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amy_mcgrath86

Cultivating the Habits of Self-Knowledge and Reflection | Edutopia - 1 views

  • As a teacher, your "self" is embedded within your teaching -- which is how it goes from a job to a craft. The learning results are yours.
  • it makes sense that students' self-defense mechanisms kick in when they're challenged.
  • Lack of apparent curiosity Apathy Refusal to take risks Decreased creativity Defeated tones Scrambles for shortcuts
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  • How do I respond when I'm challenged, both inwardly and outwardly? Which resources and strategies do I tend to favor, and which do I tend to ignore? What can I do to make myself more aware of my own thinking and emotions? What happens if I don’t change anything at all?
  • Help them to separate themselves from their work and related performance. Help them to understand that our lives aren't single decisions, but a vast tapestry of connections, with any single moment, performance or failure barely visible, and only important as it relates to their lives as a whole.
  • Like anything, it is first a matter of visibility -- understand what is necessary, seeing it when it happens, emphasizing and celebrating it, etc.
  • The more that students see themselves face major and minor challenges in the classroom, and then see the effects of how they respond, the more conditioned they'll become to responding ideally on their own.
  • How we feel and think about ourselves matters in learning.
  • tudents' self-defense mechanisms kick in when
  • they're challenged
  • STEM concepts,
  • matter of visibility -- understand what is necessary,
  • seeing it when it happens, emphasizing and celebrating it
  • atter of pra
  • tice.
  • epetition.
  • aching to student
  • can’t fully separate the person from the task
  • students' self-defense mechanisms kick in when they're challenged.
  • symptoms
  • not wanting to make mistakes, to fail, to be corrected, or to be thought less of by peers
  • in the face of a challenge
  • four questions they can use to begin this kind of reflection
  • how can we begin to promote self-knowledge and reflection in the classroom?
  • matter of practice
  • irst a matter of visibility
  • nderstand what is necessary,
  • having them journal, share
  • reflect on both the challenge and their response.
  • establish these actions as habits
  • The more that students see themselves face major and minor challenges
  • responding ideally on their own
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    things to think about with reflection exercises
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    Reflection in the classroom
Justin Medved

EDpuzzle - A new flipped classroom tool. - 4 views

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    "Find a video and use only what you need. Make it to the point. Explain it with your voice Change the audio of the video to explain it with your own teaching approach. Record audio notes at any time to add clarifications, remarks, an introduction, conclusions, you name it. Add quizzes along the video Add questions at any time during the video to check your students' understanding. Get individualized statistics of your students, and check the effectiveness of your lesson."
garth nichols

