EDT 4 and 5 for Spring 2014

"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."

If you are a language teacher, this organization will keep you up to date on technology advancements.

After you finish all of the EDT courses with Alexis, Fresno Pacific offers more opportunities for professional development that count toward advancement on the Peralta pay scale.

"10 terrific science based Pinterest boards and Pinners I really appreciate the visual aspect of Pinterest over other social media sites. With Pinterest, one look at an appealing image and you want to know more, which makes it tailor made for certain content areas such as science. Pictures of nature, weather phenomenon, and outer space are often some of the most impressive image you can find on Pinterest. Beyond the amazing pictures, there is a great deal of useful information to be found."

"Introduction Joan Lucariello, PhD, City University of New York Students do not come to school as blank slates to be filled with instruction. Rather, they come to school with considerable knowledge, some correct and some not. Either way, that knowledge is based on intuition, every-day experience, as well as what they have been taught in other settings. Teachers and researchers generally refer to preinstructional knowledge as preconceptions. Since a considerable amount of our knowledge is organized by subject matter (mathematics, science, etc.), so too are our preconceptions. Before beginning instruction on any new topic, teachers need to know their students' preconceptions because learning, and therefore instruction itself, varies depending on whether students' preconceptions agree with the concepts being taught or contradict those concepts. When preconceptions are consistent with the concepts in the assigned curriculum, student preconceptions are called anchoring conceptions. Learning, in such cases, is much easier. It becomes a matter of conceptual growth, enrichment, or adding to student knowledge. More often, teachers find themselves teaching concepts that are difficult for their students to learn because students' preconceptions are inconsistent with the concepts being taught. In these cases, preconceptions are termed alternative conceptions or misconceptions."

this is more k-12 but has interesting points about facilitating discussion

"Creating timelines is another important digital skill to be added to the the 33 digital skills we have compiled before. Students should be able to easily create their own learning timelines and share them with each other.This can have a huge positive impact on their overall learning process. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has sifted through some of the best free timeline making tools and come up with the list below. Just to refresh your mind, a timeline is " a way of displaying a list of events in chronological order, sometimes described as a project artifact. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates alongside itself and usually events labelled on points where they would have happened.' ( from Wikipedia )."

" 387 1K+ 5 inShare 29 Print! The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Using Technology I just came across this graphic and thought you might be interested to have a look as well. This is basically a list of 7 habits of effective teachers using technology. I really like how these habits are sequenced and I found them to be the habits of every successful teacher and not only those using technology. I don't know if the habits are arranged in order of importance or not but if they are then I would put number seven as the first habit.Overall , the poster is really a great work and it is worth sharing."

"What is Inquiry Pedagogy? Pedagogy is defined as "any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another" (Watkins & Mortimer, 1999, p. 3). Inquiry pedagogy therefore, is based around a set of teaching and learning strategies that involve student-centred research and investigation that encourages metacognitive thought processes, discussion and collaboration. Carroll defines Inquiry Pedagogy as an understanding about society and its interactions that "requires us to seek out knowledge as well as apply historical skills to determine why events occurred and what motivated the people to take the action they took" (2012). "