It is FUN! Fun!….. I hear your sceptical exclamation!! However, it is
wonderful when students think they are having so much fun, they forget that they
are actually learning. A favourite comment on one of my blog posts is: It’s
great when kids get so caught up in things they forget they’re even learning…
by jodhiay
authentic audience – no longer working for a teacher who checks
and evalutes work but a potential global audience.
Suits all learning styles – special ed (this student
attends special school 3days per weeek, our school 2 days per week, gifted ed, visual students,
multi-literacies plus ‘normal‘
students.
Increased motivation for writing – all students are happy to
write and complete aspects of the post topic. Many will add to it in their
own time.
Increased motivation for reading – my students will happily spend a lot of
time browsing through fellow student posts and their global counterparts. Many
have linked their friends onto their blogroll for quick access. Many make
comments, albeit often in their own sms language.
Improved confidence levels – a lot of this comes through comments and
global dots on their cluster maps. Students can share their strengths
and upload areas of interest or units of work eg personal digital
photography, their pets, hobbies etc Staff are given an often rare insight into
what some students are good at. We find talents that were otherwise unknown and
it allows us to work on those strengths. It allows staff to often gain insight
to how students are feeling and thinking.
Pride in their work – My experience is that students want their blogs to
look good in both terms of presentation and content. (Sample of a year 10 boy’s work)
Blogs allow text, multimedia, widgets, audio and images – all items that
digital natives want to use
Increased proofreading and validation skills
Improved awareness of possible dangers that may confront them in the real
world, whilst in a sheltered classroom environment
Ability to share – part of the conceptual revolution that we are entering.
They can share with each other, staff, their parents, the community, and the
globe.
Mutual learning between students and staff and students.
Parents with internet access can view their child’s work and writings – an
important element in the parent partnership with the classroom. Grandparents
from England have made comments on student posts. Parents have ‘adopted’
students who do not have internet access and ensured they have
comments.
Blogs may be used for digital portfolios and all the benefits this
entails
Work is permanently stored, easily accessed and valuable comparisons can be
made over time for assessment and evaluation purposes
Students are digital natives - blogging is a natural element of
this.
Gives students a chance to
show responsibility and trustworthiness and engenders
independence.
Prepares students for digital citizenship as they learn cybersafety and
netiquette
Fosters peer to peer mentoring. Students are happy to share, learn from and
teach their peers (and this, often not their usual social groups)
Allows student led professional development and one more……
Students set the topics for posts – leads to deeper thinking
Good reasons to allow student blogging Point being if it's fun they will love doing it, while enriching their knowledge at the same time.\nA great slant on multitasking.
"If you are the New Kid in school, this blog is for you. (It's part of my upcoming Girls' Friendship Q&A Book. ) If you're not the New Kid, read on anyway. Then, hopefully you'll be on the look-out for anyone at school (new or old) who needs a friend.
"
many brilliant, talented young people are dropping out of high school because they see high school as implicilty "college prep" and they cannot imagine anything more dreary than spending four more years bored in a classroom when they could be out actually experiencing and perfecting their skills in the trades, the skills, and the careers that inspire them.
The abolishing of art, music, physical education, tech training, and shop from grade schools and high schools means that the requirement for excellence has shrunk more and more right at the time when creativity, imagination, dexterity, adaptability to change, technical know-how, and all the rest require more not less diversity.
we make education hell for so many kids, we undermine their skills and their knowledge, we underscore their resentment, we emphasize class division and hierarchy, and we shortchange their future and ours,
There are so many viable and important and skilled professions that cannot be outsourced to either an exploitative Third World sweat shop or to a computer, that require face-to-face presence, and a bucketload of skills--but that do not require a college education: the full range of IT workers, web designers, body workers (ie deep tissue massage), yoga and pilates instructors, fitness educators, DJ's, hair dressers, retail workers, food industry professionals, entertainers, entertainment industry professionals, construction workers, dancers, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, landscapers, nanny's, elder-care professionals, nurses's aids, dog trainers, cosmetologists, athletes, sales people, fashion designers, novelists, poets, furniture makers, book keepers, sound engineers, inn keepers, wedding planners, stylists, photographers, auto mechanics, and on and on.
In general, I agree. However, novelists and poets don't need college?? And perhaps less so to artists and musicians? Perhaps... but what better way to learn the history and analysis of their Art, in order to place their own work in context?
I could not agree more with you Maureen. As a long time middle school teacher in Oakland and Mpls I am thoroughly convinced that our nation and our states are nuts to have cut all of the tech and arts classes out of elementary, middle and high schools. EVERY student should learn a trade/skill set in high school. The hs drop out rate is horrifying and no surprise that the crime rate follows. We have a nation of under achieving teens because the adults have not kept up with funding the myriad of opportunities that would capture and harness their interests and creativity. I look forward to reading your book Maureen and to following you on here.
technology needs to be — above everything else — in the service of learning. Administrators who fail to articulate the connection between iPads and learning often hamper their iPad initiative.
