Group items tagged

"I teach in a small rural school, and more than half of my students arrive and depart by bus everyday. So how do I maintain strong communication with parents when I rarely see them face-to-face? I send home a monthly calendar, and you may have read past posts about using clipboards with weekly sheets and Twitter, but my quickest and easiest tool for disseminating information quickly is Facebook! After posting daily to my classroom Facebook group for two years now, I've gleaned a few tips that I'm happy to share with you."

"There are page turner Magazines on the iPad that are basically PDF versions of the print version. Becoming more popular are the magazines that have hot spot areas, video, scrollable articles and inter magazine linking. While these interactive magazines are being produced by large magazine publishers once a month, Engadget is creating their full featured content "Dristo" weekly. Grab the app and you will get an overview page of all of the 'magazines' published. Tap the ones you want to download and read within the same app."

"Is the school year winding down? Do you need a reboot to help get through a challenging month? Inspiration can come from many places. From the smile on a student's face, to a great conversation with parents, to an episode of a favorite television show that provides an idea for the next day's lesson, small moments can be game changers when we need to reboot and recharge. When I was a classroom teacher, those days after a long break or in the midst of a period without a moment to catch my breath could make it hard to find inspiration in everyday moments. In this list of resources for teacher inspiration, you'll find a handful of different websites and apps to energize your lesson, lighten your mood, and inspire you to persevere through a challenging part of the school year. These might become part of your daily or weekly routine, or something that you turn to for a dose of inspiration to reboot during a tough time of year. If you've tried one of my favorites or have another to add to the list, share your top resources for finding inspiration in the comments at the end of this post."

"Welcome to The Art of Curriculum Design. In this six month series we are exploring the why and how of curriculum design via an Arts Appreciation course created through an arts collaboration. The first few weeks were devoted to the how and why of the curriculum design process. During the current portion of the series we are looking at weekly objectives, outcomes, and assessments designed for the Arts Appreciation course. Links to the entire series can be found below. The full curriculum including daily lesson plans, handouts, and assessments will be available at the culmination of the series."

"Ever want your students to slow down and notice details when they read - whether they're perusing a book, a poem, a map or a political cartoon? Young people often want to hurry up and make meaning via a quick skim or a cursory glance when a text can demand patience and focus. Closely reading any text, whether written or visual, requires that students proceed more slowly and methodically, noticing details, making connections and asking questions. This takes practice. But it certainly helps when students want to read the text. We've selected 10 photos from The Times that we've used previously in our weekly "What's Going On in This Picture?" and that have already successfully caught students' and teachers' attention. These are some of our most popular images - ones that may make viewers say "huh?" on first glance, but that spark enough curiosity to make them want to dig deeper. (Please Note: You can quickly learn the backstory about any of these photos by clicking the link in each caption that takes you to the original post, then scrolling down to find the "reveal.") Below, we offer ideas from students and teachers who have engaged with these images for ways to use them, or images like them, to teach close reading and visual thinking skills."

"This week, we completed our 10th Annual Summer Teaching with Technology Workshop Series. During that time, we taught five iPad workshops ranging from Leveraging iPads, Laptops, and other Digital Tools to Create Differentiated Learning Environments to The iPad Classroom to iPads, ePubs, & iBooks Author. We often say that we learn as much from our participants as they learn from us. To prove it, we've compiled a Top 10 List of what we learned this summer."

"It all started with a weekly reflection our teachers leave on our school's closed Professional Development Ning. Mrs. Y, our Kindergarten teacher pondered how her five and six year olds were learning and practicing subtraction:"

"Our weekly picks for Best iPad App of the Week are published here every Saturday. Check out all our picks via the link at the end of this post and you'll soon have a collection of stellar apps for your favorite tablet. This week's pick is Curious, and app that's touted as being 'designed for the lifelong learner in each of us'. It's full of video lessons and courses covering a broad array of topics. "

"Recently, my school adopted a new approach to Educational Technology Integration. We're following an unconference model, and this has meant that we meet weekly, for no more than 1/2 an hour, in small, constantly-changing groups. Before these meetings, staff announce (via the school intranet) what sessions they might be running. For example, they might run a session called, 'Using Evernote in Ancient History' or 'How I Used Scripts to Automate my Classroom'. Staff can then pick a session that suits their fancy - or their professional needs - and these small groups are constantly revolving as people share their new skills with each other. It's been revolutionary - a huge success, so this discussion is aimed at sharing ways to ensure that your school is getting the most from professional learning. Here are my 5 tips:"

"Guided by research, educators at Cochrane Collegiate have homed in on ten top teaching methods, and teachers receive weekly PD to help them implement the practices"

"Principal Matt Renwick is sharing weekly reflections about an afternoon computer club he and a teacher are sponsoring as an enrichment activity. See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4."

Marianna Husain (@mhusain), fellow iVenger and author of the Bobcat blog, had the idea to create easy to follow handouts for teachers on a weekly basis to support them with the multitude of apps available on the elementary devices (see full list of 150+ apps here). As there are 5 elementaries and 9-10 ed techs creating these resources on a rotating basis, I suggested a template to streamline the process and make them appear more uniform. In reviewing the apps listed, I felt that they fell into 3 natural categories: tools, activities, and pro