Group items tagged

"The start of the school year brings with it more than a few 'gotta-do's for a classroom teacher. For that matter, if you're also the designated ed tech "go-to person," there are a LOT of tasks for you (and the IT team) to consider. With a technology program, ensuring that the various aspects of technology are ready for you, your colleagues and your students could be a huge task. It's hard to envision all the aspects of tech that you might need to worry about, and if you or the team miss something, it only creates more heartburn and wasted time later. To help your student-centered tech program get off to a fulfilling start, we have put together this checklist. Most of the items on the list will be important for you to consider. Some of these items will not apply depending on your role, your devices, and the latitude your administration and district allows, of course. In any case, reviewing this list will remind you (and your administration, tech support, teachers and others) of the needs of a highly engaging, fully functioning student-centered classroom."

This book was designed to help language teachers access the potential of new video-based technologies for the purpose of language learning. The book covers a wide range of theoretical aspects but the main focus is on the practicalities of how to use various web-based and mobile applications to create motivating and engaging learning opportunities. The book contains more than 40 step-by-step lesson plans that guide the teacher through classroom and online activities. There are also 26 video tutorials to help teachers with the technical aspects of understanding the technology.

"Recently, when I perused my twitter feed, I came upon a blog post titled Teacher as Learning Designer. Andrew Miller, the author, states: "If you are a teacher and you are trying to explain what you do, say, 'I am a learning designer!' Teachers need to be empowered with a variety of instructional designs to meet the needs of all students. They need to be honored for their expertise to create creative and engaging learning environments. We can re-frame the concept of "teaching" to truly encapsulate all that teachers can and should do!" The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? What elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?"

"With the wide variety of resources available for teachers, there's no reason we shouldn't be promoting the importance of behaving safely and responsibly in the digital world. Speaking of resources, check out the nifty infographic shown below, one that can be used to address various aspects of digital citizenship."

"Children with dyslexia can have trouble with many aspects of literacy, including learning the alphabet, recognizing letters, following a sequence of directions and mastering the rules of spelling. Having a son with dyslexia, we tried many things to help him with his frustrations. We used a lot of compensatory techniques and one web-based program that is now an app. Below are six apps that aim to help kids and adults with dyslexia. "

"Despite the fact that it's currently the year 2013, and that our collective EdTech excitement is growing every single day, there's still one aspect of modern technology and the Internet that is too often ignored in our classrooms. You know what I'm talking about: the "W" word. Wikipedia."

"The process of combining more primitive pieces of information to create something more meaningful is a crucial aspect both of learning and of consciousness and is one of the defining features of human experience. Once we have reached adulthood, we have decades of intensive learning behind us, where the discovery of thousands of useful combinations of features, as well as combinations of combinations and so on, has collectively generated an amazingly rich, hierarchical model of the world. Inside us is also written a multitude of mini strategies about how to direct our attention in order to maximize further learning. We can allow our attention to roam anywhere around us and glean interesting new clues about any facet of our local environment, to compare and potentially add to our extensive internal model."

"Technology is all around us. In the ever-expanding digital age, we are inundated with tools, websites, and devices. While it can seem overwhelming, especially when we are used to a traditional way of learning and teaching, technology has made many aspects of a teacher's job easier. Soon we will get to a day where we can't remember how we ever taught without a computer! The latest and greatest technology in the classroom is the iPad. The slim, sleek, shiny tool is not only good for slinging disgruntled birds across the screen, but also for making our jobs as teachers easier. Here's a summary of some of the FREE apps that I can't live without:"

"I have spoken a lot recently about my frustration with a lack of apps that help teach children to code. Largely this frustration is centred around the resulting perception of ICT and edtech this limitation gives our schools. If a school invests wholesale in a set of iPads then the ICT curriculum for these children can be based largely around internet research, movie making and a collection of multimedia authoring apps. And though I love my iPads and iPad lessons the aspect of struggle or challenge for children using these devices is not always apparent or indeed talked about."

Ask any teacher what they wish they had more of and the most common answer is likely to be time. Schools are inherently busy places and there is always much to be done. We all want to meet the needs of every student, add value to their education with breadth and depth, ensure adequate coverage of the curriculum and include aspects of play and discovery. Add up all that is done in a day over and above face-to-face teaching and you can only wonder at how we manage to fit it all into the time we have. So is there an answer to this dilemma, is there a secret method to finding more time in our schedules to achieve all that we want to?

"In a new report, 24 researchers from eight different countries gathered to create a consensus on the impact of physical activity on kids' health. They focused primarily on studies that examined the health of children aged 6 to 18, and analyzed the effects of exercise on children's fitness, health, cognitive function, motivation, and mental and social health. The report defines physical activity as "an overarching term that consists of many structured and unstructured forms within school and out-of-school-time contexts, including organized sports, physical education, outdoor recreation, motor skill development programs, recess, and active transportation such as biking and walking." In short, they found that exercise was beneficial for nearly every aspect of a child's wellbeing: physical health, cognitive ability, motivation and psychological wellbeing, as well as social inclusion. First, exercise leads to improved cardiorespiratory fitness, which in turn improves brain development and intellect, they said."