Simply handing a teacher an iPad in advance won’t serve to address these challenges when the school year starts
Teachers need instruction on how to incorporate the devices into the learning process, which is quite different than trying out a few apps
School administrators should be explaining to their constituents that the iPad
supports essential skill areas — complex communication, new media literacy,
creativity, and self-directed learning. Instead of focusing on the convenience
of ebooks, they should instead be emphasizing the incredibly immersive and
active learning environment the iPad engenders and the unprecedented
opportunities to develop personalized, student-centered learning. They should
highlight some of the beneficial consumption, curation, and creativity
activities the iPad facilitates — as well as the student empowerment it
inspires.
"While we've witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we're struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We're sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn't have to make them.
"
"While we've witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we're struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We're sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn't have to make them.
"
Themes, creator of tools to help users create awesome websites, has an amazing opportunity for Educators. The good people at ithemes offers an iThemes Education Program designed to assist Educators, Schools and Students to quality web design tools and training.
The simple answer is this: Finland’s cultural values and priorities are manifested in its system of education: “to guarantee all people…equal opportunities and rights to culture, free quality education, and prerequisites for full citizenship.”
Finland aims to uplift everyone in society; in Finland’s case, this vision can be achieved by providing equitable access to education and other social benefits.
Finnish students do not begin their formalized education until the age of 7, standardized testing is unheard of in the formative years, and autonomy and play are encouraged throughout the curriculum.
At the foundation of Finnish educational success are two core values: trust and equity.
Finland’s educational system had become more decentralized and decision-making occurred at the local level.
local autonomy
Constraints on control and standardization facilitated greater flexibility, freedom, and the teaching profession became more supported, trusted, and respected.
Love of Learning
growth
relationships
personalized learning
n such a climate, adult stakeholders ostensibly trust one another, causing classroom environments to be less controlling and more collaborative in nature.
With trust and equity as twin pillars of the educational system, it is unsurprising that Finland is able to focus on learning processes for civic engagement and development rather than on expending unnecessary energy for checklists, data, and oversight.
Too many of our communities, schools, and students remain constrained and marginalized by poverty, lack of access, and limited opportunities. Too many of us are focused on extrinsic motivators that inevitably lead to competition, compliance, expediency, sanctions, disengagement, and a diminished love of learning.
“we’re measuring a lot of things in education today,” and wondered, “how are we measuring care?”
perhaps we should be focusing less on Finnish education and more on the cultural values and conditions that make it possible.
no better place for my children to watch that speech (or any other, for that matter) than in a place where ideas are encouraged, where critical thinking about those ideas is a natural part of the conversation, and where appropriate response and debate can flourish. Where the adults in the room lead my kids to dig deeper, to validate facts, and consider the many levels of context in which every speech and every debate takes place. Where the discussion around it is such that it lays to rest the concern that many seem to have about this particular speech in general, that in some way the President will be able to “indoctrinate” our kids into some socialist mindset. If schools are the fully functioning learning communities that we hope they are, they should be the place where our kids learn to make sense of ideas, not to fear them. That, however, is not the message we are sending.
Isn't it ironic that the very things that we fought for and received via the US Constitution, Civil Rights, etc. are the very things that students are today losing? As an American History teacher I talk about the past, present, and future and show my students how things have/have not changed throughout time. I begin the year by reading the "True Story of the 3 Little Pigs," and talk about J.S. Mill and his challenge to others to question. Is society truly against the educating of its students to have an open-mind, ask questions, and look at many perspectives?
In the midst of all of the “uproar” over the President’s planned speech to school kids on Tuesday, I keep thinking about what all of this says about schools, about what they are for, and about the perception that a lot of people in this country have of them.
My English Language Learners were very positive about the speech and couldn't understand all the uproar. Aren't we teaching in government funded schools? Well my young adults liked the message of responsibilty. I have also taught the true story of the 3 little pigs but my ELLs weren/t really familiar with the original version. It helped with point of view from the orignal version.
Will Richardson is Mr. Utopian Education to a lot of people. Even if you don't agree with everything he says, most folks agree that he offers thought-provoking topics.
What kind of assessment? I mean, if it is a standardized test, does that really help students prepare for life, whether college-bound or not?
So, how can high schools better serve students and bridge this divide? Respondents' top suggestions for change:
1. Provide opportunities for real-world learning (90 percent);
A recent survey of public high school graduates finds about half feel they are unprepared for life after high school and most would have worked harder if they had realized the expectations of college and the workplace.
