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"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

"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

"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

Varied online games across several academic areas. Different medium for students to access information. There is a game called windfall; the point of the game is to set up and maintain a wind farm to create energy and revenue. Instead of just lecturing to the students about clean energy this allows them the opportunity to try it.

This is a great website to preview books and look up Lexile levels to see what is appropriate for your students. It is geared toward Middle school. Students can use this site to make their own book trailers. A nice alternative to book reports.

Keith Hughes explains how to flip your classroom. He gives a quick tutorial about how to do the video piece. He emphasizes three things: 1. Know your curriculum, 2. Know your audience. 3. When you know your curriculum and your audience, you can focus on how to engage kids so they understand your objective clearly. He suggests making a 10 minute video, and explains how incorporate the videos, font and lecture into the video. The students watch it at home and come to class prepared to discuss the concept. In this way, class time is not used to teach content, but to respond to the concepts the students viewed in the video at home.

I love this site and want to incorporate it into my classroom. It's a great way to keep track of all the books you read, challenge yourself to read a certain number of books in a year, and see what your friends are reading.

This is a great blog on activating prior knowledge, so important when expecting full comprehension and engagement from students! It is amazing that the simplest things can make the biggest difference in the classroom, each student has something unique and valid to offer, we as teachers need to make sure we give them the opportunity to share what they know and discuss what they are learning.

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.

This website provides great lessons for teachers to prevent cyber bullying and to teach students how to handle it.

This awesome website provides teachers with ready to use lessons and resources to bring real-life math into the classroom.

With the ongoing transition to new standards and assessments in the United States, this scoop.it is intended to curate all materials relevant to implementation of the standards and preparation for next generation assessments.

A logophone's dream. While I would love to possess a revered hard copy in my classroom learning center, I would definitely have this site bookmarked.

This link to the Oxford English Dictionary is an invaluable resource for Middle School ELA and Secondary Ed English teachers. I can see it as a frequent "go-to" site for Student Researchers, providing more interesting content than a standard online dictionary. Because the OED is concerned with word origins, I believe it would be helpful in creating bridges with ELL students as well, giving them a chance to see the linguistic contributions their language has made to ours. Check out the link in the lower center column for teachers and students (resources and lesson plans).

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Reason Effectively * Use various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) as appropriate to the situation Use Systems Thinking * Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems Make Judgments and Decisions * Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs * Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view * Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments * Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis * Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes Solve Problems * Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional and innovative ways * Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions

This blog is AWESOME! It relates to all level of educators, includes tips on classroom uses with technology, has news from all over the globe related to technology and education, and even has how-to posts. I find myself reading it daily now and even back-reading. A must read!

How to teach students to leave quality comments on blogs

You may have seen this, but I thought this was great as a way to teach young elementary students internet safety.

Another engaging activity about what to share on-line and protecting your computer from a virus is http://home.disney.com.au/activities/surfswellisland/ Surfs Well Island by Disney. I found the tip that you should never tell an on-line friend the name of your baseball team very interesting.

I found this blog to be useful because it contained video and reading methods that are related to English or Reading. This blog contains helpful links to other websites and is simply formatted so that it is easy to read.

Ideas for podcasts, and the hows and whys to use them. I already found one I would have loved to have used this past year.