Group items tagged

"Sometimes, we may find ourselves in a situation where we want to make our presentation (at least the audio part) and slides available for viewing at a later date. Fortunately, Keynote allows you to do this, by recording your presentation with the appropriately named option in the "Play" menu. Unfortunately, Keynote will only take one recording. You can't piece multiple recordings together. If you're like me and you feel more comfortable in front of an audience than recording your talk, this can be a problem. If I want to be sure of a clean, error-free recording, then the only reasonable option for me is to record it section by section."

"Beyond Distance is teaming up with the Australian Digital Futures Institute at the University of Southern Queensland for the 2011 Learning Futures Festival. The festival is a celebration of innovation in teaching and learning in higher education, and offers a chance for practitioners and policymakers to share their visions for the future. With handovers between Leicester (UK), Seattle (USA), and Toowoomba (Australia), Follow the Sun will beginin Leicester on Wednesday 13th April and conclude in Australia 48 hours later."

A desktop email client is a better place to keep a backup of your emails as you can use them offline as well as type and save emails to send later. There is a case where you may use few extra IDs to register at forums, websites, etc. But, what happen if you will forget one of your IDs which you have used long time back. Well, in that case you need to recover your password.

You often use the "Reply All" button in group communication. At that time, it may seem convenient, though it may be distressing later one, when different recipients start reverting on it, even when you don't expect. No matter how many times you delete these messages from your inbox, the next message in the chain will make it all come flashing back.

"We know that women are underrepresented in math and science jobs. What we don't know is why it happens. There are various theories, and many of them focus on childhood. Parents and toy-makers discourage girls from studying math and science. So do their teachers. Girls lack role models in those fields, and grow up believing they wouldn't do well in them. All these factors surely play some role. A new study points to the influence of teachers' unconscious biases, but it also highlights how powerful a little encouragement can be. Early educational experiences have a quantifiable effect on the math and science courses the students choose later, and eventually the jobs they get and the wages they earn."

"Since time is of the essence, what's the best way to actually discover what you need to know? The following Google search tricks from Veravo will save you time for many years to come. It's worth investing a little bit of time to understand them all now and implement later."

"According to a study conducted in the chemistry department of the Catholic University done by Diane M. Bunce, Elizabeth A. Flens, and Kelly Y. Neiles in Washington D.C., it was found that while the original belief of the 10-15 minute attention span may be true, it was not the whole truth. Here is the rest of the story. It is true that the first lapse of attention (or first break in attention) occurred at approximately the 10-18 minute mark, but after this initial break, the later attention lapses occurred more and more frequently. By the end of class, attention breaks were cycling every 3-4 minutes. In other words, in the last parts of class, students are only paying attention for 3-4 minutes at a time! So what does this mean for you? This means that introducing different elements into the routine may benefit both you and your students by helping them pay more attention so that you can be a more effective teacher. This is where the pomodoro method comes in."

"I'm a fan of the writing workshop. That means I also write with my students, and I allow plenty of time for students to conference with me and with each other. I also provide models of what good writing looks like -- and lots of them. Here's what the classroom writing process looks like: Brainstorming (Think About It) Drafting (Getting It Down) Revising (Making It Better) Editing (Making It Right) Publishing (Sharing It!) At the beginning of the writing process, I have had students write silently. For it to be successful, in my experience, students need plenty of topics handy (self-generated, or a list of topics, questions, and prompts provided). Silent writing is a wonderful, focused activity for the brainstorming and drafting stage of the writing process. I also think it's important that the teacher write during this time, as well (model, model, model). However, when it comes to revising, and later, editing, I think peer interaction is necessary. Students need to, for example, "rehearse" words, phrases, introductions, and thesis statements with each other during the revision stage."

"When I first started the Makerspace, inspired by my PLN, I had a very small budget and a admittedly a rather large dose of skepticism that all this Makerspace folderoll could just be another fad or Ed Tech buzzword. Like the $11,000 Smart Board everyone just HAD to have 10 years ago that seemed to end up as a very expensive white board a few years later. But I did want to give it a whirl! The reason I often talk about baby-steppin into Makerspace (or any new education innovation)  it's because I don't want you to feel like pressured or guilted into jumping into something new or spending thousands of dollars. Remember, you can date new technology (or innovation) you don't have to marry it! "

"What makerspace materials and supplies should you buy or stock for your hands-on learning lab?  There are a lot of options out there to choose from and it can be confusing when you're first starting out as a maker educator.  Instead of just spending money randomly on items you think you will need, it's always a great idea to work backwards first.  You need to make a list of your goals for your makerspace and then define some of the projects you want to do in your makerspace.  Once you have defined the projects, you will have a better idea of the materials you need to buy.  Since money is always tight and you can't buy everything, try partnering with another maker educator and share/trade some of your items.  Lets say you're both working on a series of robotics lessons.  Each of you can buy one type of robotics kit and then when you have completed a few lessons you can trade with each other.  This is also a great way to try out new types of kits, equipment or materials before buying them. Now keep in mind makerspaces don't always need structured lessons and are great for open ended exploration.  Give your students some materials, maybe a little instruction and then let them loose to see what they do. Here are some of the top makerspace materials and supplies a classroom or library should consider adding to their space.  They are not ranked in any particular order and they all have a STEM component to them.  Please let us know in the comments section if we are missing any good materials so we can send out an updated post later on."

"Now, I've never been one to caress a new Apple product in admiration of its beauty. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't even know how to change a tire. I've always been a Shakespeare geek, moved to tears by words, and moved to tears by having to hang a leveled picture in my hallway. Cut to three years later, and I have my first 3D printer and have just pitched my district for four more for next year. My friends, I have drunk the Kool-Aid."

