Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining what
should be highlighted in an article or passage. Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
About diigo.com
page
Details and Tags
Print
Download PDF
Backlinks
Source
Delete
Rename
Redirect
Permissions
Lock
discussion
history
notify me Protected
Details
last edit by cmh459 Sunday, 7:53 pm - 36 revisions
Tags
none
About diigo.comDiigo or
Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a social bookmarking
site that allows its users to bookmark and tag websites. Users are also able to
highlight information and put sticky notes directly on the webpage as you are
reading it. Your notes can be public which allows other users to view and
comment on your notes and add their own or it can be private. Sites can be saved
and stored for later reading and commenting. Users can also join groups with
similar interests and follow specific people and sites. Teachers can register for an educator account that allows
a teacher to create accounts for an entire class. In an education account,
students are automatically set up as a Diigo group which allows for easy sharing
of documents, pictures, videos, and articles with only your class group. There
are also pre-set privacy settings so only the teacher and classmates can see the
bookmarks and communications. This is a great way to ensure that your students
and their comments are kept private from the rest of the Internet community.
Diigo is a great tool for teachers to use to have students interact with
material and to share that interaction with classmates.
Best Practices for using Diigo tools
Tagging
Tool
Teachers or students can tag a website that
they want to bookmark for future reference.
Teachers can research websites or articles that
they want their students to view on a certain topic and tag them for the
students. This tool is nice when
researching a certain topic. The teacher can tag the websites that the students
should use eliminating the extra time of searching for the sites that would be
useful and appropriate for the project.Highlighting Tool
Diigo
highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to
highlight in an article or a web page
.
1The key
concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted
to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining
what
should be highlighted in an article or passage.
Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate
how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
Sticky Notes
Tool
The sticky note tool is a great addition to the
tools of diigo. Students may add sticky notes to a passage as they are reading
it. The sticky notes could be used to make notes or ask questions by the
students.
Teachers could postition the sticky notes in
the passage for students to respond to various ideas as they are reading.
Students could use sticky notes to peer edit
and make comments on other student's work through Google docs.
These are just a few ideas of how to
apply the diigo tools to your teaching practices. Both students and teachers
benefit form using these tools. The variety of uses or practices give both
groups a hands on way of dealing with text while making it more efficient.
Bookmark/Snapsho
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About
diigo.com
page
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Print
Download PDF
Backlinks
Source
Delete
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discussion
history
notify
me
Protected
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last edit by
cmh459
Sunday,
7:53 pm
-
36
revisions
Tags
none
About
diigo.com
Diigo or
Digest of
Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a social bookmarking
site
that allows its users to bookmark and tag websites. Users are also able
to
highlight information and put sticky notes
directly on the webpage as you are
reading it.
Your notes can be public which allows other users to view and
comment on
your notes and add their own or it can be private. Sites can be saved
and
stored for later reading and commenting. Users can also join groups with
si
Diigo or Digest of Internet Information, Groups and
Other stuff is a social bookmarking site that allows its users to bookmark
and tag websites
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page.
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher
or
student to highlight in an article or a web
page.
The key concepts
or vocabulary words could be
highlighted
to check for understanding
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher or
student to highlight in an article or a web page.
The key concepts or vocabulary words could be
highlighted to check for understanding.
Some students have problems determining what
should be highlighted in an article or passage. Teachers could use this tool to
demonstrate how to correctly highlight and find the key points.
Diigo highlighting tool allows the teacher
or
student to highlight in an article or a web
page.
Teachers or students can tag a website that
they want to bookmark for future reference.
Teachers can research websites or articles that
they want their students to view on a certain topic and tag them for the
students.This tool is nice when
researching a certain topic. The teacher can tag the websites that the students
should use eliminating the extra time of searching for the sites that would be
useful and appropriate for the project.
The sticky note tool is a great addition to the tools of diigo. Students may add sticky notes to a passage as they are reading it. The sticky notes could be used to make notes or ask questions by the students.Teachers could postition the sticky notes in the passage for students to respond to various ideas as they are reading.Students could use sticky notes to peer edit and make comments on other student's work through Google docs.
ClassPeriodSectionDaysRoomSemester
Computer Information & Technology
1
1A,B167S1, S2
Computer and Information Technology
2
1B314S1, S2
Computer and Information Technology
3
2B314S1, S2
Computer Applications
4
1A,B314S1, S2
to
12345
ClassesSearchCampusReportsActionsMissing StudentsMessagesMy Home
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"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15.
05.04.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM.
