Group items tagged

"Since I first started my Makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School in January 2014, I have received a lot of positive feedback. I've given talks, presented at conferences, and shared about our experiences through my blog and through social media.  Some of the questions I am most frequently asked are: Why should makerspaces be in the library?  Why not just convert a classroom into a STEM lab? In a similar vein, I often hear from librarians who are struggling to get their administration/teachers/community to understand the rationale for having a Makerspace in their library.  Aren't those kids just playing?  Shouldn't libraries be quiet and clean?  How does this tie in with the curriculum? How we react to these types of questions are crucial in our advocacy for our spaces.  Here's some ways to respond."

"No mess.  No danger.  No smelly fumes. BBC Brit's Biggest Bangs is a fun, interactive video experience that allows users to channel their inner mad scientists, mixing dangerous chemicals with sometimes explosive results without a proper laboratory. The secret behind the interactivity is a central choose-your-own-adventure video around which annotations lead to separate videos that respond to your chemical selections. Choose your first chemical and then select another from among eight on the laboratory table.  You'll see the team scientist take each chemical from the table.  Then pause to consider-will it explode or won't it?"

IDEO's Nelson, Coupland, and Alice for responding to and connecting with books and readers

I am often asked as I travel to various places to present why I would spend so much time talking about technology knowing that with outsourcing and such that I am undermining job security in that computers could replace teachers. To that I respond, If you can be replaced by a computer then you probably should be! The truth is that technology will never replace teachers, however teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together online will replace those who do not.

There are three main educational goals for the game: * Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other. This is a celebration of New Orleans residents and their culture. * Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge. The relief effort in Hurricane Katrina was severely hampered by the poor communication between government agencies and through most media outlets. Top down disaster management also led responders to ignore local resources and knowledge that could have saved many lives. Even in the aftermath, local needs and wishes are largely being ignored during rebuilding. * Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008. The city was destroyed by negligence, and, unfortunately, it is now being rebuilt without homes for many of its most loyal residents.

What is micromobs? micromobs is a group messaging service and is the easiest way to manage and communicate with multiple groups. micromobs presents your group messages as a stream of content which means you can chose which messages to respond to and which messages to skim over or ignore. This means your group messages will no longer clutter your inbox, and you wont need to go to different websites to interact with your various social groups.

"The Camera App is probably the best feature of the iPad for learning, and in combination with the built in Camera Roll App its full functionality is mostly under utilised. Without using any other Apps at all students have the opportunity to document their work by photo, reflect on their work by videoing themselves responding. They can also edit their photos to focus or zoom in on an aspect. They can create folders of photos to organise their work and then create slideshows that they could Airplay in class"

"A while back, I was asked, "What engages students?" Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccurring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of babes, here are my students' answers to the question: "What engages students?""

"What is differentiated learning, anyway? Is it synonymous with personalized learning? Or personal learning? The recently released second edition of the book "The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners" describes differentiated learning as addressing many students of "various backgrounds, readiness and skill levels, and interests". Sounds pretty similar to personalized learning to me, though I'm sure there is quite a bit of nuance involved to -ahem- differentiate the two"

"The rush to grit is pretty intense, but so is the push-back. I've been writing about grit in articles and a book (Fostering Grit) and giving lots of presentations on the subject. I've spoken to schools and parents; presented at conferences; and have been a guest on NPR. Universally, grit is embraced. Everyone sees the merit in teaching our kids to accept challenges, step out of their comfort zones, and know how to respond to failure. So far, so good. Grit is hanging in and never giving up, but it's more than that. Grit is being comfortable when you are outside of your comfort zone, and it's forging ahead when you hit the wall because you know that you'll get up and continue moving forward. Grit is a life skill! But sometimes teachers are uncomfortable with the notion of fostering or teaching for grit. They're uneasy with the role they must play and I get that. We went into education because we wanted to help students: we like it when they succeed and it gratifies us when our class is filled with smiles. When our kids do well, it tells us we've done a good job!"

"Bringing technology into the classroom often winds up an awkward mash-up between the laws of Murphy and Moore: What can go wrong, will - only faster. It's a multi-headed challenge: Teachers need to connect with classrooms filled with distinct individuals. We all want learning to be intrinsically motivated and mindful, yet we want kids to test well and respond to bribes (er, extrinsic rewards). Meanwhile, there's a multi-billion-dollar industry, in the US alone, hoping to sell apps and tech tools to school boards. There's no app for that."

"It just might be that in a society where information is abundant, thinking habits are more important than knowledge. Somewhere beneath wisdom and above the "things" a student knows. Laws of economics say that scarcity increases value. It's no longer information that's scarce, but rather meaningful response to that information. Thought. And thought has a source-a complex set of processes, background knowledge, and schema that we can, as educators think of as cognitive habits. And if they're habits, well, that means they're probably something we can practice at, doesn't it?"

