The Budd:e Cybersecurity Education package consists of two activity-based learning modules, one for primary school students, and one for secondary school students. Both modules contain engaging, media-rich activities and resources, developed in consultation with teachers and subject matter experts.
Here you will also find comprehensive Teacher Resources for Budd:e including background and contextual information, a video demonstration of the modules, lesson plans with learning outcomes for each activity, and curriculum maps for all Australian states and territories.
Budd:e is part of the broader Australian Government cybersecurity initiative, aimed at creating a safer, more secure online environment for all Australian children.
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)
"Over the last few years, I have spent time trying to work out ways to engage our teachers. We, at Schools' Library Service, have introduced an information literacy framework, created lesson ideas and spent hours talking to teachers about how school librarians can support teaching and learning. I even wrote a blog about 'How to make an information literacy framework work for you", but still some teachers are just too busy to listen."
Being able to construct a learning progression from simple facts to important concepts or simplex skills to complex ones is our daily bread and butter. The ability to do this really well sets some teachers apart. It helps create a focus on learning within the classroom rather than just being busy. Whilst the sequencing of knowledge is a crucial starting point the real star teachers also know the points at which key misunderstandings or mistakes are often made by pupils. In the classroom they are already alert to these possible errors and can intervene quickly and incisively. Teachers spending time planning together must focus on the learning progressions or journeys, if you prefer. A critical element of this planning is the determining of excellence; what standard should these pupils be able to reach. My suggestion would be start with the end in mind; what kep concept or complex skill are you trying to teach.
This is a neat way to start a writing class with the creating plot ideas....
One of the goals I ask teachers to set after my training is to find new ways to push students to analyze and evaluate as they learn to write.
As part of my teacher workshop on the writing process, we investigate multiple uses of student samples. One of my favorite techniques involves having student compare and contrast finished pieces of writing. During both pre-writing and and revision, this push for deeper student thinking both educates and inspires your students.
The handout has student writers analyze two fifth graders' published writing with a compare and contrast Venn diagram.
Revision is hard, and most teachers recognize it as an area of deficiency; the truth is, a lot of really great writing teachers I know still freely admit that revision is where they struggle the most.
revision shouldn't be the first of the seven elements to work on
When students like what they've written in rough draft form, they're ready to move to revision. My other six elements aim at helping students increase their pre-writing time so they both like and see more potential in their rough drafts
I believe in the power of collaboration and study teams,
Professional development research clearly cites the study team model as the most effective way to have learners not only understand new ideas but also implement them enough times so they become regular tools in a teacher's classroom.
Below, find three examples created by study teams during past workshops. I use them as models/exemplars when I set the study teams off to work.
My students learn to appreciate the act of writing, and they see it as a valuable life-skill.
In a perfect world, following my workshop,
follow-up tools.
I also use variations of these Post-its during my Critical Thinking Using the Writing Traits Workshop.
By far, the best success I've ever had while teaching revision was the one I experienced with the revision Post-its I created for my students
During my teacher workshop on the writing process, we practice with tools like the Revision Sprint (at right), which I designed to push students to use analysis and evaluation skills as they looked at their own drafts
I used to throw my kids into writing response groups way too fast. They weren't ready to provide critical thought for one another
The most important trick learned was this: be a writer too. During my first five years of teaching, I had assigned a lot of writing but never once had I written something I intended to show my students.
I have the following interactive plot element generator (which can be replicated with three coffee cans and index cards) to help my students feel in control of their options:
If you want to hear my take on graphic organizers in detail, you're going to have to hire me to come to present to you. If you can't do that, then I'll throw you a challenge that was thrown once at me, and completing the challenge helped me become a smarter designer of graphic organizers. The challenge came in two parts: 1) learn how to use tables and text boxes in Microsoft Word; 2) for practice, design a graphic organizer that would help students be successfully with the following trait-based skills:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, etc," which is an interesting structure that students can borrow from to write about other topics, be they fiction or non-fiction.
Asking students to create daily journals from the perspective of other animals or even inanimate objects is a great way to borrow this book's idea.
it challenges students to analyze the author's word choice & voice skills: specifically his use of verbs, subtle alliteration, and dialogue.
