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Tony Searl

Performance.Learning.Productivity: 70:20:10 - It's not about the numbers, it's all abou... - 5 views

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    t's not about the numbers, it's about change top-down thinking and bottom-up action are both essential a new understanding of 'learning' is needed by everyone learning professionals have to step up and let go manager engagement and capability are both critical
Mark Gillingham

SmartBlog on Education - Q-and-A: Back to school with Arne Duncan - SmartBrief, Inc. Sm... - 3 views

  • To make this transition, states, districts, and schools should do as much as possible to provide teachers with support for professional learning tied to the new standards. It’s also critical for teachers to connect with and learn from each other.
  • But many educators aren’t “connected” yet because they haven’t taken advantage of opportunities for professional learning online or they aren’t realizing the full benefits. Many districts and states also haven’t done enough to recognize this essential learning as legitimate professional development.
  • The nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership in Chicago provides a great “alternative” route to the classroom, in which participants complete a yearlong residency working with effective mentor teachers.
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  • But, among 4-year-olds in the U.S., fewer than three in 10 attend a high-quality preschool program. This opportunity gap confronts far too many American children — particularly those living in low-income communities. We need to work hard to reach many more students.
Ben Rimes

A Call for Technology Leadership - 16 views

  • (1) modeling the use of new technologies in communicating to students, teachers and the general public; (2) ensuring that technology becomes integral to teaching 21st-century skills from critical thinking and problem solving to collaboration and information literacy in the classroom; (3) boosting Web 2.0 applications and tools as key components of student learning; (4) offering professional development in these technologies and deploying the online tools that help teachers create learning communities among themselves; and (5) requiring better balanced assessments of student work—including project-based learning enhanced by technology tools—in an age driven by NCLB-oriented testing and better use of data from the assessments to help students improve their performance.
    • Ben Rimes
       
      Asking any leader to model effective strategies makes sense, but shouldn't the imperative of offering professional development in newer communications tools come first? Some district leader's I can see jupming into new tools and ways to communicate, but you can't expect all veteran leaders to adopt new tools without the development and support they'll need.
    • Ben Rimes
       
      I'm curious to know in how many districts does the Superintendent serve as the curriculum leader capable of making the sweeping changes to move a district towards project-based learning. I have an inkling that many superintendents find niches that make them valubale, whether it's focusing on assessment, community relations, curriculum, or something else.
  • The revised edition also includes a self-assessment for superintendents to evaluate how far their districts have come along the technological curve. CoSN’s CEO Keith Krueger explains that his organization’s research shows that many district leaders are behind that curve, and the new document opens with a letter:
    • Ben Rimes
       
      Not surprising at all...
  • e cautions that the large-scale changes CoSN is advocating are most likely to happen for district leaders who are not engaged in dozens of other initiatives. “Everybody wants the superintendent to be in the middle of everything,” Reeves explains. “The real acid test is whether you can execute the ‘not-to-do list,’” adding that superintendents need to resist establishing too many priorities. Each of the five areas featured in “Empowering the 21st Century Superintendent” includes a set of resources and a series of action steps for superintendents and district leadership teams. For instance, in the 21st-century skills section, leaders are urged to improve their own such skills, create a vision for integrating them into K12 instruction, audit the district’s strategic plan to see which might be missing and adjust professional development accordingly.
    • Ben Rimes
       
      Love the pragmatism in this quote. Good acknowledgement that district superintendents are engufed in far too much at times, and thus tech-integration may not realistically happen. Good to know that the framework provided by CoSn also includes some directions for district tech teams.
anonymous

Aug 6 - Teaching and Learning Weekly | Healthcare Professionals | Scoop.it - 1 views

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    An online newspaper that collects together the week's news relating to teaching and learning - particularly for those interested in finding resources and inspirational stories about education. Read and subscribe at: http://paper.li/f-1328546324
David Wetzel

How to Create a Lifelong Learning Network: Continuing Education is Based on Need to Ada... - 10 views

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    Creating a lifelong learning network is essential for adults who pursue continuing education as means to advance their professional career or improve their personal life. Regardless of the reason for continuing one's education, an adult's knowledge needs to continually grow. The changing nature of today's society demands the necessity for gaining new skills, new understandings, and new intellectual orientations throughout a person's life.
Maggie Verster

Supporting Distance Learners in the 21st Century - Home - 0 views

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    A guide, learning pathway on how to support distance learning and professional development!!
Suzie Nestico

