"Curation, as many of you know, is near and dear to my heart. (Heck I even wrote a book on the subject!) And especially now, for teachers, its becoming increasingly important as more and more digital devices begin to enter the classroom. Finding the right apps, videos or other digital resources can be tough. And keeping it all organized can be even tougher.
I was excited to learn about appoLearning. This is a great resource where educators can find and share all the digital resources they are curating. All of the resources found there are vetted by other educators so you can trust that what you are search for will be the best of the best.
Recently they unveiled Collections. And this is something I am really excited about."
"Some of the best games for learning aren't developed with schools in mind. But these more commercial games can be tough to wedge into a classroom. Even the most motivated teachers have to sideline these games because of scarce technology, budget, and/or time.
Summer break presents the perfect opportunity for students to dig into games and build skills that'll reap huge rewards when they return in the fall. Game making can be one of the best ways to get students thinking creatively while cultivating useful technical literacies, and there's a ton of absorbing tools that students won't tire of over the long break. Here are three options to choose from depending on the type of technology students have at home."
"As part of C.M Rubin's monthly series in the Huffington post: The Global Search for Education: Our Top 12 Global Teacher Blogs, this is my third contribution. This month we are answering the following prompt: What are the best ways a teacher can demonstrate leadership in the classroom?
I started to poke a little around to get a better handle on the popular notion of WHAT leadership was perceived as:"
"While Apple has traditionally positioned the iPad as a media-consumption device, the tablet has gained a reputation as a very capable and powerful music-creation tool. GarageBand is a great place to start, but taking the next step can be difficult when faced with an overwhelming number of creative options. Don't worry: we'll point you toward the very best block-rockin' apps and accessories.
Before we get started, be aware that the processors in older iPads simply don't pack enough punch to take on many of the top audio apps. You'll want nothing less than an original iPad mini, and the closer you can get to a current iPad Air 2, the better. Also, look for applications that support Inter-App Audio (IAA), Apple's protocol for inter-application operability.
Now, let's rock!"
"To understand how to get the best from Pinterest, this, from WorldWideLearn, is as handy a graphic as you'll see, on how and where to deploy it best."
"Over the next four or five posts in this series, I'm going to share with you details about each week's activity and the work involved, components needed, and more. It's my hope that there are others out there who might find this useful for creating their own camp, so I'll do my best to share where I've deviated or modified the project (and why). I'll also include some details about costs and where I ordered stuff as well as give you some ideas for what science-y topics work best for each project. (You don't have to order a book for each student, but a few extra copies might be useful for those who are interested in reading the story or investigating the various projects. The books are around $12 each.)"
"Thankfully, the design community and teachers such as Jane Hewitt are doing their best to provide alternatives to the cheesy and the costly - stylish and high-resolution stock photos that are completely free to do what you like with. Gone are the days of doing a quick Google Image search and cut and pasting an image without really considering who it belongs to. On the back of our post on digital citizenship, we've been meaning to write this as a follow-up. What good is an encouragement to cite your sources, respect copyright and give credit where it's due without any help to do so? Here, then, is your help…
Half-decent stock photos are not always easy to locate, but here are the best we've found. What's great about this list is that for the vast majority, you don't need to include attribution - the photographer has provided them for you to do what you like with - whether that be the background for your TED talk (!), a story-starter for your English lesson or for your students to use in their project work."
"Build a fort! A treehouse! A fort on top of a treehouse surrounded by a moat filled with molten lava! Children are endlessly fascinated by what we adults considered mundane and their imagination truly knows no limits. Children are the best builders in the world and can use any building material in order to create the most vivid worlds. And now, there are building apps for kids so they can hone their building skills in a virtual world.
Building games are a great outlet for kids who enjoy doing solitary, creative work and then wish to test their concepts in practice. Unlike a shooting or a racing game, a 3D building game rewards patience, planning and thinking ahead. Through a building game, a child gains confidence, achieves a sense of accomplishment and develops in itself a sense of pride through the development and application of its own ideas, plans and thoughts."
"MathGames provides 1200 different ways to practice math, ranging from Pre-K all the way to the 8th grade. Parents and Teachers get instant feedback on their students progress and can decide which method is best used to reach their students - interactive questions or fun games powered by the very same content. Whatever works best to keep students engaged and focused on practicing math."
"The problem is two-fold. Firstly, translations are being made by people who don't have a perfect command on the target language. We've also became far too dependent on Google Translate which offers a questionable service at best.
Thankfully, there are services that offer affordable and accurate translations you can depend on. Here are three of the best, and three of the rest."
"Whether your kids' summer days are jam-packed with activities or left wide open for leisurely exploration -- or something in between -- chances are some of those days will involve a smartphone, tablet, or other device. Now more than ever, you can use these powerful tools to enhance the activities that kids are already doing -- or to help create brand-new experiences. We've chosen the best apps, games, and websites for learning while doing this summer. Get ready to have the Best. Summer. Ever!"
"Although instructional design as a discipline has been around for decades (and probably was at its height in the 1970's and 1980's as a profession, its application and use has diminished in the age of easy to use software and access to and use of Internet. This is partly because it is so easy to create a course of almost any type, add as many "bells and whistles" as you like and then widely distribute it to a given audience. But in paying less attention to instructional design than we should we have lost something important and it is therefore high time we recognized that it is more important than ever in the modern world. After all, instructional design is the approach which helps to keep the process of training, coaching or development of any kind (on or off line) to be well-targeted and on track to meet the needs of the individual(s) at which it is aimed. Good instructional design therefore needs to appreciate that we are open to learning but find the best ways and moments to intervene in which to package it or parcel it up so that it can be successfully delivered. Although the approach is relatively straightforward, there is a best-practice way to conduct effective instructional design and this is shown in the 10-step infographic shown below:"
"A screencast, also known as video screen capture, is a great way for teachers to create and share instructional videos and explanatory step by step tutorials with students. regardless of the purposes for which you are creating a screencast, the quality of your video screen captures can sometimes impede the communicative intent of your message. Therefore, knowing what tools to use to create educational screencasts is as important as the content of the screencasts themselves. To this end, we have curated for you this collection of some of the best screen casting tools out there. We have divided them into four major categories: Mac apps, web tools, Chromebook apps, iPad apps, and Android apps."
"Teachers and students everywhere are receiving iPads this year for use in their classrooms. Some schools are even providing iPads to every student in their classroom to create a true 1:1 mobile computing environment. While all of this is very exciting, the iPads are only useful tools if teachers know how to incorporate them effectively and they are equipped with the right apps. With a new school year just beginning, I thought it would be nice to feature the best educational apps available for teachers and students."