Mentor Text Resource Page here at my website, because this topic has become such a big piece of learning to me. It deserved its own webpage.
Here are seven skills I can easily list for the organization trait. Organization is: 1) using a strong lead or hook, 2) using a variety of transition words correctly, 3) paragraphing correctly, 4) pacing the writing, 5) sequencing events/ideas logically, 6) concluding the writing in a satisfying way, 7) titling the writing interestingly and so that the title stands for the whole idea. Over the years, I have developed or found and adapted mini-lessons that have students practice these skills during my "Organization Month."
Now, let's talk differentiation:
The problem with focusing students on a product--instead of the writing process--is that the majority of the instructional time is spent teaching students to adhere to a formula.
the goal of writing instruction absolutely should be the helping students practice the three Bloom's levels above apply: analyze, evaluate, and create.
Click here to access the PowerPoint I use during the goal-setting portion of my workshop.
Improving one's ability to teach writing to all students is a long-term professional development goal; sticking with it requires diligence, and it requires having a more specific goal than "I want to improve writing
"Trying to get better at all seven elements at once doesn't work;
strive to make my workshops more about "make and take,
Robert Marzano's research convinced me years ago of the importance of having learners set personal goals as they learn to take responsibility for their own learning.
Crayola's online drawing canvas provides students with a blank canvas on which they can draw using virtual markers, crayons, pencils, and paints. Drawings cannot be saved online, but they can be printed. Pre-K Teachers looking for coloring pages can create their own or have students create their own using Crayola's Create & Color tool. Create & Color provides templates for creating custom coloring pages. You can pick a background template and modify it by adding speech bubbles and pictures. Coloring pages cannot be saved online, but they can be printed.
Organizations can
Create and manage teacher
accounts
Give or attend a class
without signing up
Download class recordings or host with us
View attendance and other reports
Give synchronous classes in
Moodle
Use our API for Virtual Classroom
integration
Teachers can
Teach in the free
Virtual Classroom
Earn more by
teaching online
Upload and Share
Online Tutorials
Create and Share Online
Tests
Build visibility in
Communities
List and sell courses
with WiZiQ
Students can
Learn in live, Online
Classes
Enroll in Online Courses
View Online Tutorials
Practice Online Tests
Find
Teachers to Learn
Access Free Learning
Resources
What we must do is create an engine room of high quality teacher coaching within our schools to drive improvements in pedagogy and teacher quality.
The psychology of change and actually changing the habits of adult professionals is very complex. What is widely known is that externally imposed change rarely sticks and changes the culture within schools, or indeed any organization.
Teachers must be emotionally invested in any development of their practice in the school community. Involvement and choice are powerful drivers of habit change. Local knowledge form within the school is powerful and develops a greater degree of trust in what is an emotional and often messy process! Teacher coaches have a better knowledge of the school community; they will invariably gain greater respect than any external figures and they will certainly benefit from higher levels of trust.
‘Teacher Coaches’ are in a great position to shine a light on existing successes and spread that light across the school. School leaders can do this of course, but staff are more open to their colleagues suggesting and driving improvement. The coaches can become roles models of the best kind: undertaking research; tweaking the school environment; providing evidence of successful pedagogy; supporting underperforming colleagues; embodying a growth mindset and being open to adapting their practice to improve – in effect, becoming leading lights to drive change.
Share My Lesson is a place where educators can come together to create and share their very best teaching resources. Developed by teachers for teachers, this free platform gives access to high-quality teaching resources and provides an online community where teachers can collaborate with, encourage and inspire each other.
This site is sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers, but all teachers may register to use the free resources or contribute lessons to the site.
What they lacked was a belief in their own ability to create tech-integrated lessons.
Testing
Consumerism
reading is viewed culturally as educational while all things techie tend to be viewed culturally as entertainment.
Lack of Leadership
Inconsistent Paradigms
Personal Experience:
If teachers themselves have never used these tools in their free time and schools haven't used these in professional development, the tools will always seem strange.
Humility: It takes a certain level of humility to say, "my non-tech approach is wrong and maybe I need to consider technology."
