Group items tagged

"Once the students had selected a topic from our over-arching theme of civil/human rights, and I had a rubric, it was time for the real work to begin. We started our project-based learning by making a list on the board of things we know about the topic followed by a list of things we "need to know." Basically, we completed the K and W of our KWL chart (PDF)."

YouTube has become a great source of both research and entertainment. Many of you might already know how to do this. Some of you may know that you can "favorite" videos that you like on YouTube, creating a playlist entitled "Favorites". However, your favorites will end up a large list of videos (mine currently has 164!), likely being too large to manage Solution? Creating personalized playlists is a way to efficiently organize all your videos.

"teacher-ready tips for stimulating curiosity in others. First, she suggests starting with the question, rather than the answer-which teachers will recognize as the foundation of inquiry-based or discovery learning (see: math teacher Dan Meyer's take on how to make math "irresistible" to students). She then suggests offering some initial knowledge on the subject. "We're not curious about something we know absolutely nothing about," she writes. Again, teachers may know this as "activating prior knowledge" or "setting the stage" before a lesson. Finally, she says it helps to require communication, or "open an information gap and then require learners to communicate with each other in order to fill it." The think-pair-share technique and vocabulary activities that require students to teach each other their words both exemplify this. What would you add to the list? How does stimulating curiosity gel with other motivation tactics-or should teachers think of curiosity and motivation as one and the same?"

Have you ever Googled yourself ? Have you ever checked your virtual identity? Do you know that you leave a digital footprint every time you get online? Do you know that whatever you do online is accumulated into a digital dossier traceable by others ? These and several other similar questions are but the emerging tip of the sinking iceberg.One that is packed full of concerns related to issues of our online identity and privacy issues.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenge we face as educators when well-intentioned learners make incorrect, inscrutable, thoughtless, or otherwise off-the-mark comments. It's a crucial moment in teaching: how do you respond to an unhelpful remark in a way that 1) dignifies the attempt while 2) making sure that no one leaves thinking that the remark is true or useful? Summer is a great time to think about the challenge of developing new routines and habits in class, and this is a vital issue that gets precious little attention in training and staff development. Here is a famous Saturday Night Live skit, with Jerry Seinfeld as a HS history teacher, that painfully demonstrates the challenge and a less than exemplary response. Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that we are always correct in our judgment about participant remarks. Sometimes a seemingly dumb comment turns out to be quite insightful. Nor am I talking about merely inchoate or poorly-worded contributions. That is a separate teaching challenge: how to unpack or invite others to unpack a potentially-useful but poorly articulated idea. No, I am talking about those comments that are just clunkers in some way; seemingly dead-end offerings that tempt us to drop our jaws or make some snarky remark back. My favorite example of the challenge and how to meet it comes from watching my old mentor Ted Sizer in action in front of 360 educators in Louisville 25 years ago. We had travelled as the staff of the Coalition of Essential Schools from Providence to Louisville to pitch the emerging Coalition reform effort locally. Ted gave a rousing speech about the need to transform the American high school. After a long round of applause, Ted took questions. The first questioner asked, and I quote: "Mr Sizer, what do you think about these girls and their skimpy halter tops in school?" (You have to also imagine the voice: very good-ol'-boy). Without missing a beat or making a face, Ted said "Deco

"I decided to use the teacher console on Diigo to create groups for each of my classes. I used handouts and tips from Bill Ferriter's Digitally Speaking Wiki to get everything set up and explain to the student how I wanted them to find, annotate, and share resources and information. (I highly recommend Bill's resources. They saved me a ton of time.) The students had used Diigo for research on a project during a previous school year so I thought with Bill's handouts and the boys' previous experience we were in good shape to begin. I soon learned differently. We have a 1:1 laptop classroom and the boys have a natural tendency to head straight to Google any time they have a question, but it was obvious after the first day that they weren't finding the quality resources they needed. Additionally, some boys still didn't know (or forgot) how to share to a group while others didn't know how to write a quality annotation. I had assumed too much. They needed what Mike Kaechele calls a "teacher workshop" on searching for information and on how to use Diigo. They needed me to model what they should do."

