EDT 4 and 5 for Spring 2014

"Purpose: Improving our chance for a common language in discussing existing and emerging learning trends, model, and technology in hopes of innovation in classrooms, and collectively, education at large."

"If you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time scouring the Internet to find useful online teaching resources like web 2.0 tools. That's how you came across this list of 101 Web 2.0 Tools Every Teacher Should Know About, no doubt! Best Teacher ResourcesWhen I find something great (hint, hint!), I make sure to pin it on Pinterest, "like" it on Facebook and save it to my favorite social bookmarking site so that I can come back to it later. I was looking at my treasure trove of resources the other day it occurred to me: Why don't I share this list of awesome web 2.0 tools with my fellow educators?! So, I went through and picked out my 101 favorite tools for teachers and made this list."

"20 Ways to Use Comics In Your Classroom Through Josh Allen's Tech Fridge blog I recently learned about this slideshow created S. Hendy who writes Digital Tools for Teachers. The slideshow, Tap Into the World of Comics, presents a series of comic creation tools followed by twenty suggestions for using comics in your classroom. "

"Assessment is a necessary part of the teaching and learning process, helping us measure whether our students have really learned what we want them to learn. While exams and quizzes are certainly favorite and useful methods of assessment, out of class assignments (written or otherwise) can offer similar insights into our students' learning. And just as creating a reliable test takes thoughtfulness and skill, so does creating meaningful and effective assignments. Undoubtedly, many instructors have been on the receiving end of disappointing student work, left wondering what went wrong… and often, those problems can be remedied in the future by some simple fine-tuning of the original assignment. This paper will take a look at some important elements to consider when developing assignments, and offer some easy approaches to creating a valuable assessment experience for all involved."

"Instructional Design Trends from 2013 and Outlook for 2014: Combining the Use of Instructional Technology with Effective Communication Skills "

"The Best Thing To Ever Happen To Google Drive For Teachers First came cloud-based word processing in the form of Google Docs. With cloud-based word processing in education, teachers could remotely access student work, students (provided they had internet access and had a Google account) could retrieve their work from anywhere, and writers could collaborate in real-time with their peers to double-team the pain-staking work that is the writing process. Then Google finally delivered on the long-rumored Google Drive, giving teachers and students the ability to store both documents and images, pdfs and presentations, video files, and more, turning Google into a cloud hard-drive of sorts. Further, the change to Google Drive brought with it access to apps to bolster what Google Drive could do. Which brings us to the latest-and perhaps best-evolution of Google Drive for teachers. Kaizena voice feedback."

" Education Technology A report from the Alliance for Excellent Education identifies four key challenges that public school district leaders must address in the next two years in order to successfully bring digital learning and education technology into K-12 classrooms. "

"There is something that bothers us about conversations about replacing face-to-face teaching with online learning: they often fall into a trap of assuming that incorporating synchronous interaction is the optimal way to make learning more personable, that it approximates the face-to-face setting closest, and is therefore preferable and better. More often than not, synchronous interaction here implies some form of two-way audiovisual interaction, even though there are text-only forms of synchronous interaction (e.g., Twitter live chat). There are also asynchronous forms of audiovisual interaction (e.g., voicemail, recorded lectures). But we feel the enthusiasm for audiovisual synchronicity often comes without sufficient discernment, and without deliberative consideration of how asynchronous learning can be not only viable but productive."

"f we hope to construct enduring understanding in our students, it's critical that, now more than ever, we know their strengths and interests. By incorporating students' strengths and weakness into authentic learning experiences from the beginning of each unit, while at the same time including opportunities for feedback, metacognition and revision, we promote a variety of cognitive and emotional benefits that can lead to academic success. For example, students with interpersonal learning strengths find that cooperative group work increases perseverance. Students with artistic, computer, dramatic or organizational skills benefit from appropriate opportunities to engage in building knowledge through their strengths and interests. "

a flash based tutorial on doing online research

Font really does mean something

"Without a doubt my most popular posts have consistently been science websites. Below, I have combined all the science websites that I have shared so far and have added nine new ones. Whether you have been following my blog, or if this is your first time, I promise you will find many great resources for your students."

"The truth: What a person "needs" in terms of instructional design depends on many factors such as prior knowledge, readiness to learn, motivation, etc… but not on a preferred learning style. This blog post from Guy Wallace in eLearn Magazine does a terrific job of summarizing the issue and the research findings. He reaches out to heavy hitters such as Ruth Clark, Harold Stolovitch, and Will Thalheimer. These are folks who work hard to review the research and assess the validity of it."

"eb-based tools continue to proliferate, giving teachers more to add to their arsenal, but it can be hard to determine which resources are worth spending time exploring. At the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference this year, Adam Bellow, founder of EduClipper, and Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education offered a quick run through of some favorite apps. The two educators are early adopters of ed-tech classroom strategies and have a lot of experience with tech integration."

"AR Tools are Being Used Today by Creative Educators in Fun, Innovative Ways, but few Know About it (yet). Educators are always looking for new ways to enhance learning and expand the horizons of students in an engaging and interactive way. Gone are the days when class plans were based around exercises from a text book. The world around us is changing rapidly and even preschool age children are becoming more proficient with different types of handheld devices like tablets."

"As you can see below, everything you need to integrate technology into your work is there for you and organized into different categories. I did this work today because a lot of great stuff is buried inside this blog and it would take you forever to sift through it to find it . This way , I think, you will have a user friendly navigation to access anything you want. Make sure you book mark this page because the categories below will be expanding over time so don't miss my future postings. Enjoy "

Passion over Paycheck

"CollegeSource Online features College Catalogs in cover-to-cover, original page format representing 2-Year, 4-Year, Graduate and Professional Schools. Hyperlinked tables of contents and indexes."