Group items tagged

"Would any of my students turn down a 1:1 MacBook Pro? Of course not. Still, I believe there is great value in the limitations of resources. When we engage in Device Wars on twitter and the blogosphere, we all seem to exercise significant bias in equating the best classroom tool with the one that we find most productive in our personal or professional lives (I touched upon that in disagreeing with folks who contend that the iPad is not a creation tool). Do I have a vision of what technology I'd like in my class in the perfect scenario? Sure I do. Do my students and I really need that state of shiny utopia, especially when it is (in my view) impossible to achieve in an equitable fashion? I don't think so."

Recently I have gotten a lot of feedback on my previous PBL posts, mainly asking me how I develop my PBL ideas.  So, I thought it might be a good idea to let everyone take a peek at the process I use to write my PBLs.  Just be warned that I haven't yet perfected the art of crafting a PBL yet, but hopefully some of this will help you in any PBL writing you may do.

Every once and a while something comes along that causes me to wonder: Why isn't everyone using this (or something like it)? I look around college classrooms and libraries I find people using the usual suspects of programs:  MS Word and Pages.  I use Pages too, but it's only really good for the final composition of a paper, and it's a terrible research and note taking tool (it's a word processor, not a note taking tool). I've come to the point where nearly all my studies are done with Evernote.  I know there are are a ton of other programs out there (like Zotero, Scrivener, OneNote etc...) and this is not to say that those aren't good programs (I use Zotero with Amazon.com to make bibliographies super easy - but Zotero's note taking tool feels tacked on), but I just happen to use Evernote, heavily.  If you're a student and you are not using something like Evernote, you are probably missing out on being more productive and doing better work.

Like most people I have lost many hours to Google Earth. As a geographer and teacher I have been trying to find ways to incorporate this tool into the social studies classroom. Over a year ago I started making my own Google Earth files. Throughout the past year, my father and I have spent countless hours working through technical issues creating what you see today. There are a few more improvements that still need to be made (when in doubt refresh the browser), but it works and is there for you to enjoy. I offer this tool to all teachers who want to create cool and engaging lessons for their students. In return I would appreciate feedback on how you use this site and potential improvements. Required Resources: This site looks best with IE7 and higher, Firefox 3 ((FF4-FF7 Fix), and Google Chrome. You must install the Google Earth Plug-in (Free, but you might need your IT administrator to install) and have broadband access.

"Would any of my students turn down a 1:1 MacBook Pro? Of course not. Still, I believe there is great value in the limitations of resources. When we engage in Device Wars on twitter and the blogosphere, we all seem to exercise significant bias in equating the best classroom tool with the one that we find most productive in our personal or professional lives (I touched upon that in disagreeing with folks who contend that the iPad is not a creation tool). Do I have a vision of what technology I'd like in my class in the perfect scenario? Sure I do. Do my students and I really need that state of shiny utopia, especially when it is (in my view) impossible to achieve in an equitable fashion? I don't think so."

"I confess!  I'm a Flipboard flip-a-holic. I wasn't always this way.  I originally hated Flipbaord and found the magazine style layout cluttered. Life has changed and Flipboard is now the most used app on my tablet. And since I wrote my post on Google Reader replacements, I've had a lot of people ask me what benefits I gain using Flipboard that they missed! So I've put together this information to help you get started using Flipboard or get more out of using Flipboard."

"As promised, I put a free PDF copy of "It's Complicated" on my website the day the book officially launched. But as some folks noticed, I didn't publicize this when I did so. For those who are curious as to why, I want to explain. And I want you to understand the various issues at play for me as an author and a youth advocate."

"As a teacher I was highly influenced by Howard Gardner, and spent a great deal of time matching up students to how I thought they learned best. It gave me hope that all students can learn as long as we find ways to introduce information to them in a way that works for them. I blindly moved forward thinking that I was finding each student's learning style. I was wrong."

