Excellent video from teachers and admin working in virtual schools. This could be a very good resource to show participants interested in learning more about blended modes of learning.
While many schools still do not allow cell phones, an iPod Touch bridges that gap. Wifi access provides a tremendous opportunity for students and teachers to browse the web, type a response, record audio or calculate a problem.
The NETP presents a model of 21st century learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The plan also identifies far-reaching “grand challenge problems” that should be funded and coordinated at a national level.
Just as leveraging technology can help us improve learning and assessment, the model of 21st century learning calls for using technology to help build the capacity of educators by enabling a shift to a model of connected teaching. In such a teaching model, teams of connected educators replace solo practitioners and classrooms are fully connected to provide educators with 24/7 access to data and analytic tools as well as to resources that help them act on the insights the data provide.
In connected teaching, teaching is a team activity. Individual educators build online learning communities consisting of their students and their students’ peers; fellow educators in their schools, libraries, and afterschool programs; professional experts in various disciplines around the world; members of community organizations that serve students in the hours they are not in school; and parents who desire greater participation in their children’s education.
Episodic and ineffective professional development is replaced by professional learning that is collaborative, coherent, and continuous and that blends more effective in-person courses and workshops with the expanded opportunities, immediacy, and convenience enabled by online environments full of resources and opportunities for collaboration.
From the summary: "
The NETP presents a model of 21st century learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The plan also identifies far-reaching "grand challenge problems" that should be funded and coordinated at a national level."
Skype in the classroom is a free directory for educators who want to use Skype to bring education to life in their classrooms. Join today to share resources, chat with teachers and even pair classes.
New online learning network we started late this year at a high school I'm working in. Some good ESL projects in here -- make sure to check out Of Mice and Men!
Multimedia resources related to the Arts for educational purposes. Also on Arts Edge are the National Standards for Arts Education, which include visual arts. They will be adding Multimedia as a strand in the standards in their next update. Another intersection we can emphasize in our work.
Everything old is new again-and that's a good thing! If you've always wanted to collaborate with your history teacher using the Library of Congress (LOC) American Memory Project, but felt overwhelmed by the prospect of having to actually develop lesson plans and collect all of the digital material needed, then it's time to revisit the idea of teaching with primary sources.
It looks like they have done a nice job revamping the "American Memory" website. It is definitely much more user-friendly from previous versions. I highly recommend introducing SS teachers to this amazing tool.
The purpose of the New York State Education Department's Virtual Learning System is to encourage the use of the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning and to assist classroom teachers in locating Internet resources for instruction. VLS offers the full text of New York State's learning standards with their key ideas and performance indicators, as well as alternate performance indicators for students with severe disabilities.
While we've witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we're struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We're sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn't have to make them.