Jim Klein :: Weblog :: To those who would lead... - 9 views

  • What we must never forget, no matter what circumstances are forced upon us, is that without failure, there is no success. We learn when we fail. We grow when we fall. Science is all about learning from failure, and failure is a key component of innovation, without which nothing would ever be tried. The right technology brings with it the opportunity to create environments where students have the opportunity to not just fail, but to fail gracefully, recover quickly, and move forward having learned from the experience in a non-threatening way.
    • Suzie Nestico
       
      Seems, by far, to be one of the most powerful statements in this blog.  As educators, we need to remind our students how very important failure can be.  Not to suggest we purport failure as a good thing, but that we emphasize it as part of a growth model.
  • As is so well stated by Weston & Bain (2010), "Bransford et al (2000), Jonassen (2000, 2004, 2006, 2008), and Jonassen et al. (1999), fix the future of educational technology in cognitive tools that shape and extend human capabilities. Cognitive tools blur the unproductive distinctions that techno-critics make between computers and teaching and learning (Bullen & Janes, 2007; Hukkinen, 2008; Kommers et al., 1992; Lajoie, 2000). When technology enables, empowers, and accelerates a profession's core transactions, the distinctions between computers and professional practice evaporate.
  • For instance, when a surgeon uses an arthriscope to trim a cartilage (Johnson & Pedowitz, 2007), a structural engineer uses computer-assisted design software to simulate stresses on a bridge (Yeomans, 2009), or a sales manager uses customer-relations-management software to predict future inventory needs (Baltzen & Phillips, 2009), they do not think about technology. Each one thinks about her or his professional transaction." 
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    Must read about considerations for the future directions of our schools and developing the 21st Century learner.
Vicki Davis

Project-Based Learning Professional Development Guide | Edutopia - 10 views

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    A learning guide for Project Based Learning that you can download and review. A great PD tool for the break.
Steve Ransom

Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 11 views

  • When it comes to showing results, he said, “We better put up or shut up.”
  • Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
  • how the district was innovating.
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  • district was innovating
  • there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again
  • “We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”
  • $46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.
  • If we know something works
  • it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training
  • “Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”
  • Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.
  • “It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”
  • creating an impetus to rethink education entirely
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Like teaching powerpoint is "rethinking education". Right.
  • “There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”
  • “They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”
  • The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.
  • rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.
  • engagement is a “fluffy
  • term” that can slide past critical analysis.
  • that computers can distract and not instruct.
  • guide on the side.
  • Professor Cuban at Stanford
  • But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint
  • The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.
  • Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.
  • This is big business.
  • “Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”
Ed Webb

The academy's neoliberal response to COVID-19: Why faculty should be wary and... - 1 views

