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"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"Giving feedback is a huge part of teaching. Whether you're teaching 8 year olds or university students, math or english, you give feedback on your students' work almost constantly. The questions may be multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, or long essay format. You may be assessing students on their writing ability, cultural literacy, math, chemistry, foreign language, or some combination of the above. The feedback may be a part of a grade, or it may come at an earlier point in the process. Regardless of what you're offering feedback on, the goals of feedback are for the student to learn more, more efficiently, more effectively, and to better understand the material at hand."

"While teachers may always be the best line of defense for students falling behind, busy schedules don't always permit the special attention and feedback that students need. That's where artificial intelligence-powered teaching assistants might come in handy. "These intelligent tools can adapt pacing based on the student's ability … and provide targeted, corrective feedback in case the student makes mistakes, so that the student can learn from them," states an eSchool News report released earlier this year. "These tools also gather actionable insights and information about a student's progress and report the data back to the teacher." Understandably, there is still some hesitation at the idea of using this technology, as education professionals fear the day robots will replace teachers. However, as Thomas Arnett, a writer at the Christensen Institute, explains in his report, Teaching in the Machine Age, these advances are not meant to replace teachers but help them bring students to new heights. "Innovations that commoditize some elements of teacher expertise also supply the tools to raise the effectiveness of both non-experts and expert teachers to new heights and to adapt to the new priorities of a 21st-century workforce and education system," writes Arnett. Schools have already begun to adopt machine learning initiatives to help teachers and students fill learning gaps, and the results have been received well so far."

"The consistent and effective use of Descriptive feedback in classrooms has become a popular strategy due to its positive influence on student learning. Based on the research of John Hattie, my colleague, Jason Lynn has given me an in-depth look at Hattie's work and how we can use it in the classroom. Although the research suggests that providing students with descriptive feedback has the largest influence on student learning, it can be difficult for teachers to find more time to provide this meaningful assessment as learning and assessment for learning tool with regularity."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

""The single most important thing I learned in this class is that I don't have to have tons of homework to learn a lot." Mid-year or more frequently, I ask students to complete an evaluation form. I craft the questions carefully so simple answers are hard to write. Instead, I try to create specific, complex questions that cover the material, the classroom activities and the students-peers and the individual. Many teachers shake their heads and avoid these exercises. They scoff that students would actually take the forms seriously or that the students will say anything useful. But I find the nature of the questions often elicits a straight answer-short, but helpful."

"James Britton is endlessly quoted as saying "reading and writing float on a sea of talk." For kids to become truly fluent with language, talking is a major component. Reflecting orally is also a way for students to codify and cement their ideas into structured ways of thinking. Master teachers of today know the importance of talking in the classroom, but even the best and the brightest may sometimes have difficulty fitting it into their daily lesson plans. With Recap, a web application introduced in April 2016, students and teachers can connect in much easier and more meaningful ways. Essentially, all a teacher has to do is have students sign up using the clean and simple interface and assign questions. Students then record their responses using any front-facing camera; they could use an iPad, webcam, or even their phone. Teachers can then provide video feedback to their students within the program. Watch Greg Kulowiec's video below on how easy using Recap in the classroom can be. "

"Menomonee Falls - Once every few weeks this past school year, kindergarten teacher Tiffany Fadin corralled her squirmy young charges at Valley View Elementary to get feedback about their recent math lessons. "What specific things did we do in this unit that helped you learn?" she asked recently. "What things did not help you learn?" Behind Fadin, data points flashed on a board, showing how many more students could add and subtract within five digits than in weeks prior. The exercise was deliberate, underscoring a major shift in Menomonee Falls that's training everyone to use data to make decisions, from teachers and custodians to kindergartners. The strategies employed over the past four years have attracted national - even international - attention to Menomonee Falls, including visitors from Sweden and researchers from the Carnegie Foundation. Other districts around the state and other educational institutions, such as the State University of New York, are taking notes. Armed with promising new outcome data, Menomonee Falls Superintendent Pat Greco said she believes what they're doing is working, and that the district is the case study for how K-12 systems can increase achievement and efficiency. And they're doing it by employing methods rooted not in education, but in the manufacturing and health care industries. "Teachers were reticent about posting student performance data. They were reticent to invite feedback from students," said Greco, who began engaging a small core of staff in the work in 2011. "Now, student performance is the highest it's ever been," Greco said."

"What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment, defined by Bill Younglove as "the frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding in order to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately." Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps. Meanwhile, teachers can improve the effectiveness of their instruction, re-teaching if necessary. "When the cook tastes the soup," writes Robert E. Stake, "that's formative; when the guests taste the soup, that's summative." Formative assessment can be administered as an exam. But if the assessment is not a traditional quiz, it falls within the category of alternative assessment. Alternative formative assessment (AFA) strategies can be as simple (and important) as checking the oil in your car -- hence the name "dipsticks." They're especially effective when students are given tactical feedback, immediately followed by time to practice the skill. My favorite techniques are those with simple directions, like The 60 Second Paper, which asks students to describe the most important thing they learned and identify any areas of confusion in under a minute. You can find another 53 ways to check for understanding toward the end of this post, also available as a downloadable document."