7:00 AM
INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION
Click to Open Overlay Gallery
Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED
SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it.
At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird.
On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about.
Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say.
And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat
Using Diigo for Organizing the Web for your Class
31
07
2007
A good friend of mine, Randy Lyseng, has been telling people of the tremendous power and educational value that can be gained from social bookmarking in the classroom. His personal favourite is Diigo.
My preference is a social bookmarking tool called http://diigo.com. With diigo, you can highlight, add stick notes and make your comments private or public. (Randy Lyseng, Lyseng Tech: Social Bookmarking, November 2006)
After listening to Randy praise Diigo at every opportunity, I finally started playing with the site (and corresponding program, more on that in a bit) this summer (I know Randy - I’m slow to catch on…)As I started to play with the system, my mind started reeling with all the possibilities. First off, like any other social bookmarking tool, Diigo allows you to put all your favorites/bookmarks in one “central” location. Students can access them from ANY computer in the world (talk about the new WWW: whatever, whenever, where ever). They just open up your Diigo page, and there are all the links. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Diigo’s power lies in it’s group annotations. That’s right, people can now write in the margins of webpages. You can highlight passages of interest, write notes, and even write a blog entry directly from another webpage, quoting passages right from the original text. Sounds great - but to do all that it must be complicated right?
Nope. To use these advanced features all you need to do is run the Diigo software. This can either be done using a bookmarklet or by downloading and installing the Diigo toolbar. While both have basically the same features, the toobar is less finicky, and allows you to use contextual menus to access features quickly. I also find the toolbar’s highlighting and sticky notes to be easier to read. Ok fine… I can leave notes on webpages - so what?
Here’s an example. I’m thinking about having my 7B’s record radio plays. I’ve looked them up online and found many scripts from all the old classics available. However many also contain the old endorsements from tobacco and other companies. So I go to a play that I’d like to my students to record and highlight the old commercial. If they’re using diigo when they access this page they’ll see the same text highlighted in pink, and when they mouse over the highlighted text they’ll get a hidden message from me - “I’d like you to write a new advertisement for this section. What other advertisement do you think we could write for here? Write an ad for a virtue or trait that you think is important. For example - “Here’s a news flash for every person in Canada. It’s about a sensational, new kind of personality that will make you the envy of all those around you. It’s call trustworthiness. Why with just a pinch of this great product….” They now have a writing assignment to go along with the recording of the radio play.
Adding assignments is just one possibility. You can ask questions about the site, or have students carry on conversations about the text. Perhaps about the validity of some information. These notes can be made private (for your eyes only), public, or for a select group of people. You could use the same webpage for multiple classes, and have a different set of sticky notes for each one! Diigo will also create a separate webpage for each group you create, helping you organize your bookmarks/notes further! This technology is useful for any class, but I think is a must have for any group trying to organize something along the lines of the 1 to 1 project. I’m hoping to convince all the core teachers to set up a group page for their classes, and organize their book marks there! I’ve already started one for my 7B Language Arts Class!
One of the first questions I was asked when I started looking at this site, and more importantly at the bookmarklets and toolbar was is it secure? Will it bring spyware onto our systems? How about stability? I’ve currently been running the Diigo bookmarklet and toolbar on 3 different browsers, Explorer, Firefox, and Safari (sorry, there’s no Safari toolbar yet), across 4 different computers and 2 different platforms with no problems. I’ve also run every virus and spyware scan I can think of, everything checks out clean. I’ve also done an extensive internet check, and can’t find any major problems reported by anyone else. To my mind it’s an absolutely fantastic tool for use in the classroom. Thanks Diigo! And thanks Randy for pointing me in the right direction!
What would an exceptional middle and high school computer science curriculum include?
This isn't a complete answer, but one thing the very first introductory classes should require is that the students turn off all their electronic computers and actually learn to walk through algorithms with a computer that exists only on paper. (Or, I suppose, a whiteboard or a simulator.) This exercise would give the students a grounding in what is going on inside the computer as a very low level.My first computer programming class in my Freshman year of high school was completely on paper. Although it was done because the school didn't have much money, it turned out to be very beneficial.Another class I had in high school, that wouldn't normally be lumped into a Computer Science curriculum but has been a boon to my career, was good old Typing 101.
If you followed the CS Unplugged curriculum your students would know more about CS than most CS grads:http://csunplugged.orgIt's a really great intro to basic computer science concepts and very easy for students to understand. Best of all you don't even need a computer per student if your school doesn't have the budget,
For younger students, I think that the ability to make something professional-looking, like a real grown-up would, is paramount. Sadly, I think this means that LOGO and BASIC aren't much use any more*.