  • In the neoliberal economy, workers are seen as commodities and are expected to be trained and “work-ready” before they are hired. The cost and responsibility for job-training fall predominantly on individual workers rather than on employers. This is evident in the expectation that work experience should be a condition of hiring. This is true of the academic hiring process, which no longer involves hiring those who show promise in their field and can be apprenticed on the tenure track, but rather those with the means, privilege, and grit to assemble a tenurable CV on their own dime and arrive to the tenure track work-ready.
  • The assumption that faculty are pre-trained, or able to train themselves without additional time and support, underpins university directives that faculty move classes online without investing in training to support faculty in this shift. For context, at the University of Waterloo, the normal supports for developing an online course include one to two course releases, 12-18 months of preparation time, and the help of three staff members—one of whom is an online learning consultant, and each of whom supports only about two other courses. Instead, at universities across Canada, the move online under COVID-19 is not called “online teaching” but “remote teaching”, which universities seem to think absolves them of the responsibility to give faculty sufficient technological training, pedagogical consultation, and preparation time.
  • faculty are encouraged to strip away the transformative pedagogical work that has long been part of their profession and to merely administer a course or deliver course material
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  • remote teaching directives are rooted in the assumption that faculty are equally positioned to carry them out
  • The dual delivery model—in which some students in a course come to class and others work remotely using pre-recorded or other asynchronous course material—is already part of a number of university plans for the fall, even though it requires vastly more work than either in-person or remote courses alone. The failure to accommodate faculty who are not well positioned to transform their courses from in-person to remote teaching—or some combination of the two— will actively exacerbate existing inequalities, marking a step backward for equity.
  • Neoliberal democracy is characterized by competitive individualism and centres on the individual advocacy of ostensibly equal citizens through their vote with no common social or political goals. By extension, group identity and collective advocacy are delegitimized as undemocratic attempts to gain more of a say than those involved would otherwise have as individuals.
  • Portraying people as atomized individuals allows social problems to be framed as individual failures
  • faculty are increasingly encouraged to see themselves as competitors who must maintain a constant level of productivity and act as entrepreneurs to sell ideas to potential investors in the form of external funding agencies or private commercial interests. Rather than freedom of enquiry, faculty research is increasingly monitored through performance metrics. Academic governance is being replaced by corporate governance models while faculty and faculty associations are no longer being respected for the integral role they play in the governance process, but are instead considered to be a stakeholder akin to alumni associations or capital investors.
  • treats structural and pedagogical barriers as minor individual technical or administrative problems that the instructor can overcome simply by watching more Zoom webinars and practising better self-care.
  • In neoliberal thought, education is merely pursued by individuals who want to invest in skills and credentials that will increase their value in the labour market.
  • A guiding principle of neoliberal thought is that citizens should interact as formal equals, without regard for the substantive inequalities between us. This formal equality makes it difficult to articulate needs that arise from historical injustices, for instance, as marginalized groups are seen merely as stakeholders with views equally valuable to those of other stakeholders. In the neoliberal university, this notion of formal equality can be seen, among other things, in the use of standards and assessments, such as teaching evaluations, that have been shown to be biased against instructors from marginalized groups, and in the disproportionate amount of care and service work that falls to these faculty members.
  • Instead of discussing better Zoom learning techniques, we should collectively ask what teaching in the COVID-19 era would look like if universities valued education and research as essential public goods.
  • while there are still some advocates for the democratic potential of online teaching, there are strong criticisms that pedagogies rooted in well-established understandings of education as a collective, immersive, and empowering experience, through which students learn how to deliberate, collaborate, and interrogate established norms, cannot simply be transferred online
  • Humans learn through narrative, context, empathy, debate, and shared experiences. We are able to open ourselves up enough to ask difficult questions and allow ourselves to be challenged only when we are able to see the humanity in others and when our own humanity is recognized by others. This kind of active learning (as opposed to the passive reception of information) requires the trust, collectivity, and understanding of divergent experiences built through regular synchronous meetings in a shared physical space. This is hindered when classroom interaction is mediated through disembodied video images and temporally delayed chat functions.
  • When teaching is reduced to content delivery, faculty become interchangeable, which raises additional questions about academic freedom. Suggestions have already been made that the workload problem brought on by remote teaching would be mitigated if faculty simply taught existing online courses designed by others. It does not take complex modelling to imagine a new normal in which an undergraduate degree consists solely of downloading and memorizing cookie-cutter course material uploaded by people with no expertise in the area who are administering ten other courses simultaneously. 
  • when teaching is reduced to content delivery, intellectual property takes on additional importance. It is illegal to record and distribute lectures or other course material without the instructor’s permission, but universities seem reluctant to confirm that they will not have the right to use the content faculty post online. For instance, if a contract faculty member spends countless hours designing a remote course for the summer semester and then is laid off in the fall, can the university still use their recorded lectures and other material in the fall? Can the university use this recorded lecture material to continue teaching these courses if faculty are on strike (as happened in the UK in 2018)? What precedents are being set? 
  • Students’ exposure to a range of rigorous thought is also endangered, since it is much easier for students to record and distribute course content when faculty post it online. Some websites are already using the move to remote teaching as an opportunity to urge students to call out and shame faculty they deem to be “liberal” or “left” by reposting their course material. To avoid this, faculty are likely to self-censor, choosing material they feel is safer. Course material will become more generic, which will diminish the quality of students’ education.
  • In neoliberal thought, the public sphere is severely diminished, and the role of the university in the public sphere—and as a public sphere unto itself—is treated as unnecessary. The principle that enquiry and debate are public goods in and of themselves, regardless of their outcome or impact, is devalued, as is the notion that a society’s self-knowledge and self-criticism are crucial to democracy, societal improvement, and the pursuit of the good life. Expert opinion is devalued, and research is desirable only when it translates into gains for the private sector, essentially treating universities as vehicles to channel public funding into private research and development. 
  • The free and broad pursuit—and critique—of knowledge is arguably even more important in times of crisis and rapid social change.
  • Policies that advance neoliberal ideals have long been justified—and opposition to them discredited—using Margaret Thatcher’s famous line that “there is no alternative.” This notion is reproduced in universities framing their responses to COVID-19 as a fait accompli—the inevitable result of unfortunate circumstances. Yet the neoliberal assumptions that underpin these responses illustrate that choices are being made and force us to ask whether the emergency we face necessitates this exact response.
  • The notion that faculty can simply move their courses online—or teach them simultaneously online and in person—is rooted in the assumption that educating involves merely delivering information to students, which can be done just as easily online as it can be in person. There are many well-developed online courses, yet all but the most ardent enthusiasts concede that the format works better for some subjects and some students
  • Emergencies matter. Far from occasions that justify suspending our principles, the way that we handle the extra-ordinary, the unexpected, sends a message about what we truly value. While COVID-19 may seem exceptional, university responses to this crisis are hardly a departure from the neoliberal norm, and university administrations are already making plans to extend online teaching after it dissipates. We must be careful not to send the message that the neoliberal university and the worldview that underpins it are acceptable.
Julie Shy