"Rivet is a reading app from Area 120 (a Google property). The free app offers more than 2,000 books for students to read independently. The books are appropriate for students in Kindergarten through second grade (5-8 years old). All of the books provide audio support to students in the form of an option to tap on a word and hear it read aloud. When students tap on a word they will hear it read aloud and can then read a definition of the word. Students also have the option to practice saying the word aloud. When students say a word aloud they get instant feedback on their pronunciation of that that word."

"The point was simple: The more frequent the update in direction, the easier it is to adjust and locate one's goal. Even if the student had a serious disadvantage (i.e. the professor could scurry away), the feedback loop was sufficient guidance. Take the analogy back to academic assessments: How often are students updated about their performance in a typical class? How informative is feedback? Assessment software is not the answer. It is only a component. The underpinning instructional strategy necessary to capture technology's potential to accelerate learning is a micro formative assessment. We need to integrate small checks for understanding into almost every stage of our classroom agendas. And it can't be a teacher asking students, "Does that make sense? Any questions?""

Provide fast and effective feedback to students on their writing by adding audio comments to their google docs writing pieces. Highlight the parts that you are speaking about, record the audio feedback and then share it with them. Awesome!

"Skitch is a fantastic tool for annotating images. It enables the user to precisely point to features of interest and add text. There are many ways this could be used. One instance is like the image above where I have added key questions to an image. This provides more focus than merely presenting a blank image and prompts discussion. Following on from this, I have given learners the blank background image and asked them to annotate theirs by answering the questions. Alternatively, a teacher could present a blank image and ask students to identify the key features and annotate it live, based on students feedback. Although this could have traditionally been done by projecting an image and annotating it using a whiteboard marker, the great thing about Skitch is that all of that great feedback is not lost: it's stored in a clear way which can then be distributed to students as a point of reference."

"Digital storytelling is one of the potent educational activities to spark students creative writing and engage reluctant writers. It allows students to have their own voice, communicate their thoughts and experiment with a variety of semiotic modes including text, images, audio and video. In today's post we have handpicked for you five great iPad apps geared towards unleashing the writing gene within students. Students can use them to compose their stories and presentations and share them with others via email or social media. Check them out and share with us your feedback. Enjoy"

"MathGames provides 1200 different ways to practice math, ranging from Pre-K all the way to the 8th grade. Parents and Teachers get instant feedback on their students progress and can decide which method is best used to reach their students - interactive questions or fun games powered by the very same content. Whatever works best to keep students engaged and focused on practicing math."

"Like Donald Graves, I believe that the teacher is the chief learner in the classroom. I also believe that positioning ourselves as learners sustains our passion for our work. When we make a study of our teaching, we discover things we would not have otherwise. Lights flicker. We're continually inspired. What would happen if you became a learner and embraced the idea students assessing teachers? This has nothing to do with mandating the use of student feedback for teacher evaluation purposes. This kind of assessment is off the record. It's a gift that your students give you, and one that you might use in service to them."

From their website ..."SchoolTipline is an exciting new tool for anonymous feedback and information sharing in school communities. SchoolTipline provides administrators with an affordable and easy-to-use Web-based service through which they can send and receive timely information and manage feedback from students, parents and staff."

"Road to Grammar is a free resource featuring quizzes, games, and lessons for English language learners. Visitors to Road to Grammar will find grammar quizzes. Most of the quizzes provide students with instant feedback. Part of the feedback that students receive on the quizzes they take includes explanations why an answer is correct or incorrect. Before taking the quizzes visitors can work through a series of practice activities."

"Students are writing more than ever before. They are tapping out rapid-fire fingerstrokes across multiple platforms. From text messages to social media, children and adults of all ages are engaging like never before with the written word. This type of transliteracy emphasizes more than ever the need for thoughtful conversations and clear instructions that guide students in how best to express high quality feedback. Most remarks in the comment sections of Instagram and YouTube are useless. They are either crass or curt, sprinkled with emoji that do more to satisfy the ego of the commenter than to further the richness of the page. Instead, high quality comments on blogs and social media should create a dialogue that furthers the colloquy and deepens the learning. Replies on Twitter, for example, should offer suggestions or make interpersonal connections. Thoughtful comments in social media should add information, incorporate links, or most importantly, ask questions."

With the interest of helping teachers improve their instructional practices and enhancing student learning, FADS (Formative Assessment Delivery System) is a computerized system that will allow classroom teachers to design, develop, and deliver formative assessments and to monitor and report student progress within an interpretive context. This online accessible system will allow teachers to accurately diagnose students' comprehension and learning needs by providing real-time assessment, logging, analysis, feedback, and reporting. The current five-year FADS project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is focused on designing activities deriving from middle school mathematics and science curricula aligned with state and national standards.