ConnectedLearning_TMI

I'd like to share several different perspectives on homework that may inform the work we do with our schools. "Meaningful homework should be purposeful, efficient, personalized, doable, and inviting. Most important, students must be able to freely communicate with teachers when they struggle with homework, knowing they can admit that they don't understand a task-and can do so without penalty." As recently as last year, I found myself comforting special ed students who simply could not handle the volume of homework, some crying out of fear of disappointing their ELA teacher (who would immediately send a "missing homework" email to the parent). I worked hard on homework accommodations for these students, but their feelings of inadequacy were fueled by a lack of teacher understanding of their needs -- a focus on deficits as opposed to strengths, and an unwillingness to offer differentiated assignments.

Atlanta Journal Constitution article on attending to student strengths, featuring words of wisdom from Jenifer Fox, my wife.

Is it even possible to minimize one's digital footprint anymore? The new whackamole.

Balancing the what with the how of teaching. Meditation on the messiness of improving instruction teacher by teacher.

I could not agree more with the need for balance. I think different teaching styles are as important as teaching to different student learning styles. I'm concerned that a school full of all Type A "what" teachers is not the best thing for our students -- school culture is a huge factor that is often given a lower priority than "student achievement." Here's to a greater emphasis on the "how's" of teaching and learning!

Teacher collaboration is on the decline. We are cutting against the grain as we try to work with 6th grade teams on the Connected Learning project. What does sustained "sticky" PD look like? How do we truly build capacity?

Hi all. I'm diving in here and notice that my highlighted text showed up as annotations. Sorry. I'm working on it! What I found most interesting was one commenter who noted: "in reality, being fully human is necessarily collaborative. . .Schools would benefit tremendously from honoring and supporting collaboration among faculty but more importantly among students. . .teaching, learning, and assessment are artificially forced into acts in isolation in traditional schooling. . .That is dehumanizing and countereducational. . ." My thoughts: So how can we humanize the PD process? Seems choice and autonomy are huge factors towards ownership of technology integration. Comes back to the question, for adults as well as students, "Who owns the learning?"

My friend and former colleague, Ann Martin (Apple Distinguished Educator), currently an ed tech curriculum specialist in Nanjing, China, is supporting this conference. She says, "Looks to be really innovative - totally online, 5 days, all global, various languages. We're pushing for as much involvement as possible world wide."

Nice tech blended learning example for 5th grade. Envision a home extension.

Here is Wes Fryer's outline for Technology 4 Teachers, part of his "Powerful Ingredients for Blended Learning." Lots of great resources here which we can share with teachers.

As we go into CL schools, here's a great toolkit to help our work with 6th grade teams. Gotta love Wes Fryer. Check it out.

The Consortium for School Networking is where district tech leaders turn for info. Lots of good resources.

See the current resources box down the page.

Re-examine our notions about what constitutes good study habits.

This is a meaningful article for how we think about learning environments in the home.

All RTT winners had some provision in their applications for online learning. Will it be smartly done and integrated into classroom instruction or just money thrown at a perceived but unexplored opportunity? Which states have a chance of doing it right?

Great Screencasts and various web related tools.

testing

that;'s interesting

Millenials use online sharing & Web 2.0 to "narrate their work" with potential great benefit both to themselves and the organizations they work for.

Online sharing of work process and product is not "the new black", it's the new normal, and it's here to stay. What are the implications for our work in schools?

Teens hide online information "in plain sight" using coded language to convey their feelings to their friends while preserving the illusion of transparency with their parents.

Danah Boyd is a great thinker about internet issues. Great post about teens engaged in steganography, hiding online info in plain sight.

Focusing on learning works better than focusing on test scores and grades research finds.

The way we focus students and the language we use matter, as does the substance of what we do. This is part of a larger discussion on intrinsic vs: extrinsic motivation.

How PD starts in a session but doesn't end until the rubber meets the road in the classroom. One of those articles that states the obvious, but well enough it reframes it. Nice PD graphic model.

The mobile phone company LG and Glee's Jane Lynch have teamed up to produce a series of shorts on Texting. What do you think?

What can broadband do for you? Here's one thing.