A Collaborative
Internet Project for K-5 Students
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shared by Vicki Davis on 16 Apr 08
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Susan Silverman's Lucky Ladybugs project going on for elementary - 0 views
kids-learn.org/...project.htm
best_practice connectingpeople curriculum digital_access education hz08 hzmeta virtualcollab
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This project will demonstrate lesson plans designed following principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and examples of student work resulting from the lessons. As teachers we should ask ourselves if there are any barriers to our students’ learning. We should look for ways to present information and assess learning in non-text-based formats.
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Based on brain research and new media, the UDL framework proposes that educators design lessons with three basic kinds of flexibility: 1. Multiple formats and media are used to present information.
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Examples: Illustrations, pictures, diagrams, video or audio clips, and descriptions 2. Teachers use multiple strategies to engage and motivate students. 3. Students demonstrate learning through multiple performance and product formats.
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UDL calls for three goals to consider in designing lessons: 1. Recognition goals: these focus on specific content that ask a student to identify who, what, where, and when. 2. Strategic goals: these focus on a specific process or medium that asks a student to learn how to do something using problem solving and critical think skills. 3. Affective goals: these focus on a particular value or emotional outcome. Do students enjoy, and appreciate learning about the topic? Does it connect to prior knowledge and experience? Are students allowed to select and discover new knowledge?
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Resources you might want to use: Scholastic Keys, Kid Pix, Inspiration and Kidspiration, digital camera (still and video), recording narration/music, United Streaming. Let your imagination go!
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A great way to get started with technology is to join in an exciting project. this project by Susan Silverman was designed using the principles of Universal Design for Learning. I've heard her present and she is a pro. (Along with my friend Jennifer Wagner.)
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Susan Silverman creates excellent projects for global collaboration among elementary students.
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Peru's ambitious laptop program gets mixed grades - Yahoo! News - 0 views
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the missteps may have actually widened the gap between children able to benefit from the computers and those ill-equipped to do so
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Inter-American Development Bank researchers were less polite."There is little solid evidence regarding the effectiveness of this program," they said in a study sharply critical of the overall OLPC initiative that was based on a 15-month study at 319 schools in small, rural Peruvian communities that got laptops."The magical thinking that mere technology is enough to spur change, to improve learning, is what this study categorically disproves," co-author Eugenio Severin of Chile told The Associated Press
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OLPC laptops, which are rugged and energy efficient and run an open-source variant of the Linux operating system, are in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Mongolia and Haiti, and even in the United States and Australia. Uruguay, a compact South American nation of 3.5 million people, is the only country that has fully embraced the concept and given every elementary school child and teacher an XO laptop
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no increased math or language skills, no improvement in classroom instruction quality, no boost in time spent on homework, no improvement in reading habits
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On the positive side, the "dramatic increase in access to computers" accelerated by about six months students' abstract reasoning, verbal fluency and speed in processing information
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"We knew from the start that it wouldn't be possible to improve the teachers," he said, citing a 2007 census of 180,000 Peruvian teachers that showed more than 90 percent lacked basic math skills while three in five could not read above sixth-grade level.
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Each teacher was supposed to get 40 hours of OLPC training. That hardly helped in schools where teachers had never so much as booted up a computer. In Patzer's experience "most of them barely knew how to interact with the computers at all."
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Negroponte thinks the main goal of technology educators should be simply getting computers into poor kids' hands.His proposal last year to parachute tablet computers from helicopters, limiting the involvement of adults and "educators," caused some colleagues to wince. But Negroponte is dead serious, and has begun a pilot project in two Ethiopian villages to test whether tablets alone, loaded with the right software, can teach children to read.
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The OLPC team always considered Internet connectivity part of the recipe for success. They also insisted that each child be given a laptop and be permitted to take it home.Uruguay, a small, flat country with a far higher standard of living and ubiquitous Internet, has honored those requirementsPeru did not
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Some schools didn't have enough electricity to power the machines.And then there was the Internet. Less than 1 percent of the schools studied had it.
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shared by Vicki Davis on 17 Jan 12
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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Join the Flat Classroom Global Book Club! #flatclass - 1 views
coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/...lassroom-global-book-club.html
education flatclass globaled flatclassroom edu_news digitalcitizenship bestpractices
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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
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Play It Safe: Hackers use the back door to get into your computer; a strong, well-chose... - 0 views
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For the home user, however, password safety requires more than on-the-fly thinking. Pacheco suggests a system built around a main word for all instances. The distinction is that the name of the site is added somewhere. For example, if the main word is "eggplant," the password might be "eggyyplant" Yahoo, "eggplantgg" for Google or "wleggplant" for Windows Live. He suggests listing the variations in an Excel spreadsheet.
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Password security is a big deal, and if you don't think it is, then someone might be hacking into your computer even as you read this. A strong password isn't foolproof, but it proves that you're no fool. And it might protect you from compromised data, a broken computer or identity theft. Your bank account, your personal e-mails and lots of other stuff are at risk with weak passwords.