Sugata Mitra and the new educational Romanticism - a parody - 0 views

  • ll children are born to drive their education. The problem is that prior to the digital age there were no child-friendly pedagogic vehicles. Now that the military-industrial complex has created them, parents and teachers should give the keys to the kids as soon as possible and let them head off on their own down the beautifully linear highway of knowledge.
  • One of the empires is the empire of fear. Surely we are not free if our lives are dominated by fear. Although Mitra’s minimal model blithely assumes that children greet everything new with a calm curiosity, Rousseau recognises that children can just as easily respond to the new with fear. To avoid this requires early training. A snippet of his advice on this subject:
  • At another junction on the same road is the empire of habit. We are not free if we are too firmly set in our ways. Hence Rousseau’s advice: “the only habit that a child should be allowed to contract is none. Do not carry him on one arm more than the other; do not accustom him to give one hand rather than the other, to use one more than the other, to want to eat, sleep, or be active at the same hours…Prepare from afar the reign of his freedom…” (63) (Sir Ken Robinson’s critique of the school bell is but a footnote to this.)
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  • If tools are needed, he suggested, it is better that we make them ourselves, and for the sake of the children’s freedom it is better that they acquire the belief that the imperfect tools they make themselves are better than perfect tools made by others.
  • he great Romantic pedagogy of liberation becomes a parody of itself when it loses sight of how vulnerable the child is to a myriad imperial forces, reducing itself to the myopic claim that the only thing children need to be liberated from is teachers.
  • Of course, the child must feel at every step of the way that she is making the discoveries, or, as Rousseau says of his Emile in his now outdated language: “let him always believe he is the master” but, he reminds the tutor, “let it always be you who are.” (120)
  • Rousseau suggests beginning the scientific part of a child’s education with some geographical discovery learning. He has a nice criticism of his EdTech contemporaries: “You want to teach geography to this child, and you go and get globes, cosmic spheres, and maps for him. So many devices! Why all these representations? Why do you not begin by showing him the object itself so that he will at least know what you are talking about?” (168)
  • If curiosity and attention need cultivation and direction, they also need protection. Rousseau sees a particular risk with the sciences – and this is one which online learning surely magnifies, not diminishes. He puts it beautifully, describing the entry into science as something that can be like entering “into a bottomless sea…When I see a man, enamoured of the various kinds of knowledge, let himself be seduced by their charm and run from one to the other without knowing how to stop himself, I believe I am seeing a child on the shore gathering shells and beginning by loading himself up with them; then, tempted by those he sees next, he throws some away and picks up others, until, overwhelmed by their multitude and not knowing anymore which to choose, he ends by throwing them all away and returning empty-handed.” (172)
  • In a parallel way, learning emerges at the edge of chaos where children meet Google, and it emerges with the same spontaneity seen when the first amoeba dragged itself out of the primordial soup.
  • “The man who did not know pain would know neither the tenderness of humanity nor the sweetness of commiseration. His heart would be moved by nothing. He would not be sociable; he would be a monster among his kind.” (87)
  • Rousseau makes a point more specifically about the psychology of the child, arguing that it is damaging for children to be encouraged to learn things that are beyond the developing sphere of their experience.
  • Children become accustomed to parroting the truth instead of perceiving for themselves that something is true.
  • No child ever came face to face with his mortality when his avatar was struck by a pixelated bullet. No, the child learns infinitely more about the human condition from a single bout of toothache than from 1,000 hours of online gaming.
  • Mitra’s minimalism is not just the minimalism of a hands-off approach to teaching; it is also the minimalism of a theory that – in that questionable analytic tradition – wants to limit itself to technique. All we are given is a methodology – the theoretical equivalent of the automotive machinery that children can drive.
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    This is a real eye-opener for the counter-digital-revolution perspective. It's good to keep these perspectives in mind as we chart our way forward because these ideas can help temper our enthusiasm for tech as a panacea
garth nichols

The Secret Skill Behind Being An Innovator | LinkedIn - 0 views

  • Let’s look more closely at what is happening, conceptually, when we make an analogy. “The essential requirement for analogical thinking,” Holyoak and Thagard write, “is the ability to look at specific situations and [] pull out abstract patterns that may also be found in superficially different situations.” That’s important, so I’ll say it again in a slightly different way: A useful analogy reveals the deep commonalities beneath superficial differences.
  • What does this allow us to do? The scientists Kevin Dunbar studied used analogies, first, to formulate hypotheses that they could then test. Their thought process went something like this: If we know that X does Y when Z, is it possible that A does Y when Z, too? Let’s find out. That’s often how innovations get their start, in the lab and elsewhere: by taking a familiar starting point and using it as a launch pad to explore new territory.
  • The appearance in the transcript of words indicating uncertainty, such as “maybe,” “I don’t know,” and “I don’t understand,” was often followed by an attempt to draw an analogy—to compare the ambiguous situation to a situation with which the scientists were familiar.
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  • At such moments, the scientists were employing analogies as different sort of bridge—a conceptual catwalk that provides just enough space to move forward and keep searching for solutions. As Schunn writes: “Scientists and engineers do not always seek to completely eliminate uncertainty (and indeed, sometimes it is not possible to do so) but often drive problem solving with the aim of converting it into approximate ranges sufficient to continue problem solving.”
  • To aid in finding just the right analogy, it helps to have a deep pool of potential targets. The Boston Strategy Group, a consulting firm, has created an online gallery of sources of analogical inspiration for its consultants and their clients to use. We can do this, too—bookmarking or pinning websites that inspire connections, keeping a folder of ripped-out articles or pictures from newspapers and magazines. A class or a workplace team can create a shared repository of analogical targets.
  • The best use of an analogy, as we’ve seen, is as as a bridge—and once we’ve crossed over the bridge, we can leave it behind.
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    Great article for why analogies are important
garth nichols