So, we have a few choices. You can try to write phone apps that look just like real phone apps, design interactive websites that look just like real interactive websites, or do something with embedded systems / robotics. Avoid the temptation to make these things into group projects; the main thing every student needs to experience is the process of writing code, running it, debugging it, and watching the machine react to every command.
It is important to consider what an 11 to 18-year old is familiar with in terms of mathematics and logical thinking. An average 11-year old is probably learning about fractions, simple cartesian geometry, the concept of units, and mathematical expressions. By 15, the average student will be taking algebra, and hopefully will have the all-important concept of variables under his/her belt. So much in CS is dependent on solid understanding that symbols and tokens can represent abstract concepts, values, or algorithms. Without it, it's still possible to teach CS, but it must be done in a very different way (see Scratch).
At this point, concepts such as variables, parenthesis matching, and functions (of the mathematical variety) are within easy reach. Concepts like parameter passing, strings and collections, and program flow should be teachable. More advanced concepts such as recursion, references and pointers, certain data structures, and big-O may be very difficult to teach without first going through some more foundational math.
I tend to agree strongly with those that believe a foundational education should inspire interest and enforce concepts and critical thinking over teaching any specific language, framework, system, or dogma.
The key is that the concepts in CS aren't just there for the hell of it. Everything was motivated by a real problem, and few things are more satisfying than fixing something you really want to work with a cool technique or concept you just learned.
Great resource for teachers (especially those of us not initially trained in Computer Science) about what should 'count' as Computer Science. Worth the read!
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
n contrast to others who are not as prone to divulge their feelings about their creative process
"Variation in style may have historical explanation but
[End Page 94]
no philosophical justification, for philosophy cannot discriminate between style and style."3
The testimonies of the composers concerned bear on questions about (a) the role of the conscious and the unconscious in music creativity, (b) how the compositional process gets started, and (c) how the compositional process moves forward
It is hoped that the themes that emerge by setting twentieth and twenty-first century professional composers' accounts of certain compositional experiences or phases of their creative processes against one another will provide a philosophical framework for teaching composition.
Furthermore, the knowledge of how professional composers compose offers the potential of finding the missing link in music education; that is, the writing of music by students within the school curriculum
Such involvement may deepen their understanding of musical relationships and how one articulates feelings through sounds beyond rudimentary improvisational and creative activities currently available
raw philosophical implications for music composition in schools from recognized composers' voices about their individual composing realities
It is hoped that the direct access to these composers' thoughts about the subjective experience of composing Western art music in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century may also promote the image of a fragmented culture whose ghettoization in music education is a serious impediment to the development of a comprehensive aesthetic education.
n other words, there is a striking unanimity among composers that the role of the unconscious is vital in order to start and/or to complete a work to their own satisfaction.
I need . . . to become involved, to come into a state where I do something without knowing why I do i
This is a complex problem and difficult to explain: all that one can say is that the unconscious plays an incalculable rol
Nonetheless, these self-observations about the complementary roles of the unconscious and conscious aspects of musical creativity do not cover the wide range of claims in psychological research on creativity
I strongly believe that, if we cannot explain this process, then we must acknowledge it as a mystery.25 Mysteries are not solved by encouraging us not to declare them to be mysteries
When Ligeti was commissioned to write a companion piece for Brahms' Horn Trio, he declared, "When the sound of an instrument or a group of instruments or the human voice finds an echo in me, in the musical idea within me, then I can sit down and compose. [O]therwise I canno
Extra-musical images may also provide the composer with ideas and material and contribute to musical creativity.
ome composers need to have something for it to react against.38 Xenakis, however, asserted that "all truly creative people escape this foolish side of work, the exaltation of sentiments. They are to be discarded like the fat surrounding meat before it is cooked."
as, as these examples show, dreams can also solve certain problems of the creative process.
In other words, to compose does not mean to merely carry out an initial idea. The composer reserves the right to change his or her mind after the conception of an idea.
n sum, self-imposed restrictions or "boundary conditions"55 seem to provide composers with a kind of pretext to choose from an otherwise chaotic multitude of compositional possibilities that, however, gradually disappears and gets absorbed into the process of composition which is characterized by the composers' aesthetic perceptions and choices.
Therefore, it is not surprising that influences from the musical world in which the composer lives play an important role in the creative process
Thereby the past is seen as being comprised by a static system of rules and techniques that needs to be innovated and emancipated during the composers' search for their own musical identity.