"IF YOU CAN think back to what you were doing when you were eleven-years-old, the chances are that demoing your own tech product in front of thousands wasn't one of them, but that was the case for these five students. The product in question was BullyBug, a wristband that aims to reduce bullying. When a child presses a button on the wristband, it sends an alert to the teacher's phone via its app. The teacher can later sit down with the child and help solve the problem. The idea was conceived by five 5th class students from St. Audoen's National School in Dublin city centre: Katelyn O'Connell, Chloe Long, Ben Hughes, Nadine Costello, and Daniel McCann."

"How can a one-hour activity mean so much to young learners? Many students around the world will participate in Hour of Code, some of them for the first time. They will thirst for more opportunities to code. In September 2013, I wanted my sixth grade class to participate in the Hour of Code through Scratch's user-friendly tutorials. Maybe it was my own interest in seeing how code works in schools, or my appreciation of technology and the people who create coding programs. I had a hunch coding would be a hit with my students who love technology and needed to understand math in a new way. I thought we would code a few small projects. More than two years later, we are still coding!"

"Students will not like reflection at first; they will see it as additional work that doesn't feel like it's helping. Like most new things, students won't appreciate it until they see the growth later on. Be prepared for various complaints. Why do I need to do this? Because reflection is the most important part of learning. Remind students that seeing how they reflect helps you provide useful feedback that will help them grow as learners. You'll need to exhibit the same patience you used when you convinced them to shift their mindset."

"Teaching kids to code offers a lot of challenges that you don't run into when instructing adults. Kids don't have a ton of real world experience, so a lot of analogies fly over their heads. Abstract thinking can take a lot more effort, so you need to keep things more concrete. Many kids have extremely short attention spans, especially in groups. And if there isn't a cool payoff almost immediately, they are going to get bored and zone out. All the lecturing in the world won't get the lesson into their heads at that point. When teaching children programming, the goal is to empower them to understand the everyday systems they already use, and to know they have the skill to pick this kind of stuff up, both now and later in life. Not everyone wants to do software development for a living, no matter how smart of a career choice it is, but programming is creeping more and more into other fields every day."

"Like many kids of my generation growing up in India, I was an avid reader of Enid Blyton's novels. Many of her books were written as a series ("The Famous Five," "The Secret Seven" and "Five Find-Outers") and I recall wondering if the lives of characters overlapped in any way. Did a character from one series ever run into one from another, for example? I recall wondering the same thing in later years about P.G. Wodehouse's Blandings Castle and Jeeves series. Today, in a world where communities real and imagined are digitally connected via platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, we can reframe that question in terms of those common nodes (or friends) in those characters' social networks. As it turns out, network theory as an analytic technique, or what I'd call computational literary analysis, is not just a bona fide research endeavor. It's also a great example of how computational thinking (CT) is truly a cross-disciplinary skill that can be weaved to enrich learning in any subject (not just math and science, as is sometimes the assumption). In an earlier article on computational thinking, I offered teasers of how CT could be integrated into language arts and social studies, in addition to math and science. Here's a detailed treatment of one of those examples, drawn from the work of Franco Moretti's group on "Computational Criticism," which is part of the broader Digital Humanities initiative at Stanford. (See this New York Times profile for more on the work of this group)."

With the year rushing to a close, this seems like the right time to set goals for the year ahead. To pause and consider what next and make some personal promises.  The trouble is that the history of setting New Year Resolutions is littered with failures. It is so easy at this point  in time to make commitments for change and then just a few weeks later to have forgotten what they were.

"One of the most exciting trends in public libraries is how families and children are engaging together in playful early learning. Much of this has been influenced by Every Child Ready to Read, a program that guides families in children's early literacy by talking, singing, reading, writing, and playing. [1] There is less attention paid, however, to how libraries and families can support early math. This is unfortunate, given that early math skills are highly predictive of later academic success, even more so than reading abilities or socio-emotional development.[2] Like literacy, math is a tool, and one that can be developed and honed early in life.  Building on the success of Every Child Ready to Read, below we offer six ideas for how librarians and families can talk, sing, read, write, and play with math. Libraries are in a perfect position to promote family math, as they increasingly offer opportunities for families to tinker with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); offer a wide range of digital media resources-many with a math focus; and are trusted places where families of young children congregate for story times and other activities.[3] "

"Anchor says it is "The easiest way to make a podcast. Ever." Well we will just see about that and also see if it is a good fit for you in the classroom. There are three things that make Anchor a bit different than its competition. One, there is no limit to what is hosted. That means no bandwidth limit, no storage limit and no time limit. Go crazy creators. The second thing is that you can "move" your podcast from one site to Anchor. The third thing is that it is completely free. As an educator who has relied on services before, I am a little skeptical about this one but we can discuss that later. There are mobile apps for iOS and Android but for this post I am going to focus on the online webservice."

"Back in the early 1900s, John Dewey promoted the "learning by doing" approach to education, which would later become the foundation of project-based learning (PBL). This framework allows for students to use knowledge from all areas of study to complete a project or task, a process that prepares them for the challenges that they may have to overcome in a future career. Having a job may seem a lifetime away for a child. But by exposing them to different career paths, we can get them thinking about their life after high school before it's too late. As teachers, administrators, or parents, we know how important the future is for our students, and we want to give them an idea of what to expect when the next chapter of their lives begin. But how can we better prepare them for their lives after graduation?"