It's Optional
: I am not a fan compliance-driven leadership. However, in a culture of compliance, some teachers will only do what leaders mandate them to do. So, technology isn't required. Somehow, we treat it as if it's a matter of personal choice in a way that we would never do with pedagogy. Someone is still allowed to be a "good teacher" and use virtually no technology whatsoever. Failure isn't an option, but irrelevance is. Somehow we've screwed up our priorities. Somehow we've allowed teacher comfort level to drive what we use with students.
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:
Mixbook
(or Mixbook for Educators) is a
photo-based creation platform that offers
hundreds of layouts and backgrounds to choose from
along with customizable frames and text to make your book beautiful.
Just pick a layout, drag-and-drop your photos into the photo slots, and
edit to your heart's content.
Though the site's examples suggest using the books to gather wedding,
travel, and baby albums, this program can absolutely used to create
stories around historic photographs and artifacts, original art, to
produce a class yearbook, to share an oral or personal history or
journey, to tell the story of a field trip. Mixbook
for Educators now offers a secure collaborative environment for
sharing their ebooks, as well as discounts on printed products, should
you choose to print. (A similar option is Scrapblog.)
Storybird,
a collaborative storybook building space designed for ages 3-13,
inspires young writers to create text around the work of professional
artists and the collection of art is growing.
Two (or more) people create a Storybird
in a round robin fashion by writing their own text and inserting
pictures. They then have the option of sharing their Storybird
privately or publicly on the network. The final product can be
printed (soon), watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared
through a worldwide library. Storybird is also a simple
publishing platform for writers and artists that allows them to
experiment, publish their stories, and connect with their fans.
Myth and Legend Creator 2 shares a collection of traditional stories from England and
around the world to hear and read. The site offers historical
context for each story, story time lines and maps, ideas for use of the
story in the classroom, and student work inspired by the story. The Story Creator--with
its libraries of backgrounds, characters, props, text bubbles, sound
and video recording tools, and options to upload--provides students
easy opportunities to create their own versions of traditional stories.
The Historic
Tale Construction Kit is similar in that it helps students
construct stories around a theme, in this case stories set in the middle
ages with movable, scalable beasts, folks, braves, buildings. and
old-style text.
Tikatok is a platform devoted to kid book publishing at a variety of levels. Children have the option of exploring a collection of interactive
story templates called StorySparks prompts, personalizing an existing
book with their own names in Books2Go, with their own names, or
starting from scratch in Create Your Own Book. Tikatok’s Classroom Program allows teachers to share lesson plans, view and edit students' work online, encourage collaboration,
and track
writing progress.
Big Universe is both an online library and a publishing and sharing community for grades K through 8. Using Big Universe Author, students may create, research, and collaborate on books using a library of more than 7000 images and interactive tools.
I tried to think of a different way of titling this post, I wasn't keen on the word 'surviving' but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that actually, you really do feel like you're surviving… Just about. I've been onto Twitter, Instagram and even scrolled through my personal Facebook a few times to discover that Teacher Training Nerves are setting in. Now, I know you've probably (definitely) heard some complete horror stories but let's begin with an open mind. Having just completed the PGCE, I totally understand why you are so nervy and that is why I've created this post… So, sit back, take a deep breath and repeat "I can do this"...
"I have created several posts recently about how Headteachers/Principals, teachers and librarians can work together in order to make a difference to academic attainment. If we are to effect change I do believe it has to come from the top. There are, however, many teachers out there that have never worked alongside a school librarian and have no idea what we can do for them or their students and we need to find a way to change this ourselves too. Which teacher would say no to free help and resources within their classrooms? Not many, I'm sure, so this has to be down to a lack of knowledge and understanding of what we do and this is where we can all do something. So whilst working towards change at the top, librarians need to find a way to start collaborating with those who never use the library and encouraging those who are already working with us to start sharing their best practice."
Tracy Piestrak's List: Teacher Tools to Engage Students - http://www.glogster.com/edu is a site where teachers and students can create electronic posters. Basically, these posters are designed using embedded multimedia and links. A glog (from the edu site) allows students to demonstrate mastery of concept while citing sources and incorporating video, voi...
Craig Berg from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, created this teacher observation tool for teacher education programs or district leaders. Looks interesting.