"As a result of the advances in technology and an increase in Wi-Fi access, schools have slowly begun to respond to this trend. The realization now is that many students possess devices and it only makes sense to harness and leverage their immense power. For many, even the most stubborn school districts that have fought this trend for years have begun to change course. All one has to do is look to the largest school district in the United States, the New York City public school system, to see that they have just lifted a ten year ban on students bringing their cell phones to school. The potential is there for schools and educators to empower students to take more ownership of their learning. This has resulted in a growing trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives being adopted. This has been the preferred option as opposed to 1:1 initiatives due to overall cost. However, many schools and districts that have adopted BYOD have done so without proper planning and support."

"This week's question is: What are your suggestions for effective classroom management strategies? At various times, I would imagine that classroom management is a challenge to many of us who teach -- it certainly is to me!  New years, new classes, new students (who all come from different backgrounds and previous school experiences) all can contribute to an occasional or often challenging environment.  How can we respond in effective and positive - not punitive - ways?"

"Educators literally have a "world of knowledge and resources" at their fingertips, as one director of curriculum and instructional technology declared in response to THE Journal's national survey. "What better way to learn about the situation in Syria than tweeting #Syria and receiving a tweet from someone there?" But guiding your students in learning new concepts, gaining insights and building their skills requires you to be comfortable with the technologies that can make all of that happen. Where do you start? We asked your colleagues that same question, and they responded in multitudes. Their recommendations covered the alphabetic gamut, from adaptivity and apps to wikis and a willingness to learn. We compiled and consolidated 121 different results to develop this year's list of five must-have multimedia skills for 2015."

"Yesterday I wished my friends could see the beauty of my snowy backyard and I discovered the Meerkat app. It seems everyone is buzzing about the free app that allows you to connect your iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch camera to Twitter and live stream or schedule the video you shoot real-time to all of your followers.  You can shoot videos portrait or landscape and turn the camera on yourself or the scene beyond. Your live video stream shows up instantly on your followers' Twitter feeds.  As folks start to watch, their Twitter profile pictures appear, and you can see and interact with your viewers,  Your viewers' tweets to you appear on the screen, allowing you to respond.  Followers who have the app get notifications of additions and may watch, comment and interact on the app."

"No matter what subject they teach or what age group their students fall into, all teachers face the same basic challenge: They have to find a way to actively engage students in the learning process. Today's learners tend to respond best to interactive teaching methods, so many instructors have integrated technology into their lesson plans. Here are five ways to engage students in your classroom."

"In children with math anxiety, seeing numbers on a page stimulates the same part of the brain that would respond if they spotted a slithering snake or a creeping spider-math is that scary. Brain scans of these children also show that when they're in the grip of math anxiety, activity is reduced in the information-processing and reasoning areas of their brains-exactly the regions that should be working hard to figure out the problems in front of them. These new findings, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, demonstrate that math anxiety is real and can't simply be wished away. But there are specific exercises that have been shown to reduce students' nervousness and allow them to focus on their work without the powerful distraction of fear."

Handing Assessment Over to Students I have been giving a lot of thought about how to give my students more of a voice in their learning and in our classroom. Initially, I was focused on increasing their presence on our classroom blog through podcasts, videos, and blog posts. I even gave thought to asking my district IT to unblock Twitter so that we could create a class account (which I am still going to do). But never would assessment have crossed my mind. Fortunately, I took my thoughts to my PLN. Janine Campbell (@campbellartsoup) responded to my tweet about amplifying students' voices with rich insights and a couple articles that got the cerebral wheels turning. If you like what you read here, be sure to follow Janine on Twitter. Assessment for learning is a pedagogical golden nugget. No one ever said that the teacher had to do it alone. Why not give your students a voice in how they are assessed? It might tell you more about where they are at than assessing your class conventionally. Rubrics are my favorite way to assess student projects. I'm even pretty good at creating them. By doing so, I completely understand the assignment and learning outcomes for any given project. But do my students? Is there a way to better utilize rubrics as assessment of learning where students' voices are intensified. Yes! Allowing students to create the criteria for assessment does just that. It doesn't just serve the purpose of better summative assessment. Student-created rubrics also provides a medium for formative assessment as well. If my assignment is for students to analyze the effects of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on post-war America, I will be able to formatively assess the class' understanding of the main points of this event by the criteria that they suggest this assignment should be graded on. I will know that I need to reteach aspects of this event in American history if students believe that including a description of John Wilkes Booth's escape from Ford's The