Group items tagged

"s mentioned in last week's post, Affordable ISTE 2011, I attend a lot of conferences. I always bring my laptop, but when I'm on the road my mobile devises are indispensible. My cell phone (an iPhone 3) is usually stuffed in my back pocket and I carry my iPad around in my small conference bag. At most conferences, I leave my laptop in my hotel room and use it at night to answer lengthy emails and maybe write a blog post or two. "

"I was very excited to try out this new tool from Techsmith. It's called Screenchomp and it does something that I've wanted to do for a while. It lets your create your own screencasts on your iPad. So, I eagerly downloaded it and set about to create my first screencast. I did what everyone does when they first grab this application…I doodled on the screen with my finger. It was very responsive to the touch and had a small set of tools to do the task. I did the mandatory "2+2=4″ and got excited. Maybe I could start my own educational academy…"

"Here's an interesting concept for a case meant to make the iPad usable for blind and visually impaired customers. The Omnifer almost covers the iPad completely, save for a small portion of the screen, and adds raised Braille buttons. What's really cool is that the Omnifer is more than Braille buttons slapped onto a case. Instead, gas stored inside the case raises and lowers the Braille characters, making different ones available, depending on what's on the iPad's screen. The gas pockets are filled with a chemical that expands when exposed to light. The portion of the screen beneath the buttons will light up as needed to raise the proper characters. In this way, a user could "stream" text for reading via Braille."

"It's a sheet music reader for the iPad. The app is free and comes with a few classic song sheets (Amazing Grace, Take Me Out to the Ball game, etc.) but every other song you'll have to buy in their small but growing collection. Sadly, you can't upload any sheets on your own, you'll have to rely on their store. What's great is that the app has a built in metronome (audible or visual) so you can keep your tempo right and see where you are in the piece. Also great: automatic page turning as the app will flip the page once you reach the end of the previous one."

Upload and download lots of files, big files, small files, data files, media files, archives or backups - any files. With Wikisend it`s simple and free.

Calculator for Windows or Mac - trial or fuill version to download. Also a free online calculator, dashboard widget or google gadget. Advanced calc has a small cost.

"John F. Kennedy is often reported to have said "The only reason to give a speech is to change the world." Over the years this has been paraphrased by many speaking and training professionals. Not surprisingly, people occasionally mock this kind of statement as being just so much hubris or pomposity. "Surely," they proclaim, "not every presentation or speech is important enough to even make the slightest difference." However, when we say "change the world," we do not mean necessarily to change the world in a monumental, earth-altering, life-changing way. The operative word in that phrase is change. Affecting a change is a necessary condition of an effective speech. "A presentation that doesn't seek to make change is a waste of time and energy," says business guru Seth Godin. "

"What is an inquiry diary? Essentially, it is a large book (or digital equivalent - but more on that later) into which the inquiry is recorded as it unfolds - one of those big, spiral bound sketch books is ideal. Some teachers construct a diary for each inquiry while others use a single diary for the whole year. Some teachers reserve the diary for documentation of the unplanned, 'spontaneous' investigations that occur throughout the year (such as the sad death of the preying mantis at St. Fidelis Primary early this year!). Entries can be made at various times throughout the process - daily, weekly, sporadic or regular. The teacher often scribes students' suggestions or invites a small group to work on an entry. Importantly, the diary gives us an opportunity to reinforce the language of inquiry and the transferable skills and strategies that are being used within it. They can be as simple or as detailed as suits. "

"This post is about a topic and app close to my heart. Computer programming is the engine of modern life and dream maker for tens of thousands. More and more countries are introducing the subject as compulsory schooling at surprisingly young ages. The UK is introducing a national school programme in september this year whilst also funding yearofcode.org to increase momentum. Code.org is pushing an international message with big-name endorsement. Even small countries like Estonia have their 5-year-olds taking their first steps into logical problem solving. A site I've used for years is codecademy.com"

"Founded in 2011, The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to promoting and celebrating the public domain in all its richness and variety. All works eventually fall out of copyright - from classics works of art to absentminded doodles - and in doing so they enter the public domain, a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction. Our aim is to help our readers explore this rich terrain - like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance to an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond. With a focus on the surprising, the strange, and the beautiful, we hope to provide an ever-growing cabinet of curiosities for the digital age, a kind of hyperlinked Wunderkammer - an archive of materials which truly celebrates the breadth and variety of our shared cultural commons and the minds that have made it. "

"Sometimes it feels crazy overwhelming to keep assessing students and know exactly what they do/don't understand. That's where these quick and easy formative assessment ideas comes in! My school district sent us a monthly newsletter from the GATE department. This was a particularly helpful chart, so I kept it. But the image was too small, so I've remade it into an easier to read version (see below)."

