days so students can have time to acclimate to using the device."

"Yesterday after school my fourth-quarter filmmaking group made up of fourth and fifth grade students, met for the first time to start filming "The Ghost of Bethke." Although we have been writing the script and planning the movie for the past few weeks, this was the first time we met to start filming, but this time there is a twist. This time we are filming our movie exclusively on a new iPad (the iPad 3). I was impressed with the new camera on this iPad and I wanted to see if a movie could really be shot and edited on it."

Dear Friend, Let me ask you a question. Are you about to take the AAPC exam for Certified Professional Coder for the first time? Or are you one of the many people who FAILED the exam the first time, and are now looking to retake the test, perhaps for the third or fourth time? It's Time To STOP Doing What's Not Working, And Get The CPC Practice Exam - Updated For 2020! CONTENTS OF THE PRACTICE EXAM:

"For the next week, Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro for iPad and Mobile for iPhone are available as free downloads from the App Store. Typically priced at $4.99 and $1.99, this is the first time these popular drawing apps have ever gone free."

"The ultimate goal of teaching is to do just that - teach, not stand up in the front of the room and talk. But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. We hope students will understand, if not now then before test time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we've done our job. The problem is, we rely on these tests to measure understanding, and then we move on. Few of us take the time to address weaknesses and misunderstandings after the tests have been graded, and by that time it's too late for students to be interested. This means we need to rethink how we approach assessment during class. The most effective way to test student understanding is to do it while the lesson's still going on. Asking students to fill out a questionnaire and then correcting misunderstandings during the next class period won't work because students have already moved on. You've got to take advantage of the moment. If you hope to spend the majority of your time getting through to students, and not just talking, then understanding must be measured and dealt with as soon as the first frown appears on a face. "

"Thousands of Indigenous Manitoba students will return to better-funded schools next fall with the creation of a new First Nations school board that will serve as an "inspiration" throughout Canada, according to the federal Minister of Indigenous Affairs Carolyn Bennett. The board is designed and operated by Manitoba First Nations. The provincial government has no jurisdiction over it. "This is totally unique and historic, because for the first time we will be able to fund a system that then is self-determining," Bennett told reporters after the signing ceremony Friday morning. Bennett said the system is unique because the federal government will send funding to the school board itself. "In other agreements, we're sending money to a chief and council that goes to a school. This way, we're building a school system run by a board, working in close collaboration with educators," she said. "The educators will determine how they work in terms of curricula and professional development, hiring of faculty, staffing - this will be their system that we will fund." Students will have access to more resources and opportunities as part of a new funding formula, said one of the Indigenous leaders who helped negotiate a new agreement."

"It has me thinking about my own experience with creative work. When I first got into drawing, I copied the styles of other artists. When I first got into poetry, I copied the style of my favorite poet. When I first wrote a novel, it was essentially fan fiction -- albeit at a time when no one knew that term. I have noticed similar trends among students. They often go through a phase of copying and mash-ups that occur before creating something truly original. I see this trend in art class, wood shop, in writer's workshops, and in STEM labs. So, this has me thinking about stages that I notice as students move from consumers of media to creators of media. I admit that this is not very scientific. There might be a better model out there that explains this phenomenon. However, here are seven stages I see students go through as they shift from consuming to creating: "

"We often hear people comment about how intuitive it is to use an iPad. While that is certainly true for many people, it's not true for all people. Joanne Villis has put together a nice little guide for first-time iPad users. Her guide starts with explanations of all of the buttons on an iPad and finishes with three ways to get content off of your iPad. Joanne published the guide on Slideshare and you find it there, on her blog, or as embedded below."

"The beginning of the school year is a time to set the tone for a student's learning experience, including what teachers expect from students and families. But that first week of school is also the time to teach valuable learning skills that will be used throughout the year. Alan November, a former teacher turned lecturer, consultant and author, challenged teachers to rethink how they start the school year by outlining skills that are crucial to students to learn in the first five days of school. He shared his vision at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia."

"Tim, a Director of Instructional Technology from El Paso, Texas, gives a strong account of how iPad can be used as a tool for creation. He clearly details some of the concrete ways that the often-defended tablet can be used to produce videos, music, drawings, and works of art that move well beyond consumption. Kim, on the other hand, offers a unique perspective as an educator who has recently transitioned from supporting an iPad environment to using a Chromebook as his primary device. In his post, 3 Reasons Why Chromebook Beats iPad in 1:1 Programs, Kim gives the following three reasons for the superiority of the Chromebook: Chromebooks are for creating, and iPads are for consuming The App vs the Web The Google Ecosystem for Collaboration The most viable of these three reasons from Kim is the final one, the collaborative tools that are inherent in the Google ecosystem can be accessed seamlessly on a Chromebook. While iOS device access to Google tools continues to become less and less of an issue, schools that want to focus primarily on Google tools should look no further than Chromebooks. However, I would like to challenge Kim's first two points. As he notes in his discussion around his first point, the consumption versus creation debate with iPads and Chromebooks has been made countless times by those on both sides of this discussion."