I'm not so sure that I believe that less than 1,500 graduates nationwide over the span of just three graduating classes is exactly representative of all high school grads in America, but at least it was conducted by a nonprofit and not one of our education deformer companies or a textbook publisher. Also, isn't a certain amount of laissez-faire attitude a normal teenage brain condition? "I wish I'd paid more attention in high school" was a major theme of conversation at *my* 20 year high school reunion last year (did I just date myself) BUT I did feel better prepared in study skills and habits, perhaps because in 1993 we weren't so test-centered. Just sayin' Thanks for sharing!
Mike, I am new to diigo, and am looking to incorporate social bookmarking in my High School level classes. I came upon your post and thought I'd share my blog post Podcasting with Gcast (http://n...
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:
The iPad is being trialled in a large number of schools and educational settings across Australia. This theme page provides links to school trials, app review sites, blogs by teachers using iPads and a range of other useful resources for iPads in and out of the classroom.
ur average scores are respectable but unspectacular because, as Farhi notes, we have such a high percentage of children living in poverty, the highest of all industrialized countries. Only four percent of children in high-scoring Finland, for example, live in poverty. Our rate of poverty is over 21%.
It means that the "problem" of American education is not ineffective teaching, not teachers' unions, not lack of national standards and tests, and not schools of education: It is poverty.
"It means that the "problem" of American education is not ineffective teaching, not teachers' unions, not lack of national standards and tests, and not schools of education: It is poverty."
Sarah's comment is heartbreaking
Learn about the Title I School Improvement Grant Program and how the communities of Mobile, Alabama; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Chattanooga, Tennessee were successful in implementing turnaround, restart and transformation models to revitalize and transform their lowest performing schools.
"A report released yesterday gave most states Cs and Ds when it comes to educational innovation and technology, according to this story by my colleague Michele McNeil.
States are not reinventing education in ways that are necessary to tackle challenges of raising achievement and preparing students for the rigors of the workplace, the report concludes.
"The key to improving results will be to help schools not only to avoid mistakes, but to position themselves better to adopt imaginative solutions," states the overview of the report, "Leaders and Laggards". "In brief, for reform to take hold our states and schools must practice purposeful innovation.""
So why do I use Diigo?
I like its ability to enhance my bookmarking with highlights and sticky notes, that are retained with the page when I go back to it.
I like that you can highlight and publish easily from Diigo to you blog or an email, and a reference appears automatically along with the posting.
I like the ability to create lists on specific topics that can be shared.
I like the ability to create groups to pool resources for specific subjects. I recently joined a few Diigo groups and have had some very useful sites brought to my attention.
I like that you can access and search the bookmarks anywhere by full-text and tags.
I like to search for the most popular bookmarks on a particular subject.
I like the different ways to share and aggregate information that Diigo offers. I have set it up so that a list of my new bookmarks appears on this blog on a weekly basis but this is just one option. You can now choose to automatically
The tool bar is easy to download and makes it easy to use and aspect of Diigo whenever you are on line.
Of course you can keep things private if you choose to but that is really defeating the purpose of Diigo in the first place.
Diigo also began offering, on Sept 19th, a Diigo Education Account Facility. I haven’t investigated this yet but a post about it was put onto the SLAV Bright Ideas blog. It is worth looking at. From Diigo
‘The Diigo Educator Accounts offer a suite of features that makes it incredibly easy for teachers to get their entire class of students or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo’s powerful web annotation and social bookmarking technology.’
For an educator account, you do have to apply and fill out how/why you want to use Diigo in your school.
The issue is around the speech that United States President Obama plans to make on education on September 8. Advance word is that the speech will contain an encouraging message to the youth of the United States to study hard and stay in school. A read here will indication how a speech became propaganda. The big issue here is that some school districts will allow students to watch the speech in school and some will ban it. As we get closer to September 8, expect the conversation to pick up and get even more brutal than it is now.
"Facebook is controversial within the educational circles-should it or should it not be included as a valid learning tool. Teachers coming under fire for Facebook postings. Should teachers friend students, former students, etc. At the very least, you should have as much information as possible before you make your final decision. Of course, your school/district policies may make the decision for you-but if not, here is all the information you will need to make an informed decision on using Facebook as an educational tool."
Science Fix I is a teacher blog created by a middle school science teacher to share their favorite demos done in class. Some cool useful videos here (examples include activation energy, water electrolysis, flaming gummy worm, Newton's 3rd law, etc)
The worst thing that anyone can do is to get stuck in a rut. This is especially true ifyou are a teacher! This blog is the beginning of a challenge that I have made for myself (and for any other teachers): try something new!
Change is necessary. Clean out your binders and see your classroom with a new set of eyes. Who knows what we’ve been missing.
There was no way to anticipate the extent to which blogging and tweeting would change my understanding of education, but these simple steps allowed me to enhance my practice and provide a richer learning environment for my students. Reaching beyond our classroom walls has meant so much for our school, and we’ve been rewarded with learning experiences worth remembering.
Good reasons to allow student blogging Point being if it's fun they will love doing it, while enriching their knowledge at the same time.\nA great slant on multitasking.
