Explain Everything can also be used as a whiteboard with the iPad video display. Before you start, consider reading the help page to discern all the features. Then tap on New Project and choose a blank project screen or import from one of many sources (you must enter your username and password information for that source on the linking screen)
design thinking is a set of tools, methods, and processes by which we develop new answers for challenges, big and small.
Through applying design thinking to challenges, we learn to define problems, understand needs and constraints, brainstorm innovative solutions, and seek and incorporate feedback about our ideas in order to continually make them better. The more we apply design thinking to the challenges we see, the deeper we strengthen the belief in our ability to generate creative ideas and make positive change happen in the world.
If you are interested in finding a program or resources to help integrate design thinking in your school, the directory offers a great set of organizations already listed for inspiration and new connections.
We are living in an age of increased complexity, and are facing global challenges at an unprecedented scale. The nature of connectivity, interactivity, and information is changing at lightening speed. We need to enable a generation of leaders who believe they can make a difference in the world around them, because we need this generation to build new systems and rebuild declining ones. We need them to be great collaborators, great communicators, and great innovators.
As we help today’s students build their foundation of core academic knowledge and skills, we also need to look at the ways we are helping our youth build their confidence in their abilities to create.
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:
Read your assigned question and complete one of the following:
1) ask questions to clarify
2) hypothesize about various aspects of the problem 3) design an inquiry to test the hypotheses
your “social graph” could help to make sense of the web again, to access not only content, but what is relevant to you. Ben Parr asked if Google+ was a new social media platform that was bringing a innovative way to share clusters of interests.
The debate around the need of filters, and how to be sure to find the “right” information
if we can be all creators, can we all be curators? Who should be the ones in charge of it? Journalists and educators were both examples of natural curators according to Burt Herman and Guillaume Decugis.
Build, Play and Share Games Anytime Anywhere\nBest for mobile web or unlimited text plans. CHECK game location to prevent international charges...Beware of adult restricted content. Very new site so not much there. The fun is creating clever games with a good narrative.
Plantary properties has a great lesson for your weight and age on other planets.
More than 25 hands-on science activities are provided in classroom-ready pages for both teachers and students for exploring Earth, the planets, geology, and space sciences.
there’s a war raging over what some now are calling a new art form in the emerging Web 2.0 culture—remix
remix is collage, a recombination of existing, reference images or music and video clips from popular digital culture, elements of which are mashed up into something new.
If digital literacy includes remixing, then the skills of citation and attribution are more important than ever.
failing to legally protect remixes as original forms of art and expression “will make pirates of our children...We cannot kill this form of expression;
Johnson, author of The Invention of Air, a new book about the history of information flows in American and British society, said remix has “deep roots in the Age of Enlightenment and among America’s Founding Fathers.”
Remix is not new... but it is easier and more accessible than ever. A smartphone alone is a remix machine capable of remixing text, audio, video, images and more. Then with a click you can publish your remix to the world from anywhere!
Where do we think innovation and creativity come from
Fairey rounded out the talk, citing remix as one of the early 21st century’s most popular forms of free political expression.
Remix is all about making references; references are how you establish a point of view in popular culture, and they are crucial to my work as an artist.”
This is what we as educators are all about...
We challenge students to make connections, identify themes, clarify or argue a point of view. We push them to remix everyday.
Are we challenging them to respect the ideas they build their learning upon?