Group items tagged

Wake Forest is espousing using wikis with their students. The article does a good job of describing the issues involved in using a wiki for instruction. What I really like about the article is that it is almost all about rigor, high expectations, and relevance. Gosh such problems to have to think about when designing work for students. Maybe more of us need to consider what this article is describing.

Compilation of articles about how people think and construct meaning. A nice collection if looking to start creating support for rational why you want to do something and want some research/support. 

David writes a series of quick easy to read articles that offer nice suggestions and recommendations for use of different technologies and applications. One nice thing about this from my perspective is that the articles lead into one another as a teacher is ready to progress in use.

I just added all fifteen tools to my library but thought I should probably add the article where I got them all from as well. I think the article is a little overly supportive but at least the sites are interesting. I do like the premise of creating instructional routines that can be supported as paperless. I would like to see the conversation about how to create the entire routine from getting students to the site, letting them do their thing, get feedback to/from the teacher, reflect, repeat/progress... I think that is an area that teachers need help in thinking through.

As I read this blog, I immediately thought of the article Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say. It is a very similar set of lessons for students and teachers.  If a student can say it, then why am I? B/C I am the expert... but who is learning in that situation? Me of course b/c I am the expert!!  Also, if a kid says it, it builds their confidence/understanding and allows the teacher to probe to help the student develop their analytical skills rather than their passivity and incompetence skills.  This blog is worth a very long read and analysis. I also, think everyone should look for the article mentioned above and see if they couldn't learn a few things by saying less!

We welcome you to our wiki and blog for supporting iPod & iPad devices in education. Although our focus is K-12, many of the techniques should work for you at any level and with any number of devices. On the wiki side of this site are the deployment and management articles, and on the blog side, you will find the classroom activities (written primarily by teachers) where iPods are supporting achievement improvement for our students. We are posting as many help and how-to articles here as we can and as quickly as we can so you can continue to be successful using iPod devices in your classroom. Please let us know if there are more or different things that you would like to have included here.

A Firefox extension/add-on that shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool..

Using this article with a middle school teacher in the development of interactive student notebooks. We are using this article to help set the tone that her students can be mathematicians, to change their understanding of what a mathematician is, etc. Any other examples that you may have and are willing to share would be appreciated.

great resource. Nice layout for a how it works feature article. Students can find articles that relate to some interest that they have.

Fun site for creating opportunities for students to write an "article" and create an image of their article. 

Statistics that lie! This is a great example of data that isn't reported correctly. The article decries the death of Netbooks, when in fact it is more about a stabalization of sales. I encourage math teachers to let students read the article and at least the first two responses. It's a great example of blatant misinformation. 

I think this is a GREAT resource with massive potential. If you teach any current issues/sociology/modern history courses then this tool is a must. Even if you teach courses like 'algebra' then this tool has potential. I spent less than five minutes looking at the query 'regression analysis' and found two valid content related applications of regression analysis that I could easily use with an algebra I, II or precal course. As an example in the first resource I came across this http://web.sny.tv/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090424&content_id=1499716&vkey=1 article from SNY.tv that mentions "each (interception) in the minus column costs you approximately six points on average over many years of regression analysis." I can see just having an algebra I course examine/explain what that means mathematically, I can see allowing some students to group, decide what data they would need to confirm that analysis and if you wanted let them analyze the data or look for the analysis that has already been done by contacting the author/NFL. If I can find that kind of information within 5 minutes then imagine what someone with imagination could do! Great resource, a must share with your core content teachers and I firmly believe this tool could quickly vault up the list of most useful very ,very quickly. I can't let this go without thinking about differentiation in the classroom, I search for a topic, let groups look at the timeline and choose their own reading (if I have a group that will be challenged by their choice, I might point them to another reading that might scaffold their understanding), but I've built in choice, built in the ability to manage the sources, opened up the ability to quickly find multiple types of sources (video, blogs, primary sources).

Great article on looking at test preparation differently. It's not about answering a lot of questions similar to the ones on the test, but about learning processes that help students understand how to garner information from text/problems, etc. 

If you can't find an article about inclusion of educational technology here then you aren't looking very hard.

http://inderscience.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&eissn=1746-7268&volume=1&issue=2&spage=159 The purpose of this study is to identify the benefits that mobile technology can provide in education. From a review of the literature and interviews with individuals in the field of education, we developed an activitybased model to associate the uses of mobile technology with their benefits. The model first identifies the general uses of mobile technology in education and the specific activities that they encompass. Then, the benefits from their uses are identified with overarching themes emerging as follows: greater efficiencies and effectiveness in learning, increased individual support and opportunities for personal development, better methods of collaborating and communicating and greater exposure to technology.

Not a research article itself, but more evidence that supports the approach of activating prior knowledge, having students anticipate answers before reading a piece of text.

Problem-based approaches to learning have a long history of advocating experience-based education. Psychological research and theory suggests that by having students learn through the experience of solving problems, they can learn both content and thinking strategies. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method in which students learn through facilitated problem solving. In PBL, student learning centers on a complex problem that does not have a single correct answer. Students work in ollaborative groups to identify what they need to learn in order to solve a problem. They engage in self-directed learning (SDL) and then apply their new knowledge to the problem and reflect on what they learned and the effectiveness of the strategies employed. The teacher acts to facilitate the learning process rather than to provide knowledge. The goals of PBL include helping students develop 1) flexible knowledge, 2) effective problem-solving skills, 3) SDL skills, 4) effective collaboration skills, and 5) intrinsic motivation. This article discusses the nature of learning in PBL and examines the empirical evidence supporting it. There is considerable research on the first 3 goals of PBL but little on the last 2. Moreover, minimal research has been conducted outside medical and gifted education. Understanding how these goals are achieved with less skilled learners is an important part of a research agenda for PBL. The evidence suggests that PBL is an instructional approach that offers the potential to help students develop flexible understanding and lifelong learning skills.

An article by DeZure, Kaplan, and Deerman about implications for instructors about student note-taking. An interesting look at what research tells us about how students take notes, what they are able to remember and write down, mistakes that are commonly made, and what instructors can do to make their students more successful.

Nice little article to learn how to use Google Search more effectively.