Group items tagged

"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

"Yesterday we published top iPad apps for librarians and today we are featuring another equally important visual comprising some of the best web tools to help librarians in their everyday work. We have arranged these tools into 10 main categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools."

"Below are two handy visuals we published awhile ago featuring what we think are some of the best educational web tools and iPad apps curated specifically for librarians. The web tools are organized into the following categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools. "

"Compared with how academic research was carried out in the pre-internet era, It seems like technology is really a godsend gift to researchers. From easy and unlimited access to journal articles to web tools that do the referencing and auto-syncing, everything has been digitized making it way easier for todays researchers to add to the body of the human knowledge than any time in history. As a web 2.0 researcher and a graduate student in the faculty of education in Mount Saint Vincent University, I have had the chance to experiment with a wide variety of web tools that can make your academic life much more easier. Below are some of the web tools I have been recommending to undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate and PHD students, and professors. Check them out below and make sure you share them with your colleagues, they could be in dire need for them. Enjoy"

"There's no doubt the Internet opens up an enormous, ever-expanding world of resources when it comes to gathering information. But if well-founded, quality research is what you're after, the Internet is hit or miss. Don't get us wrong -- a good ol' Internet search is great to use as a guide when you're starting to research a topic. When you're writing a research paper, however, the paper will only be as strong as the sources cited. Since Web searches tend to pull up many results that have the potential to be far from credible, students need to break the "just google it" habit. To steer them in the right direction, we've narrowed it down to 12 of the best tools for quality research and proper citations."

"FacebookTwitter18 Any college student eventually comes up against that academic kryptonite: the dreaded research paper. Most students consider it a necessary evil, but research papers are actually a very effective way to hone research and writing skills. These are important things to have in any profession, especially if you are into science, and it does help your personal development. Editor's note: Antonio helps you walk through each step of the research paper process - links to the 17 apps and web tools are highlighted within each step."

"We use many Web 2.0 tools to help students with the research process. Some tools are selected to make the research process more transparent and to allow us to give feedback during the process. Some are used to help students keep track of sources. I've listed them and the way we use them below. I've tried to give a brief description. It may seem like a lot of tools but we tend to believe that one size doesn't fit all and the overarching skills supersede the tool itself."

"Did you know it's possible for students to use social media as a classroom research tool? Over the years social media has evolved from being a mere communication platform where people can connect with their long-time friends. It has matured into a platform where people conduct real business in addition to just making connections. At the time of this writing (the fourth quarter of 2016) Facebook is the most popular social media platform with almost 2 billion followers. It started out as a channel where people could re-establish some of their lost connections. Today, in addition to this, major brands are using the platform to market their goods and services. That is how far our social media has evolved. With such changes, it's only fair that students should be able to take advantage of such opportunities. There are so many ways students can use social media for research. Why struggle with research papers when there is plenty of help out there? Instead of focusing on chatting up friends, they can use that time constructively and get something done. HomeworkDesk.com decided to make a list that will help you."

""Be sure to cite your sources." "Give credit where credit is due." "Don't plagiarize." It's possible all teachers have said these things to students. But what do those directives mean to students who, in all reality, haven't had to do much citing?  What does it even mean to cite your sources?  The first step in the process is for students to understand the purpose and importance of citations. We found this great resource outlining that information from The Write Direction. One of the co-authors of this piece, Jessica Steege, is a middle school writing teacher. In her first year of teaching she did her best to explain the importance of citing her work. But somewhere along the way, the message got lost. When a student turned in a research project citing just one source-www.google.com - she felt defeated and wondered where she'd gone wrong. She realized that teaching citations from a "handbook," especially one that would quickly become outdated, wasn't the best way to teach her tech savvy students. So she turned to electronic resources. The Internet offers an abundance of online citation tools, from the extremely easy to use, to ones that require more research on the part of the user. We'd suggest teaching students about a few tools and let them decide which one to use to help them successfully cite their research."