"I remixed this awesome scavenger hunt originally created by Joyce Valenza and added a QR Code Twist! I re-worked some of the questions for a lesson with my adorable ESOL kids (we have 35 right now in our ESOL program & one cute be-freckled girl just came yesterday & speaks no English at all but she LOVED scanning the codes when I handed her my Droid Fascinate!) The rest of the kids have varying degrees of English proficiency but still will benefit from a few visual clues. So the scavenger hunt questions are intentionally simply & clearly worded combined with pics I created as QR Code Hints. You can also use this lesson for special needs classes, Library Media orientation, or even re-mix the questions, QR Codes, & hints for just about ANY subject area! To create the hints I used a combination of Photoshop, Flickr, bit.ly and my favourite QR Code generator, Kaywa."

"Since buying an iPad 2, one of the questions I'm asked most frequently is if it can completely take the place of a computer. I'm not surprised people are asking that, as it's the same thing I was asking before I bought it. As a writer, I'm literally on my computer from the time I get up to the time I go to bed. Could an iPad really do everything I need it to?"

"I was looking through the list of my Going Paperless posts the other day and realized that I've now been writing this column for over two years. In that time the way I use Evernote to go paperless has evolved, and while some of the earlier posts I wrote are still useful, they don't always reflect how I do things today. So I thought I'd use today's column to describe some of the ways my use of Evernote to go paperless has evolved over the years."

Last month, I blogged about the choice I gave my statistics students between using Diigo and Pinterest for the social bookmarking assignments in the course. I floated two possible reasons why most of my students selected Diigo over Pinterest: Hypothesis 1: Students choosing Diigo over Pinterest selected the service that seemed more academic. Hypothesis 2: Pinterest has the reputation for being a site mainly for women. Most of my engineering students are men, so they opted for the less gendered option, Diigo. Hypotheses are all well and good, but I wanted some evidence, so I asked my students on their end-of-semester survey why they selected the platform they did. Of my 71 students, 45 responded to this question.

Learn new info on a schedule set out by this web site. Helps with memory retention. I think I first read abut the science in Technology Review, Wired, or Fast Company. I forget!!

Learn new info on a schedule set out by this web site. Helps with memory retention. I think I first read abut the science in Technology Review, Wired, or Fast Company. I forget!!

"Knowledge seldom takes the place of experience. So while I muddled through my first few weeks on Twitter-experimenting and fiddling-I noticed the many things I could have only learned by doing. Here are the big ones. Call them Twitter tips for beginners."

Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and  areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student.

"Everyone's now aware of 3D printing - they've read about it in the papers, on blogs or seen it on TV. The mentality now seems to be that, in the future, we'll be able to download our products or make them ourselves with CAD programs, apps and 3D scanners, then just print them out, either at home, or in localised print shops. Which in turn will supposedly decentralize manufacturing, bringing it back to the West. But like the cupcake, Daft Punk's latest album, or goji berries, 3D printing is severely overhyped - and I should know, because it's what I do for a living."

"This week I gave five speeches while wearing it. I passed through airports four times (two more in a couple of hours). I let hundreds of people try my Google Glass. I have barely taken it off since getting it other than to sleep. Here's my review after having Google Glass for two weeks:"

HERE'S a scene in my house: My almost 9-year-old is on the internet doing something or other, and I am not standing over her shoulder or otherwise monitoring her. Is this negligent? Am I throwing her to the wolves? I have no idea how to approach these thorny questions, so I have lunch with the academic and Microsoft researcher, danah boyd (she spells her name in lowercase letters for complicated philosophical and aesthetic reasons), who has studied this cluster of issues in an original and challenging way.

"There are now two main cultures in computing: Most computer users treat software as a tool for getting tasks done, while programmers hold conversations with their software. One big challenge when teaching programming, no matter in what language, is getting students used to a conversation-oriented programmer culture, which is very different than a tool-oriented user culture" An interesting post, although I was actually left wondering why users should worry about programming. I understand that there are differences, but other than 'big data', Philip does not really provide detailed reasoning to support the argument.

During your time at school you will complete many projects and research assignments that require you to find and use information from a variety of sources - many of which will be online. Sometimes, however, searching on the web can feel like you are lost in a jungle of information? You may feel overwhelmed and ask yourself the following questions... Where do I start? Where am I going to get the information I need? How do I know what is 'good' information? Which are the best websites for this assignment? Well, the Research Safari is designed to help you navigate your way through the 'jungle of information' to help you create a dynamic assignment.