"A few years back (Wow! We can't believe Edudemic has even been around that long!) we wrote about an awesome video that was recorded by a classroom of students and their iPads. The song was such a huge success that it went up for sale on iTunes! Considering that when I was a kid, music class included me banging randomly on a wooden block with a small mallet, I think it is fair to say that technology has brought music class a long, long way. Store Van Music embarked on a tour of schools in the UK and help the students create outstanding music using iPads and their minds."

"The handy graphic below synthesizes the overwhelming to-do list of flipping your classroom into 6 easy steps that make the whole process a little less daunting. The big take home: Start small. Flip one lesson to start. Learn from what you've done, and go from there if you want to (or need to) keep trying. Once you've got the basics, there are so many resources you can draw from to refine the flipped classroom experience and add and modulate the nuances of this type of learning experience."

"With an ever growing list of daily interactions occurring digitally, the result of small online decisions can have a huge and lasting impact. As educators, it is critical that we convey this impact to students and consider all elements of Digital Citizenship when working with them in the digital world. In the words of the man who coined the nine elements of Digital Citizenship:"

"It's not going to be available for awhile and it's expensive. The Apple Watch is real, though. In a dizzying floor show, Apple announced a slew of new products and technology innovation. One of the most talked-about items? The Apple Watch. It's small, highly customizable, and looks easy enough to use."

"One of the biggest learning trends you should know about is project-based learning. Basically, students are given a task and allowed to work in groups to deliver solutions to a problem. This is an applicable methodology in science, technology, math, arts, etc. You name it, project-based learning could likely be used. But how do you get started with a new way to teach? That's a major question that often stops teachers right in their tracks. It's hard to switch up what's been working in the past. It's impossible to figure out how to integrate a new classroom structure in the small amount of time available to educators around the world. In an effort to help solve this issue, our friends at EdTechTeacher have created what's essentially a crash course in project-based learning. The video is about an hour long and is by Suzy Brooks, a third-grade teacher in Massachusetts."

"ome widely held ideas about the way children learn can lead educators and parents to adopt faulty teaching principles Jan 1, 2015 Credit: Kiyoshi Takahase segundo MYTH HUMANS USE ONLY 10 PERCENT OF THEIR BRAIN FACT The 10 percent myth (sometimes elevated to 20) is mere urban legend, one perpetrated by the plot of the 2011 movie Limitless, which pivoted around a wonder drug that endowed the protagonist with prodigious memory and analytical powers. In the classroom, teachers may entreat students to try harder, but doing so will not light up "unused" neural circuits; academic achievement does not improve by simply turning up a neural volume switch. MYTH "LEFT BRAIN" and "RIGHT BRAIN" PEOPLE DIFFER FACT The contention that we have a rational left brain and an intuitive, artistic right side is fable: humans use both hemispheres of the brain for all cognitive functions. The left brain/right brain notion originated from the realization that many (though not all) people process language more in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities and emotional expression more in the right. Psychologists have used the idea to explain distinctions between different personality types. In education, programs emerged that advocated less reliance on rational "left brain" activities. Brain-imaging studies show no evidence of the right hemisphere as a locus of creativity. And the brain recruits both left and right sides for both reading and math. MYTH YOU MUST SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE BEFORE LEARNING ANOTHER FACT Children who learn English at the same time as they learn French do not confuse one language with the other and so develop more slowly. This idea of interfering languages suggests that different areas of the brain compete for resources. In reality, young children who learn two languages, even at the same time, gain better generalized knowledge of language structure as a whole. MYTH BRAINS OF MALES AND FEMALES DIFFER IN WAYS THAT DICTATE LEARNING ABILITIES FACT Diffe

"Having worked with many schools across Europe this is the starter set of apps that seem to hit the spot. Having a small number of apps when starting your iPad journey is key for me. It gives pupils and teachers the opportunity to get familiar with a set of apps and use them across age groups and subjects."

"rodigies in piano or dance can study at schools like Juilliard to develop their musical or performing arts talent. By contrast, nothing like Juilliard exists for children who show great promise at math. But an ambitious experiment will soon change that: In fall 2015, a small, independent school that's exclusively tailored for math whizzes will open in downtown San Francisco."