Group items tagged

"Like thinking, reading in the 21st century is different than in centuries past, endlessly linked in an increasingly visible web of physical and digital media forms. So in this context of media abundance, what does the modern, 21st century look like? How can we appeal to their interests?"

"Over 20 fliers ranging from Visible Thinking and Formative Assessment to Make and Do for the iPad Crew, Tracy creates and curates relevant topics and resources using the web tool Smore***."

"Using your child's interests, strengths, and talents you can connect them to reading they enjoy as they simultaneously builds their reading skills. Their increased reading skill will result in more satisfying reading experiences. In short, as literacy levels increase, so does the pleasure of reading. But this can go the other way as well; celebrating reading and making progress visible can also improve ability, perseverance, and curiosity. If we can think of from multiple perspectives-using joy to promote literacy, or using literacy to create joy-we can see that it can go both ways. This can be thought of as the Reading-Pleasure Cycle. Using the reading/pleasure cycle intentionally, a lifelong love of literacy can be developed."

"The iMovie app could possibly be my favorite app on my iPad.  It's a versatile app that can lead to a whole lot of creation in your classroom  Yes, I know that iMovie on my MacBook Pro has all the bells and whistles, but I believe that the app has all the ingredients to make some pretty powerful products in your classroom. I love the fact that the app allows our students (and us) to make thinking visible.   There are so many ways that you can use iMove in the classroom.  From knowledge to comprehension, every level of Bloom's taxonomy is easily addressed using the iMovie app.  I plan on teaching our K-5 students how to use the iMovie app in the coming weeks and I can't wait to see the creativity that is generated! The best thing about iMovie is that you can use it with a lot of other apps! App Smashing?  Try using iMovie as the final app to display your app smash.  Just drop your products in from the photo library, do a voice over and you have created a product that allows you to showcase the learning happening in your classroom! I have created a folder on my iPad of apps that I use to supplement some of the videos that I produce. Here are some of my favorites:"

"Many photo geeks ring in the new year by tackling new Photo 365 challenges. Here's a fun but very meaningful challenge to offer up to your students: invite them to complete a Photo 365 project of their own in order to make their learning and their thinking visible. There's even an app for this."

"These days, new ideas about "best practice" in the classroom are published every day. It is an indication that educators are increasingly taking ownership of their own destiny, and with social media making the sharing of ideas so easy, teachers have constant instant access to new and exciting suggestions from around the world. Though this is exciting, there is an associated danger. The ideas badged as "best practice" are, more often than not, untested in any reliable way. This means that teachers could be implementing practices that do not impact positively. Worse still, they could be having a negative impact on learning. Perhaps rather than "best practice", we need to consider "effective practice". Thankfully, we now have access to a body of research that helps us know what sits in the area of effective practice: the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is hugely accessible and allows teachers to see what works, and how much it costs. Similarly, the work of John Hattie, from the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, helps us get to grips with what he terms "visible learning" - aspects of teaching that can be seen to makes a difference. Both the EEF and Hattie cite the development of metacognition in our students as a highly effective approach to securing progress over time. Metacognition is not an instantly easy word to understand - people sometimes glaze over. But in my experience, once it is explained, people "get it", and "want it". It is a powerful concept that can make a significant difference to our students."

Great monthly feature from the NY Times & American Statistical Association - What's going on in this graph? A new graph posted each month, together with visible thinking strategies, and the possibility of joining for an online (moderated) discussion to talk about predictions.