Group items tagged

This article provides a compelling infograph showing how important individualized learning can be and its impact, not only to the student but to our country, financially. Just imagine, if we raised our students' math scores to the level of Canada's students' math scores, we would increase our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by $77 trillion over 80 years, which is the equivalent of raising everyone's paycheck by 20% every year. 1) How could we implement personalized learning in today's educational system? 2) Are there variations of personalized learning that we could implement today without radically overhauling our current system? 3) Does knowing how higher math scores can dramatically improve a student's wage earning ability, and dramatically improve our country financially, change your perspective on the importance of students being proficient in math?

Go Math, Go! interesting!

This article addresses the issue of teacher burnout and a solution to help treat and minimize it. The article suggests that relieving one's stress for a short period each day goes a long way in avoiding burnout. 1) Should all teachers be required to participate in a short training to teach them mindfulness and stress relieving techniques? 2) What techniques do you use to destress and how can incorporating mindfulness improve them? 3) How would taking time to destress through mindfulness effect your classroom performance?

It's that time of year. You'll always see LOTS of teacher burnout/teacher slump articles written in November :)

In our reading of Reeves, chapter 7, Wiggins and McTighe are mentioned a few times so I googled their names and came up with this article that can be helpful to us. (This is not my assignment article, just wanted to bookmark it for later reading)

In today's times, the K-12 classroom is continually evolving in order to adapt to the fast paced world of technological advances. It's important that teachers keep up-to-date with the latest helpful technology for their students and that parents understand the ramifications of that technology. This blog gives a list of technology trends that are impacting education both with their pros and cons listed.

Good article. Please make sure to include three questions.

How do we get students invested in the learning material? This article gives us some ideas. A list of ideas include: use technology, personalize lessons, and make your lessons social (collaborate) or use social networking to share and access information. * Should social networking be included in the lesson plan? * Should all of our lessons be personalized to each student in our class? *How much technology should I incorporate into lessons? Could the whole lesson be taught and assessed using only technology? Laurie Hoepner

Wonderful! Great summary and questions!

Zachary Christie, a 6-year-old first grader in Delaware brought a camping utensil along with his lunch. The tool included a folding fork. Unfortunately for Zachary, it also included a folding knife. He was sentenced to 45 days in the district's alternative school. His parents fought for this to change and it was reduced to only a 3- to 5-day suspension. The school districts policy also changed to a 3-5 day suspension for students caught with dangerous instruments, if they are in kindergarten or first grade. Parents who encounter this should not be a stranger, know the rules, prep your child(ren), speak up, and lobby against zero tolerance. 1- Why would parents allow students to bring questionable items like this to school? 2- Should schools punish students that are this young for bring something dangerous to school that parents should have stopped at home? 3- Is the new school policy fair?

So interesting! Great summary and questions.

This was an article by Robert Earl from "The Atlantic". It focuses on how American High School students are using their cellphones to listen to music, texting, in the hallways and any opportunity to use it in the classroom with the teacher's permission. According to the University of Michigan, 71% of the students receive or send text messages by their cellphones in class. Many students say they "can focus on their schoolwork better if they are listening to music through their earbuds". There are four advantages that benefits the students and two disadvantages of using cellphones in the classroom. The most important message is that either way students must be taught to love learning -- to embrace the process of finding answers. We as educators to need to embrace using all types of technology in the classroom as well.

This article outlines techniques and applications to use social media in businesses and schools. Although there is still a negative reaction to using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, this article offers appropriate uses for these in the classroom. It also outlines sources for educators and administration to improve their learning and development as well.

Social media continues to be a hot topic in schools. I wish I could have read the article.

This article is explaining how the author believes that the internet is now the most powerful tool in the classroom today. The author argues that teachers must give up some of their power in the classroom and allow students to take more control of their own education through the opportunities the internet offers. She does make the point that teachers will still have a pivotal role in the classroom even with all the new technology.

TB Today is Digital Learning Day, a national promotional effort by the Alliance for Excellence in Education to call attention to using technology in schools. More than 10,000 teachers and 1.5 million students have signed up in support to "celebrate innovative teachers and highlight instructional practices that strengthen teaching and personalize learning for all students," according to the AEE.

Although the cost of an education has nearly tripled per student in the last 40 years, test scores have remained unchanged. There is an ed tech revolution happening in politics, teacher evaluations, and test scores. This article examines what this ed tech revolution will look like both in school and at home over the next 15 years.

The writer listed some great resources throughout the article. I'm curious to see if any of his predictions will come true.

This article discusses the use of free web 2.0 tools that can be used in the classroom to help promote 21st century skills. They highlight four web tools, Jing, Wix, Google Sites, and Blogger, that can be integrated in school environments. The article provides specific classroom examples from four teachers, on how they were able to use these tools with their students.

This was a great article for class. We will talk about about some of the tools listed.

Dear Teacher who is still not on Twitter, Maybe you didn't receive my previous mail. Just in case it didn't convince you, here are a few more examples of the benefits of Twitter... 1. Continuous learning with and from a global community of educators, via countless links to interesting posts and articles, tools and websites, conferences and workshops....

This article talks about how iPads and other tablets are a learning tool for students with disabilities, not just for novelty. Students who have trouble communicating verbally can use apps to talk to peers, teachers and parents. It allows them to be more like their peers and can spark new friendships if used in the right way. It can be used in all classes, including Math and Science, allowing students to be more independent than they have ever been.

This article sounds interesting. I wish I could have read the entire article.

Wiki's are a great tool for students to come together to edit and create a document. The website includes popular, FREE wiki platforms for teachers to use, includes resources for further reading and gives examples on how to use Wiki's in the classroom. This website is a great resource in general for including technological resources in a Language Arts classroom, which can be difficult to do, especially when teaching writing and literature. http://tewt.org

This is a worthwhile article for teachers to read if they are starting a wiki page. The article includes a treasure chest of resources.

In this article, the author reflects on some of the challenges he faced while trying to introduce technology into his classroom. He found that he and the students were becoming frustrated and disengaged during the process and technology ended up hindering the learning process. That all ended when the teacher found Google Apps.

I wish I could have read the article. You summary has me intrigued.

This article discuses how mobile devices such as tablets are very affordable for schools, and provide a lot of different apps that can be used for classroom application. The study discussed how students can relate to what they are learning because of the practice they can do on the tablets to make a better connection. Page 12 shows some of the students thoughts towards using tablets in class; including, "We live in the technology age so using technology is important to help develop proficiency."

Thanks for sharing. I'm always interested to hear what students are saying about the technology initiatives in their classrooms.

Philip Cotton was one of the first teacher in the UK to use 3D printing in the classroom. He talks about its uses in the classroom and the necessity for students to learn the technology now so that they are prepared for future careers that haven't even been invented yet. This article gives real life examples of 3D printings classroom applications, as well as highlighting safety concerns and software needs.

Awesome. I've already started sharing this article. Keeping up with new trends like 3D printing is great, I needed to see some of these applications.

It is important to remember students with writing disabilities, have the hardest time with writing. This article is about assistive technology we can use to help those students. By giving these tools students who have trouble writing, can help them become better writers, or at least make their writing better. Either way it will help the student needing writing help.

Nice find. Always good to have this kind of research to support our learners.