Group items tagged

"This blog post is going to examine how the iPad was used to improve the pedagogy of a Design & Technology project and allow child initiated learning by motivating the children to discover new skills and knowledge through project based learning. "

A free e-book, New Technologies, New Pedagogies: Mobile Learning in Higher Education, is available for free download through the University of Wollongong's Research Online. This book provides examples of m-learning implementation and concludes with some recommended design principles for m-learning. For anyone involved in m-learning, this is a worthwhile read.

"Social media's popularity means educators have a number of avenues to develop their professional learning networks and learn from one another. Blogging gives educators a platform to share best practices, pose questions to their peers, and explore new ideas about teaching and learning. Here, we've gathered 9 blogs that focus on technology integration, instructional technology, school leadership, and pedagogy. If you have a favorite blog that isn't on this list, use the comment section below to let us know."

"There is a running theme on this blog - 'it's not about the device'. I expected this view to be challenged by a visit to Essa Academy in Bolton where they refer to an 'ecosystem' using Apple technology. I was prepared for technological practice that would be difficult to comprehend and a new building with an infrastructure we couldn't hope to replicate. I couldn't have been more wrong."

"While educators are still divided over Apple's tablet (and tablets in general), ultimately the only way to assess a technology's impact is to try it, not only to enhance or replace existing classroom instructional techniques, but also to truly innovate and explore the new pedagogies it enables."

"Technology in and of itself cannot make school practice innovative, and will not produce educational change, but technology, in the hands of pedagogically skilled educators it can enable innovative practice and facilitate educational change."

"Students are coming out of school expected to solve 21st-century problems and enter into occupations that haven't even been imagined yet. Schooling is not designed in this manner, so we wanted to give students an opportunity to solve problems in authentic contexts, using 21st-century skills and collaboration techniques. We wanted to break down walls between classrooms and have students use interdisciplinary skills to solve problems with teams of their peers, with mentors, and with industry professionals."

"10 Go To Blogs To Make You Think"

"As an educator, I am constantly looking for new ideas to shape my educational philosophy and pedagogy. While I don't always have the time to read a book on current trends in education, I can always find a few moments each day to peruse the blogs that I follow and read a few posts to get my mental wheels spinning. Here are 10 of my favorite sources for inspiration:"

"The rise of the Maker has been one of the most exciting educational trends of the past few years. A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her. A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner. A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product. In the classroom, the act of Making is an avenue for a teacher to unlock the learning potential of her or his students in a way that represents many of the best practices of educational pedagogy. A Makerspace classroom has the potential to create life-long learners through exciting, real-world projects."

" It is a myth that we operate under a set of oppressive bureaucratic constraints. In reality, teachers have a great deal of autonomy in the work they chose to do in their classrooms. In most cases it is our culture that provides the constraints. For individual teachers, trying out new practices and pedagogy is risky business and both our culture, and our reliance on hierarchy, provide the ideal barriers for change not to occur. As Pogo pointed out long ago, "we have met the enemy and it is us." http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/brian-harrison/2013/09/5/stop-asking-permission-change "

"Wikipedia is the seventh most-popular website on the Internet and is the web's most popular and largest reference resource. Many instructors decry student reliance on this online encyclopedia open to anyone to edit, but I am part of a growing movement of teachers who integrates student editing of Wikipedia pages into our pedagogy. There are many pedagogical reasons for this; integrating Wikipedia editing into your courses teaches students to navigate the rules and social norms of an online community of knowledge creation, trains them in developing responsible public-facing research, and introduces them to ways of dealing with a variety of responses to their work."

"While on Twitter today this graphic caught my eye. It was posted by @MindShiftKQED linking to an article on their blog. The sketch itself was created by Sylvia Duckworth and it definitely caught my attention. I began to think about the kinds of professional learning we offer at Powerful Learning Practice and asked myself if we were honoring what teachers want. We are a small, intimate group here at PLP, but we have huge hearts and an extensive amount of combined experience both in and out of the classroom when it comes to pedagogy and future ready learning. No one works harder and thinks deeper than the folks at PLP who selflessly plan and offer the coaching, professional learning, e-courses, and products available on our site. I am grateful for each instructor's drive and ability to be self directed, conscientious and caring toward our clients. But I was curious if what we do we aligns with this list of teacher wants? And more importantly, should we? Was anything important missing from this list?"

"When teaching with digital natives in a digital world, one question facing many educators revolves around integrating technology to help facilitate learning: How do you work technology into the pedagogy, instead of just using something cool? That task can be especially daunting in language arts literacy classrooms where reading and writing skill development is the crux of daily lessons. However, as 1:1 technology initiatives roll out, integrating technology into the classroom is our reality. With hundreds of sites, apps, Chrome extensions, and platforms available, choosing the right ones can seem overwhelming. As an eighth-grade language arts teacher, I've experienced this myself. Following are four tools that can help provide immediate formative assessment data as well as top-of-the-rotation feedback to help students develop personal learning goals."

"Our school is evaluating how assessment works across all faculties. We are doing this to improve pedagogy and help student learning. Of course, there are prescriptions from the state that must be adhered to as part of the rules and regulations that govern student assessment (and reporting). However, there's plenty of freedom to innovate in schools, especially within faculties, if we have a coherent plan for change and professional development with more than just a passing nod to best practice."

" "At the end of the day, what qualifies people to be called 'leaders' is their capacity to influence others to change their behavior in order to achieve important results." Joseph Grenny In a time where the only constant in education is change, people involved with education need to become "change agents" more now than ever. You can understand pedagogy inside out, but if you are unable to define "why" someone should do something different in their practice, all of that knowledge can be ultimately wasted. People will take a "known good" over an "unknown better" in most cases; your role is to help make the unknown visible and show why it is better for kids."

"According to Google Trends (see photo), a new term came into existence and quickly became synonymous with progressive education and a resurgence of STEAM education in America. That term is maker education, or makered for short, and can be seen in the graph as "born" according to google searches, around September of 2004. Although the exact number of makered programs is not currently known, schools that employ a progressive pedagogy (insert the word innovative for those working in the 21st century) or schools that make claims regarding the importance of differentiation, constructivism or experiential learning have built or are building makered programs. At first these programs seemed to be dependent on having state of the art Maker Spaces or FabLabs and high-tech tools, as most were found in well-funded private schools. That picture has changed rapidly in the past ten years since the makered movement has gained popularity, however. More and more public/charter schools and nonprofit programs are building programs for the average American child, that rival many private school programs. In fact, programs with limited budgets and space have reminded us that scarcity or "disability," are invaluable teachers in any good maker culture, as they breed creativity and self-reliance. Many of the makered programs serving lower income communities have access to mentors who never stopped working with their hands, even when it fell out of status in a consumer driven America in the 1980's (Curtis 2002). While lower income mentors may not know Python or what an Arduino is, they are skilled carpenters, mechanics, seamstresses, cooks and know what it means to be resourceful. "