great technology requires an understanding of the humans who use it - 0 views

  • Clearly, MIT BLOSSOMS (the name stands for Blended Learning Open Source Science Or Math Studies) isn’t gaining fans by virtue of its whiz-bang technology. Rather, it exerts its appeal through an unassuming but remarkably sophisticated understanding of what it is that students and teachers actually need. It’s an understanding that is directly at odds with the assumptions of most of the edtech universe.
  • For example: BLOSSOMS is not “student-centered.” In its Twitter profile, the program is described as “teacher-centric”—heresy at a moment when teachers are supposed to be the “guide on the side,” not the “sage on the stage.” The attention of students engaged in a BLOSSOMS lesson, it’s expected, will be directed at the “guest teacher” on the video or at the classroom teacher leading the interactive session.
  • All this is blasphemy in view of the hardening orthodoxy of the edtech establishment. And all this is perfectly aligned with what research in psychology and cognitive science tells us about how students learn. We know that students do not make optimal choices when directing their own learning; especially when they’re new to a subject, they need guidance from an experienced teacher. We know that students do not learn deeply or lastingly when they have a world of distractions at their fingertips. And we know that students learn best not as isolated units but as part of a socially connected group. Modest as it is from a technological perspective, MIT BLOSSOMS is ideally designed for learning—a reminder that more and better technology does not always lead to more and better education.
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  • The creators of BLOSSOMS also candidly acknowledge that many teachers are threatened by the technology moving into their classrooms—and that they have reason to feel that way. Champions of educational technology often predict (with barely disguised glee) that computers will soon replace teachers, and school districts are already looking to edtech as a way to reduce teaching costs. The message to teachers from the advocates of technology is often heard as: Move aside, or get left behind.
  • Should the creators of educational technology care so much about the tender feelings of teachers, especially those inclined to stand in the way of technological progress? Yes—because it’s teachers who determine how well and how often technology is used.
  • Edtech proponents who think that technology can “disrupt” or “transform” education on its own would do well to take a lesson from the creators of BLOSSOM, who call their program’s blend of computers and people a “teaching duet.” Their enthusiasm for the possibilities of technology is matched by an awareness of the limits of human nature. 
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    A very important message to all who are trying to integrate Tech into their school...
Justin Medved

Skills in Flux - New skills of for the 21st century - 2 views

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    "As the economy changes, the skills required to thrive in it change, too," says David Brooks in this New York Times column, "and it takes a while before these new skills are defined and acknowledged." He gives several examples: * Herding cats - Doug Lemov has catalogued the "micro-gestures" of especially effective teachers in his book, Teach Like a Champion 2.0 (Jossey-Bass, 2015). "The master of cat herding," says Brooks, "senses when attention is about to wander, knows how fast to move a diverse group, senses the rhythm between lecturing and class participation, varies the emotional tone. This is a performance skill that surely is relevant beyond education." * Social courage - In today's loosely networked world, this has particular value - the ability to go to a conference, meet a variety of people, invite six of them to lunch afterward, and form long-term friendships with four of them. "People with social courage are extroverted in issuing invitations but introverted in conversation - willing to listen 70 percent of the time," says Brooks. "They build not just contacts but actual friendships by engaging people on multiple levels." * Capturing amorphous trends with a clarifying label - People with this skill can "look at a complex situation, grasp the gist and clarify it by naming what is going on," says Brooks. He quotes Oswald Chambers: "The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance." * Making nonhuman things intuitive to humans - This is what Steve Jobs did so well. * Purpose provision - "Many people go through life overwhelmed by options, afraid of closing off opportunities," says Brooks. But a few have fully cultivated moral passions that can help others choose the one thing they sho
lauramustardscs