A new, widely accessible Advanced Placement Course for Computer Science. The College Board oversees the development of the course and exam that will launch as AP Computer Science Principles in 2016-2017. For College Board details, see College Board's Advances in AP site. The AP Computer Science Principles Curriculum Framework (.pdf/1.42MB) was developed to serve as a fundational guide to ensure selected curricla focuses on innovative aspects of computing along with the computational thinking practices that are critical to a future-ready education.

"Mac users now have a window snapping feature built directly into Mac OS, which allows users to easily snap windows to aspects of the screen or against one another. This offers a nice way to quickly and precisely align windows, and it's more or less the Mac equivalent feature of window snapping from the Microsoft Windows world. Window snapping is a helpful but fairly subtle feature, we'll show you how it works in MacOS."

"It's official: coding is all the rage today. We are living in a world where apps dominate every aspect of our lives and are disrupting the way we do things. And creating these apps require-you guessed it-coding know-how. With the rising prominence of 'superstar' programmers such as Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, coding has captured the attention and imagination of many youth, who are beginning to recognise its value. According to this Microsoft study, a resounding majority of students in Asia Pacific want to see coding as a core subject in school, believing it is instrumental to helping them acquire essential 21st century skills necessary to thrive in the fast-changing world of tomorrow. While some may argue that being a programmer is not for everyone, we can all agree that coding has some life lessons that we can benefit from, especially children and young people. Here are three reasons why you should get started coding."

"Our CREATE Education Project champions partner organisations who share our ethos for making 3d printing as easy, accessible and affordable as possible for everyone. In the name of open source we find synergies with many pioneers who understand that sharing is the way forward to developing and seeding innovation for new technologies. When we find these pioneers it is our mission to provide access to our community so that everyone can enjoy the progress and even add to it themselves.  One of the more challenging aspects of introducing 3D printing into schools is the complexity of 3D modelling software and the general cost of having computers that can handle such software. A good majority of schools have adopted a cheaper method of computing which is the tablet. iPads are fast becoming common in the classroom and this is where Gravity Sketch comes in."

"​The purpose of Makerspace for Education is to provide educators with a hands-on, creative, user friendly, "anytime, anyplace", professional development tool that can be used as part of a community of practice. It allows educators to inform themselves, with tools at their fingertips, on the various aspects of the makerspace as they are ready. Using interactive tools that allow access to necessary information, directly from a user-friendly interface and based on the key frameworks of constructionism and constructivism, makerspace, design thinking and media literacies, teachers will have the tools they need to begin, or continue, their makerspace journeys. This site will evolve and grow as the participating educators add to the content and support the construction of knowledge. "

"It may be best known for the BB-8, but Sphero's robotic toys have uses well beyond Star Wars. Aspect Hunter School in Sydney, Australia is a school for children on the autism spectrum. The school is attended by 130 kids, beginning at age four, as well as around 30 Spheros."

"Collaborative learning is one of the important aspects of the 21st education. The read/write web ( As the author Will Richardson names it ) is all about tapping into the collective wisdom of the mob. Students create and join cliques online and they get to share and learn from each other. The collaborative culture that the web fosters should definitely be mirrored within the four walls of our classrooms. We need to provide students with the right environment where they can work in teams and peer help each other. Mia from anethicalisland has this wonderful visual featuring 27 tips for teachers to boost team work in class. Have a look and share with your colleagues."

"Proponents of the sociolinguistic perspective to the study of literacy ( e.g.Paul Gee, Collin Lanksheare, Michelle Knobel, Brian Street, to mention but a few ) view the developments of literacy and with it education as a direct result to the sophistication of the social and cultural aspect of human life. Some of them like Collin and Michelle associate the evolution of education to that of the web and hence the nomenclature education 1.0 (related web 1.0), education 2.0 ( related to web 2.0), and education (3.0 related to web 3.0). This association, however is not haphazard for there are many commonalities between each pair."

"Rounding up the best and favorite elementary school apps is not an easy task, the market is saturated and there are so many standouts that cover the gamut of grade levels. Obviously, one of the first considerations we focus on when writing a review is, of course, the learning potential of an app. Another important aspect is the shelf life - how long will the app be useful and stand up to the test of time? We want this to be a lasting resource for teachers and parents, the solid go-to list that will serve you well for quite some time. *Notice at the bottom of the page we starred some super apps that cross than more than one content area. We have put together a great list but if you know of an app we may have missed, please let us know about it in the comment section below. (Coming soon: Apps for Special Needs & Book Apps)"