Group items tagged

"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

"Formative feedback is instrumental in the learning experience of a student. It can be effective in promoting learning if it is timely, personal, manageable, motivational, and in direct relation with assessment criteria. Despite its importance, however, research suggests that students are discouraged from engaging in the feedback process primarily for reasons that relate to lack of motivation and difficulty in relating to and reflecting on the feedback comments. In this paper we present Online FEdback System (OFES), an e-learning tool that effectively supports the provision of formative feedback. Our aims are to enhance feedback reception and to strengthen the quality of feedback through the way feedback is communicated to the students. We propose that an effective feedback communication mechanism should be integrated into a student's online learning space and it is anticipated that this provision will motivate students to engage with feedback. Empirical evidence suggests that the developed system successfully addressed the issues of student engagement and motivation and achieved its objectives. The results of using the system for two years indicate a positive perception of the students which, in turn, encourage us to further explore its effectiveness by extending its functionality and integrating it into a an open source learning management system"

Taking Yourself Seriously: Processes of Research and Engagement is the working title of a book by Peter Taylor and Jeremy Szteiter that assembles the tools and processes from research and writing courses taught in the Graduate Program in Critical and Creative Thinking. The most up to date version of the book can be viewed at http://cct.wikispaces.umb.edu/TYS (and associated links, including a link to a full pdf of the book). "For your research and writing to progress well, your questions and ideas need to be in alignment with your aspirations, your ability to take or influence action, and your relationships with other people. Shorten these items to head, heart, hands, and human connections. Your efforts to bring these 4H's into alignment is what we mean when we invite you to take yourself seriously." Some comments from former students looking back on the influence of the research courses out of which this book has arisen: Jane, a healthcare professional and story-teller: I learned is to 'hold my ideas loosely', which means accepting my own idea as a valid one but always leaving the space open to take in the counterarguments. I learned to give myself permission to be circular and come back to previous steps or thoughts, and I actually became more comfortable doing so. I was able to get engaged in a project that I was able to actually use in work, which was extremely satisfying. The whole process encouraged me, and I felt very empowered as a change agent, which could be an exhilarating feeling.

This study examined the effect of electronic outlining on the quality of students' writing products and how outlining affects perceived mental effort during the writing task. Additionally, it was studied how students appropriate and appreciate an outline tool and whether they need explicit instruction in order to engage in planning. To answer these questions, the writing products and self-report data from 34 tenth-grade students of a Dutch pre-university school were analysed. Students wrote two similar argumentative texts with or without an outline tool. Results show that electronic outlining improves the quality of students' argumentative texts and decreases mental effort. Answers to a retrospective questionnaire showed that a short instruction on the outline tool was sufficient for students to understand its working and that most students experienced the tool as beneficial. Finally, results indicate that without specific instruction on text planning, students hardly devote any time to this important aspect of writing.

I plan on Attending this ISTE unlpugged session but first I think I'll check out that list of 50 ways to tell a story.  I have my first totally virtual class next year and I don't want to try to teach physics through lecture.  11:30 am - 12:00pm [Concurrent Session 6] Title: Beyond Lectures: How to Re-Invent Your Online Content Delivery in Face to Face, Hybrid and Fully Online Courses Description:Good pedagogy delivers content multiple ways to engage students and address different learning styles. Online learning, however, resides comfortably in lectures and discussion. This needn't be the case: learn to add free and easy tools to online content delivery that will appeal to all students and address the needs of multi modal learners. Inspired by Alan Levine's "50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story," this session will explore a variety of current tools that transform lecture delivery into an interactive multimedia activity that will engage myriad learning styles. Presenter: Pamela Kachka, MA.Ed.

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...

This is a "field-book of tools and processes to help readers in all fields develop as researchers, writers, and agents of change." For more details and how to purchase: http://bit.ly/TYS2012. (Printing and distribution in Australia and Europe begins end of March.) Comments on the influence of this book's approach "I was able to get engaged in a project that I was able to actually use in work, which was extremely satisfying. The whole process encouraged me, and I felt very empowered as a change agent, which could be an exhilarating feeling." a healthcare professional and story-teller "I really had not been used to thinking about my own thinking, so learning to do that also helped me to slow down and start to look away from the career path that I had been taking for granted." a biologist-turned-web designer "I found that the experience helped me to accept feedback from other professionals. I am more comfortable with listening to why my own ideas might not work or need further evaluation. This even happens to the point where I find reasons now to seek out this kind of feedback." a teacher "I had viewed research as a process of collecting information into a sort of database and reviewing it effectively. I have now revised my notions to include a more broad understanding of interconnectedness between people and ideas. An important part of research is to keep relationships going." an adult educator "One of the most useful ideas was the use of dialogue, which helps to slow down the procedures used by the company. There's a tension between management's need to make quick decisions and desire to have real dialogue around proposed changes-changes to the internal company operational procedures as well as to evaluating the quality of what the company is doing with its publications." a teacher, currently working in publishing "I was asked to pay attention to what I actually could do instead of what I could not. This enabled me to (1) step back and let go of a huge technic

