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The State of Tech is a bi-weekly podcast covering educational technology. The show is designed for anyone in education (from teachers to principals to technology directors) wanting to explore how technology can be used to improve teaching and learning.
T.H.E. Journal asked Leslie Fisher and Hall Davidson, presenters at FETC's popular Tech Shootout session, to share some of the tools they're still excited about. From apps to gadgets, here are their must-haves for educators.
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Vote: Is technology a boon or burden in the classroom?
Published Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 12:00AM EST
Last updated Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 2:29PM EST
Globe and Mail visual graph: Is technology a boon or burden in the classroom? As the world becomes increasingly digital, school boards are trying to negotiate technology's role in the classroom. Some have embraced digital tools, enhancing their classrooms with Smartboards, cell phones and social media. Others have favoured tradition, claiming technology is a distraction and a nuisance. Where do Globe readers stand? Each dot on this graph represents one person's response colour-coded by age group.
Increasingly, working in IT is becoming less about technical skills and more about integration.
While there are still roles requiring deep technical experience, for most corporate IT workers their role will shift from implementation to architecting.
your staff are going to require new skills, modes of thinking, performance monitoring, and rewards structures. Essentially, facilitating your staffs’ transition is simply too important to leave to HR.
Old vendor relationships may no longer be as critical, and you might end up dealing with anyone from Amazon to Apple, players who only recently began to play in the enterprise space.
An example of the "mother blog" concept in an implementation of student blogging in the residential honors college at Virginia Tech. (Posts from all student blogs are aggregated on this blog as well as links to the blogs/comments themselves.) Some stunning examples of student blogs. Particularly see the blog "Catching Up."
Or do we the administrators get the best "toys" first. Shouldn't these be in the hands of the teachers to make changes in how they teach so that the learning experiences can be improved FOR THE STUDENTS?
What should be common sense is now being officially prescribed by the American Academy of Pediatrics: Limit screen time to two hours a day, and keep cell phones and Internet connections out of bedrooms.
they were waiting for a time when the videotape material seemed less important and not likely to be on the test. Those students were using their metacognitive skills to decide when was a good time to be distracted and when it was important to focus
"focus" on classroom work for 15 minutes.
no need to be internally distracted since an opportunity to "check in" will be coming
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...