Technology Integration Matrix: Assess Yourself! | TeachBytes - 9 views

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    Full disclosure: I think in neat little boxes, this is totally my kind of infographic
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    Hi Laura, This is a great matrix for sure, and it it s one that we will explore in our next F2F. It helps, as you suggest, to self-assess our use of technology, AND it can help us in selection of what tech. I like it to help me balance the WHY of introducing technology to teachers, and getting them to use it to help them introduce it to their classes. If you like this matrix, then you'll LOVE this one: http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix.php It's actually broken down into subjects and it's all hyperlinked! Thanks, garth.
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    Thank you both for sharing these matrices. I am going to steal at least one for part of my presentation to my faculty tomorrow morning! Helps you to evaluate if you really are using your device as a "$1000 pencil" as Alan November likes to say.
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    This is great.. going to share with my department head this week.
garth nichols

3 ways to weave digital citizenship into your curriculum - 0 views

  • Fortunately, in a classroom where students already use technology, it’s a simple matter to incorporate a digital citizenship component into any lesson — all while meeting both the ISTE Standards and the Common Core. For example, teachers have the opportunity to address digital citizenship whenever students: 1. Create digital presentations
  • 2. Study historical figures or literary characters Prompt students to think about how they present themselves online — and what it means to leave a digital footprint — by creating fake social media profiles for the characters they’re studying in history or English classes. “If Lincoln had a Twitter feed, what would he tweet? Get students to think about how these characters might present themselves online,” Mendoza said. “Reframe social media to look at how the characters might have exemplified themselves in a digital world and how it might have impacted them.” Add another dimension to this activity by using characters that have two very distinct sides to their personalities, such as Jekyll and Hyde. “It helps them think about how sometimes people present themselves online in a whole different way than they really are in person and why we might share things about ourselves that might not really be in line with who we are in person.”
  • Anytime students create content to share online, teachers can supplement the lesson with an age-appropriate discussion about copyright and fair use. Mendoza suggests going beyond simply showing students how to properly cite ideas and images. “Flip the tables on them. When they’re creating and sharing their work with the world online, ask them: How do you want other people to use your work? Would you want other people to make a profit off it, share it or alter it? That’s when it really hits home,” she said.
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  • 3. Research a project If a project requires students to perform research online, help them develop information literacy skills by introducing effective search strategies and discussing how to determine whether a website is credible.
garth nichols

Why I'm Asking You Not to Use Laptops - Lingua Franca - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher... - 3 views

