Group items tagged

"From literacy instruction to arts and technology integration, explore strategies for engaging English-language learners."

"Teachers in Littleton, Colorado - like teachers in many places - are increasingly asking students to read and write online. Free tools like Google Docs have made it easy for students to work on the same piece of writing at home and at school, and have allowed teachers to explore collaborative writing assignments and synchronous editing with students. There are also many digital tools that can support students as they learn how to read deeply, take well-cited notes, and navigate the writing process. While many teachers are finding efficiency in allowing students to write and submit assignments online, not all students or teachers want to use the exact same set of tools. That's why Littleton's Instructional Technology Specialist, Dana Levesque, started compiling resources on a site that both teachers and students can access to find the tools that fit their needs."

"What are the latest emerging trends in education? As trends to do, these are changing almost yearly. Consider how quiet iPads in the classroom have been recently, whereas three years ago they were going to replace teachers and were (unsarcastically) compared to magic. While mobile devices like the iPad can indeed parallel a kind of magic in the learning process, it obviously has to 'fit' into a progressive supporting ecology of assessment, curriculum, and instruction. With that in mind, we've created a list of 15 (the graphic plus 3 bonus items below) new ideas every teacher should try. Not all will fit or work-again, it depends on the ecology of the classroom, school, and so on. But each of these ideas below-some learning models, some concepts, and some technologies-can be transformational for students, and your teaching."

"While project-based learning has existed for decades, design thinking has recently entered the education lexicon, even though its history can be traced back to Herbert A. Simon's 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial. So why the resurgence of these ideas? Lately, I have heard teachers and school leaders express a common frustration: "We are _______ years into a _______ initiative, and nothing seems to have changed." Despite redesigning learning spaces, adding technology, or even flipping instruction, they still struggle to innovate or positively change the classroom experience. Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students. Consider this conundrum: much of what we know about teaching comes from 16+ years of observation as students. In no other profession do you spend that much time watching the previous generation before being told to change everything once you take control. Without the framework or scaffolding for that change, it's truly unreasonable to tell educators, "OK, start innovating.""

"Some time ago I wrote a blog post entitled 3 Top Tips for Green Screen Classrooms. It proved to be a popular post, so I thought it was time to do a follow up with three MORE top tips that you can use in your classroom when embarking on multimedia green screen projects. So, take a look at the ideas below, and feel free to submit your top tips in the comments below."

"Besides the multitude of resources we have covering reviews of hundreds of educational apps, from time to time we create lists featuring our favourite picks from the piles. Our purpose is to provide teachers with tested educational iPad apps that they can try out in their instruction. The last thing to ask an overburdened teacher is to spend hours in iTunes apps store searching  for apps to use with students. We do the curation job for you and it is your turn to integrate and make the best of these resources in your teaching. That being said, here is a handy visual we created a few months ago featuring some of the best educational iPad apps to consider in your teaching. We know our selection is subjective and many other wonderful apps are missing but for practical reasons we only included a limited number of 20 apps. More educational apps are to be featured in future collections"

"As school districts search for the few quality apps that will fit into their curriculum, instructional technology staff at three elementary school districts shared how they measure and find quality apps."

"As the new school year begins, it's already time to start mapping our your professional development for the 2013-2014 school year. While the traditional pillars of curriculum, assessment, and instruction get the lion's share of attention in professional growth plans, education technology-or #edtech-is increasingly common in PD as experienced teachers seek to integrate it more deeply, new teachers see what's out there, and skeptical teachers can stand on the periphery and evaluate what they see."

"As technology transforms the classroom, teaching is changing as well. When students head back to school this year, they may discover that monotonous lectures and mundane activities are a thing of the past when their teachers decide to flip the classroom. Educators across the globe will take a pledge to flip one lesson on Friday, Sept. 6, the first "Flipped Day". Hundreds of educators from 10 countries have already taken the pledge to use this innovative model of instruction on that day."

