"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
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.
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.
Google Apps Education Edition is a broad IT solution that schools can use to bring communication and collaboration tools to the entire academic community for free. Google manages all the technology details, so you can focus your time, energy and budgets on teaching your kids.
Students, teachers and staff can share ideas more quickly and get things done more effectively when they have access to the same powerful communication and sharing tools. Google Apps Education Edition lets tech administrators provide email, sharable online calendars, instant messaging tools and even a dedicated website to faculty, students and staff for free. There's no hardware or software to install or maintain, since everything is delivered through a standard web browser -- anytime, from anyplace.
The modern workplace's vogue is informal information exchange. We sit in open floor plan offices so that we can spontaneously collide, chat, and collaborate. An office setup for generating ideas can be fizzy and energizing, though when sparks aren't flying, the colliding can be noisy and distracting.
Jeff Bezos takes a totally different approach to management, far from that madding crowd. He has a contrarian management technique that's peculiarly old school - write it down.
Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.
To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.
“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford Foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached, and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”
What a pity, a sign of how little respect people actually give to the profession of teaching; the only profession where people don't take the comments of practitioners seriously. Can you imagine saying to your doctor, "I know this is your diagnosis, but I'm going to go with my Great Aunt's diagnosis."
They complain that lawmakers listened less to them than to heavy lobbying by technology companies, including Intel and Apple.
under the state’s plan, that teacher will not always be in the room. The plan requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits.
I actually find this somewhat troubling...so little research exists as to how students are actually learning online. Are they using Facebook or are they going through MIT's Open Courseware? I'm inclined to think the former. I'm slowly adding more and more technology to my classes and frankly, I'm surprised that students are not more technologically savvy... the first and second digital divides are increasingly evident...
Interesting article, however, you can't ignore that students today will be doing a significant amount of learning on a computer. If our high school students can't master managing an online class in high school, how will they fare later on? It's another learning tool. 2 classes out of 47 credits? How is that detrimental to the development of lifelong learners?
We can research until the cows come home, but at some point if we don't dive in, we miss the boat. While we can all wish for all our students to graduate high school and then go on to college, the reality is that most of them won't. That's reality... Preparing our kids for future learning and building those skills necessary to be successful to master online courses is a skill they will need to succeed in their digital world.
gClassFolders is a tool that allows for management of all the files that students share with teachers and allows for sharing easily with students. The setup is straight forward and sets up three folders for students for a class - Edit, Preview(Read Only) and Dropbox to turn work in. If your school can't afford Hapara or you don't want to spend lots of time setting up folders, this may be the tool for you.
Marie, my primary use and focus with Diigo is the social networking aspect that you mentioned. There is definitely truth to the statement that "Chance favors the connected mind." I've created a g...
Keep your class motivated with this is behaviour management tool where teachers can award virtual badges for anything. Choose from a large collection of badge designs. The children can see their progress with their own personal login.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards
ClassBadges is a free, online tool where teachers can award badges for student accomplishments. Through your teacher account, you can award badges customized for your classroom or school.
"Before you begin a telecollaborative project," she said, "Look at the plan critically and decide whether it's worth it in terms of learning outcomes. Ask yourself these questions:
Does this use of the Internet allow students to do something that can't be done in another way?
Does this use of the Internet allow students to do something in a better way?
"If the answer to either of those questions is yes," said Harris, "then your project is probably worth doing."
"As teachers, we need to do what is our art and our craft -- which is teaching, not technology."
Judi Harris has been this champion for years...she long ago convinced me that you shouldn't use tech just for the sake of using tech. Her statements gives the compelling questions we should all ask ourselves before embarking on the use of precious time. What's your return on investment????
An activity structure, according to Harris, is simply a description of what students do in an activity, without reference to content or grade level. For example, kindergarten students mixing paints, elementary students forming compound words, and high-school students creating chemical compounds are all using an activity structure that involves combining existing elements to form new elements. The content and grade level are strikingly different, but the basic activity, the structure of the activity, is the same.
Existing activity structures, said Harris, are usually supported best by existing instructional tools. If Internet tools are going to be used to enable students to do something they haven't been able to do, or do as well, before, new activity structures, structures that are best supported by new instructional tools, must be identified and implemented.
Develop a project plan that's specific and logistically manageable.
Be sure students have regular access to computers. Once a week in a computer lab is not enough time. For students to get the most out of a telecomputing project, they must be able to participate at least two or three times a week.
A combination of tools such as graphic novels, board games, and online games
will be developed for middle school students.
The online version of the high school Pathfinder card game will have
players guide a character through class and activity selection, time management
challenges, putting together application materials, and acquiring the financial
resources to afford college and its related costs. Games are to take about a
week to complete and will require 5–10 minutes at a time to advance the game.
The goal of the game is not only to be accepted but also to be able to afford
and be prepared to succeed at the player's college of choice. Students can
repeat play the game using characters with different backgrounds.
