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"If the promise of mobile technology in classrooms has been to equalize opportunities for all students through access to the internet, that potential has yet to be realized. National surveys consistently show that students in low-income schools are getting short-changed when it comes to using technology in school. A 2013 Pew study revealed that only 35 percent of teachers at the lowest income schools allow their students to look up information on their mobile devices, as compared to 52 percent of teachers at wealthier schools. And while 70 percent of teachers working in high income areas say their schools do a good job providing resources and support to effectively integrate technology into the classroom, only 50 percent of teachers in low-income areas agree. The reality is that while some teachers have found powerful ways to use mobile devices - both those owned by students and those purchased by the school - teachers at schools in very low-income areas are often battling a persistent student culture of disengagement. Many students have learning gaps that make it hard for them to stay interested in grade level materials and little desire to be in school at all."

"Imagine a world where resources were limited to what was found in the classroom or the school closet known as the "Curriculum Materials Room." Picture a world where students wrote letters with pen and paper to communicate with other students and adults outside of the building. Due to postage costs, the teacher either sent the letters in bulk or paid for stamps out of his or her own pocket. Can you recall a time when student interests like skateboarding or video were never used as part of learning curriculum because the tools needed were either too expensive or not yet conceptualized? Do you remember a time when non-traditional learners struggled, and absenteeism meant a high likelihood of students doing poorly in school, and possibly having to retake the course?"

"Maths is one of the most fundamental skills that any child needs to succeed at school and life in general. Make the learning less of a chore by implementing gaming elements into the learning process. Lots of kids chose to play these games even knowing that they are maths based. That says something about the concept on which these types of games have been developed. See if any might be suitable for your class or perhaps just for one or two struggling students."

"After finding these math hacks, I'm convinced that all those years of being forced to struggle through math class really was just a torture ploy created by evil math teachers everywhere. Check out these amazing math tips and you'll agree! Watch out though, you may just unleash the inner math whiz you never knew was in you..."

"Read and Write for Google is an excellent Chrome app that provides text-to-speech functions from your browser. They have just released a free iPad and Android app. The apps provide text to speech functions, which are great for ESL, learning disabled, visually challenged and struggling readers, on your device, just like the web app does in the Chrome Browser and Chromebooks."

"There are many modern poets saying valid and beautiful things about the world, but few people are buying their books. Walk around any book shop and you might struggle to find the typically tiny poetry section. The art of poetry remains something literary, academic, and removed from ordinary reading habits. Yet poets go to great lengths to demonstrate that poetry is diverse, accessible, and relevant. After all, song and rap lyrics are widely-loved forms of poetry. There is also poetry, as they rightly point out, in text and Twitter feeds."

""What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent." So said Steve Jobs in 1996 - during an interview in which the Apple co-founder claimed the bureaucratic, political and sociopolitical problems facing the education sector were beyond technology's capacity to fix. In the 19 years since Jobs uttered those words, the issues weighing heavily on the shoulders of educators, schools, universities and other educational facilities have undoubtedly multiplied. But so too have the ways in which technology can be harnessed to address some of the tensions within teaching and learning. VoksenUddannelsesCenter Syd, or VUC for short, is one of 29 adult education programmes across Denmark, situated across the four towns of Haderslev, Aabenraa, Tonder and Sonderborg. The state-funded centres use legislative frameworks issued by the Ministry of Education, and are run by principals who answer to the centre board. The programmes originally issued students with MacBooks before plumping for iPads to replace traditional textbooks and paper-based essays two years ago, in a bid to help educate those who may struggle with more conventional means of teaching."

" Learn the secrets to great leadership practices, and get immediate and practical solutions that address your needs. More Permissions ASCD respects intellectual property rights and adheres to the laws governing them. Learn more about our permissions policy and submit your request online. Policies and Requests Translations Rights Books in Translation Home Current Issue Archives Buy Contact Read Abstract Online June 2014 | Volume 71 Making a Difference Pages 16-21 Overcoming the Challenges of Poverty Julie Landsman Here are 15 things educators can do to make our schools and classrooms places where students thrive. Last year, when I was leading a staff development session with teachers at a high-poverty elementary school, a teacher described how one of her kindergarten students had drifted off to sleep at his seat-at 8:00 a.m. She had knelt down next to the child and began talking loudly in his ear, urging him to wake up. As if to ascertain that she'd done what was best for this boy, she turned to the rest of us and said, "We are a 'no excuses' school, right?" A fellow teacher who also lived in the part of Minneapolis where this school was located and knew the students well, asked, "Did you know Samuel has been homeless for a while now? Last night, there was a party at the place where he stays. He couldn't go to bed until four in the morning." I couldn't help but think that if the "no excuses" philosophy a school follows interferes with basic human compassion for high-needs kids, the staff needs to rethink how they are doing things. Maybe they could set up a couple of cots for homeless students in the office to give them an hour or two of sleep; this would yield more participation than shouting at children as they struggle to stay awake. This isn't the first time I've heard of adults viewing low-income children as "the problem" rather than trying to understand their lives. In a radio interview I heard, a teenage girl in New O

"Need a reading comprehension tool to simplify texts for students? Something practical, along the lines of our "How To Google Search by Reading Level," and Conversion Chart For Reading Level Measurement Tools? You may find some use in rewordify. In short, you copy/paste text to be "simplified," and it does its thing. It attempts to simplify the text at the vocabulary level (as opposed to syntatical, structural, or idea level). Nonetheless, when vocabulary is the barrier, it does the trick. The replacements don't always do what they should-simplify the text to make it more readable for struggling readers, or students reading beyond their natural level. Sometimes the definitions are themselves confusing, as they add an additional cognitive movement the student has to make, internalizing this now sterile definition back into some kind of meaning."