  • On the first day of class, students and I spend the first 30-40 minutes learning something new about how language works (in order to set the tone for the class), and then we go over the syllabus. When we get to the laptop policy, I pause and say, “Let me tell you why I ask you generally not to use laptops in class.” And here’s the gist of what I say after that:
  • First, if you have your laptop open, it is almost impossible not to check email or briefly surf the Internet, even if you don’t mean to or have told yourself that you won’t. I have the same impulse if I have my laptop open in a meeting. The problem is that studies indicate that this kind of multitasking impairs learning; once we are on email/the web, we are no longer paying very good attention to what is happening in class. (And there is no evidence I know of that “practice” at doing this kind of multitasking is going to make you better at it!)
  • Now I know that one could argue that it is your choice about whether you want to use this hour and 20 minutes to engage actively with the material at hand, or whether you would like to multitask. You’re not bothering anyone (one could argue) as you quietly do your email or check Facebook. Here’s the problem with that theory: From what we can tell, you are actually damaging the learning environment for others, even if you’re being quiet about it. A study published in 2013 found that not only did the multitasking student in a classroom do worse on a postclass test on the material, so did the peers who could see the computer. In other words, the off-task laptop use distracted not just the laptop user but also the group of students behind the laptop user. (And I get it, believe me. I was once in a lecture where the woman in front of me was shoe shopping, and I found myself thinking at one point, “No, not the pink ones!” I don’t remember all that much else about the lecture.)
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  • In addition, I can find your multitasking on a laptop a bit distracting as the instructor because sometimes you are not typing at the right times; I am not saying anything noteworthy and yet you are engrossed in typing, which suggests that you are doing something other than being fully engaged in our class. And that distracts my attention.
  • There’s also the issue of the classroom environment. I like to foster a sense of conversation here, even in a class of 100 students. If you are on a laptop, I and your peers are often looking at the back of your computer screen and the top of your head, rather than all of us making eye contact with each other. Learning happens best in a classroom when everyone is actively engaged with one another in the exchange of information. This can mean looking up from your notes to listen and to talk with others, which means you may need to make strategic decisions about what to write down. Note-taking is designed to support the learning and retention of material we talk about in class; note-taking itself is not learning. And speaking of what you choose to write down …
  • A study that came out in June—and which got a lot of buzz in the mainstream press—suggests that taking notes by hand rather than typing them on a laptop improves comprehension of the material. While students taking notes on a laptop (and only taking notes—they were not allowed to multitask) wrote down more of the material covered in class, they were often typing what the instructor said verbatim, which seems to have led to less processing of the material. The students taking notes by hand had to do more synthesizing and condensing as they wrote because they could not get everything down. As a result, they learned the material better.* I think there is also something to the ease with which one can create visual connections on a handwritten page through arrows, flow charts, etc.
  • I figure it is also good for all of us to break addictive patterns with email, texting, Facebook, etc. When you step back, it seems a bit silly that we can’t go for 80 minutes without checking our phones or other devices. Really, for most of us, what are the odds of an emergency that can’t wait an hour? We have developed the habit of checking, and you can see this class as a chance to create or reinforce a habit of not checking too.
  • Of course, if you need or strongly prefer a laptop for taking notes or accessing readings in class for any reason, please come talk with me, and I am happy to make that work. I’ll just ask you to commit to using the laptop only for class-related work.
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    Why we need a balanced approach to the use of computers in the classroom. This is a great partner-piece to Clay Shirky's from 2014...
anonymous

Why the Growth Mindset is the Only Way to Learn | Edudemic - 8 views

    • Derek Doucet
       
      A game changer - All Students can Learn!!!
  • “You’re too old to learn a foreign language.” “I couldn’t work on computers. I’m just not good with them.” “I’m not smart enough to run my own business.” Do you know what these statements have in common? They’re all examples of the fixed mindset- the belief that intelligence, ability, and success are static qualities that can’t be changed.
  • The problem is, this mindset will make you complacent, rob your self-esteem and bring meaningful education to a halt. In short, it’s an intellectual disease and patently untrue.
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    • Christi Lovrics
       
      I love the word 'earned'. Skills don't come easily, you have to really work for them.
    • Christi Lovrics
       
      I love the word 'earned'. Skills don't come easily, you have to really work for them.
  • Talents are innate. Skills are earned.
  • Within a fixed framework, progress is impossible.
  • believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have:
  • the growth mindset,
  • a malleable approach to the world
  • fixed mindset
  • “You’re too old to learn a foreign language.”
  • fixed mindset, you believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have
  • he growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed: It thrives on challenge and sees failure as an opportunity for growth. It creates a passion for learning instead of a hunger for approval.
  • In conversation, “skill” and “talent” are often used interchangeably – but there’s an essential difference: Talents are innate. Skills are earned.
    • kristensolowey
       
