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Peter Beens

Office 365 for education - a game changer for teaching and learning - Education Insight... - 92 views

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    The cloud and online learning are key trends and opportunities to transform education today. And with today's launch and availability of Office 365 for education, schools now have a holistic collaboration platform that will change the game. As schools face ever-tightening budgets and the pressure to innovate, Microsoft is offering enterprise quality technology for free that will modernize teaching practices and help prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.
Roland Gesthuizen

13 Sacred Cows in Schools (and what to do about them) « Looking Up - 173 views

  • The aim is to start people thinking about those things we accept as part of schools, but no longer make sense
  • schools need to change, and quickly. The shift from standardization and conformity has already begun, and schools are too slow to respond
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    "Educators must look critically at the "sacred cows" in schools, the vestiges of industrial age thinking, and decide if they have any place in an education system that tries to foster independent thinking and individuality."
Nigel Coutts

Schools are made of People - The Learner's Way - 8 views

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    Schools are made of people. Schools are all about people. Schools are made from the connections between people. Schools exist to serve people and make the lives of all people better.
Roland Gesthuizen

Many-to-One vs. One-to-Many: An Opinionated Guide to Educational Technology - The Ameri... - 9 views

  • MOOCs do not benefit most of those who try them. Students differ in their cognitive abilities and learning styles. Even within a relatively homogenous school, you will see students put into separate tracks. If we do not teach the same course to students in a single high school, why would we expect one teaching style to fit all in an unsorted population of tens of thousands?
  • I believe that the future of teaching is not one-to-many. Instead, it is many-to-one. By many-to-one, I mean that one student receives personalized instruction that comes from many educators. To make that work, technology must act as an intermediary, taking the information from the educators and customizing it to fit the student's knowledge, ability, and even his or her emotional state.
  • I am optimistic about tablets in large part because I believe that a magic bullet in educational technology is the adaptive textbook. By that, I mean an electronic textbook that adjusts to the cognitive ability and learning style of the student. Adaptive textbooks will query students in order to make sure that they understand what they have been studying. They will also respond to student queries. Adaptive textbooks will implement the many-to-one teaching model.
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  • There are many horses in the educational technology race. The ones to bet on are adaptive textbooks and independent certification.
  • I do not believe that educators fully understand the process of social learning in the classroom. We do not know exactly what factors make the difference between a classroom where students are of significant help to one another and one where students provide little assistance or even hold one another back
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    "This essay will explain why I label various technologies as winners, losers, and magic bullets in the table below. My opinions are not based on exhaustive research. They are based on my experience both as a high school teacher and as an entrepreneur." My evaluations are based on whether I view these technologies as supporting a model of education that is one-to-many or a model that is many-to-one. The latter is the model I prefer, as will become clear in the rest of this essay.
Martin Burrett

UKEdChat Global 2020 Online Conference - Call for Speakers - 2 views

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    "As part of our efforts to support the amazing community of schools, teachers and educators globally, we are delighted to announce that our plans for a 2020 UKEdChat Conference have been moved forward to June 2020. The 2020 event will be our second online conference, and many educators got involved in the first event, sharing resources, pedagogy and great ideas that can be used in the classroom. We have now opened our 'Call to Speakers', and we invite school leaders, teachers, educational authors, educational consultants and educational companies to create (upto) 20-minute videos that will inspire delegates during the 3-day event."
Roland Gesthuizen

Education Outrage: Back to School: A message to high school students who hate high scho... - 21 views

  • I say in this interview that the only way we can learn is by doing and to do that we must practice constantly. Schools rarely teach doing, mostly teaching abstract theories that will never matter to 99% of the population.
  • So, my advice. Know what matters to you. Learn that. Temporarily memorize nonsense if you want to graduate but have a proper perspective on it. Nothing you learn in high school will matter in your future life.
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    "I believe that every single subject taught in high school is a mistake. What I write here will infuriate teachers, but teachers are not my enemy. It isn't their fault. They are cogs in a system over which they have no control. I believe there are many great teachers, and I believe that teaching and teachers are very important."
Lucas Cittadino