Intel offers free, easily integrated tools and teaching resources to support collaborative student-centered learning. Our online thinking tools provide active learning places where students can engage in robust discussions, analyze complex information, pursue investigations, and solve problems. You'll also find teaching resources such as exemplary lesson plans, assessment strategies, and technology-enriched project ideas for all K-12 subjects. Developed by educators, these free tools and resources support 21st century learning, with project-based approaches in the classroom.

Scribble is a great tool for preparing web-based readings for engaging students more attentively in their inquiry. Great tool to support close reading and CCSS. Scrible is a free online tool for saving, organizing, annotating, and sharing websites for online research projects and web quests. It saves a copy of each page you annotate in your personal Scrible library, so that even if the original web pages you've made notes on go down, your saved pages and your notes still exist. You can post your work on Facebook or Twitter, and you can also share your Scrible pages with short links that you generate with the click of a button. Check it out for yourself at www.scrible.com.

"We all know that students find it far more challenging to answer word problems than simple equations. In Math Shake, learners practise the vital skill of solving word problems in a fun, focused way. Learners engage their critical thinking skills as they use the keywords to change word problems into equations and use interactive learning tools to visualise, image and work out their answer. Not only do learners have a range of learning tools at their fingertips, they can share their thinking by recording their working.Teachers and parents can also use Math Shake to teach learners with the interactive tools; including tens frames, number matrixes, fraction parts, number lines and counters. "

"dTech tools themselves are simple to use, the real challenge is knowing where to start. I don't know about you, but I get completely overwhelmed by the number of EdTech tools out there. I'm bombarded constantly by emails and tweets telling me I *have* to sign up to the latest app or website. I'm no technophobe and I know it can save me time, or help me create more engaging lessons, but where do I even begin?"

Some very interesting Microsoft applications that might be suitable for schools. It includes Beginner Developer, Chemistry Add-in for Word, Education Labs for Maths test creation, Microsoft Robotics and others. Hat tip to Skipz

A great place to find tech tools to use with MS Office programs. Find and download alll of Microsoft's free tools for teachers and students.  Updated 3.18.2012 Microsoft Partners in Learning helps educators connect, collaborate, create and share. TeachTec is a Microsoft Partners in Learning resource that helps educators find relevant and effective ways to use technology to inspire teaching and engage students. Together we have consolidated the latest and most popular teacher and student resources that Microsoft provides to all schools, districts and education organizations around the world.

"It's a challenging process, and it requires experienced educators and technologists to find value in the data. For that reason, Duke University's Randy Riddle has been working with professors and other faculty for more the last 13 years, honing his expertise and delivering tools that boost engagement and learning. "

"Transdisciplinarity: literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. More about transdisciplinarity. Virtual collaboration: ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team. More about virtual collaboration. Sense-making: ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed. More about sense-making. Social intelligence: ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. More about social intelligence. Cross-cultural competency: ability to operate in different cultural settings. More about cross-cultural competency. Cognitive load management: ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques. More about cognitive load management. Novel and adaptive thinking: proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based. More about novel and adaptive thinking. Computational thinking: ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning. More about computational thinking. New media literacy: ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication. More about new media literacy. More about new media literacy. Design mindset: ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes. More about design mindset."

Foster deeper engagement and opportunities for students to take charge of their own learning with high quality, engaging, relevant tools designed for today's busy teachers and parents. Explore our programs and contests, interactive games, puzzles, lesson plans, videos and more.

"When lap­tops first arrived in my class­room, I wor­ried about class­room man­age­ment. How could I cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where stu­dents used their com­put­ers as tools rather than toys?" Great practical tips here!!

Whether or not you realize it, you probably have philosophical discussions with your students. But if you use the term "Philosophy", it would probably be met with blank stares. This website, developed by a college philosophy professor, provides an easy to understand, engaging introduction to philosophy for middle schoolers using FILM. I think it could also be used with high school students and used as a tool for how students could engage each other in a variety of discussions across the curriculum.

Richard Byrne shares six ways students can create and publish videos. These include slideshow voiceover ideas. Teachers will like using these creation tools as well to engage learners and demonstrate how students can share their learning.