I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed; in other words: how the artist made it his own.
Nothing I found was based on the "masterpiece," on the closed cycle, on passive contemplation or narrowly aesthetic pleasure.61
Furthermore, for some composers the musical influence can emerge from the development of computer technology.
In sum, the compositional process proceeds in a kind of personal and social tension. In many cases, composers are faced with the tensive conflict between staying with tradition and breaking new ground at each step in the process. Thus, one might conclude that the creative process springs from a systematic viewpoint determined by a number of choices in which certain beliefs, ideas, and influences—by no means isolated from the rest of the composer's life—play a dominant role in the search for new possibilities of expression.
If a general educational approach is to emerge from the alloy of composers' experiences of their music creativity, it rests on the realization that the creative process involves a diversity of idiosyncratic conscious and unconscious traits.
After all, the creative process is an elusive cultural activity with no recipes for making it happen.
n this light, the common thread of composers' idiosyncratic concerns and practices that captures the overall aura of their music creativity pertains to (a) the intangibility of the unconscious throughout the compositional process,68 (b) the development of musical individuality,69 and (c) the desire to transgress existing rules and codes, due to their personal and social conflict between tradition and innovation.70
In turn, by making student composers in different classroom settings grasp the essence of influential professional composers' creative concerns, even if they do not intend to become professional composers, we can help them immerse in learning experiences that respect the mysteries of their intuitions, liberate their own practices of critical thinking in music, and dare to create innovative music that expresses against-the-prevailing-grain musical beliefs and ideas.
Therefore, it is critical that the music teacher be seen as the facilitator of students' compositional processes helping students explore and continuously discover their own creative personalities and, thus, empowering their personal involvement with music. Any creative work needs individual attention and encouragement for each vision and personal experience are different.
After all, the quality of mystery is a common theme in nearly every composer's accoun
Failing this, musical creativity remains a predictable academic exercise
Music teachers need to possess the generosity to refuse to deny student composers the freedom to reflect their own insights back to them and, in turn, influence the teachers' musical reality
Indeed, it is important that music teachers try to establish students gradually as original, independent personalities who try to internalize sounds and, thus, unite themselves with their environment in a continuous creative process.
Music teachers, therefore, wishing student composers to express and exercise all their ideas, should grant them ample time to work on their compositions,
n sum, music knowledge or techniques and the activation of the student composers' desire for discovery and innovation should evolve together through balanced stimulation.
While music creativity has been a component of music education research for decades, some of the themes arising from professional composers' experiences of their creativity, such as the significance of the unconscious, the apprehension towards discovering ones' own musical language, or the personal and social tension between tradition and innovation, among others, have not been adequately recognized in the literature of music education
By doing this, I strongly believe that musical creativity in general and composing in particular run the risk of becoming a predictable academic exercise
which merely demands problem-solving skills on the part of the student composers (or alleged "critical thinkers").
. On the other hand, only few music educators appear to draw their composer students' attention to the importance of the personal and social conflict between staying within a tradition or code, even if it is the Western popular music tradition, and breaking new ground at each step in the creative process and, possibly, shaping new traditions or codes.
Culture is a precious human undertaking, and the host of musics, arts, languages, religions, myths, and rituals that comprise it need to be carefully transmitted to the young and transformed in the process."85
Nevertheless, further research is needed in which women's voices can be heard that may offer an emancipatory perspective for the instruction of composition in education which will "challenge the political domination of men."
Home › Parenting ADHD Children
More Classroom Tips for Teachers of ADD ADHD Students
in Parenting ADHD Children
ADHD Checklist for Classroom Teachers
Physical Arrangement of Room:
Use rows for seating arrangements. Avoid tables with groups of students, for this maximizes interpersonal distractions for the ADHD child. Where possible, it may be ideal to provide several tables for group projects and traditional rows for independent work. Some teachers report that arranging desks in a horseshoe shape promotes appropriate discussion while permitting independent work.
seated near the teacher, as close as possible without being punitive.
away from both the hallway and windows to minimize auditory and visual distractions
portion of the room free of obvious visual and auditory distractions
desk dividers
as a "privilege"
appropriate peer models next to ADHD child. Stand near the student when giving directions or presenting the lesson. Use the student's worksheet as an example.
