EdTech for WL

"The Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model offers a method of seeing how computer technology might impact teaching and learning.  It also shows a progression that adopters of educational technology often follow as they progress through teaching and learning with technology. "

A couple of weeks ago, Samer Rabadi, Edutopia's Community Manager, started this discussion on the Community Bulletin Board: "What Does It Mean to Be a Connected Educator?" He observed that, for many of us, becoming connected educators has transformed our lives. I would certainly agree with that!

Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.[1] The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright, but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardized licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, profiting both copyright owners and licensees. Wikipedia uses one of these licenses.[2]

TONS of ideas for differentiate instruction in WL

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.

AVID, Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a college readiness system for elementary through higher education that is designed to increase schoolwide learning and performance. The AVID College Readiness System (ACRS) accelerates student learning, uses research based methods of effective instruction, provides meaningful and motivational professional learning, and acts as a catalyst for systemic reform and change.

"A collection of stories is the way to rewrite a singular history that has been in textbooks....I think it takes a lot of people telling a lot of stories about what their experience has been, what the experience of their ancestors has been." The speaker is Tommy Orange, an Oakland-based media consultant, writer, and digital storyteller who is an enrolled member of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and describes himself as "a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a partner, a storyteller, and a committed member and servant of his community." For Issue #3 of The Republic of Stories, our quarterly online publication, Arlene Goldbard interviewed Tommy and Tony Platt, author of books inlcuding Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past, who lives in Berkeley and Big Lagoon, California, and serves as secretary of the Coalition to Protect Yurok Cultural Legacies at O-pyuweg (Big Lagoon).

New service from Google - help from experts for learning!

How to tap into Creative COmmons resources If your students are using images, video, or music in the final products that they are producing for your class, then it is INCREDIBLY important that you introduce them to the Creative Commons -- an organization that is helping to redefine copyright laws.

An excellent archived webinar at Buck Institute for Education (BIE.org) on DQ's presenter by John Larmer.

I really like Diving Questions. In fact, I like them so much more then Essential Questions. You might ask why? I think it just might be my affection for the revised Bloom's Taxonomy. You may remember that in the revision the different levels were changed into action. In fact, I strongly believe that learning is a verb and is based on action. Take away the word "Question" and Driving is a verb loaded with action. The word "Essential" standing alone is only a word devoted to describing… a colorful but inactive adjective.

In this first three-part post, John Larmer describes how he and co-author Susie Boss answered the question in their newly published book, 'PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity'. In the next post, Deborah Esparza will review the book from "the field". For the final post, co-author Susie Boss has been invited to explain why she and John choose this topic.

Podcast avec une activité de compréhension orale

Un bon article à développer pour le cours AP - la beauté et l'esthétique

"En navigant sur Internet, on collecte une foule d'informations intéressantes, que l'on ne prend pas toujours la peine d'approfondir sur le moment mais que l'on souhaite conserver pour un examen ultérieur. Si l'on prend effectivement cette peine, si de plus l'on fait du lien entre diverses informations ainsi collectées et entre celles-ci et ce que l'on sait déjà, nous voilà dans un magnifique processus d'apprentissage non formel, applicable en tous temps et en toutes circonstances."

"Diigo en effet, apparaît comme l'outil de "socialbookmarking" par excellence. Social quoi ? Le socialbookmarking, terme dont on n'a pas encore trouvé de traduction en français faisant l'unanimité, désigne la pratique qui consiste à indexer des ressources dans un espace en ligne, à partager sa bibliothèque avec d'autres utilisateurs et surtout à construire des bibliothèques communes, tout en engageant la conversation avec ceux dont on partage les centres d'intérêt. Diigo est donc l'outil idéal pour les travaux de groupes, pour les recherches au long cours qui se nourriront des apports de nombreuses personnes, et enfin pour une analyse critique des ressources collectées."

Great infographic on the workflow of PBL using Google Apps