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"A good password is the most important part of Internet security," said Robert Pacheco, the owner of Computer Techs of San Antonio. "It's the beginning and end of the issue. You can't stop it (hacking). You do what you can do to prevent it. You just try to stop most of it." A strong firewall, as well as spyware -- and virus-detection software -- protect a computer's so-called "back door," Pacheco said, where a hacker can gain access through various cyber threats. Those threats include infected e-mail attachments; phishing Web pages that exploit browser flaws; downloaded songs or pictures with hidden trojans; or plain ol' poking-and-prodding of a computer's shields. But passwords protect information from a frontal assault by way of the computer's keyboard.
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Other people use easy-to-remember passwords. Trouble is, Rogers said, they're easy-to-guess passwords, too. Good examples of bad passwords are your name, your family's names, your pet's name, the name of your favorite team, your favorite athlete or your favorite anything. Get to know the person -- a technique that geeks refer to as "social engineering" -- and the password is easy to guess. There are message-board stalkers who can guess passwords in a half-dozen tries. Hackers rely on a lot of methods. Some, Rogers said, employ "shoulder surfing." That means what it sounds like -- looking over someone's shoulder as that person is typing in a password.
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Other people use easy-to-remember passwords. Trouble is, Rogers said, they're easy-to-guess passwords, too. Good examples of bad passwords are your name, your family's names, your pet's name, the name of your favorite team, your favorite athlete or your favorite anything
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The type of hardware being used can be a clue, said Rogers, a senior technical staffer in the CERT Program, a Web security research center in Carnegie-Mellon University's software engineering institute. It's easy to find a default password, typically in the user's manual on a manufacturer's Web site. If the user hasn't changed the default, that's an easy break-in.
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Hackers rely on a lot of methods. Some, Rogers said, employ "shoulder surfing." That means what it sounds like -- looking over someone's shoulder as that person is typing in a password
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Most of the password hacking activity these days goes on at homes, in school or in public settings. These days, many workplaces mandate how a password is picked.
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The idea is to choose a password that contains at least one uppercase letter, one numeral and at least eight total characters. Symbols are good to throw in the mix, too. Many companies also require that passwords be changed regularly and that pieces of older ones can't be re-used for months. And user names cannot be part of the password. Examples: Eggplant99, 99eggpLanT, --eggp--99Lant. For the next quarter, the password might change to variations on "strawberry.
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The idea is to choose a password that contains at least one uppercase letter, one numeral and at least eight total characters. Symbols are good to throw in the mix, too. Many companies also require that passwords be changed regularly and that pieces of older ones can't be re-used for months. And user names cannot be part of the password. Examples: Eggplant99, 99eggpLanT, --eggp--99Lant. For the next quarter, the password might change to variations on "strawberry."
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Password security is a big deal, and if you don't think it is, then someone might be hacking into your computer even as you read this. A strong password isn't foolproof, but it proves that you're no fool. And it might protect you from compromised data, a broken computer or identity theft. Your bank account, your personal e-mails and lots of other stuff are at risk with weak passwords.
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shared by Ruth Howard on 20 Feb 10
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HP Invents a Central Nervous System for the Earth | Inhabitat - 4 views
www.inhabitat.com/...l-nervous-system-for-the-earth
all_teachers administrator digitalcitizenship science math technology middleschool elementary edu_news
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HP has just unveiled an incredibly ambitious project to create a “Central Nervous System for the Earth” (CeNSE) composed of billions of super sensitive, cheap, and tough sensors. The project involves distributing these sensors throughout the world and using them to gather data that could be used to detect everything from infrastructure collapse to environmental pollutants to climate change and impending earthquakes. From there, the “Internet of Things” and smarter cities are right around the corner.HP is currently developing its first sensor to be deployed, which is an accelerometer 1,000 times more sensitive than those used in the Wii or the iPhone – it’s capable of detecting motion and vibrations as subtle as a heartbeat. The company also has plans to use nanomaterials to create chemical and biological sensors that are 100 million times more sensitive than current models. Their overall goal is to use advances in sensitivity and nanotech to shrink the size of these devices so that they are small enough to clip onto a mobile telephone.Once HP has created an array of sensors, the next step is distributing them and making sense of all the data they generate. That’s no easy task, granted that a network of one million sensors running 24 hours a day would create 20 petabytes of data in just six months. HP is taking all that number crunching to task however, and will be harnessing its in-house networking expertise, consulting, and data storage technologies for the project.The creation of a global sensor system would be an incredible breakthrough – it could make our cities more efficient, save lives, and enable us to better understand, track, and combat climate change. As HP Labs senior researcher Peter Hartwell has stated, “If we’re going to save the planet, we’ve got to monitor it“.+ CeNSEVia Fast CompanyLead photo by Margie Wylie Comments RSS Comments RSS digg_url = 'http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/18/hp-invents-a-central-nervous-system-for-the-earth/'; digg_title = 'HP Invents a Central Nervous System for the Earth'; digg_skin = 'compact'; email this tweetmeme_url = "http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/18/hp-invents-a-central-nervous-system-for-the-earth/"; tweetmeme_style = "compact"; facebook this Related Posts
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Dangerously Irrelevant: It's not 'the tests.' It's us. - 0 views
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It's not ‘the tests.’ It's our unwillingness and/or inability to do something different, something better. It's not ‘the tests.’ It's us.
