Group items tagged

Edutopia.org asked several innovators in the field about what practical steps teachers and administrators could take right away -- without making any major investments or waiting for policy shifts -- to improve technology integration in our classrooms. Here's what they suggest:

"Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we've compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher's tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. "

"In our innovative classrooms across America, students are using technology in ways that were unheard of just ten short years ago. In a small elementary school in Northwest Baltimore, students use their Makerspace to create 3D printed materials, learn to code and engage in other making activities. In another school in Philadelphia, a student fulfills his senior capstone project requirement by creating a "Smart Beehive" that uses sensors and a camera to track the health of a bee colony. While there are some schools of education that prepare pre-service teachers to excel in these types of technology-rich environments on their first day of in-service teaching, there is still room for growth in our teacher preparation programs as a whole, particularly as more schools shift towards digital learning. "Education-Creative Commons" by NEC Corporation of America licensed under CC BY 2.0" This is why the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) asks us to refine educational technology's place in teacher preparation programs. It makes the bold statement that "no new teacher exiting a preparation program should require remediation by his or her hiring district."¹"

"By developing a positive learning community within a classroom, a teacher can take the initial steps necessary to begin integrating technology tools and resources. With consistent perseverance and practice, soon these teachers can find new ways to transform learning experiences while dispelling the myth of distraction while learning with technology."

"SAMR is a technology integration model that basically shows the way to get the most out of your technology in the classroom. The dotted line in the chart to the right shows where you cross over from doing what you've always done - just adding technology - to doing what you couldn't do before. Redefinition is at the top of the SAMR model, but that doesn't mean that you "win" or that you're doing it right only if you reach redefinition. Some tasks just aren't made for redefinition, and great learning can happen without redefinition. But redefinition is the Holy Grail. If you get there, you're providing learning that couldn't have happened a decade ago (maybe a year ago)."

"Taking a screenshot with an iPad comes in handy more than you might think as you integrate Apple's latest technology in the classroom. Whether you're walking students through the installation of an app, the configuration of a program, or simply capturing annotated screenshots for your flipped classroom, it boils down to a few simple steps. There are a variety of apps that can help here, but the simplest mechanism for turning the iPad's screen's display into a still image is to hit two little buttons."

"What happens to student engagement when iPads are used in a science classroom? An Examination of how Technology Impacts a High School Biology Classroom Jeremy Ensrud, ensrudj@canby.k12.or.us"

"To ban or not to ban, that is always the question when it comes to personal devices in the classroom. But rather than fight this uphill battle (Generation Alpha is forecasted to be more technological than any previous), let's figure out how to leverage these little machines. If used intentionally, mobile devices can be an express pass to exploring beyond the walls of our schools. While pushing students to learn outside our classrooms is a step in the right direction, how do we ensure that these experiences lead to deeper learning? Here are 5 ways to get to curate that practice by making your class a BYOD zone."

"What are the latest emerging trends in education? As trends to do, these are changing almost yearly. Consider how quiet iPads in the classroom have been recently, whereas three years ago they were going to replace teachers and were (unsarcastically) compared to magic. While mobile devices like the iPad can indeed parallel a kind of magic in the learning process, it obviously has to 'fit' into a progressive supporting ecology of assessment, curriculum, and instruction. With that in mind, we've created a list of 15 (the graphic plus 3 bonus items below) new ideas every teacher should try. Not all will fit or work-again, it depends on the ecology of the classroom, school, and so on. But each of these ideas below-some learning models, some concepts, and some technologies-can be transformational for students, and your teaching."

"In this article, I'll take you on a tour of design thinking. It's the process that I've used countless times as a teacher, curriculum leader, technology coach, author, and entrepreneur. Here's what we'll cover: What is Design Thinking (and the LAUNCH Cycle)? How is design thinking used around the world? How can I use design thinking in (and out of) my classroom?"

Making is as old as learning itself. While the maker movement may only be about a decade old, the human desire to create dates back to the earliest forms of human activity, from making stone tools to drawing on cave walls (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Martinez & Stager, 2014). Thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Montessori, and Papert helped paved the way for the maker movement by stressing the importance of hands-on, student-centered, meaningful learning. Instead of viewing learning as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, these thinkers embraced the idea that children learn best when encouraged to discover, play, and experiment. More recently, maker education is being used as a way to connect do-it-yourself informal learning to classrooms. Driven by new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and kid-friendly coding, making is emerging as an effective way to introduce students to STEM, particularly women and minorities. By incorporating elements of making into the classroom, educators can bridge the gap between what students are passionate about and what they're learning in school.

