Group items tagged

Videos and videos of songs on many different topics across subjects and grades. Some are free, there is also a free trial.

Flocabulary is a library of songs, videos and activities for K-12 online learning. Hundreds of thousands of teachers use Flocabulary's educational raps and teaching lesson plans to supplement their instruction and engage students. Our team of artists and educators is not only committed to raising test scores, but also to fostering a love of learning in every child.

Flocabulary is a library of songs, videos, and activities for K-12 online learning.

Lessons and resources for teaching health related content to students K-12. Great resource for adding extensions or modifications to current lesson plans.

This article summarizes a study aimed at explaining collective behavior on social networking platforms through intentional social action, which is known as the We-Intention theory. The study focused on Facebook in particular, because it is widely popular among university students and could, thus, illustrate social media's impact on students' motivation to learn via virtual communities. In the article, the We-Intention theory is driven by social influence factors, social presence, and elements of the uses and gratifications (U&G) model. U&G, as defined in the article, explains why individuals gravitate toward certain digital media over others. U&G assumes individuals are both goal-directed and aware of their needs, listed as purposive value, self-discovery, entertainment, social enhancement, and maintenance of interpersonal connectivity. The study identified two U&G needs, entertainment and interpersonal connectivity, as significantly determining intentional social action under the We-Intention theory.

That article is very interesting stating that most use Facebook for instant communication and connection. The need for instant gratification. Joining too many groups or trying to connect to too many people does make it hard to have a specific connection to one group. May be the reason that people post so many random topics and photos.

Interesting perspective on Facebook from the point of view of students using the platform.Since most of my background is from K-12 education, I have not witnessed teachers using the platform with their students. I have found that most K-12 teachers use Facebook to communicate with parents. It does seem to have a similar impact on getting parents motivated and active in class activities. Most parents use Facebook and once they know they can follow their child's teacher and get updates via the social media app, parents tend to do so

This graduate dissertation was particularly interesting to me since it focuses on K-12 Spanish teachers. The author discusses how communities of practice can be used as professional development and ongoing language training, particularly for non-native speakers. The research includes the use of technology in that the community of practice studied was conducted online.

I can see the use of CoP being very beneficial for non-native speakers. The technologies are the tools that would help to bridge the learning gaps and support learners. Non-native speakers often feel very isolated in learning environments, as having more than one learning group would be helpful. What a great dissertation topic.

This article highlights how Blackboard is helping a number of school districts raise achievement, organization and engagement. It gives examples from several schools that participate.

Contains annotated links to over 1200 history web sites as well as links to hundreds of quality K-12 history lesson plans, history teacher guides, history activities, history games, history quizzes, and more.

We share evidence and practitioner-based learning strategies that empower you to improve K-12 education. http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration

IXL is the world's most popular subscription-based learning site for K-12. Used by over 5 million students, IXL provides unlimited practice in more than 5,000 topics, covering math, language arts, science, and social studies. Interactive questions, awards, and certificates keep kids motivated as they master skills.

Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help for K-12 kids, aligned with state standards. My students love these videos!

BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

The Described and Captioned Media Program is a free-loan library of accessible educational media for use by teachers and family member of K-12 students with a vision or hearing loss. This U.S. Department of Education-funded program also serves as a clearinghouse of accessibility information and training resources as well as a gateway to accessibility information from partnering organizations.

Planet Nutshell produces short animated videos to explain products, services, and concepts. One of their series of videos is all about the Internet and Internet safety for K-12 students. The series is called NetSafe and it has 17 episodes that were produced for the Utah Education Network.

This is my favorite resource for great PowerPoints

This webpage from the US Department of Education describes how Communities of Practice can improve education.

SUMMARY: The DOE gets behind CoPs as potential answer for achievement gap and underperforming teachers and leaders. Money, time, and resources were thrown at this initiative to see if online CoPs could become the missing link in the instructional shortcomings. Citing examples of success, one is drawn and intrigued to look further at the project as we are now 2 years later.

Finding and researching CoP sites I came across the Department of Education's answer on the Communities of Practice within education. The Department of Education has added the communities of practice within an initiative called the Investing in Innovation along with a series of other initiatives.

iNACOL just released this new report as a guide for K-12 districts. The report outlines best practices in collaborative content development for online courses and resources, and then making those resources available to all other districts. The idea behind open educational resources is to create a community that shares ideas and builds upon the work of each other.