Group items tagged

"James Britton is endlessly quoted as saying "reading and writing float on a sea of talk." For kids to become truly fluent with language, talking is a major component. Reflecting orally is also a way for students to codify and cement their ideas into structured ways of thinking. Master teachers of today know the importance of talking in the classroom, but even the best and the brightest may sometimes have difficulty fitting it into their daily lesson plans. With Recap, a web application introduced in April 2016, students and teachers can connect in much easier and more meaningful ways. Essentially, all a teacher has to do is have students sign up using the clean and simple interface and assign questions. Students then record their responses using any front-facing camera; they could use an iPad, webcam, or even their phone. Teachers can then provide video feedback to their students within the program. Watch Greg Kulowiec's video below on how easy using Recap in the classroom can be. "

"Loopy! is an exploration tool that facilitates an introduction to basic math concepts. Children are asked to solve three levels of age-appropriate numerical, addition and subtraction problems using pebbles and loops. Before going on to the next challenge, children are provided with positive and encouraging feedback on their answers to help them improve."

"With the integration of 20 iPads coming to our math class in October, this probably should have been my first "Tuesday's Technology Integration Tools" post. This addition to my classroom set of teaching tools is one of many reason why I started blogging, in July. I wanted to reflect on how to effectively implement the iPad as a tool for students to produce and create original content. Since then, it has provided a platform for others to comment and provide me with ideas and feedback on best teaching practices."

"So it's time to look at the feedback from 177 of our students who responded on our brief end-of-the-year survey asking about some of their impressions after a year of 1:1 with iPads. For today, I would like to focus on the responses to the three questions below:"

"This post highlights the use in our school of Evernote as digital portfolios capturing; learning, observations and anecdotal evidence that can be used for feedback, assessment and sharing of student work among teachers, students and parents."

"Following further research in the use of mobile devices in other schools, feedback from personal use by staff and considerations around funding in relation to the size of the school, the decision was made to purchase iPods and iPads."

DIAGNOSER: In this web-based assessment program, we have designed sets of questions as formative assessments (e.g., assessments to inform learning and instruction rather than assign scores.) Students receive feedback on their thinking as they work through their assignment. Teachers can access reports on students' thinking related to the assigned content.

"Every athlete knows what they should be doing in order to excel… at least in theory. For serious athletes, capturing their own personal fast-paced sports action for later analysis can be a very valuable training tool. Using Ubersense Coach, athletes or their coaches can record high-quality slow-motion video and "give feedback using the app's annotation tools.""

"Using rubrics and providing student's feedback via the iPad has not been an area that has received a great deal of attention. This is, however, starting to change. I have recently spoken to a number of teachers who have developed apps that will allows teachers to use the iPad as a viable way of assessing student work. Some of these apps actually do more than just mark work. Check out the list and see if any would work for you and your students."

"The comments below are based on observation and conversation during recent feedback sessions. They serve to inform our training programme as we seek to enhance learning with the iPad."

"The following is an excerpt from the book The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis. Let's dive directly into the world of educational apps. Our survey suggests that the majority - one might even say, the vast majority - of educational apps encourage pursuit of the goals and means of traditional education by digital means. They constitute convenient, neat, sometimes even seductive pathways to accomplish what were already goals in an earlier era: mastering concepts, learning arithmetical operations, identifying geographical locations or historical figures or key biological or chemical or physical processes. We could dub them "digital textbooks" or "lectures" or "pre-programmed educational conversations." Decades ago, major behaviorist B. F. Skinner called for teaching machines that would automate the traditional classroom, allow students to proceed at their own rate, provide positive feedback on correct answers, and either repeat a missed item or present that item via another pathway. Those sympathetic to Skinner's brand of psychology and to its associated educational regimen would easily recognize many apps today and would likely nod in approval at their slick, seductive interfaces."

"This week I started introducing my 4th and 5th grade STEM students to coding with the free iPad app, Hopscotch. I was not able to find a set of "challenges" with Hopscotch to use in my lessons, so I wrote and published a short eBook that I've titled, "Hopscotch Challenges." You can download it (FREE) in ePUB format from my DropBox account. Please check it out, share feedback as comments here or on Twitter (@wfryer), and submit additional ideas for challenges to add to the eBook using the Google form I included in it."

"Using the iPad for collaborative learning isn't the most seamless thing in the world. For one, you have to define what you mean by collaborative learning, and here we can loosely define it was "a kind of learning where collaboration is an integral part of the learning process." This means not just publishing ideas, but publishing them in ways where writers can receive feedback, reflect, and revise their writing or thinking."

"School is a time in a students life where they are learning as much about how to be students and operate successfully in a school as they are about how to read, write, and think. But oftentimes, the demand for pure academic instruction and practice can fly in the face for a student's need-at any age-to play, build, interact, explore, and construct their own learning experience. Issues like these can make mobile technology like tablets a boon to learning, as they can allow individual access to the right app-and the right content, creative opportunity, game, or learning simulation-at the right time. It is the collision of the need for interaction, personalization, creativity, and constant feedback that can make video games powerful tools for learning-and the following 38 games, curated by Sam Gliksman-and excellent place to start. "

"Yes, National Computer Science Week is over and more than 10 million students participated in the Hour of Code and the feedback from all over the country is pretty incredible. Chicago Public Schools announced they are adding Computer Science into the core curriculum for all students. Schools and districts that have been promoting coding for years, like Los Altos School District, are getting great press about what they accomplish with students. New apps, programs and teacher training resources are popping up all over. 2014 definitely feels like it is going to be the year of the student coder!"

"For years, it has been no secret that many students who start post-secondary education programs drop out early. To address this issue, many schools and institutions decide to redesign their courses with the hope that students might gain a greater feeling of success, continue with their chosen program and graduate. When considering courses for redesign, many questions are asked but the most important is this: "What data should be considered to ensure our course redesign efforts are successful?" Data metrics like grades, attendance or participation rates are obvious considerations. These can be reliable metrics in driving decision-making. However, I recommend also considering student feedback, faculty load, student experience, and assessment performance as additional data points which can better inform decisions that directly impact the course redesign process."

"Teachers and their students are moving more and more online. Kids are blogging their learning as an excellent way to build confidence, reflect and gather feedback. Schools are showcasing the best of their students' work on their websites.and the educational world is benefiting from a collaborative worldwide connections."

"Following the post on iPad Apps for Music Education I received a couple of requests to feature a post on  iPad apps for  teaching and learning piano. And because I don't know any that I would recommend I crowdsourced the topic on my personal learning network and got a lot of feedback from music teachers. Based on these responses I compiled the list below for other piano teachers to consider. I hope you will find the list helpful. Enjoy."

"To get started, please create an interactive image to Show Us Your School and get added to our interactive map. Then grab your mobile device and take a walk through your schoolyard or neighborhood to capture photos of gardens, search for insects on your playground, or simply brainstorm a list of local landmarks and do some research. We hope you will find something interesting. If not, please make a suggestion. We love feedback!"

"So what qualities would a teacher possess in a constructionist environment and how would these superheroes behave? Thank you to FabLearn Fellows Mark Schreiber and Erin Riley for their feedback for this post. They are quoted below from our small group meeting on April 7th. Here is a list of top five qualities and behaviors to keep in your tool kit for fostering a constructionist learning environment."