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"Best Practices for Using Technology in the Classroom Technology in the Classroom When using technology for teaching, there are four basic principles to be kept in mind: Alignment: Technology should be used for a purpose-not for the sake of being flashy and not as a distraction from other forms of pedagogy. Carefully consider the ways in which video or other media that you share with your class are aligned with your learning objectives. Consider the technology that is most closely in alignment with your teaching skills and the needs of your students-if you don't like to teach with Power Point, consider giving students a handout outlining the main points of your lecture and listing major concepts to assist them in note-taking. Accessibility: Be sure that the technology that you intend to use is accessible to your students. While computers are virtually ubiquitous, and students living on campus have ready access to computing labs and other technology on campus, do consider whether or not your students have access to technology that you want them to use. Also, consider your own access to technology: make sure that you are familiar with all of the technology that you use and that media technology in your classroom is functioning correctly before the class. Plan ahead. If you are going to show a film, for example, don't wait until you walk into class to find out if the player in your classroom supports your DVD's regional format, or you will find yourself scrambling to come up with a lesson plan that does not include the film. By checking the regional format in advance, you will be able to have a matching-format DVD player delivered to the classroom by Technology Services. Assessment: As with lectures, discussions, and labs, provide your students with guidance when dealing with media technologies. If you are showing them a film, provide them with the learning objectives that you have for them in watching the film. Consider giving them a short assignment to be fil

"Five Ways Teachers Can Use Technology to Help Students Posted: 05/07/2013 8:34 am Follow éducation , Classroom Technology , Open Source , Public Schools , Teacher Technology , Technology In The Classroom , Technology News SHARE THIS STORY 57 273 34 Submit this story By Darrell M. West and Joshua Bleiberg Thomas Edison once said, "Books will soon be obsolete in the public schools... our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years." Amazingly enough, however, one of our nation's most important inventors was proven quite wrong. The American education system has a remarkable resistance to innovation and the classroom experience has changed very little in the 100 years since Edison's prediction. Advances in information technology have revolutionized how people communicate and learn in nearly every aspect of modern life except for education. The education system operates under the antiquated needs of an agrarian and industrial America. The short school day and the break in the summer were meant to allow children to work on family farms. Schools have an enduring industrial mentality placing students in arbitrary groups based on their age regardless of their competencies. Technology has failed to transform our schools because the education governance system insulates them from the disruptions that technology creates in other organizations. The government regulates schools perhaps more than any other organization. Rules govern where students study, how they will learn, and who will teach them. Education regulation governs the relationships of actors in the system and stymies the impact of innovative technologies. Furthermore the diffuse system of governance creates numerous veto points to limit innovation. To overcome these obstacles, we must persuade teachers that technology will empower them and help their students learn. We argue that there are five strategies for successful teacher adoption of education technology and that these principles will he

"3 Tips on Integrating Technology in the Classroom Former Gov. Bob Wise discusses Digital Learning Day and how high school teachers can embrace technology. By Laura McMullen Jan. 25, 2012 SHARE Integrating technology into a high school classroom isn't a one-step process. "You can't just slap a netbook [computer] on top of a textbook and say, 'Great, now we have technology," says Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, an advocacy organization. Wise says that digital learning starts with teachers, whose performance is enhanced by technology-not the other way around. That's also the idea of Digital Learning Day, which the Alliance is spearheading. The first annual Digital Learning Day falls on February 1 and will celebrate innovative K-12 instructors who successfully bring technology into the classroom by assigning online course content, using adaptive software for students with special needs, and utilizing online student assessments and other digital tools. Educators, as well as parents, students, librarians, and community leaders, can learn about classroom innovations and get new ideas by chiming in during the virtual National Town Hall meeting held on Digital Learning Day. [Learn how a new iPad app is revolutionizing textbooks.] "The whole intention of Digital Learning Day is to really celebrate teachers and good instructional learning practices," says Sarah Hall, director of the Alliance's Center for Secondary School Digital Learning and Policy. And good teaching, especially the kind that involves working with evolving technologies, sometimes requires good advice. Hall and Wise shared the following ideas for effectively using technology in the classroom-not just on Digital Learning Day, but anytime. 1. Plan ahead: There has to be a comprehensive strategy in place to implement technology into the school system, Wise says, and the teachers have to be involved in the planning stages. "When a schoo

This site--English pedagogy guru Jim Burke's ning--is a treasure trove for middle school and secondary English instructors. Joining requires verification of your relationship to a learning institution. The site is well organized, allowing me to browse by general topics and within forums. It's a virtual teacher's lounge, allowing for quick takes on strategies for teaching any number of things, or in depth discussion on the viability of Literature Circles for Shakespeare study. I could easily get lost in the forest of great ideas here.

Wikipiedia for kids! An annotated version for kid friendly topics like history and science! wiki books for kids- research

Free math teaching resources, math games, center activities and math journal tasks for K-5 aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Great Resource

Free math teaching resources, math games, center activities and math journal tasks for K-5 aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Great Resource

After reading chapter two of Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts I was slightly hesitant about starting a blog for the school. The author mentioned this website as a good resource for parent letters and student guidelines. This is the homepage wiki for Bud's resources, but there are many good links shared on it. Good luck!

Tons of resources for setting up science lessons for any age student.

A free, downloadable website that provides students options for accessing web content minus the clutter. It is a great tool for students that need to change the visuals on a page, bringing the text forward. You can customize the font size and type to suit a student's style. Let's you save articles in that format to your iPad too.

Not necessarily appropriate for students, but very entertaining.

Okay--this is not necessarily appropriate for students, but is valuable for educators who need to handle the demands of the work by acknowledging that sometimes, there is nothing you can do but just laugh. If you run across something worthy of notice among your own classes, you can immortalize your students' writing gems by submitting them to the blog. Educational applications? Well, there are some fine and entertaining mistakes which could provide fodder for exercises in editing, revision, etc. as well as discussion on the importance of choosing the right word. If you check out the site, you'll see what I mean. Enjoy!

A great page for teacher's who school's are going Google, or who want to look more into google apps can start!

Thie commercial Apple, Inc. website provides its viewers valuable information about the latest Apple, Inc. apps for educators and students. It will keep you up to date on the technology out there for us and allow you to see demonstrations of the use of certain apps. Commercial, but very informative

One of my coworkers works for this family and I cried when she shared this video with our classroom teachers. The family made this video because their son/brother has Autism and they wanted to educate the public about the impact of Autism. The boy's sister wrote a song for her brother and performs the song along to slideshow of family pictures. 

This is a great website for information on teaching students with learning disabilities. The site has information on tech tools for students with learning disabilities and how to use the tools in an inclusion setting.

Teachers create materials that you can buy the rights to, print, laminate, and use over and over.

Website where teachers can post lessons, ideas, etc, and get payed for it. Or they can give resources away for free!

TeachersPayTeachers.com -- 700,000+ free and priced teaching resources created by teachers for download including lesson plans, unit plans, novel studies,

The list of links for Alan November's book.

This website has some great video lessons, complete with lesson objectives, notes for the instructor, and links to external resources. It doesn't have anything for English, but it does have a big math and science section.

I didn't see it listed by anyone else. A great source for information for your math class room

Many templates for smartnotebook for all grades and subjects.

Lessons, interactives, calendar activities, and more, right at your fingertips. Read write think is a great resource for lesson plans but also has many types of free templates available for graphic organizers. I have primarily used read write think for brainstorming in the classroom as many of their organizational templates are great accommodation for visual learners or students who really benefit from structure.