Bell Primary School

Thinking is pretty much invisible. To be sure, sometimes people explain the thoughts behind a particular conclusion, but often they do not. Mostly, thinking happens under the hood, within the marvelous engine of our mind-brain. As the name suggests, the basic strategy is to make thinking visible in the context of learning.

Great video of Piaget talking about his theory of how knowledge is constructed. Interesting swipe at Chomsky. I must look into it more.

A proven program for enhancing students' thinking and comprehension abilities Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, begun at Harvard's Project Zero, that develops students' thinking dispositions, while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.? Rather than a set of fixed lessons, Visible Thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines?small sets of questions or a short sequence of steps?as well as the documentation of student thinking.?Using this process thinking becomes visible as the students'?different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon

There are 20 different 'Thinking Keys' each designed to unlock different parts of the thinking process.The use of the keys helps to develop flexible problem solving and thinking habits. The thinking keys provide a flexible and dynamic way to engage students in further learning. They are a great way to do informal assessment during the unit for measuring student understanding. The students really enjoy the range of activities that the keys enable them to choose from and subsequently produce interesting and thoughtful work.

Thinkers Keys Welcome to an exciting framework for the teaching of thinking to young people. The Thinkers Keys are twenty powerful strategies for generating quality thinking in many learning situations. They were written explicitly for 8 to 14 year-olds, although we have often found them being used in classrooms of 5 year-olds, and also in senior school and university environments. Here's a 2-min video about the electronic Thinkers Keys.

Here is a google search to thinkers keys

Type in a short message with letters and numbers, and your students can plot the points to reveal it in the grid. You can make this message anything you like, for example, "TRAVIS LOVES GEOMETRY". The best plotting exercises seem to come from messages which are three to seven words in length.

Just had a play around with this one. It seems really easy to use and the templates are great. Animations can be easily exported to youtube or powtoon site to be shared. Easy sign in with Google account would be great for grade 3-6 students.

These could be handy for any students wanting to explore and create digital stories. "These web-based applications will have you creating animations in no time. Creating animations has always been considered as one of the most complex aspects of graphic design that requires specific software and technological expertise. It is a time-intensive activity that requires heavy software and high speed computers."

Blogging is an excellent way of motivating students to develop a lifelong love of learning. Writing is a process, and when they learn this they will be able to apply the skills to other aspects of their schooling. It also teaches children critical thinking skills which will help them as they progress through school. Along with the development of critical thinking skills, students will learn how to conduct research. This is particularly important both in school and in the workplace they will one day take part in.

Apps juxtaposed against the SAMR model

An interesting look at samr as applied to a range of apps for education

"Real World Math is a collection of free math activities for Google Earth designed for students and educators. Mathematics is much more than a set  of problems in a textbook.  In the virtual world of Google Earth, concepts and challenges can be presented in a meaningful way that portray the usefulness of the ideas."

The free version of Voki.com lets you create colorful characters who can replay your voice recordings or convert text to speech in a variety accents. These characters are easy to place on blogs and websites, and they each have their own unique URL. It's possible to save the characters you create as HTML code in a text editor like Notepad or Word, but it's easier and more convenient to save them directly on Voki.com using a free account. This could be a great shared literacy exercise.

Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners. With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training.

"Literacy is changing. It really is. Even in my grade one classroom as the students begin to learn their letters and sounds, as they start to put those letters and sounds together into words, and as they take their first hesitant steps to read and write. The change in our classroom was subtle at first. When my students began writing the word we with two i's, I smiled and talked about the more traditional spelling of the word. When students came to school with a clear understanding of what it meant to get to the next level or to have several lives, I took notice of the new vocabulary they had."

This binder is an attempt to collect and organize Digital Citizenship resources by age (grade level). Often when we think of Digital Citizenship, we only think about the safety aspects of it but being a digital citizen is much more than just being safe. The nine elements of Digital Citizenship as outlined in the book Digital Citizenship in Schools

The Digital Citizenship page I started here almost a year ago is now growing bigger and bigger and contains all kinds of resources teachers would need to effectively instruct their students on this concept.