vignette and thoughtful ideas about email etiquette and communication (community.) Adults struggle with this stuff at my school - how do we teach kids learn?
The research has been clear and consistent for over 30 years-collaborative cultures in which teachers focus on improving their teaching practice, learn from each other, and are well led and supported by school principals result in better learning for students. Fullan, M. (n.d.). Learning is the Work. Retrieved from http://www.michaelfullan.ca/
A thriving community of teachers and others involved in teaching English Language Arts. Has abundant support, resources, a several thousand members who offer encouragement, job news, curriculum, and community. A great place to be.
Social network for English teachers: "Where English teachers meet to help each other." Created and maintained by Jim Burke. See also www.englishcompanion.com, his other website for his own work.
This is a K-12 education community with a target audience of teachers, tech integration specialists, coaches, educational technology leaders, and lovers of learning from around the world. It is in recognition of the growing global inter-connectedness of educators in independent and municipal K-12 schools, and offers an opportunity for all to grow their craft through this professional network.
Google+ community hoping to build a global cohort of people passionate about EdTech.
This is a K-12 education community with a target audience of teachers, tech integration specialists, coaches, educational technology leaders, and lovers of learning from around the world. It is in recognition of the growing global inter-connectedness of educators in independent and municipal K-12 schools, and offers an opportunity for all to grow their craft through this professional network.
"Teachers talk… a lot! As a teacher I have lost my voice many times, and still the talking continues. But do we say the right things in education.
This session will explore how teachers, pupils, the community, educational leaders and outside professionals communicate, or fail to do so and why this might be."
Teachers in tertiary education need new strategies to communicate with students of the net generation and to shape enticing educational experiences for them. The use of new approaches such as video-recorded lectures to communicate directly and individually with all students has been the preserve of technology-savvy educators. However, a recent technological advance - the Apple iPad - has the potential to change this situation, offering access to effective and efficient pedagogy in an easy and intuitive way. This paper is a report on the use of the iPad in teaching activities over the past 15 months, showing how it can be used to enhance engagement with learning for tertiary students, both those studying live on campus and those studying at a distance.
Third grade teacher and Arkansas Teacher of the Year Justin Minkel writes about how we empower every student and every teacher in our school communities to recognize his/her strengths and share them with the community. Powerful and inspiring!
Some further thoughts on ORACY....a person's ability to efficiently communicate with others via the spoken word as well as to fully understand oral communication
"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"
The term “student voice” refers to the input and perspectives of students, and describes how their voices and actions affect what happens in the classroom. Through developing their own questions, seeking out their interests, and driving their own learning, students become more involved in their education. With this involvement comes empowerment, as students are able to use their knowledge to contribute to the greater community.
1. Inclusion
When students feel that they matter and are included in the classroom community, they are much more likely to open up and share their perspectives.
2. Integration
Begin to integrate student voice into your daily lessons by creating more opportunities for students to contribute. This can come in the form of whole classroom discussion, small group activities, input on writing activities, and more
At the transformational level, teachers can draw on student input to shape curricular goals for the class.
Student empowerment enables students to use their knowledge to contribute to the classroom and greater outside community. When students feel comfortable sharing their voices, they grow into positions of leadership.
Resources
Encourage student voice in your classroom and school community with some of these helpful resources:
Student Voice: Student Voice has toolkit filled with classroom resources, student voice stories, and more that will allow you to transform your classroom into one where students can thrive.
Edutopia: Check out some of these great articles and resources for highlighting student voice in your classroom.
Students at the Center: Motivation, engagement, and student voice activities.
MindShift KQED: From student voices, learn what students say about being trusted partners in learning.
Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test.
But grammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet.
Great overview of how much we have to communicate more correctly as we communicate more technologically. Planning to look at this with all of my students.
David Puttnam spoke in Dublin tonight - he had some interesting ideas including ORACY - A web definition explains "oracy" as…used to describe a person's ability to efficiently communicate with others via the spoken word as well as to fully understand oral communication. Wilkinson…created the word to emphasize the need for school children to be able to fully use oral skills as an essential basis for learning and social integration. It is an analogy for the words numeracy and literacy, and aids in bringing the focus of oral skill on par with reading and writing in the classroom.
Voicethread is a grouped conversation that is collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. Say you upload a picture, document, or video - anyone you share it with will be able to communicate with you and comment on the media you've shared. There are five different ways someone can comment/communicate with you on Voicethread - Record (mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (webcam).
by Emily C. Weinstein, Harvard University
International Journal of Communication 8 (2014), 210-233.
Social media have dramatically altered the communication landscape, offering novel contexts for individual expression. But how do youth who are civically engaged off-line manage opportunities for civic expression on social media? Interviews with 70 U.S.-based civic youth aged 15 to 25 revealed three main patterns characterizing the
relationship between off-line participation and online expression: blended, bounded, and differentiated. Five sets of empirically derived considerations influencing expression
patterns emerged: organizational policies, personal image and privacy, perceived alignment with civic goals, attitudes toward the platform(s), and perceptions of their audience(s). Most civic youth express the civic online, yet a minority highlight tensions that lead them to refrain from sharing in certain or all online context.
So many cool things come from Berlin...
"OpenTechSchool is a community initiative offering free programming workshops and meetups to technology enthusiasts of all genders, backgrounds, and experience levels. It supports volunteer coaches in setting up events by taking care of the organizational details, encouraging coaches to create original teaching material. This material is then openly shared online and can be further developed by contributions from the global OTS community. OTS' main goal is to create a friendly learning environment where no one feels shy about asking any question. Everyone is invited to participate, whether as a coach or a learner, and get in contact to organize OTS events anywhere in the world."