      How do you foster a growth mindset in your students?
  • Having
    • tanyacatallo
       
      Testing
  • ty; it crushes resilience an
  • The growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed: It thrives on challenge and sees failure as an opportunity for growth. It creates a passion for learning instead of a hunger for approval.
  • “The growth mindset does allow people to love what they’re doing – and continue to love it in the face of difficulties. … The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome.” Remember those students in Hong Kong. Be humble, act as if you’re remedial, and you’ll learn all the more!
    • anonymous
       
      learning has value regardless of the outcome
  • Focusing on innate qualities and praising purely for current ability inhibits learning, while praising the process of learning and growth instead of immediate talent promotes it.
  • As much as possible, take object orientation out of the equation. Focus on the task at hand. Don’t compare yourself to others or worry if you’re making the knowledge stick. Just learn- stolidly, patiently, and without tripping over your own expectations.
  • In conversation, “skill” and “talent” are often used interchangeably – but there’s an essential difference: Talents are innate. Skills are earned.
  • reatens your competenc
    • heatherradams
       
      What are you doing with Growth Mindset stuff?
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    Looking at growth vs fixed in student learning...
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    Understanding Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
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    Talents are innate. Skills are earned. Moving onto the GROWTH MINDSET.
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    Growth mindset
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    Great article highlighting the value of the growth midnset
Derek Doucet

What Project-Based Learning Is - and What It Isn't | MindShift - 3 views

  • For Terronez, the goal is to always connect classroom learning to its applications in the outside world.
  • If you inspire them to care about it and draw parallels with their world then they care and remember,”
  • takes a lot of diligent planning by the teacher to design projects that give students space to explore themes and real-world resonance to make it meaningful for them. And it takes trust in the students, as well.
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  • hen students arrived on the first day of school they found an empty classroom. The first project Terronez asked his students to undertake was designing their own learning space, one that would support experience-based, collaborative learning.
  • Terronez asked his students to design an iPod app that would solve a real-world problem. They came up with an idea, designed the display icon, figured out how users would navigate the app, prototyped sample tabs, then pitched their mock-up to an audience.
  • In a project exploring air pressure, Terronez’s students built their own hovercrafts using a leaf blower as the engine. When the hovercrafts worked, the students designed 3D representations of themes from “Freedom Fighters,” a Discovery School education video about racial struggles featuring the stories of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Their creations were featured in a hovercraft parade on Election Day.
  • Take a look at High Tech High art teacher Jeff Robin’s video explaining the difference between project-oriented learning and project-based learning.
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    A good explanation of the importance of rooting learning in authenticity. It would be interesting to explore this all with the different lenses of TPACK, TIM, SAMR
Justin Medved

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_ThirdTeacher.pdf - 1 views

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    Designing the Learning Environment for Mathematics and Literacy, K to 8 Imagine the ideal learning environment for today's learner. What would it look like? Think about how much the world has changed in the last three decades and how rapidly it will continue to change in the years to come. How do we ensure that the instruction we provide is responsive to the shifting demands of the 21 st century? Researchers and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines - early childhood and developmental education, psychology and cognitive science, school architecture and design - maintain that the key to learning in today's world is not just the physical space we provide for students but the social space as well(Fraser, 2012; Helm et al., 2007; OWP/P Architects et al., 2010). The learning environment, they suggest, is "the third teacher" that can either enhance the kind of learning that optimizes our students' potential to respond creatively and meaningfully to future challenges or detract from it. Susan Fraser, for example, writes: "A classroom that is functioning successfully as a third teacher will be responsive to the children's interests, provide opportunities for children to make their thinking visible and then fosterfurtherlearning and engagement." (2012, p. 67)
Justin Medved

