Group items tagged

Without having attended the conference I had very similar ideas the other week. It's not just purchasing the technology but teachers need training.

Participants in this session will learn the basics of iBooks Author - from Apple's pre-built templates, to creating chapters, pages, and glossaries. You will learn to turn textbooks into interactive training materials through Apple's interactive widgets like Photo Galleries, Videos, Review Interactions, Keynote Presentations, Interactive Images, 3-D material, and even custom HTML5 interactions and animations.

Richard Culatta identifies 3 major challenges with our current approach to education and suggests how a shift to personalized learning is the key to the future of education in America. To make this shift, we must close the digital divide between those who can leverage technology to reimagine learning and those who simply use technology to digitize the status quo. A teacher by training and innovator by inclination, Richard Culatta works to leverage technology to reinvent learning.

"10 Things School Leaders Do to Kill a Teacher's Enthusiasm for Technology" from Tech & Learning

I like the idea of reinforcing the valued behaviors using the technology tools in our hands. Promoting key self-descriptors such as resilient, innovative, self-determined, integrated, and the like, on the pages of our training materials both paper and electronic, would create added value.

"The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question 'What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?' and identify the particular influence of openness. We do this by working in collaboration with projects across four education sectors (K12, college, higher education and informal) extending a network of research with shared methods and shared results. By the end of this research we will have evidence for what works and when, but also established methods and instruments for broader engagement in researching the impact of openness on learning. OER are not just another educational innovation. They influence policy and change practices. In previous research (OpenLearn, Bridge to Success and OLnet) we have seen changes in institutions, teacher practice and in the effectiveness of learning. We integrate research alongside action to discover and support changes in broader initiatives. Our framework provides the means to gather data and the tools to tackle barriers. The project combines: A targeted collaboration program with existing OER projects An internationalfellowship program Networking to make connections A hub for research data and OER excellence in practice The collaborations cover different sectors and issues, these include: the opening up of classroom based teaching to open content; the large-scale decision points implied by open textbooks for community colleges; the extension of technology beyond textbook through eBook and simulation; the challenge of teacher training in India; and the ways that OER can support less formal approaches to learning. By basing good practice on practical experience and research we can help tackle practical problems whilst building the evidence bank needed by all."

The whole of South Korea waited with baited breath last week as 668,500 students took the day-long standardized college scholastic ability test at 1191 centers nationwide.  Flights were rescheduled, military training was suspended and emergency services were on standby, ready to rush delayed and injured students to their exam centre.

"Guns are on the minds of Americans. We're not sure if we should ban them, control them or give them away for free. Politicians are debating what we should do with them. Teachers are worrying how to keep them out of schools or how to train kids to respond. And architects wonder if they can design gunman-proof buildings. "

Does Edmodo's Digital Citizen Starter Kit handle the challenge of educating kids to be good digital citizens? The answer is "Yes!" according to Bianca Hewes, a high school English teacher in Sydney, Australia who's also been doing awesome things with Edmodo since 2009 (including connecting 30 of her students with registered Edmodo teachers in the US, South America and England to mentor their individual writing projects). "Edmodo is a social network with training wheels," says Bianca. "By introducing it at a young age, teachers are able to develop the habits of the mind that are essential for students to be good digital citizens. Students learn to use appropriate language, to speak kindly and with compassion, to be supportive rather than critical, and to ask thoughtful questions."

Free, two-part training toolkit designed to reduce incidents of bullying and for use by classroom educators provided by U.S. Department of Education (ED)

The ICAC Task Force program, in conjunction with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the NetSmartz program, has developed a down-loadable training presentation on Internet safety for children and families.

stick figures make the point very well about what kinds of efforts to teach/train/instruct are likely to self-destruct.

"Before the advent of Twitter, most educators I know had limited opportunities to collaborate with colleagues outside their building. Some subscribed to listservs or participated in online forums, but these outlets lacked critical mass; teachers also networked at in-person conferences and training sessions, but these isolated events didn't provide ongoing support. Enter Twitter. I've heard many educators say that Twitter is the most effective way to collaborate and that they've learned more with Twitter than they have from years of formal professional development."