Provide an outline, key concepts or vocabulary prior to lesson presentation.
variety of activities during each lesson
multisensory presentation
lessons brief o
involve the student during the lesson presentation.
instructional aid who is to write key words or ideas on the board
Encourage the students to develop mental images of the concepts or information being presented. Ask them about their images to be sure they are visualizing the key material to be learned. Allow the students to make frequent responses throughout the lesson by using choral responding, frequently calling on many individuals, having the class respond with hand signals. Employ role-playing activities to act out key concepts, historical events, etc.
computer assisted instruction
self-correcting materials
cooperative learning
specific role or piece of information that must be shared with the group.
game-like activities
Use the student's name in your lesson presentation. Write personal notes to the student about key elements of the lesson.
Let ADHD students share recently learned concepts with struggling peer
use colored chalk to emphasize key words or information.
Here is a link to a bundle I’ve created on Google Reader. I enjoy following David Pogue from the NYT. He is funny and witty and interesting, at least I think so. I’m a fan of Mitch Resnick from MIT and must give him all the credit for my passion in helping my students see themselves as creators not just users of technology. You should search out some of his writings. Actually better yet go to a conference at MIT and meet him.
Blended learning, with its mix of technology and traditional face-to-face instruction, is a great approach.
Blended learning combines classroom learning with online learning, in which students can, in part, control the time, pace, and place of their learning. I advocate a teacher-designed blended learning model, in which teachers determine the combination that's right for them and their students.
Tip 1: Think big, but start small.
Tip 2: Patience is a virtue when trying something new.
Tip 4: Weaving media together makes them stronger.
Tip 5: Students need to know where they can get online.
Student-centered classrooms are the goal of my teacher-designed blended learning model. Giving students control over the learning process requires that they know how to communicate, collaborate, and solve problems in groups, pairs, and individually. This work can be messy, loud, and disorganized, but in the end, the learning is much more meaningful.
Then I found Collaborize Classroom, a free, dynamic discussion platform. I used it to replace many of my pen-and-paper homework assignments with vibrant online debates, discussions, writing assignments, and collaborative group work.
Remember that mistakes lead to learning. The best resources I've designed and the most effective strategies I've developed were all born from and refined through mistakes.
I anticipated that students might hit some bumps as they navigated their first TED-Ed lesson, so I set up a TodaysMeet back channel so students could ask questions, make comments, and access a support network while going through the online lesson. A back-channel tool makes it possible for people to have a real-time conversation online while a live presentation or real-time discussion is taking place.
I asked students to reference specific details to support their assertions, as did one student who commented on the town's poverty by noting that the local doctor often took potatoes as payment for his work. She also showed how the characters nevertheless reflected the country's "cautious optimism" about its future: That same doctor was still able to support himself, she pointed out, and he enjoyed his work. Students posted their responses, complimenting strong points made, asking questions, and offering alternative perspectives.
I asked students to analyze examples of strong discussion posts and revise weaker posts. I also realized that I needed to embed directions into our discussion topics to remind students to respond to the questions and engage with their peers. I started requiring them to thoughtfully reply to at least two classmates' posts, in addition to posting their own response to the topic.
It's crucial for students to see that the work they do in the online space drives the work they do in the classroom so they recognize the value of the online conversations.
For example, during the To Kill a Mockingbird unit, we researched and discussed the death penalty in preparation for writing an argument essay. The students debated online such issues as cost, morality, and racial inequality and then delved into these topics more deeply face-to-face in class.
In the classroom, the teacher might give small groups various topics to research. Then he or she could ask students to go online to research and discuss their topic on a shared Google Doc and create a presentation using Glogster, Prezi, or Google Presentation Maker.
When we read Romeo and Juliet, I use this strategy to encourage students to research such topics as the monarchy, entertainment, and gender roles in Elizabethan England so they have a better understanding of the historical context in which Shakespeare wrote. Back in the classroom, each group then presents its findings through an oral presentation.
Compared with traditional in-class group work, which typically yields a disappointing finished product, online work provides the time necessary for students to complete quality work together.
Some teachers think that incorporating online work means they have to be available 24 hours a day. This is not the case. When students are connected online, they have a network of peers they can reach out to for support, and they begin to see one another as valuable resources in their class community.
I've embedded a Google map in my website that has pins dropped in all the locations on our campus and in our community where there are computers with public access to the Internet.
I even wrote the local computer recycling center to request a computer for my class.
Whether the feedback was in the observable effects or from other people, in every case the information received was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. No one told
me as a performer what to do differently or how "good" or "bad" my results were. (You might think that the reader of my writing was judging my
work, but look at the words used again: She simply played back the effect my writing had on her as a reader.) Nor did any of the three people tell me what to do (which is what many
people erroneously think feedback is—advice). Guidance would be premature; I first need to receive feedback on what I did or didn't do that would warrant such
advice.
Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can
produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
remember that feedback does not need to come only from the teacher, or even from people at all. Technology is one powerful
tool—part
of the power of computer-assisted learning is unlimited, timely feedback and opportunities to use it.
learners are often unclear about the specific goal of a task or lesson, so it is crucial to remind them about the goal and the criteria by which they should self-assess
I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once
a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher.
research shows that less teaching plus more
feedback is the key to achieving greater learning.
Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it.
Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it.
Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and
trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more
consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances.
Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to
measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.
Effective supervisors and coaches
work hard to carefully observe and comment on what they observed, based on a clear statement of goals. That's why I always ask when visiting a class, "What
would you like me to look for and perhaps count?"
. Less teaching, more feedback. Less feedback that comes only from you, and more tangible feedback designed into the performance itself.
how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.
get another opportunity to receive and learn from the feedback.
computer games
quickly adapt
ack, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will
build greater autono
ck, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will
build greater autono
Wiggins
Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?
Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement.
Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.
Dr. Mason, who teaches economics at the University of North Florida, believes his students are just as intelligent as they’ve always been. But many of them don’t read their textbooks, or do much of anything else that their parents would have called studying. “We used to complain that K-12 schools didn’t hold students to high standards,” he says with a sigh. “And here we are doing the same thing ourselves.”
all evidence suggests that student disengagement is at its worst in Dr. Mason’s domain: undergraduate business education.
“Business education has come to be defined in the minds of students as a place for developing elite social networks and getting access to corporate recruiters,”
It’s an attitude that Dr. Khurana first saw in M.B.A. programs but has migrated, he says, to the undergraduate level.
Second, in management and marketing, no strong consensus has emerged about what students ought to learn or how they ought to learn it.
Gains on the C.L.A. closely parallel the amount of time students reported spending on homework. Another explanation is the heavy prevalence of group assignments in business courses: the more time students spent studying in groups, the weaker their gains in the kinds of skills the C.L.A. measures.
The pedagogical theory is that managers need to function in groups, so a management education without such experiences would be like medical training without a residency. While some group projects are genuinely challenging, the consensus among students and professors is that they are one of the elements of business that make it easy to skate through college.
“We’ve got students who don’t read, and grow up not reading,” he says. “There are too many other things competing for their time. The frequency and quantity of drinking keeps getting higher. We have issues with depression. Getting students alert and motivated — even getting them to class, to be honest with you — it’s a challenge.”
“A lot of classes I’ve been exposed to, you just go to class and they do the PowerPoint from the book,” he says. “It just seems kind of pointless to go when (a) you’re probably not going to be paying much attention anyway and (b) it would probably be worth more of your time just to sit with your book and read it.”
“It seems like now, every take-home test you get, you can just go and Google. If the question is from a test bank, you can just type the text in, and somebody out there will have it and you can just use that.”
This is not senioritis, he says: this is the way all four years have been. In a typical day, “I just play sports, maybe go to the gym. Eat. Probably drink a little bit. Just kind of goof around all day.” He says his grade-point average is 3.3.
concrete business skills tend to expire in five years or so as technology and organizations change.
History and philosophy, on the other hand, provide the kind of contextual knowledge and reasoning skills that are indispensable for business students.
when they hand in papers, they’re marked up twice: once for content by a professor with specialized expertise, and once for writing quality by a business-communication professor.
a national survey of 259 business professors who had been teaching for at least 10 years. On average, respondents said they had reduced the math and analytic-thinking requirements in their courses. In exchange, they had increased the number of requirements related to computer skills and group presentations.
what about employers? What do they want?
According to national surveys, they want to hire 22-year-olds who can write coherently, think creatively and analyze quantitative data, and they’re perfectly happy to hire English or biology majors. Most Ivy League universities and elite liberal arts colleges, in fact, don’t even offer undergraduate business majors.
Open digital faculty do more than just share and participate in open resources; they transfer their approaches to the teaching space. Learning becomes a shared activity in which the students also collaborate and participate in shaping the course activities. Student participation takes place in open environments where students might tweet what they learn, share insights on a group blog, create their own website of resources, or participate in a class wiki.
The difference is that today's sharing facilitators leverage technology to reach a much wider audience.
