Group items tagged

A few years back a dear friend introduced me to the concept of Augmented Reality and I have been fascinated by it ever since. Augmented reality is when technology is used to create a  live view of an alternative, augmented world by generating sensory information through a computer or tablet. (This was the first video I saw that demonstrated Augmented Reality and I was awed by it!)  I have found it to be an effective tool to encourage deeper thinking and maximise instructional time in my classroom. The kids love it, other teachers are awed by it and you will have fun experimenting with it. There are many ways you can approach the application of Augmented Reality in you classroom. I have found the simplest to be Aurasma. Aurasma is an app for iPhone or iPad that can allow for augmented experiences to be embedded simply in your day-to-day teaching. 

"Augmented Reality is a hugely engaging phenomenon that has never been more accessible. Explaining what Augmented Reality is, is a bit like trying to describe the difference between a 3D shape and a 2D shape. Seeing it and using it will give you a much better understanding of what it is. Essentially, augmented reality creates a three dimensional animation that can be viewed through the iPad's camera. This creates the effect of the animation being a physical structure in the room with you that you can interact with through an app. Again, to show is much easier than to describe, and so this blog will do just that. Before I dive in to my personal favourites, I feel that it is important to highlight the educational implications of augmented reality apps. Yes, the ability to use this kind of technology is impressive and engaging, but what does it bring to teaching and learning? Well, there are a number of ways that it can help to spur on creativity, story writing, research, computing skills and so on. I will explain each app's potential and educational impact as we go along…"

"The iPad isn't famed for its photographic abilities. But in reality, it is one of the most useful devices a photographer could own. Everyone who takes pictures has a favored digital workflow. For some, it is entirely iPhone-based, using filters and careful framing in preparation for the latest Instagram triumph. For others, it is a laptop operation which takes hours of patient sorting, followed by adjustment and layering. But there is a third way. The iPad's processing power cannot compete with that of a computer, and its photographic credentials are less celebrated than those of a smartphone, and yet, you could argue that it combines the best of mobile and desktop."

"Phrases like "random acts of kindness" and "pay it forward" have become popular terms in modern society. Perhaps this could be best explained by those who have identified a deficiency in their lives that can only be fulfilled by altruism. It seems that we just can't get enough of those addictive, feel-good emotions -- and with good reason. Scientific studies prove that kindness has many physical, emotional, and mental health benefits. And children need a healthy dose of the warm-and-fuzzies to thrive as healthy, happy, well-rounded individuals. Patty O'Grady, PhD, an expert in neuroscience, emotional learning, and positive psychology, specializes in education. She reports: Kindness changes the brain by the experience of kindness. Children and adolescents do not learn kindness by only thinking about it and talking about it. Kindness is best learned by feeling it so that they can reproduce it. A great number of benefits have been reported to support teaching kindness in schools, best summed up by the following."

"Let me tell you a quick, cautionary tale about using images online and copyright. Last year, I received an email from one of our blog managers communicating that a popular stock photography vendor was claiming one of the images in an ebook I created had been wrongfully used.  Embarrassed, I quickly investigated. When I identified the offending image, I specifically remember ensuring I had properly sourced (and had the right permissions to use) it. As it turned out, another internet user had purchased the image from the stock photography service and uploaded it to a photo-sharing website under a Creative Commons license. So while on the surface it looked safe for the taking, it was in fact falsely promoted as a royalty-free image. Scary story, right? That's when it hit me: What if marketers didn't have to shell out more money for photos, obsess about copyright laws, and fret over permissions? What if we could help solve this issue for them by offering a repository of stock photos that anyone could use completely for free? So that's exactly what we did. We hired a photographer and took a ton of photos to give away for free -- no royalties, fees, or attribution required. (Although we'd never say no to an inbound link or two. ;-) )"

"If there is one thing I truly understand about educators it is that they are slow to change. It might be from decades of people jumping in with the "latest and greatest" answer to a better way to do things in education, or some legislative mandate to fix it all through legislation, only to find it to fizzle out and fall way short when actually implemented. If teachers learned one thing from these experiences it is that, if you wait and ride it out long enough, all of these initiatives will all go away. The problem however is that many educators want to apply this sit and wait posture to anything that requires them leaving their zones of comfort. The mindset of a 20th Century educator is very comfortable for most educators since they were trained for the most part by 20th century educators. A majority of educators are very comfortable with the methodology and pedagogy of that time. Structure and student compliance matched to a focus on lecture and direct instruction are the common experiences of most educator"

"It's a controversial topic: do you introduce social media in the classroom or ignore it? Whether you use traditional social platforms or social-focused tools, many educators find that this technology helps increase engagement and excitement with students, many of who are already very familiar with it. "Students communicate, research, collaborate, create and publish online with or without the help of parents or educators. These same students then hop on social media to promote, discuss and share their thoughts with the world. The digital environment is offering us some of the greatest learning opportunities that young learners have ever had," says Gail Leicht, an 8th grade teacher. Bringing social networking into the classroom gives quiet students a chance to shine; sharing their voice online is often easier than speaking out in class. It also opens the doors for collaboration and communication between peers, both inside and outside of the classroom. Not to mention, it gives teachers another opportunity to connect with students. Despite the benefits, many educators still shy away from using social networking in the classroom because they are unsure about how to integrate it successfully. In fact, fewer than 20 percent of U.S. teachers use social media in the classroom, according to USNews.com. Luckily, the process isn't quite as daunting as it seems. Not to mention, you don't need to use traditional social networks to take advantage of social networking in the classroom. Follow these simple steps and watch as your students start sharing, commenting and publishing while learning important lesson material."