"One of the most important skills of the 21st century - web literacy - is often overlooked in the classroom. The ability to read, write and participate online is an indispensable skill for learners, but it's curiously absent from many educators' curricula. At Mozilla, we believe web literacy should be a cornerstone of education. When students can create their own content on the Web, tinker with HTML, and understand the basics of online privacy, they're empowered to do great things. We also believe web literacy is best taught through hands-on, interactive learning. We've just wrapped up Maker Party, Mozilla's annual celebration of teaching and learning the Web through hands-on activities. But Maker Parties can be held anywhere, anytime. And our resources for teaching web literacy are free and open source, always. To kickstart web literacy learning in your classroom - or outside of it - here are six tools and activities from Maker Party for teaching critical 21st-century skills:"

"As with my daughter's classroom, iPads are being used by students in the classroom for learning purposes. Educators find ways that technology can aid learning."

"As technology transforms the classroom, teaching is changing as well. When students head back to school this year, they may discover that monotonous lectures and mundane activities are a thing of the past when their teachers decide to flip the classroom. Educators across the globe will take a pledge to flip one lesson on Friday, Sept. 6, the first "Flipped Day". Hundreds of educators from 10 countries have already taken the pledge to use this innovative model of instruction on that day."

"Think back 20 years. Pay phones still worked, and only doctors carried pagers. Laptops weighed as much as bowling balls, and few of us had Internet access. In fact, much of what we now consider commonplace -- Google, email, WiFi, texting -- was not even possible. If that was 20 years ago, where are we going in the next 20? We are all going mobile! Tablets, smartphones, Chromebooks -- and yet, these devices only serve as the most recent iteration of mobile technology in the classroom. Remember Netbooks? How about those old-school Macbooks that looked like toilet seat covers? What if we go back further? What about chalk and slate?"

"Increasingly, educators are acknowledging and welcoming the relative advantages of social media into the teaching and learning process. From creating school Facebook pages to connecting students with experts via Twitter, social media has taken root as a legitimate classroom learning and communication tool. The highly linguistic nature of social media allows us to create and consume ideas and information unlike ever before. Much attention has been given to composing an articulate blog post and condensing our messages to 140 characters or less. However, effective use of this 21st century technology requires that we not only become proficient in textual communication, but also in our ability to express ourselves and interpret others' ideas through visual literacy. "

Last year, we began a program that can best be described as "classroom modernization" across the district. Our Board of Education recognized the importance and education need for the modernization and made a commitment through its budget to support the purchase of technology to support the professionals in our classrooms. The first decision we made was to ensure all teaching staff had access to a current, mobile device. While often the focus is on ensuring all students have access to current devices (a continuing effort in our district) we realized that if we wanted classes to be engaging with digital tools, teachers needed to have access and feel comfortable with them as well."

"Whether this is your first year teaching and you're right out of school or you've been teaching for 30 years, the students sitting in your classroom are facing a different type of classroom than you had as a student. There is more technology, the subject material may vary slightly, but the biggest differences are likely cultural and social."

"iPads, iPods and other tablets are becoming more commonplace in the classroom, and schools are filling their devices with lots of Apps. By doing this, teachers could be missing valuable opportunities to truly embed the use of technology into their curriculum. If teachers were offered just one device that was a camera and video recorder, had access to the internet, was a calculator and had a note-taking feature, how delighted would they be? It's astounding how much the inbuilt functionality is overlooked as schools become pre-occupied with downloading Apps. From experience, the overloading of Apps and games can de-value the device, from a pupil's perspective, as an educational tool. Here is a brief overview of some of the features, giving an insight of the scope in which the device can be used with a few basic Apps."

"Visible Thinking, as a learning approach, makes extensive use of thinking routines in class.These routines, according to Visiviblethinkingpz.org, are are simple structures, for example " a set of questions or a short sequence of steps, that can be used across various grade levels and content. What makes them routines, versus merely strategies, is that they get used over and over again in the classroom so that they become part of the fabric of classroom' culture. The routines become the ways in which students go about the process of learning." To better understand how to use the visible thinking approach with your students and cultivate a thinking culture in your class, Langwitches has this wonderful infographic to share with you.This visual features a number of key thinking routines together with examples of how to use them with learners. Have a look and let us know what you think of it."