Bill Tierney at USC got over a million bucks to modify his card game called Pathfinders to an online version so it can be played on Facebook. "The intended audience is students with low-income backgrounds who are not aware of their postsecondary options and who attend schools lacking strong college guidance counseling." Hope the players can cash in their winnings at a local casino and get real money to pay for college! That would be even better!
One of the best decisions our team made last summer was to pre-install Casper (5) profiles on all of our iPads. We pulled
the student IDs from our ASPEN (6) student
information system, logged each student into Casper and installed the four
profiles needed for our plan. The profiles took Safari web browser off the iPad.
As we progressed through the year, we discovered that these tools took a lot of
time to create something we were trying to move away from in the first place.
The reason for moving away from textbooks is that they offer a myopic vision of
a world that is ever-changing. Simply viewing a textbook on an iPad does not
change or innovate learning, nor does it use the iPad to its full potential. If
your plan is to digitize a standard textbook, save your money and renew your
textbook licenses.
This year we are incorporating K-12 digital portfolios along with revised
information and digital literacy standards. Every BPS student will have a Google
Apps for Education account that they will use in conjunction with the Blogger (15) application
to begin creating their Life of Learning portfolio
Begrundelser for anvendelsen af iPads i undervisningen bevæger sig fra en forestilling om at erstatte tekstbøger til en forestilling om at kunne lærerne kan samarbejde med eleverne i skyen ved hjælp af værktøjer, der automatisk synkroniserer med eleverns iPads
The students that make it into help desk are those who not only enjoy working
with technology in an educational context, but have a desire to serve, support
and possibly solve problems in the school on a daily basis.
.
Aside from simply troubleshooting, our
students help their former teachers at the middle and elementary levels as well
as create how-to scripts and videos for students, faculty and the Burlington
community. Our students have not only helped within the BPS community, but have
helped our Tech Team organize two major conferences in the past year:
You can have the most precisely calculated plan in place before you launch, but
if you don't have the right support in place, your launch may stumble. I regard
our IT department as one of the best I have ever worked with. I say this in all
sincerity because I do "work with" this team. These guys not only manage a
robust infrastructure, but they take part in the educational conversation and
give our staff the best tools to create dynamic, engaging classrooms.
Teknisk support er en del af løsningen og de skal deltage i den løbende pædagogisk/didaksike debet
However, we must work to incorporate information and digital literacy standards
into the K-12 curriculum as early as possible. Students in Kindergarten should
understand what it means to be nice to someone and how that will translate to
writing and living on the Web. As students grow up through the educational
pathways, they must be exposed to new and emerging technologies as early as
possible in a safe, responsible manner. By doing so, we are preparing them for a
global economy that requires these skills.
Our middle school is adding character education to the arts and humanities curriculum. Teaching students at a young age to be thoughtful and responsible with technology will make it a much better experience inside the classroom.
If you are fearful of Facebook and MySpace then you need to create an Edmodo account. Edmodo was designed specifically for educational purposes. You must be a teacher, student, or parent to gain access. It allows you all the amenities of those other social networking sites but with a lot more security/privacy.
Yes, it is free and you can manage student accounts. It is only open to those you invite in and only educators may obtain an account. You may monitor and moderate all conversations, administer quizes, embed media, etc. The groups feature is very effective and you may grant access to your group to other classes. We just had 700+ students interacting in a global collaboration project, Digiteen.
Students do not need an email address to use Edmodo, so under 13 is OK for CIPA. It looks much like Facebook, so kids love it and parents need some education on it as they fear it at first. Parents can get monitoring access so they may monitor their child's activity. It is a great tool to show parents how social media is used in education.
After the holiday vacation some students will return to school determined to get organized and improve their grades. The following fifteen resources could help those students get a handle on managing their assignment due dates.
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:
A wiki is a space on the Web where you can share work and ideas, pictures
and links, videos and media — and anything else you can think of.
Wikispaces is special because we give you a visual editor and a bunch of
other tools to make sharing all kinds of content as easy for students as it
is for their teachers.
A Wikispaces Private Label site is a secure, dedicated wiki environment
— like a clone of Wikispaces.com, but with your organization’s DNA
mixed in. You get unlimited wikis (and everything you need to manage them),
plus tools to integrate the site with your other systems and support your
users.
A superb wiki/web hosting site with lets you create web pages for your class or school or use it as a Wiki and let your pupils/colleagues create and build the page together. The basic account is free and if you sign up as an educator you can get extra storage space.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools
Dutch edu-startup
Scholica lets schools and organizations start their own e-learning platform in just a few clicks. It's easy to use and we host, update and monitor the platform so users can just focus on using it.
Kickboard keeps classrooms afloat. Integrated student academic and behavior records highlight trends. Automated classroom management systems save teachers time. Customizable settings mean Kickboard fits your school's existing systems from the start.
Has free version for one teacher, other options for whole school.
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Lisa C. Hurst on 05 May 15"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
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