World Class - What is World Class? - 42 views

  • BBC World Class helps UK schools to twin with schools around the globe as part of its educational legacy for the 2012 Olympics. Our mission is to support teachers in developing school-to-school partnerships, encouraging pupils to share creative work inspired by the Olympics. World Class encourages and helps children and schools get their stories on-air and online across the BBC. We provide the inspiration and resources to help teachers bring their projects to life through reports, blogs and features. Schools can also use our wealth of assembly resources - film clips, scripts and discussion ideas - on topics inspired both by the Olympics and international stories. The Schools World Service provides stories every month for schools to share. We work in partnership with the British Council and other organisations outside the BBC which facilitate school twinning. BBC World Class offers support and advice to help schools twin successfully.
Sarah Schaller Welsh

Freakonomics » What Should Be Done About Standardized Tests? A Freakonomics Q... - 42 views

  • Gaston Caperton
  • Standardized tests have much in common with French fries. Both of them differ in composition as well as quality. French fries are available in numerous incarnations, including straight, curly, skins-on, skins-off, and, in recent years, with sweet potatoes. Regarding quality, of course, the taste of French fries can range substantially – from sublime to soggy. It’s really the same with standardized tests.
  • Take the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, a federal accountability law requiring scads of standardized tests to be used in evaluating schools. Do you know that almost all of the standardized tests now being employed to judge school quality are unable to distinguish between well taught and badly taught students?
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  • all schools – kindergarten through college – should employ exit exams allowing us to determine what students have actually learned. We owe it to our students to make sure that they’ve been properly taught.
  • Then there are the questions of what to do with the results. I have actually sat through an extended discussion of how we could use regression analysis to parse out the contribution different teachers made to a group of students’ performance on a set of standardized tests. The answer was, yes it was possible, and could in fact be used to award merit pay increases. But nobody left the room feeling very comfortable that there would be any gain in what we knew made for good teaching.
  • Roughly half of the nation’s students are taking tests under NCLB that are completely free of open-ended questions.
  • educators have a strong incentive to “teach to the test.” In this case, that means teaching low level skills at the expense of the more demanding material that everyone says students need to master in today’s complicated world.
  • But is it fair to give students what amounts to a counterfeit passport to college or work? And do such tests spur high school teachers and principals to aim high with their students? To both questions, the answer is, “No.” In most states today, high school exit tests serve the same role as the standardized tests mandated by NCLB: they try to jack up the floor of student achievement in the nation’s schools. The best high school exit tests would be end-of-course exams akin to the “comprehensive” exams that many colleges and universities require students to pass in their majors before graduation – tests, that is, that would raise the ceiling of student achievement.
  • High-stakes testing has narrowed and dumbed down curricula; eliminated time spent on untested subjects like social studies, art, and even recess; turned classrooms into little more than test preparation centers; reduced high school graduation rates; and driven good teachers from the profession. Those are all reasons why FairTest and other experts advocate a sharp reduction in public school standardized testing and a halt to exit exams.
  • igh school grade
  • point average is a better predictor of college success than either the SAT or the ACT.
Martin Burrett

Seven Ways To Reduce Teacher Workload by @guruteaching - 9 views

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    ""Reduce teacher workload!" can be heard up and down the country, in staffrooms and online. The truth is it's one of the simplest things that schools can do to help retain staff and maintain their wellbeing. That being said, however, some schools aren't doing all they can to remove unnecessary burdens. Those who have done so, enjoy rave reviews on Twitter and elsewhere, which of course doesn't do them any harm when it comes to recruiting and retaining excellent staff. The best staff know their worth and will inevitably leave the school earlier than they would've done if they feel that another school would trust them and let them just get on with the real job of teaching. Even the Department for Education has begun to take note of the issue, identifying some key areas where schools can reduce teacher workload."
Martin Burrett