"this gives students more of a choice to do the kinds of assignments they want to do, as opposed to just the teacher deciding." You would certainly need to check that they were doing challenging, relevant work.
Concrete idea for how to answer the above, last question. He used a concrete example from a 3rd grade class: "Have the kids create a podcast every week of what they learned. Have a writer, producer, mixer, etc." Would you do that during class time or outside of classtime?
"Another solution: you need to be more reflective on the body of work that you are doing. What have I learned? Where have I been and where am I going?" How do you do this?
"Teach kids really good research skills. Have them look up assignments and related material from other teachers from all over the world." And then do what with them?
"One solution: have an official classroom researcher everyday in your class." The job would be to gather the websites that will be used connected to whatever it is you're studying? Is that right? Need more thought on this.
"Final Myth: Tech will make kids smarter. Actually it's a distraction. Creates more plagiarism and people wanting to get things done. Losing critical thinking." How can we use the enormous resources of the internet and at the same time increase critical thinking?
"Another myth: the internet will give people a range of ideas. The opposite is true. People search out their version of the truth, e.g. Fox News or Huffington Post." I find this to be incredibly true.
Site for MS-HS students ;lesson plans for teachers
YOU.edit will go online in the spring of 2009.
Students will be able to create their own interactive videos through the YOU.edit online editing tool that will be available in early 2009. This tool will allow students to create online reports drawn from the digital files that comprise a completed the.News segment. These component parts include video, music, graphics, interviews, and narration.
YOU.edit will go online in the spring of 2009.
Students will be able to create their own interactive videos through the YOU.edit online editing tool that will be available in early 2009. This tool will allow students to create online reports drawn from the digital files that comprise a completed the.News segment. These component parts include video, music, graphics, interviews, and narration.
This originally started off with me bringing a large, empty jar to one of their weekly staff meetings and labeling it "Gripe Jam". I put a few pads of sticky notes on tables and played a rock anthem like "We're Not Gonna Take It". They had until the end of the song to write down any and all issues they are facing in their classrooms. I took these sticky notes, went home and created a Google Doc / Spreadsheet showing how as many of these challenges as possible could be addressed by digital learning tools/strategies/sites/etc. When I returned the next week, I shared this spreadsheet. The teachers then voted for or select one strategy they'd like to learn more about. This is how we decided where we began our exploring of digital learning.
Acknowledging that many teachers respond better to new ideas when we first listen to their current issues makes them feel heard and respected.
But many advocates of this technology (myself included), see IWBs as genuine means of bringing more interactivity, more student-focus into classrooms of traditional teachers
What we don't want to forget is that someone who is coaching a teacher is not really looking for "good technology use" but for just good educational practices. Having an IWB is not going to change a lecturer into something else.
Any item in the Instruction domain can be enhanced using an IWB.
just because a teacher has an IWB doesn't mean it has to be used every minute of the day. And yes, a teacher can create truly interactive lessons without using any technology whatsoever.
use the SmartNotebook software that works with the hardware to organize materials, to find and share lessons, and to seamlessly blend multimedia into lessons.
While popular (2007, 2010, interactive white boards (IWBs) are controversial even (or especially) among technology enthusiasts. The major complaint is that the use of these devices reinforces the "sage on the stage" teaching methodology. "The IWB is little more than a fancy overhead projector and its touch sensitive screen is only used to save the teacher a couple steps back to the computer to change a slide."
Blog post that articulates some of the best practices for incorporating an interactive white board (IWB), like a SMART Board, into your classroom in meaningful and instructionally sound ways.
Mark Gleeson on 13 Feb 12The Budd:e Cybersecurity Education package consists of two activity-based learning modules, one for primary school students, and one for secondary school students. Both modules contain engaging, media-rich activities and resources, developed in consultation with teachers and subject matter experts. Here you will also find comprehensive Teacher Resources for Budd:e including background and contextual information, a video demonstration of the modules, lesson plans with learning outcomes for each activity, and curriculum maps for all Australian states and territories. Budd:e is part of the broader Australian Government cybersecurity initiative, aimed at creating a safer, more secure online environment for all Australian children.
