Group items tagged

"Imagine an unconference. No keynote speaker. No proposal deadlines 6 months before a conference takes place. In fact, take it a step further and think of a conference where there is no need to pay a fee. This type of unconference is called an Edcamp and it's a trending idea in education around the world."

"Chicago is getting ready for a standardized test called the ISAT. Here's a 1 minute video of an Inservice session to help teachers prep for "The Vocabulary Matrix"."

"An innovation curriculum requires an emphasis on what I am going to call, for lack of a preexisting term, the Five I's: Imagination, Inquiry, Invention, Implementation, and Initiative (the latter being a foundational trait that enables the other four). Here is my take on how to teach each of the Five I's of innovation in our schools."

Love the notion of the 5 I's - many already comfortable with the 4 (or 5) C's - but have a look at Jamie McKenzie's post from 2010 - "A Dozen I Words Trump the 4 R's" - funnily enough, I just came across it yesterday whlst doing some prep! http://fno.org/Jan2010/bookmark.html

"The concept is simple: classrooms Skype call each other and try to guess where the other classroom is located either in the United States or in the world."

"the flipped classroom is a form of blended learning in which students learn online at least part of the time while attending a brick-and-mortar school. Either at home or during a homework period at school, students view lessons and lectures online. Time in the classroom, previously reserved for teacher instruction, is spent on what we used to call homework, with teacher assistance as needed. How can this improve student learning? "

"Did you know that when reading, one's mind will wander 20 to 40 percent of the time while perusing a text, regardless of whether it is a book, blog, email, narrative, essay, or anything else? This is one of many fascinating findings reported in Dan Goleman's new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence and it calls us to remember that students can't learn what they are not paying attention to. "

First of all, nobody's ruining the English language. And for anyone to call it "our" language is repugnantly colonial. Language spreads and language changes. English is spoken across the globe by m...

We need the participation of 10-12 Creative Writing/Digital Writing Professors and their classes in Fall 2014 to create a generative, digital, gamified, online novel. Application Deadline: June 15

If This Then That is a helpful website for automating many routine online tasks. If This Then That helps you automate tasks like saving your Pinterest pins to your Evernote account, setting text alerts for calendar events, and sending email attachments directly to your Dropbox account. There are thousands of formulas, "recipes" is what IFTTT calls them, available in the gallery of recipes. The recipes are all contributed by the community of IFTTT members and you can contribute too. You can browse channels of recipes that are based on the use of popular services like Gmail, Dropbox, Evernote, Instagram, and Google Drive. Click here to see the hundreds of recipes that incorporate Google Drive functions.

"The biggest threat to education today is the corporate education reform movement-what many of us call "Ed Deform." It is also the biggest threat to teachers' working conditions."

What is a Skype lesson, you ask? It's simply a pre-planned 'call' where you can watch and learn from others via Skype. Like a Google+ Hangout or other live video-based lesson. Below are just a very small number of Skype lessons you should consider checking out over at the official Skype in the Classroom website

Author describes study that showed that middle, hs, and university students were highly distractible by technology and were anxious if they could not check their devices. He described a strategy called "tech breaks" where students are allowed to check devices and social media for a minute and then to focus on school work for 15 minutes as a way of improving their metacognitive skills. 

I wonder if using technology in the classroom - integrally - would mitigate some of the anxiety and/or increase attention. I wonder if there are other teaching/learning strategies we might employ that would increase engagement such that students would be distracted from their distraction...

Assessment | News Varsity Tutors Debuts Free Test Question Site By Dian Schaffhauser 11/07/13 Varsity Tutors, a providor of private tutoring to students online, has launched a new, free service with the intention of becoming the "Khan Academy" of practice tests. The company has introduced a Web-based assessment system intended to replace other forms of educational content such as SAT or ACT preparation books or online subscriptions to assessment materials. Varsity Learning Tools, as it's called, makes hundreds of free practice tests available in 95 subjects. Currently in open beta testing, the site lists assessment tests by subject and allows the user to choose to answer a single test, flashcards, or a question of the day. Each question can be shared through social network services. When the student answers it, a second page displays with an assessment and explanation and data on how much time was spent on the question, and how many others answered it correctly." (Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/11/07/varsity-tutors-launches-free-test-question-site.aspx?=THEEL#8hQzr0oig6X2IZmS.99)

This is a fantastic online gradebook that is proficiency and standards based.  You can select your standards from your State's Dept of Education and attach tasks or assignments to the standards you have selected.  The developer of this program calls it a work in progress, but it has come a long way.  Please feel free to send comments and suggestions to him.

So-called math-anxious parents who provided frequent help on homework actually hurt their children by passing on their anxiety, a study found.

We all want our students to do the reading, and we all want them to come to class ready to discuss what they've read. Making that happen, however, is often a difficult proposition. Fernald and Swope provide techniques that take two tasks that most instructors dislike-administering pop quizzes and "cold calling on students"-and place them in the hands of the gods of probability.

Finally, for Mac now too!... After many weeks of waiting eagerly Adobe Captivate and eLearning Suite users may now download the free trials of Adobe Captivate 5. The release contains many significant enhancements that have Captivate and eLearning Suite users literally chomping at the bit to get their hands on it. You can also download the eLearning Suite here. Mac users are ecstatic as Captivate 5 and eLearning Suite 2 are now both available for the Mac OS, making the products the first major eLearning industry authoring packages to enter full force into support for the Apple Mac OS. Many Mac users have written, called and addressed me in person to wholeheartedly offer both encouragement and enthusiasm as we see Captivate and eLearning Suite move firmly into cross platform eLearning authoring tools. http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2010/07/free_downloads_of_adobe_captiv.html

Note that annotation is a key educational need not currently met by Kindle. If only there was a version of Diigo embedded...

It will be interesting to see if the upcoming Apple Tablet will take the shortcomings of the Kindle and improve on them, or be flawed itself.