Guest Blog: Angry Birds: A Lesson in Formative Assessment @kathyperret - 8 views

  • Sharing learning intentions – At the beginning of each “launch” the player is shown the formation of the structure and the placement of the little pigs. (I think that’s what they are.) A player can sweep back to this area of the game at any time. This gives the player the clear intentions of what needs to be accomplished in that specific level.
  • Sharing and negotiating success criteria - Once an Angry Bird is launched from the slingshot, the path of the bird is clearly marked for future reference. These marking stay throughout the level. I’ve found them useful in negotiating my success, even though I have not perfected this!
  • Giving feedback to pupils – When playing Angry Birds, I know right away if I did not complete a specific level. (Right now I’m stuck on Level 15.) While the wording “Level Failed” is not exactly appealing to me, it isn’t harmful. Nothing bad happens. I just have the opportunity to try again, and again, and again until the level is complete. I’ve also noticed that the other Angry Birds waiting their turn seem to be cheering on the bird that is being launched.  I’ve just noticed another feature – The Mighty Eagle. He is there to help a player get out of a tricky level
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  • Effective questioning – I know there are many places I could go to ask effective questions in order to improve my Angry Bird skills. I’ve found online communities of like-minded individuals and groups to be extremely helpful when professional questions arise. This sense of belonging provides me a chance to ask my questions in a non-threatening environment. I’m sure there are groups formed to discuss Angry Bird strategies. Right now I have many of Angry Bird questions.
  • Encouraging pupils to assess and evaluate their own and others’ work – Right now, I’m attempting to evaluate my work on Level 15. I’ve been able to successfully get the two pigs on the sides, but the one – in strong middle structure has me stumped. As an adult, I know to assess and evaluate my work on this level. I could also probably find some online tips from other players.
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    I'm embarrassed to admit, but two weeks ago I didn't even know anything about  Angry Birds. It looks like this addicting little game has been around for a while. I know … Where have I been? I guess I've been spending time with a less angry little bird … I'm really not the angry type! I guess I see Twitter as better use of my time and professional collaborative learning than shooting birds out of a slingshot. A casual conversations with my hairdresser a few weeks ago about the game led to a quick demonstration on her phone. Another reference came last Friday while attending a session on Instructional Coaching for principals. Some areas that Instructional Coaches can assist schools with are referred to as the Big Four: Classroom Management, Content, Instruction, and Formative Assessment. While the presenters facilitated dialogue around the topic of formative assessment the analogy was made to video gaming; and specifically Angry Birds. This piqued my curiosity.
David Wetzel

5 Top Things to Consider During Continuing Education Efforts - 8 views

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    How to build professional, personal, social, and lifelong learning networks is the focal point of this post.
Vicki Davis

Estie's Gifts & Treasures: Thing #23 - Reflections - 1 views

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    This is precisely why more of us should be implementing the "23 things" pd program with our teachers. Estie Cuellar from Houston Texas did an amazing job discussing her learning journey and did an amazing job blogging it as well. This is very impressive and displays the transformational nature of becoming immersed in these tools. I look forward to seeing what happens in her classroom! Again, I believe that embedded PD (professional development that is in pieces as part of our day) rather than binge PD is much more transformational! This is proof!
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    summary of Estie Cullear's learning from the 23 things project -- an excellent professional development method for EMBEDDING PD.
Jackie Gerstein