"Since its introduction, Skype has gained more than a little traction in the communications space. While Google+ has added Hangouts and Facebook video chat that accomplish essentially the same thing, due to its pioneering effort, Skype has become the industry standard by being its own verb, in the same way Google has for search, and Coke has for soft drinks. It'd only be a little confusing to ask someone to "Skype," and then hope on Google+ for a Hangout. Or maybe it wouldn't. Nonetheless, Skype has a potential role in the 21st century classroom. (In fact, in August of last year we looked at 50 ways it could be used in the classroom.) To help in that regard, langwitches has created a helpful taxonomy to guide teachers on how to plan, evaluate, and execute a Skype conversation for learning. It starts off at the bottom with forced, awkward conversations, and eventually grades to the top, where authentic, free-flowing conversations occur. You can download a pdf version on her site."

"Since last year, I've been diving into the world of Making. It has been exciting and it has also been a large amount of extra work, but it matters. I just wanted to share a few stories as to why it matters so much. Quick Background: My librarian and I have worked together to create an open Makerspace for students to use in the library. It is available to students to use before school, during lunch, during study halls, and after school whenever the library is open. The idea is to give students access to tools on their own to see what they will create. It is meant to be student driven with some nudging from teachers to encourage students to explore different things. We have a 3D printer, Makey Makey kits, Chromebooks, and are stocking the space with more goodies based on student requests. To use the space, the students have to attend and orientation that covers the different tools available and the use of the space."

"Why build a Makerspace in your school? Student creativity, building stronger neural pathways in the brain through kinesthetic learning opportunities, is the reason to build a Makerspace. It is about play, students tinkering to discover, children experimenting to learn, and students building what they dream. Building a Makerspace is worth it when the students grow and learn within it. In an age of accountability and standardization, these elements have been steadily removed from schools and classrooms. A Makerspace has the potential to put it all back in place. Even so, making a Makerspace come to life in a school is not an easy task. It takes vision, buy-in, materials and space, and a plan for implementation. More than that, building a Makerspace in a school takes time. And, we did it!"

"In my previous article on this subject, I wrote about the Maker Movement and its importance to the educational realm. The Maker Movement is also nicknamed the Do-It-Yourself (D.I.Y.) Movement, because it empowers individuals to design, manufacture, and create their own objects, ultimately improving creativity in many fields. In a way, the tools used in this movement are taking us back to a time when every person was a craftsperson - except now, we have much cooler gadgets than a wood chisel. And while many of us do not realize it yet, this hands-on approach is something that is missing from our very digital, holographic world. The 3D printer is one of the biggest revolutionary tools in the Maker world and has inspired a push toward the do-it-yourself sensibility. Still, though the cost of 3D printers is coming down, they are still prohibitively expensive for many schools and what's more, when turning a classroom into a makerspace, it would be silly to limit ourselves to one technology. In this article, we discuss five tools that are not 3D printers that schools can use to help students embrace this movement inside the classroom."

"The iPad 2 is Apple's longest supported iDevice. Even though it was released in 2011, it still runs the latest - albeit stripped down - version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 9. A lot has changed since the iPad 2 was first released. Apple has developed faster processors, Retina screens, an entirely new cable, dedicated graphics chips, and a whole lot more. The iPad 2 uses an A5 chip while the latest iDevices use an A9. It doesn't have a retina screen and requires an old 30-pin iPod-era cable. The iPad 2 really can't handle the latest and greatest apps or games. In fact, it can struggle just running iOS  9. What was once a zippy tablet is now pretty slow to use. This isn't a problem if you stick to a single app, but jumping between them or launching new ones can take what feels like an age. This doesn't mean an iPad 2 is useless, it just means that how you use it has to adapt."

"It appears that confidence is still a major barrier that prevents some teachers from using EdTech to its full potential to really enhance both teaching and learning in their classrooms. I'm a fan of quotes and I feel this one is appropriate as it sums up the impact action can have on confidence: "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." Dale Carnegie It goes without saying that the he more often you do something, the quicker you will become more confident in doing it. Trialling something new can be daunting at first for many. However, the more often you do this, the less fearful you will be. In fact, you may even find trying new things more exciting, particularly when you see spectacular results! You may be able to place yourself in one of the following categories based on your confidence in using technology in the classroom:"

"My iPad Pro arrived this past week to my excitement. I have used it for just a few days now at this point. There are absolutely no regrets about this large purchase (I joked that it did cost exactly half of what I paid for my first car!). I am thoroughly impressed by this device. The larger size of this iPad gives it a new device feeling, as opposed to just a refreshed model of the same dimensions. For a size reference, here is the iPad Pro side by side with the iPad 4: And here it is next to the iPad Mini:   I hope to do a series of posts outlining my use of the iPad Pro. This first post will just outline some initial thoughts on the device, and who I think it is best suited for. Readers of this blog will know that I'm a huge supporter of using iPads for content creation as opposed to just content consumption. The iPad Pro, along with the new features of iOS 9, bring with it many more possibilities of doing so."