Although the natural inclination toward sharing cannot be altered, the moral responsibility to share can be influenced by the surrounding culture. The sense of obligation to share or not to share may be similar to the decision to be a vegetarian. For some, it is a lifestyle choice that may form slowly over a long period of time after many conversations with friends and colleagues. For others, the change can be sudden: a paradigm shift caused by participation in an unusual event. If an institution places value on faculty participation in open academic communities and social media activities (e.g., academic blogging), that culture can slowly influence faculty to be more open.
These digital activities should not be the sole measure of tenure, but they should be counted in the tenure formula. The irony today is that if the open activity is analog (e.g., participation on a committee), it likely counts toward tenure, but if the open activity is digital (e.g., writing an academic blog), it probably does not.
They will push at (and leak out of) the boundaries of whatever learning management system (or other enterprise systems) the institution wants them to use. This is not because they are uncooperative; it's simply that these enterprise systems tend to be locked down, allowing only employees and students to share within these environments
For me, an interesting side effect of sharing on the open web is that I've learned to be more careful about what I say and write.
Looking for indicators of open digital faculty is easier than coming up with a strict definition. The presence of several of the following characteristics should be taken as an indication of open digital faculty: Writing a public blog or maintaining a public wiki to share academic interests Freely sharing what might otherwise be guarded intellectual property (e.g., textbooks, research-in-progress, computer programs, course materials, artwork) Participating in a learning community in a social networking platform (e.g., Twitter or LinkedIn discussion groups) Participating in a social network that includes students, both current and past (e.g., Facebook) Encouraging students to participate in class-related projects that employ web-based media (e.g., student blogs, group wikis) Creating or participating in open courses Sharing video or audio content created for a course (e.g., podcasts) Sharing information and ideas from conference talks on the web (e.g., recordings, tweets, presentation links)
Open digital faculty do more than just share and participate in open resources; they transfer their approaches to the teaching space. Learning becomes a shared activity in which the students also collaborate and participate in shaping the course activities. Student participation takes place in open environments where students might tweet what they learn, share insights on a group blog, create their own website of resources, or participate in a class wiki.
The technology is still very visible, if students are talking in terms of 'computers' rather than the skills involved. We don't talk about 'paper' but writing, critical reading etc. Yet here the platform itself is emphasized. Early days, I guess.
Well, the problem here is that some of that can be ascribed to novelty. Once every class uses 'interactive technology' (yuk) then how much difference will there be? The tools are great. All tools can be useful. But focus on the pedagogy, people!
I'm for focusing on understanding. I love the word "pedagogy" because most lay people don't really know what it entails--theory (which can be anything institutional or community deems effective or correct), practice (which, as we know, can be summed up with the phrase "mileage will vary"), and some third thing which if I could come up with it I'd have the magic 3 elements in an effective argument. I think effective tools used effectively by effective teachers (there! 3 uses of one adjective!) will remain effective as long as they are used to promote understanding. No argument here, Ed, just sayin'...
Perhaps the magic third thing would be 'attitude' or 'state of mind'? Alternatively, perhaps another of those non-transparent terms, 'praxis'. The point I was trying to make, of course, was that it ain't what you use, it's the way that you use it.
"I think the kids that have turned school off because it's boring to them will come here and see something familiar,"
Boring and familiar seem to me to be closely related, not opposites. I suspect that often when students say their learning environment is 'boring' they mean 'challenging'.
Computer technology in my classroom has revolutionized my teaching of biology. Instead of static images on a printed page, or talk and chalk, my students can manipulate 3-D images of DNA, RNA and proteins. These have even been embedded in a research-based learning progression that leads the students to a robust understanding of the foundational elements of molecular literacy.
1. Atoms and molecules are constantly in motion. (A visualization is not possible on a 2-3 printed page.)
2. All atoms and molecules have a 3-D structure that determines how they interact with other particles.
3. Charges and other intermolecular forces play a role in atomic and molecular interactions.
My students can see these for themselves, change the number of particles in a box, or the distribution of charge on a large particle or the temperature of the box and other thought experiments which they can follow in real-time.
There is no way, I could do that without the computer!
I utilized the stack feature so that I have two main stacks in Evernote, private notebooks and work related notebooks. In the work stack I have two notebooks, one for school related notes (to do lists, things to share in future meetings, substitute plans, etc.) and another that I have named lessons. In the lessons notebook, I have one note per week of the school year. Inside that I have a list of all of the classes I teach in age order. Underneath each class I write my lesson in. This is constantly updated, usually straight after a class so I know what to teach the follow week. So when I show up to a class, I can open up my computer or get out my iPhone, go to the lessons notebook, click the week we are in and I have my lesson plan outlined. I’ve been doing this for fifteen weeks now and I find this an excellent way to stay organized. I have a searchable list of all of the lessons that I have taught. I can copy and paste if a class is cancelled or if it carries on for longer than expected. I can adapt my lesson plan straight away to add what was actually taught in the lesson as opposed to what I planned to teach. I can plan weeks in advance without worrying about having to cross something out. It is the ultimate organization tool.