"Learn to more effectively use iPads to improve instruction and productivity! This course is a blended learning program where participants learn through video tutorials, webinars, readings, and projects. Those enrolled will attend one face-to-face session and submit artifacts of their learning to a digital portfolio blog. The skills taught in this series have been designed to support the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). "

"The term "blended learning,'' is fast-becoming one of the education buzzwords that you will hear at conferences and in news articles. Some call it digital learning or "personalized learning,'' which is another way of describing how teachers can work with students at their individual skill level and deliver real-time instruction as needed - with the help of technology. Blended learning is a better term than some of awful jargon that has crept into the lexicon of education, but it still merits some explanation. That's why we are posting this this video by The Learning Accelerator, a non-profit whose mission is to accelerate high-quality blended learning in school districts across the U.S."

"To help her students understand and be able to analyze the apps they come across online, Mutt Susan from Digital Divide and Conquer has created this wonderful rubric. The Student App Review Rubric, features five sections ( or criteria) that students can grade when assessing an app. Each of these criteria can be graded with a numerical number from 0 to 4 with 4 as the top grade. The five criteria included in this rubric are : Looks and sound Engagement and motivation User friendly directions and instructions Performance and ease of use Differentiation in learning."

"In this presentation, Brad Ovenell-Carter shows you the work he and his students have done on what they call the "field school model," an innovative instructional methodology distinguished by the way it asks students-not teachers-to curate and catalogue the content they themselves gather, effectively creating their own textbooks as they study. The model capitalizes on mobile and web technologies and borrows design-thinking strategies to get students to identify and collaboratively resolve original, real world problems. "

"Educator, Technology Consultant and self confessed iPad guru, Jonathan Wylie, is a master of teaching with the tablet. He is also a pretty dab hand at instructional videos. In a recent tutorial, Jonathan shows how he uses Green Screen by Do Ink and a piece of green muslin cloth to make some very cool effects."

"Developing Critical Thinking through Web Research Skills is a free PDF eBook from Microsoft for teachers and educators.This short 37 pages ebook provides a wide range of ideas for teaching web search skills and critical thinking in all grades (k-12). It also features different resources to introduce teachers to the concept of critical thinking and provides them with practical guides on how they can go about incorporating critical thinking skill in their instruction."

"I've shared some great apps from The Lawrence Hall of Science (DIY Human Body, DIY Sun Science, Monster Heart Medic) and DIY Nano HD is another free app for iPads that you'll love.  DIY Nano HD contains easy science experiments for teachers, students and families.  Using easy to find materials children can follow along with instructions on the screen to learn about nanoscale science, engineering, and technology.  This app contains videos, images and informational text that can help students learn about expository writing styles including how-tos and step-by-step guides."

"Shhh! You're in the library! As the great-granddaughter of a librarian, I was brought up to know that the quiet of the library was sacred space. Fast-forward 30 years. In the media centers of the Cherokee County, Georgia schools, where I train as an instructional technology specialist, quiet is no longer the chief value. Instead, makerspaces are bringing books to life, and the new mantra is, "Innovate, create, collaborate." Many media specialists still struggle with this transformation from silent reading space to innovative makerspace; with that in mind, I interviewed six women who seamlessly flow from rockin' librarians to Creative Directors of Making in the same day to ask how they do it."

"Do you use Mystery Skype in your classroom? If so, you are probably familiar with how it works, but if you are looking for some extra tips, or want to get some other teachers involved, you should check out the new Mystery Skype Curriculum that Microsoft has put together for teachers who are connecting their classrooms all around the world. The curriculum is free for anyone who wants to use it, but you do need a Microsoft account in order to sign in and view the latest version. Microsoft accounts are free, and you may already have one if you have a Hotmail or Outlook.com email address. For some reason Office 365 for School accounts do not seem to be supported, but this may have changed by the time you read this blog post."