"t's been two and a half years since Code.org hired our first salaried employee. We've been humbled to watch the landscape change in K-12 computer science (CS) over that time. This teacher-powered movement has reached hundreds of thousands of classrooms and millions of students. We've never been more confident in our ability to realize our vision - that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. Although only 25% of U.S. schools teach computer science and computer programming, the field is growing at a rapid pace. Enrollment in computer science is exploding. Over 10% of all U.S. students in grades K-8 registered accounts to begin coding in just the last 2 years. CS is the fastest-growing AP course of this decade. For the first time, the diversity of participating students is improving, with enrollment growth by women and students of color outpacing enrollment growth by White and Asian males."

" For many hard-working people, email has naturally become a significant part of our everyday lives. When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we do is check our email; when we get to work, the first thing we do is check our email; on our lunch break, we check our email; before we leave the office, we check our email; when we're getting ready for bed, we check our email. There are some studies that say the more we check our email, the harder it is to remove ourselves from our work in order to live our normal lives-to the point where it can have detrimental effects on our mental state. However, the fact of the matter is that even if we're limiting how often we check our email, we will have to deal with all the unread messages sitting in our inboxes at some point. If we have to deal with our Gmail inboxes anyway, we should be taking the time to learn how to make the experience more seamless and personalized so we don't have to spend as nearly as much time managing emails. Here, we have 16 tips and tricks you can use to create a seamless Gmail inbox."

"Leka DeGroot can relate to teachers who would like to bring coding to their classrooms but just can't fathom fitting it in. "Teachers often tell me, 'It sounds great but I don't have time, or I don't have the skills,' but you don't have to be a computer scientist to teach coding," assures DeGroot, a first grade teacher at Spirit Lake Elementary in Spirit Lake, Iowa. Just a few years ago DeGroot explored coding for the first time through Hour of Code. Today, she's a trainer for Code.org. She's driven by a desire to introduce students to computational thinking and integrating coding into the curriculum. "The basic concepts of listening to each other, communicating and collaborating, these are not just for computer science. We want every student to have those skills," DeGroot says. Even the youngest students benefit from the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills that coding provides. Not only do kids learn from it, they love it! Recently, for example, collaborated with a teacher in Wisconsin to have students write loop code dances for each other and then held a Google Hangout dance party. "

"During CS Ed Week, countless teachers and students experienced computer science for the first time. Whether it was their first, second, or hundredth time, I hope that this taste of CS left them hungry for more. Code.org has created a great compilation of resources for how students can continue learning. In this post, I'd like to suggest some ideas for how teachers who are new(ish) to CS can go beyond the Hour of Code."

"There's a lot of effort to attract women to the computer sciences at universities and the workforce. But to shift technology's gender imbalance we might need to focus on a younger crowd. Much younger - like 6-year-olds. For the first time, research from the University of Washington shows that by first grade, children are already embracing the stereotype that boys are better than girls at robotics and programming. At the same time, the kids believe that girls and boys are equally good or their own gender is better at math and other sciences. And girls with the strongest negative stereotypes about their genders' tech abilities also reported the least interest and personal skill in programming and robotics."

"Last year, I went to Nigeria with Mark Zuckerberg. One of the first stops on the trip was a program that taught kids how to code. When Zuckerberg entered the room, many of the young students had a hard time pulling themselves away from their projects, even to gawk at one of the world's richest men. Facebook's founder instead came to them. "What are you making?" he'd ask. And they would proudly say, "A game!" or whatever it was, and begin showing him how it works. Zuckerberg would stop them. "Show me the code!" he'd say, because, well, he's Zuckerberg, and any occasion is ripe for an ad hoc programming review. And that's when the kid would click on a menu that toggled from the game to the LEGO-like building blocks of a Scratch program. This happened several times, with kids ranging from ages 8 to 15. In every instance, the maker of a cool project could clearly show this famous visitor how he or she had methodically implemented a plan. Zuckerberg was clearly impressed. As we headed up the stairs to leave the building, Zuckerberg called out to me, "Scratch! Have you heard of this?" Oh, yes I had. Though it was not yet released to the world when Zuckerberg left Harvard to launch his quirky little startup, Scratch (developed just a couple of T stops away) is quickly becoming the world's most popular computer language for kids taking their first bite of programming. Last year, over 120 million people came to its site, and many of them built and shared projects, at a rate of a million a month. "It's the gateway drug for Silicon Valley engineering," says Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, a Scratch supporter."

"My first year of teaching was a blur. At the time, it didn't feel like a blur. It felt a joyous, adrenaline-fueled rush or lessons, meetings, and new relationships. But in hindsight, it was definitely a blur. And now, years later, I can see a few simple tweaks would've gone a long way."