Online Professional Learning Program - January 2010 - News and Events - Research and In... - 10 views

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    In January 2010, the Department offered a program of free, online conferences to support teacher professional learning. The program of web conferences covered the domains of Literacy, Maths, Science and ICT
Martin Burrett

Swift Playgrounds now available on the App Store - 2 views

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    Swift Playgrounds, an innovative new iPad app from Apple that makes learning to code easy and fun for everyone, is now available on the App Store. With Swift Playgrounds, real coding concepts are brought to life with an interactive interface that allows students and beginners to explore working with Swift, the easy-to-learn programming language from Apple used by professional developers to create world-class apps.
Vicki Davis

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Join the Flat Classroom Global Book Club! #flatclass - 1 views

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    It is finally here. Here are the details on our Flat Classroom global book club. (click the link for more) Every week for 10 weeks we will meet at an alternating time - 12 hours apart. (For the East Coast USA it is Sundays at 6 pm Eastern or Monday mornings at 6 am eastern)  Visit our Book club calendar to convert these times to your Time Zone. Subscribe to this calendar via Google calendar to keep up with events.This is Sunday evenings at 22:00GMT alternating with Monday mornings at 10:00GMT in our Blackboard Collaborate room https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007066&password=M.065891D192F8072208BF5756999CE0 .   The book club is free and everyone is welcome. #flatclass Book Club Meeting Times Week and Date Time Topic of Conversation Week 1: Sunday March 11 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 1 - Flattening Classrooms through Global Collaboration (p 1-17) Chapter 2 - Impact on Learning: Research in the Global Collaborative Classroom (p18-30) Week 2: Monday, March 19 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 3 - Step 1: Connection (p 31-61) Week 3: Sunday, March 25 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 4 - Step 2: Communication (p 62-96) Week 4: Monday, April 2 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 5 - Step 3: Citizenship (p 97-125) Take a break. Week 5: Sunday, April 15 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 6 - Step 4: Contribution and Collaboration (p 126-157) Week 6: Monday, April 23 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 7 - Step 5: Choice (p 158-196) Week 7: Sunday, April 29 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 8 - Step 6: Creation (p197-214) Week 8: Monday, May 7 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 9 - Step 7: Celebration (p 215-234) Week 9: Sunday, May 13 22:00 GMT (6 pm EDT) Chapter 10 - Designing and Managing a Global Collaborative Project (p 235-267) Week 10: Monday, May 21 10:00 GMT (6 am EDT) Chapter 11 - Challenge-Based Professional Development (p 268-293) Chapter 12: Rock the World (p 293 - 304)  We're also inviting the educators featured in each chapter to be with us for the conversations about "th
Charles Johns

RMHS Model Blog - 0 views

shared by Charles Johns on 21 Mar 09 - Cached
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    Pragmatic approach to the implementation of Response to Intervention, Professional Learning Teams, Data Driven Curriculum and Social and Emotional Learning
Julie Lindsay

ASB Un-Plugged: Mumbai February 2010 - 0 views

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    We invite you to the American School of Bombay, Mumbai on Feb 25, 26, and 27 to immerse yourself in the world of learning with laptops and tablets. ASB Un-Plugged 2010 is for those who wish to understand how students and educators have embraced innovation, change, and leadership in education for the 21st century. Hear educators and students sharing their best practices, strategies and techniques, ideas and applications that have proven to be successful in a one-to-one environment. Learn about the administration of the program-launching a laptop program, professional development, classroom management, responsible use policies, community support, resources, and support structures.
Vicki Davis

Teachers' Domain: Home - 0 views

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    Mulitmedia resources for educators at all levels. There are ways to conduct International projects too.
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    digital media for the classroom
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    Some lovely video resources. For US educators, they have the resources aligned with US standards. You can register on the site and organize the resources into your own folders (like for your classes.)  "Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You'll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities."
Dave Truss

Connect! Calgary Science School - 5 views

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    WELCOME TO CONNECT! As we start up our new initiative, this blog will serve a number of purposes: 1. As a place to share the classroom projects, assignments and assessment practices of the Calgary Science School 2. As a place where CSS teachers and administrators can publicly reflect and engage in dialogue on their practice 3. As a place where CSS can build a learning network outside the walls of our school. We want to collaborate with and learn from other teaching professionals, around the city, province, country and around the world. Come join us on our new journey!
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