The intervention programme that claims to lessen the achievement gap - 4 views

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    "A multi-national European study, looking at over 5,500 students, has found that a novel school intervention programme can not only improve the mathematics scores of primary school children from disadvantaged areas, but can also lessen the achievement gap caused by socioeconomic status. Known as the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI), the programme is based on the latest findings in educational research. Rather than a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach, DASI works by first assessing a school to identify the specific teaching areas that could be improved and then implementing targeted measures to improve them. This process involves all members of the school community, including teachers, pupils and parents, with support from a specialized Advisory and Research Team."
Don Doehla

SmartBlog on Education - Small changes are not small change - SmartBrief, Inc. SmartBlo... - 25 views

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    Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.
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    Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.
Chris Betcher

New South Wales Teacher Education Council :: Home - 14 views

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    The New South Wales Teacher Education Council is the association of the deans of education and heads of schools of education in universities and other higher education institutions in New South Wales. It was established to promote the continued development of teacher education and meets regularly to further its goals and discuss issues of common interest.
Josh Flores

TODAYMoms - Should parents be blamed when kids fail at school? - 106 views

    • Josh Flores
       
      Who the heck would click "NO"???
    • Josh Flores
       
      Parents should be held accountable, teachers should be held accountable AND students should be held accountable.
    • Josh Flores
       
      from Lynn Jones (to me?) "How many children do you have? I am an educator and I have 6 children who are all different. My second child, a son, was never told to study, never had a spelling word called out to him, and strieved to make all A's and B's since the 2nd grade. His older brother with an IQ of 128 in the 5th grade didn't care about grades and passing. His younger brother almost graduated high school before him even though they were 3 years apart in age. The oldest son has ADHD. His grandmother was a math teacher and I am a math teacher, but yet that was the subject he failed almost each year and had to go to summer school. He had the same parents and the same environment as his younger brother, but he was lacking the drive that is born in you. I won't go into the differences of the other 4 just to say that the good Lord gifted me with 3 ADHD children when not much was known about it (the oldest is 44). Every child is different and parents must learn not to judge one by the others, just like teachers must not assume that about siblings they teach. A parent can be their to help and try to point them in the right direction with the right work ethics in school, but the bottom line is how much the child cares and wants to achieve. The envolved parent can help the child that sits on the fence and can go on either side, but the ultimate choice is going to be the child's. It is the same with church. You can take the child to church every Sunday, but when they get older it is their decision how to direct their life. I am not saying that a parent shouldn't try every day to give the guidance their children need and deserve, but you can't beat yourself up when things don't go the way you think they should. All a parent can do is standby their child and give them all the love they can and to know that sometimes that is not enough for the child."
    • Josh Flores
       
      My Reply to Lynn Jones: 1. Parents should be held accountable along with teachers and the students themselves. 2. Six kids????? You are a saint! I plan on having two at the most and pray to the gods they're not girls! 3. Is there a specific reason you sent me your family history?
    • Josh Flores
       
      From Lynn: "I sent you the history to show that no two children are alike and not to judge one child by the behavior of another. In education we teach all types and there is no one way to approach all children. Sometimes it is not the parent that can make a difference, but someone else and not always a teacher."
    • Josh Flores
       
