Group items tagged

Online classes may be a relatively young instructional practice for K-12 schools, but experts already generally agree on one point: Research shows that virtual schooling can be as good as, or better than, classes taught in person in brick-and-mortar schools.

Studies of state-run virtual schools show, for instance, that the courses tend to draw students at the extremes of the academic spectrum—advanced, highly motivated students looking for academic acceleration, and students who are struggling in regular classrooms

Not surprisingly, the students with the best academic records in online classes tend to be in that high-ability group, according to experts in the field. But some new research also finds that online courses are beginning to score more successes with the lowest achievers­—possibly because many are high school students who see the online courses as a last chance to earn enough credits to graduate.

Does your vocabulary measure up? A confident command of a growing vocabulary is one of the best indicators of achievement in school. Building on the success of the popular 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know, the editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries are pleased to introduce a new list of words geared toward the reading level expected of high school freshmen. With its attractive format and thoughtful word selection, 100 Words Every High School Freshman Should Know will spur students to add new words to their vocabularies as they make the important transition from middle school to high school.

Clearly, the note-taking factor contributed to the overall scores. As someone who was in college before podcasting became popular but after sending students home with PowerPoint printouts became all the rage, I know from experience that many students think that printed slides are merely notes in prepackaged form.

McKinney acknowledged that the students who downloaded the podcast simply seemed to do better with taking notes and paying closer attention to what was being said, as they were able to go back and repeat parts of the lecture they had trouble understanding. "It isn't so much that you have a podcast, it's what you do with it," she told New Scientist.

As for whether podcasts can replace professors, McKinney stops short of suggesting that all classrooms become virtual. She refers to them as a supplemental tool to a traditional lecture that can help students gain a better understanding of the material and also help free up professors from answering repetitive questions. The takeaway? Go to class, take notes, listen to the podcast, and take more notes.

Q: What are Diigo Educator Accounts? These are special premium accounts provided specifically to K-12 & higher-ed educators. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features: You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation) Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums. Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them. Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

Student accounts have the following special settings to protect the privacy and safety of students. Classmates in the same class are automatically added as friends with one another to facilitate communication, but students cannot add anyone else as friends except through email. Students can only communicate with their friends and teachers.  No one except their friends can send message, group invite, or write on their profile wall. Student profiles will not be indexed for People Search, nor made available to public search engines.

Q:  Sounds great.   How do I apply? Go to www.diigo.com/education and fill out the application form

Create & share funny Comeks messages online or in mobile. Combine your photos with speech bubbles and add-on stickers. Share in:

TuxGuitar has become a usable software for creating and listening of various tablature formats, but also a software environment for any musician. We are looking forward to improve usability, compatibility with various software and add more utilities.