Suggested Laptop Agreements for Middle School Families | Edutopia - 0 views

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    "Sometimes we assume our child knows what the family standard is for laptop or computer use, but we find it extremely helpful when families explicitly talk things through so there are no misunderstandings. Pre-established limit setting and boundaries are still necessary with students today. We encourage parents to start these conversations early, so they can set the right expectations of behavior with their students, before the device reaches home. We recommend beginning over the summer and continuing the conversation throughout the school year. A written agreement posted near the computer helps your student refer back to it when he or she has a question or forgets. We highly recommend that families have these agreements between parents and students in place before school laptops come home, and to share the information with any caregivers. It is never too late to start this process."
Justin Medved

The Ultimate Directory Of Free Image Sources - The Edublogger - 2 views

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    We've spent some time categorizing our favorite sources for free images and organizing them in such a way as to help you find what you're looking for. Here are the criteria we've examined: Subjects: Does a site focus on specific genres of images, or is it a mass collection of various image types? High Resolution: Lots of great image resources emerged in the pre-Web 2.0 phase, but it wasn't until bandwidth dramatically increased that allowed for the uploading of much higher resolution images suitable for editing and printing. License: The licenses vary extremely from source to source. Some are listed as Creative Commons (with variations on attribution and availability for commercial use), others are Public Domain, and still others have unique licenses that maintain copyright while allowing users to download or embed photographs. To better understand Creative Commons licenses, check out our post on Images, Copyright, & Creative Commons. Safety: Government sites and many specific subject collections are extremely safe for students to use. But before you start using one of these sites for student blogging, check out our safety note and examine the site to see if you find it appropriate for students. Some sites are terrible for filtering out inappropriate content, while others display advertising from paid stock-photo websites that can often be questionable, depending on the age level of students.
Adam Caplan

SchoolCIO Blogs - DAILY INSIGHT: Taking a dip in the SAMR swimming pool - 8 views

  • His approach to SAMR was simple: It isn’t a ladder that we should try to climb, but instead a pool that we need to be swimming in.
  • It even inspired me to make this clever graphic (see below).
  • here’s a quick overview of what I think it means to swim in the SAMR Swimming Pool:
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    Thinking about SAMR, Greg making it his own. I love the metaphor of "not a ladder we should try to climb, but instead a pool that we need to be swimming in."
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    Hey Adam- I loved Greg's description of some teachers needing swimming lessons (PD), a noodle (IT Support) and even a lifeguard (Principal). We need to keep building environments where taking risks and accepting the possibility of failure is embraced and supported. For now, I still have my water wings on but I keep looking ahead. Catherine
garth nichols

RESOURCES « Digital Citizenship Program - 0 views

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    WoW! Do you want a comprehensive digital citizenship curriculum/program? Here is it - make sure it is embedded, make sure it is meaningful, etc...
Justin Medved

Twitter Chats - The ins, outs and my top 8 chats - 2 views

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    Twitter Chats - The ins, outs and my top 8 chats Educational Twitter Chats are happening all the time on Twitter and as a globally connected educator - I LOVE IT! Every opportunity I can get I involve myself in the 1 hour twitter chats that surface themselves in my twitter feed. It gives me the opportunity to connect and collaborate with like minded educators, network with the best in the business and pick up new and interesting things to use to make me a better educator. PD in the palm of my hands (literally). For those that don't know what I am talking about - let me give you the low-down. Twitter chats take place on twitter at a certain time every week (click here for a complete list of education related twitter chats and their times). All chats use a certain hashtag to discuss a variety of topics with a education related theme. They provide a unique and eye opening opportunity for educators to connect, share and collaborate with others from all over the world. The best part about this virtual staffroom ….. it is FREE!
Justin Medved