"Does STEM scare you? I know it scared me. When I was a kid, I watched my brother take apart an entire computer and put it back together without a manual or guide. Me, I could barely change a lightbulb. And no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to put IKEA furniture together backward. You should see my bookcase. Very embarrassing. It was with this same trepidation and insecurity that I approached STEM. What could I teach kids? I'm not an engineer! I'm not a scientist! I'm not a mathematician! It wasn't until I reluctantly volunteered to help out with a robotics after school program that I started gaining confidence. I put together my first robot (with a lot of help, TLC from the co-instructor, and even guidance from some eight-year-old kids) and its been downhill from there. I soon realized that leading successful STEM experiences has less to do with your actual knowledge as an instructor (though it helps), and more to do with the MINDSET you take with kids. Here are the five MAKER mindsets and how YOU can develop them starting tomorrow."

"These days, new ideas about "best practice" in the classroom are published every day. It is an indication that educators are increasingly taking ownership of their own destiny, and with social media making the sharing of ideas so easy, teachers have constant instant access to new and exciting suggestions from around the world. Though this is exciting, there is an associated danger. The ideas badged as "best practice" are, more often than not, untested in any reliable way. This means that teachers could be implementing practices that do not impact positively. Worse still, they could be having a negative impact on learning. Perhaps rather than "best practice", we need to consider "effective practice". Thankfully, we now have access to a body of research that helps us know what sits in the area of effective practice: the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is hugely accessible and allows teachers to see what works, and how much it costs. Similarly, the work of John Hattie, from the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education, helps us get to grips with what he terms "visible learning" - aspects of teaching that can be seen to makes a difference. Both the EEF and Hattie cite the development of metacognition in our students as a highly effective approach to securing progress over time. Metacognition is not an instantly easy word to understand - people sometimes glaze over. But in my experience, once it is explained, people "get it", and "want it". It is a powerful concept that can make a significant difference to our students."

A significant shift continues to occur within global education markets. It is signified by the manner in which it makes sense to speak of a global education market. It is driven by neo-liberalism and the expansion of markets into all aspects of our lives and it is made possible by manipulation of the third messaging system within the educational triad of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It is a drive towards accountable, comparable and productive education systems fine-tuned to maximise the return on investment and provide industry with the workforce it desires. What must be asked is how does this trend impact students and are these the forces that should be driving change in our education systems?

"At ISTE 2016 I presented a new session called "Make It, Wear It, Learn It" about wearable electronics. It's a combination of what's out there now that can be done by students today, some far out gee-whiz stuff coming in the next few years, and how to start with wearables for young people. Wearables are a way to introduce people to engineering, design, and electronics that are personal and fun!"

"Face it. Like all organizations, schools get locked into routine, impeding change. But all schools need to innovate to prepare kids for a dynamic and uncertain future. The question is, "How?" The Innovation Playlist can help your school make positive, informed change. It represents a teacher-led model, based on small steps leading to big change, that draws on best practices from outstanding educators and non-profits from across the country. The Innovation Playlist consists of albums (the big goals on the left) and tracks (the small steps on the right that help you reach each big goal). Each track can be done quickly - fifteen minutes to a day or two - with minimal downside and lots of upside. The playlist process can be led by a school's principal, by faculty at the school, grade or department level, or even by a family at home. The "Mobilize Your Community" album is the ideal place to start, letting you generate enthusiasm for innovation. Then, focus on a few tracks in coming months. Start with one (e.g., Curiosity Time), find a few eager volunteers to try it (many will!), and have them share their experience with the entire faculty. Over time, encourage the early adopters to go deeper, and others to give it a try. Innovation is contagious. This "small steps leading to big change" model means you don't risk the painfully-visible failure that inevitably comes from a sweeping top-down dictum. Each teacher can innovate as much, or as little, as fits their strengths and styles. Give permission to those itching to innovate, and let them run with it. And if a teacher isn't up for this kind of innovation, that's ok, too… It can be a good thing for students to experience a range of pedagogies."

"I asked my students to give reading a chance this year.  I promised them that if they liked reading, I would do my very best to protect that love.  That if they disliked it, or even hated it, I would try to create an experience that would perhaps change their perception even a little bit. I polled them at the beginning of the year and was frankly horrified at what I found.  Out of 130 students, 53.6% of students reported that on a scale from 1 to 10, reading was a 4 or less.  That's 70 students. 70 students that despite their previous teachers best intentions have already decided that reading is really not for them.  Out of those 70 students, 35 students reported that they hated it.  Hated it.  Not just dislike.    But hate. So what do you when you are faced with such insurmountable odds?  What program do you lean on?  What curriculum do you implement? For us; none. It turns out it is much simpler than following a curriculum. What made the biggest difference to all of my reading hating students?"