Group items tagged

 Sky Calls is a NASA-supported astronomy alert service that puts kids in touch with the sky-night and day.  Anyone with a telephone can participate. When there is an eclipse, an alignment of planets, a big solar flare, or a flyby of the International Space Station, the phone rings.  A voice message from NASA alerts students to the event and tells them how they can see or experience it.  Students with cell phones can choose to receive text messages instead of voice.  Of course, teachers can participate, too.

"In a few years from now, students in schools all over the world will receive part of their education in virtual learning environments. Wearing VR-goggles the students will be able to enter 3-dimensional, simulated places and situations that they would normally not have access to because it would be too expensive, too dangerous or physically impossible. Teaching via VR-technology is spreading widely and international studies predict that this will revolutionise the way we learn."

"When Zoë's book came up for review I put my hand up to read it straight away. I currently work as a Primary Middle Leader (Literacy Lead and EYFSCoordinator) in a larger than average primary school in the North of England. In the last two years, we have undergone a lot of changes, both internal due to staffing and curriculum and changes and external as we have become part of the largest MAT in the city. This has meant an increase in responsibility and accountability, not only for myself but other middle leaders who I have had the chance to meet with."

"Teachers in England are being invited to join a professional development opportunity through EarthEcho International sponsored by the Northrop Grumman Foundation. The 'EarthEcho Expeditions: What's the Catch?' programme leverages the rich Cousteau legacy of exploration and discovery to bring Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education alive for today's 21st-century learners and their educators. The free, expenses-paid opportunity is planned to allow secondary school teachers to participate as Expedition Fellows to learn first-hand from scientists and engineers the consequences of fisheries mismanagement and how this can be changed for the better with new technological approaches and discoveries."

"Primary school students are more likely to understand and engage with maths if classes use real money and real-life projects, according to a Western Sydney University pilot study. The findings come as Australian students lag behind other countries in maths, with Year 4 students dropping from 18th to 28th out of 49 countries in year 4 maths in the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science study."

This free online course was developed in response to the emerging importance of children and youth in international development policy. The course will give the learner a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of development from the early years right through to adolescence. The course will deal with questions such as: What makes young people tick? What shapes and influences a child's development? How can the adults who work with children support them more effectively? After completion of the course, learners will be familiar with the major theories on the development of children. This course will be of great interest to professionals already in health, care or development professions, to learners who are planning a career that centres on youth, and will also be beneficial to parents, carers, and learners who are interested in studying issues related to children and adolescents.

Join us and fellow ELT professionals from around the world to discuss, reflect on and develop ideas. The 43rd IATEFL Conference will offer many opportunities for professional contact and development. The programme offers over 400 workshops, posters, talks, panel discussions and symposiums by international presenters from over 60 countries.

Move over Khan Academy. Educreations is here with a super simple web or iPad app that lets you record lessons to share with your students, wherever they are. If they enable one thing like common core tagging (tag it with the standard) and enough contribute we will have an incredibly powerful tool.

The strength of Khan Academy's tutorials is content and clear presentation of this content. I didn't find either in Educreations' showcased examples: most could just be presented as a good old slideshow. Granted, a few do have an audio comment. But you can do that with slidecasts too (e.g. you can synch an audio file with your slides on Screencast.net or on MyPlick.com) Moreover, there is no way to caption such Educreations presentations including audio for the deaf, which means they can't be used in schools in US, Italy and other countries that have laws imposing accessibility for all for educational materials. And you can't subtitle them for people who don't know the original language, which severely curtails the potential use. Khan Academy, on the other hand has an international captioning/subtitling team - see http://gigaom.com/video/khan-academy-universal-subtitles/ . So OK, Educreations have an iPad app - the point is that Khan Academy's tutorials don't need one. The real difference is that Educreations' content is crowdsourced and the content of Khan Academy's tutorials isn't: not enough to outweigh the accessibility and internationalization issues above. Teachers can already produce their own online tutorials as slideshows, slidecasts or videos that can be captioned/subtitled in other languages with other platforms.

US Education vs. The World (cool infographic) with the link this time... http://bit.ly/j0tf3E #edchat #sschat