The Teacher Curse No One Wants to Talk About | Edutopia - 1 views

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    "The Curse of Knowledge The Curse of Knowledge has been variously described in articles by Chip and Dan Heath, Carmen Nobel, and Steven Pinker, and also in books such as The Sense of Style and Made to Stick. It has been applied to a variety of domains: child development, economics, and technology are just a few. All of the resources describe the same phenomena -- that a strong base of content knowledge makes us blind to the lengthy process of acquiring it. This curse has implications for all teachers: We do not remember what it is like to not know what we are trying to teach. We cannot relive the difficult and lengthy process that learning our content originally took. As a result, we end up assuming that our lesson's content is easy, clear, and straightforward. We assume that connecti"
garth nichols

A High School in Massachusetts Where the Students Are the Teachers | TIME.com - 0 views

  • Sam Levin, an alum of Monument who is currently a sophomore at the University of Oxford in England studying biological sciences, started the program in 2010. Frustrated with his public-high-school schedule and realizing that his friends weren’t inspired to learn, Levin complained to his mother about how unhappy he and his classmates were, to which she responded: “Why don’t you just make your own school?” And so he did — albeit in small steps. In ninth grade, Levin started a school-wide garden that was solely cared for by students; some woke up early on Saturdays to work with the plants. The garden is still functioning and serves at-need families in the community. After witnessing the commitment that his classmates had to nurturing something they had created themselves, Levin was convinced that they were capable of putting more time and energy into their studies — as long as it was something they cared about. “I was seeing the exact opposite in school. Kids weren’t even doing the things they needed to do to get credit. There was something at odds with students getting up to work for no credit or money [on the garden] at 7 in the morning, but not wanting to wake up to read or do a science experiment,” says Levin. “I saw the really amazing and powerful things that happened when high school students stepped it up and were excited about something.”
  • The semester is split in half, with the first nine weeks focused on natural and social sciences. Each Monday morning, the students formulate a question with the help of their classmates. For example, “How are plants from different parts of a mountain different from each other?” or “What causes innovation?” The students spend the rest of the week researching the answer and creating a presentation to summarize their findings to share with their classmates at the end of the week for feedback and critique. The students are in charge of keeping themselves on task, creating their research plans and meeting their deadlines.
  • By taking ownership of their learning, the students at Monument are forced to think creatively and capitalize on their own talents in order to excel. The class framework is similar to what will be expected of them in college and in the workforce, when they have to make their own educated and independent decisions.
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  • Still, the project is not without its challenges, and the program continues to evolve. This year was the first time students in the program could receive general credit for the course instead of elective credit. Powell also says it’s not necessarily right for every student. “It is a challenge to think that a teenager can have that much freedom to figure out what they want to study and manage their time,” says Powell. “People are more on board now that they have observed the program, but there are still some skeptics with legitimate reasons, and we are always addressing challenges.”
  • His hope is that the Independent Project will continue to challenge current theories about education, and help teachers and policymakers think more creatively about the best way to help young people learn. Ultimately, that understanding should lead to systemic changes that open up more opportunities for children to get the education that will benefit them the most. “It is one thing to help school by school, and that is how a lot of change happens, but at the same time, the long-term goal and broader ambition is to make changes to the education system,” he says.
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    A different approach to learning via whole school change.
Bob Loiselle

If You Want Innovation, You Have to Invest in People - Mehran Mehregany - Harvard Busin... - 1 views

    • Bob Loiselle
       
      "knowledge leak" - great phrasing.  Easy to condescendingly look at others, but as I struggle to incorporate and use emerging technology, I have to realize that I too am guilty of not being current in my field, in the area of technology.  A humbling realization!
  • employee education and training can be hard to sustain
  • human tendency that to overestimate our depth of knowledge and the strength of our abilities.
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  • Sheer IQ is not sufficient for innovation, or even as important as current knowledge.
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    "Every discipline is experiencing accelerated development, and the rapid knowledge obsolescence that goes with it. Cushing Anderson of IDC puts it well:  "Knowledge leak is the degradation of skills over time, and it … can kill organizational performance in as little as a couple of years." While it might have seemed reasonable in an era of slower change to put the onus on the individual to maintain his or her currency, firms today must make it their business to counter this leakage."
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