      I don't think the article is about differentiation but sure, I'm confident it's in the back of any high quality educator's mind. Regardless, we can always do more than standby our kids. 
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    How many children do you have? I am an educator and I have 6 children who are all different. My second child, a son, was never told to study, never had a spelling word called out to him, and strieved to make all A's and B's since the 2nd grade. His older brother with an IQ of 128 in the 5th grade didn't care about grades and passing. His younger brother almost graduated high school before him even though they were 3 years apart in age. The oldest son has ADHD. His grandmother was a math teacher and I am a math teacher, but yet that was the subject he failed almost each year and had to go to summer school. He had the same parents and the same environment as his younger brother, but he was lacking the drive that is born in you. I won't go into the differences of the other 4 just to say that the good Lord gifted me with 3 ADHD children when not much was known about it (the oldest is 44). Every child is different and parents must learn not to judge one by the others, just like teachers must not assume that about siblings they teach. A parent can be their to help and try to point them in the right direction with the right work ethics in school, but the bottom line is how much the child cares and wants to achieve. The envolved parent can help the child that sits on the fence and can go on either side, but the ultimate choice is going to be the child's. It is the same with church. You can take the child to church every Sunday, but when they get older it is their decision how to direct their life. I am not saying that a parent shouldn't try every day to give the guidance their children need and deserve, but you can't beat yourself up when things don't go the way you think they should. All a parent can do is standby their child and give them all the love they can and to know that sometimes that is not enough for the child.
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    I sent you the history to show that no two children are alike and not to judge one child by the behavior of another. In education we teach all types and there is no one way to approach all children. Sometimes it is not the parent that can make a difference, but someone else and not always a teacher.
Roland Gesthuizen

Schools are key to safeguarding runaway children | Education | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • Schools, police, and care agencies are all required to collect data on runaways, but the information is often not pulled together effectively or properly exchanged between the services.
  • Schools are on the frontline of safeguarding these vulnerable children. Teachers are in a prime position to identify children who are upset, under stress or frequently missing school. These are the children who are most likely to run away from home.
  • For Stansfield, the "key issue" is that schools know who to call, and that they call them as soon it becomes clear that someone has run away, even if it has been for just a few hours, as this behaviour can "quickly spiral"
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    The Children's Society is calling for better training for teachers so they can help to identify children at risk of running away and take preventive action
Marc Patton

Teachers Homepage - National Geographic Education - 1 views

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    Since its founding in 1888 "for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge," the National Geographic Society has worked to educate audiences about our planet. National Geographic Education is responsible for creating and disseminating educational programs for schools, out-of-school settings, and the home.
maureen greenbaum

Edu-Traitor! Confessions of a Prof Who Believes Higher Ed Isn't the Only Goal | HASTAC - 52 views

  • 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. 
    • Peg Mahon
       
      AMEN!
  • 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,
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  • 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.  
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    Cathy Davidson
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    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?
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    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.
Roland Gesthuizen

What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media | The Young and the Digital - 65 views

  • our schools are disconnected from young learners and how their learning practices are evolving.  The decision to block social media is inconsistent with how students use social media as a powerful node in their learning network
  • In the not so distant future the notion that schools should block social media will become difficult to defend.  Before that happens schools will have to reimagine their mission in the lives of young learners, the communities that they serve, and the extraordinary possibilities of networked media and networked literacy.
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    "The debates about schools and social media are a subject of great public and policy interests.  In reality, the debate has been shaped by one key fact: the almost universal decision by school administrators to block social media."
anonymous

5 Critical Mistakes Schools Make With iPads (And How To Correct Them) - From Tom on Edu... - 166 views

  • 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.
    • anonymous
       
      Why Ipads
  • put the iPads in the hands of teachers who understand that active learners learn best
  • Focusing on iPad-versus.-laptop comparisons stifles the ability to see how the iPad facilitates student-centered learning
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  • 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.
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    "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. "
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    "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. "
Steve Kelly

What would an exceptional middle and high school computer science curriculum include? -... - 48 views

  • 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,
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  • 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.
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    Great resource for teachers (especially those of us not initially trained in Computer Science) about what should 'count' as Computer Science.  Worth the read!
Sydney Lacey

Annapolis High School: A Work In Progress : NPR - 17 views

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    2nd in an NPR series on School Improvement. Transcript and link to audio. "Long before the Obama administration started talking about turning around failing schools, Annapolis High School in Maryland embarked on a radical transformation. It went to a 12-month school year. Teachers and administrators had to re-apply for their jobs, and those who were rehired vowed to never again let a single student fall through the cracks."
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