Welcome to the 21st Century! Can You Digg It? While the goals have more or less stayed the same, the methods and technologies used for the Three R's, Reading, Writing & Research, have started to shift. The workshop/s associated with this website continue to give the website developers, the workshop facilitators, and the workshop participants the opportunities to explore how to best facilitate teaching research and writing in the 21st century. Assumptions and Philosophies Rhetorically Situated Research Projects Scaffolded Research Projects Creative Research Presentations Technologies

"In the above illustration, what is the student doing? Here are some possibilities… conducting research creating a project texting a parent, friend, or teacher watching a video playing a game reading a news article As educators, we could argue the instructional merits of what is happening with the smartphone that the student is holding. Many of our initial thoughts and concerns are framed by our own perceptions and experiences of how we personally use technology. I read a heavily circulated article this week that detailed some research from the UK on the banning of students personal technology tools. This research revealed that students perform better on standardized tests when their schools ban the use of personal mobile devices. Apparently, this improved performance was due to the lack of distractions. Obviously, I can't argue with the research, but I do have several questions and thoughts related to the focus of this study and the topic of banning students' technology tools."

Digital Research Tools (DiRT) - This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively.

"Education researchers often worry that their work never catches the attention of policymakers and educators in the field. In 2012, however, research has been in the spotlight-and occasionally on the hot seat-as practitioners grapple with justifications for the Common Core State Standards, changing views on how children learn, and ways teachers can build responsive, boredom-free classrooms."

"Few trends in K-12 ed tech are as hot-or as under-researched-as "Maker" education. The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community.  Typically, "Making" involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results. The Maker Movement has its roots outside of school, in institutions such as science museums and in the informal activities that everyday people have taken part in for generations. It began exploding about a decade ago, thanks in large part to the enthusiastic audience of Make magazine and the popularity of public events such as Maker Faires (the most well-known of which was hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.) The rise of cheap digital tools, including microcontroller platforms such as Arduino and rapid-prototyping tools such as 3-D printers, has in recent years lent the movement a decidedly techie flavor. Efforts to bring Making and "Maker spaces" into K-12 schools are still "nascent," said Erica Halverson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading researcher into Maker education. But that's changing fast."

"It is amazing how much technology can do for students to enhance their learning and personal development. I wish we had these tech affordances when we were students, things could have been much easier. Technology, however, is only effective when it is leveraged in the right way and to the right purposes. The first step in the effective use of technology is to have access to the educational tools available out there. This is usually a daunting task as the web is teeming with all kinds of tools and it could take you forever to find, assess and evaluate the tools you want to use. To this end, the folks in Open Colleges have compiled this excellent list featuring 20 educational apps and gadgets. Students can use these tools to perform a variety of learning tasks from writing and researching to managing their time efficiently.  Together with these apps there are also some handy study tips for students to boost to their creativity. I spent sometime going through these tips and found them really worth a share here."

"The handy infographic below takes a look at how Google has changed student research with a special focus on graduate students. Google is not only the most widely used search engine, but they've developed a lot of education specific research tools to help students out. Keep reading to learn more."

"Diigo is an excellent social bookmarking tool that enable you to save, annotate, and share bookmarks. The power of Diigo lies in the distinctive features that it offers to teachers and educators. There is a special account for K-12 and higher-ed educators that empower registered teachers with a variety of tools and features. One of the best things you can do with the Educator account is creating a Diigo group for your class. You can do this without the need for students emails. You can also set the privacy settings of your group so that only you and your students can access and see what you share there. You can also alternate moderators for class students can take turns in class moderation. Besides using your Diigo class to share with your students websites and content you find on the web, students can also use it for collaboration on research projects, group bookmarks and annotation."

"Hello, photographers. For the last two months, I've been doing market research for my project Photolemur and looking for different tools in the area of photo enhancement and photo editing. I spent a lot of time searching, and came up with a large organized list of 104 photo editing tools and apps that you should know about. I believe all these services might be useful for some photographers, so I'll share them here with you. And just to make it easier to find something specific, the list is numbered. Enjoy!"