"Pinterest, a social sharing website that allow users to create and share virtual bulletin boards, has been the darling of social media over the past year. Its primarily female user base continues to grow by leaps and bounds. While you likely know teachers who have free Pinterest accounts, you may still be wondering if you belong on yet another social media site. "YES!" (Uttered quickly and with much enthusiasm!) And here's why. While Pinterest is exploding with fashion boards, trendy home decor, and to-die-for travel destinations (that sadly don't fit my budget), it also includes many boards for educators. Pinterest, heavy on visual appeal, can serve as a great resource for such areas as: classroom decor, language arts. content areas, lesson plans, technology tools, professional books, and much, much more! Your boards can also be a resource for students (age 13+ according to Pinterest regulations), teachers, and parents. If you're a newbie to Pinterest, listed below are a few must-know terms and how-to's. With a few quick tips, Pinterest can help you organize the internet jumble of resources for teachers and students. If you're a full-fledged addict, er, Pinterest Pro, skip to How Educators Use Pinterest or simply download today's Pinterest Cheat Sheet that also includes many ideas for boards."

"Have you ever Googled yourself ? Have you ever checked your virtual identity? Do you know that you leave a digital footprint every time you get online? Do you know that whatever you do online is accumulated into a digital dossier traceable by others ? These and several other similar questions are but the emerging tip of the sinking iceberg.One that is packed full of concerns related to issues of our online identity and privacy issues."

Pretend that you're an editor at a major newspaper. A reporter has just handed you a story that contains the following statements. Unfortunately, this reporter has a reputation for embellishing stories with wild claims that are completely untrue. Using common sense and whatever you happen to know about the subjects, you've got to decide which statements are true and which are false before the paper goes out to print. Saying 'I don't know' isn't an option.

"SAN ANTONIO - Several Texas A&M professors know something that generations of teachers could only hope to guess: whether students are reading their textbooks." They know when students are skipping pages, failing to highlight significant passages, not bothering to take notes - or simply not opening the book at all.

There is much more to efficient Googling than what most of our students know. From the specific order of the words constituting our search query to the use of search operators, Google provides all kinds of tricks for users to implement in order to tap into its full search potential. I have recently come across an interesting post shared by LifeHacker in which they outlined a wide variety of Google  tips and tricks that students should know about. They have also shared this wonderful video which I am sharing with you below on how to quickly find exactly what you are looking for.

Starting with the known and moving to the unknown sounds relatively simple-if everyone in the group has a similar level of existing knowledge. But everyone in a given audience or classroom brings a different set of experiences and thus a different body of existing knowledge. In some cases the difference is relatively small; in other cases it is immense.

It's common for Facebook to undergo drastic (or silent) changes whether the users like it or not. The real question is, how ready are you when Facebook is determined to 'make the world more open and connected'? Have you made full use of the privacy and account settings to your advantage? Also, if you've been observant enough you should've discovered several improvements on the existing features to make them more visible and user friendly. Why not give this list a run-through and see if you missed any.

To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available.

"Internet has definitely marked a revolution in the way human knowledge is being generated, shared, communicated, and stored. The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge - the search engine. With this abundance of online information comes the question of credibility. Some critics argue that a tsunami of hogwash has already rendered the Web useless. I disagree. We are indeed inundated by online noise pollution, but the problem is soluble. The good stuff is out there if you know how to find and verify it. What we all need is "information literacy"."

"Writing appropriate emails is part of being a good digital citizen! Students (even digital natives) are not born with knowing the rules and responsibilities. Just as they need to learn to answer and talk on the phone, they need to learn about e-mail writing in an academic setting (to their teachers, Skype partners, project collaborators, administration or their classmates regarding school business)."

"If we want to empower students, we must show them how they can control their own cognitive and emotional health and their own learning. Teaching students how the brain operates is a huge step. Even young students can learn strategies for priming their brains to learn more efficiently; I know, because I've taught both 5th graders and 7th graders about how their brains learn."

"The classic "3 R's" of learning are, of course, Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic. For the 21st century, we need to add a fourth R--and it will help inspire the other three: Algorithm. I know, it isn't a very graceful "R"--but 'riting and 'ritmetic are fudges too. And the beauty of teaching even the youngest kids algorithms and algorithmic or procedural thinking is that it gives them the same tool of agency and production that writing and even reading gave to industrial age learners who, for the first time in history, had access to cheap books and other forms of print. "

"20 Google Docs Secrets every teacher and student should know. Google Docs has revolutionized the way we create and edit content on the web. It is a genuine collaboration tool like nothing that has come before it. Up to 50 people can simultaneously edit a spreadsheet, presentation or document at no expense, and it is available on all mobile and desktop platforms. Today we are going to look at 20 great tips every teacher and student should be using to get the most of the collaborative learning opportunities Google Doc's offers."