"In other words, a basic element of a teacher's job - the very way in which they impart information - may not be a part of their training. Now, maybe that's not a surprise to anyone who's struggled to stay awake through a droning 90-minute lecture. But it raises a question: How much performance - how much pizzazz - does a teacher need?"

"Nothing wrecks the experience of using a great mobile device like having poor battery life. You can have the latest, greatest iPad Air 2 or a flagship smartphone, but if your battery life struggles to keep up with your useof the device, it can quickly become frustrating and also put a dent in your productivity. iOS 8 gives us a greater ability to manage battery life on the iPad - in addition to standard best practices for improving iPad battery life (adjust brightness, keep unused services turned off etc.), we can now also see which iPad apps are using up the most battery."

This is an amazing illustration of Sir Kenneth Robinson's presentation on schooling in the 21st century.  It's fascinating to watch an illustrator create a visual map of Robinson's ideas as they are spoken.  The content of the presentation is enormously important to any educator struggling to change the system.  It's even more important to those who've been subdued and mislead by old ideas into thinking they can't learn or create.

"When smartphones first became popular, the struggle was to shrink Internet Explorer to the size of a playing card. The internet browser was the de facto app installed on every computer-it allowed you to browse the web. For many, the web browser is a computer. (See Google Chromebooks.) It quickly became clear that squeezing desktop actions on handheld technology was backwards. Mobile-first thinking changed things. Facebook became mobile-first-which meant that it's designed to not just be accessed on your phone, but work better on your phone. Websites are often now responsive, scaling to the size of your screen. But more importantly, the software and the hardware are increasingly parallel, with apps working together-iOS's Neato feeding Evernote, for example, location-based alerts, smarter notifications, simpler multitasking, improved voice recognition, fingerprint sensors, predictive notifications based on usage, and more. Today, mobile technology is awful for ambitious word processing, but for everything else it's pretty incredible. Have you seen apps like Brainfeed? A library of engaging content!"

"Figuring out which tool is right for the job is something we all struggle with every day. Whether you're a contractor, plumber, or teacher, there's a lot of options to choose from. Teachers managing connected classrooms have it quite rough, though. There's an embarassment of riches when it comes to apps, web tools, and digital services that want to make your life easier. So how do you easily figure out which are the best education apps for connected classrooms, you ask? Great rhetorical question, Jeff!"

"You may already be using video to support your lessons, but have you considered encouraging your students to create them? Student-to-student videos enhance student understanding of a subject as well as student creativity and critical thinking skills. In a recent KQED MindShift article, Katrina Schwartz lauds peer-created videos for their ability to reach struggling students in ways that you as a teacher cannot. No longer are videos a distraction or a tool used only by teachers; videos can create a richer learning experience."

"One of the things I've struggled with during my tenure in education is how professional development is done in schools, especially around integration of technology. PD is already confined to a couple of weeks in the summer, but then throw on top of that the "sit-and-get" style in which we teach our content, and you can see why most teachers would rather surf Pinterest than learn during these sessions. We preach how "student-centered" we want the classroom to be, yet we spend hours talking at teachers and call this "professional learning." While this isn't unique to technology, I've found that a vast majority of technology training spends 90 percent of our time teaching us about tools, and 10 percent discussing how we could use these tools in the classroom (usually at the end of the workshop, when we are all exhausted)."

"One year ago, I wrote the article, Why Good Teachers Quit. It was hard to write and I struggled with sharing my friend's frustration and exhaustion. Yes, it was actually about a friend and not me. Today, I am happy to report my friend is still teaching. I am also sad to report her situation is no better. In fact, I might even say it has gotten a little bit worse. She still works long, hard, physically and mentally exhausting days. She is still overwhelmed by data and binders and often superhuman-like expectations. She still does it everyday because she knows she makes a difference to her students, to their lives, and their learning. The article I shared created a conversation I was humbled to read. Every few weeks, I would check the link and see a few new comments posted. Recently, I had another friend tell me that an educator she connects with from across the country via Facebook posted it. It thrills me that others enjoyed the article and it continues to live on a year after I shared it with TeachThought. It also scares me in so many ways. It frightens me that there are so many good educators who feel the same way. It scares me that there are so many educators who feel helpless in their fight to achieve more for themselves and for their students. It saddens me that the conversation has turned to unions and stress-related health sabbaticals for many teachers."

"Perhaps one of the most common questions teachers hear from students who struggle with math is, "When will I ever need this in the real world?" Concepts educators are covering can often feel archaic and remote from the things students care about in their immediate lives. But when educators think creatively about helping students see the applications of math in the real world, it provides a unique point of entry and interest into a subject that many kids may dislike."

"As Alanis Morissette once said, 'isn't it ironic'. After years of struggle between teachers and students and the use of smartphones in school, new educational trends are actually encouraging the use of these devices. The mobile, cellphone or smartphone is not just used for WhatsApp, Facebook or Angry Birds, it can be used in a multitude of ways from an educational perspective. Don't believe us? Keep reading. In this article we bring together 40 uses for smartphones in school."

"I began using Dragon Dictation a few years ago when my work with a group of struggling writers left me searching for a tool that could help them get the great ideas they were sharing aloud onto a page. I wanted something elegant: a tool that wouldn't interrupt students as they were speaking but rather, quietly capture what they were saying and flip it into text."