Marie, my primary use and focus with Diigo is the social networking aspect that you mentioned. There is definitely truth to the statement that "Chance favors the connected mind." I've created a g...
But these cases — typical ones, according to writing tutors and officials responsible for discipline at the three schools who described the plagiarism — suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed.
Digital technology makes copying and pasting easy, of course. But that is the least of it. The Internet may also be redefining how students — who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking — understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.
“When you’re sitting at your computer, it’s the same machine you’ve downloaded music with, possibly illegally, the same machine you streamed videos for free that showed on HBO last night.”
Ms. Brookover, who works at the campus library, has pondered the differences between researching in the stacks and online. “Because you’re not walking into a library, you’re not physically holding the article, which takes you closer to ‘this doesn’t belong to me,’ ” she said. Online, “everything can belong to you really easily.”
Ms. Blum argued that student writing exhibits some of the same qualities of pastiche that drive other creative endeavors today — TV shows that constantly reference other shows or rap music that samples from earlier songs.
Since it is through communication
that we exercise our political, economic and social power, we risk contributing
to the hegemonic perpetuation of class if we fail to demand equal access to
newer technologies and adequately prepared teachers for all students
They can benefit
their students by developing and then teaching their students to develop expertise
in evaluation of search engines and critical analysis of Web site credibility.
Well-prepared teachers, with a deep and broad understanding of language, linguistics,
literature, rhetoric, writing, speaking, and listening, can complement those
talents by studying additional semiotic systems that don’t rely solely
on alphabetic texts.
Not only will teachers need to understand
“fair use” policies, they are likely to need to integrate units
on ethics back into the curriculum to complement those units on rhetoric.
Students should be counseled not only on the risks to their
physical safety, but also on the ways that the texts they are composing today,
and believe they have eliminated, often have lives beyond their computers, and
may reappear in the future at a most inopportune time.
learn methods of critically analyzing
the ways in which others are using multiple semiotic systems to convince them
to participate, to buy, to believe, and to resist a wide range of appeals
It also implies the process of uncovering one’s
own cultural, social, political and personal (e.g. age, gender) backgrounds
and understanding how these backgrounds can and often do influence one’s
own ways of communicating and interacting with others in virtual and face-to-face
encounters.
nstances of anti-social behavior in online communication such
as using hurtful language and discriminating among certain members of virtual
communities have been reported.
allows their members
to construct and act out identities that may not necessarily be their real selves
and thus lose a sense of responsibility toward others
Professional development for teachers and teacher educators must be ongoing,
stressing purposeful integration for the curriculum and content, rather than
merely technical operation. It also needs to provide institutional and instructional
support systems to enable teachers to learn and experiment with new technologies.
Offering release time, coordinating student laptop initiative programs or
providing wireless laptop carts for classroom use, locating computer labs
in accessible places to each teacher, scheduling lab sessions acceptable for
each teacher, and providing alternative scheduling for professional development
sessions so that all teachers can attend, are a few examples of such systems.
Finally, teachers and students must be provided with technical support as
they work with technology. Such assistance must be reliable, on-demand, and
timely for each teacher and student in each classroom.
educators must address plagiarism, ownership, and authorship
in their classrooms.
strategies to
assess the quality of information and writing on the Web
help students develop netiquette
Such netiquette is thus not only about courtesy;
more importantly, it is about tolerance and acceptance of people with diverse
languages, cultures, and worldviews.
Teachers and teacher educators must examine with students the social processes
through which humans grow individually and socially, and they must expose
the potentially negative consequences of one’s individual actions. In
doing so, teachers and educators will be able to reinforce the concept of
learning as a social process, involving negotiation, dialogue, and learning
from each other, and as a thinking process, requiring self-directed learning
as well as critical analysis and synthesis of information in the process of
meaning-making and developing informed perceptions of the world.
a collection of Online Resources by
Subject Area. This list is NOT
exhaustive, but is a great start for
incorporating stimulating (online)
exercises into your teaching
My group for my grad class, "Learning with the Internet" created this wiki about using and implementing Diigo in the classroom.