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In my state, students don't take standardized tests until third grade, but test preparation was a major focus in K-2. Students did little but complete worksheet after worksheet in kindergarten. The block corner was gone, there was no snack time, the dress-up box was taken away, and recess was reduced to just a few minutes. My son and his classmates sat at their little tables and silently filled out worksheets for the majority of the day. Talking, laughing or getting out of your seat was frowned upon. In first grade, the timed math tests began. Shortly after students learned how to add and subtract, they were given daily math facts timed tests in order to "prepare" them for the ITBS math computation tests in third grade. Those lucky enough to pass the tests had their names posted on the winners wall in the classroom. Those who couldn't pass, were sent to the hallway to do flashcards with parent volunteers. In second grade, the timed oral reading tests began. Each week, all students were required to read aloud as fast as they could while they were timed with a stop watch. Those that could spit the words out quickly enough to meet the benchmark number were rewarded with free reading time. Those that were deemed too slow, were given practice pages to read aloud, over and over again. In third grade, they started timed writing tests. His classroom held a weekly contest to see who could write a paragraph the fastest using that week's vocabulary words. The vocabulary words were test prep for ITBS. The fastest child's paragraph was posted on the wall for all to admire. Kids learned very early on that faster meant smarter and that slower meant stupid. NCLB plays a part in the way school has been reduced to test preparation, but teachers chose to use all of these truly awful methods in the classroom. Teachers could have chosen different, more engaging, and more developmentally appropriate teaching methods, but they didn't.
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Many Complaints of Faculty Bias Stem From Students' Poor Communicating, Study Finds - F... - 4 views
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some perceptions of classroom bias would decline, and students would benefit more from exposure to opposing viewpoints, if colleges did more to teach argumentation and debate skills. Teaching undergraduates such skills "can help them deal with ideological questions in the classroom and elsewhere in a civil way, and in a way that can discriminate between when professors are expressing a bias and when they are expressing a perspective that they may, or may not, actually be advocating,"
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The study's findings, however, were criticized as ideologically biased themselves by Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, a group that has frequently accused colleges of liberal or leftist indoctrination. The article summarizing the study, Mr. Wood said on Friday, "seems to me to have a flavor of 'blaming the victim,'" and appears "intended to marginalize the complaints of students who have encountered bias in the classroom."
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Students need to learn how to argue as a workplace skill. If they understood this as a key workplace strategy that will affect their ability to advance they may be more willing to pay attention. They are there-- regardless of what we may believe-- to get jobs at the end. Discussion and dealing with disputes or differences is key to professional advancement
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It's one thing to be closed to students' arguments or to insist on conformity with a prof's views. It is another altogether when students do not know how to argue their own points, especially points that are not political. At some point, isn't it the case that the prof does know even a little bit more about their subjects than their students?
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Several studies (post 1998) seem to indicate that the capacity to understand and engage in logical argumentation has diminished (at least in the 'Western' world). These studies seem to have encouraged the state education boards (committees) of several states to entertain making a "critical thinking" or "Introductory logic" course part of the required core.
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I have found Susan Wolcott's teaching materials, which are informed by research by K.S. Kitchener and P. M. King, to be the most helpful in addressing student accusations of bias. I had long been puzzled by why my colleagues in philosophy are so often accused of bias when, in my own observation of their teaching, they take care to keep their own views of a philosophical topic hidden from students. Indeed, they spend a great deal of time playing devil's advocate and championing the philosophical position that is getting the least airtime in class discussion, readily switching sides if another perspective begins to be neglected. Wolcott's developmental analysis, which explains how students arrive at college as "confused fact finders" and often get stuck in learning critical thinking skills at the "biased jumper" stage, helps me to understand how students attribute bias to professors when the students lack skills to maneuver around arguments. The most helpful part of Wolcott's analysis is her suggestion that, if one gives students an assignment that is more than one level above their current abilities in critical thinking, they will completely ignore the assignment task. This failing is particularly visible when students are asked to compare strengths/weaknesses in two arguments but instead write essays in which they juxtrapose two arguments and ignore the task of forging comparisons. In Wolcott's workbooks (available by request on her website), she describes assignments that are specifically designed to help students build a scaffolding for critical thinking so that, over four years, they can actually leave the "biased jumper" stage and move on to more advanced levels of critical thinking. One need not be a slavish adherent to the developmental theory behind Wolcott's work to find her practical suggestions extremely helpful in the classroom. Her chart on stages of critical thinking is the first link below; her website is the second link. http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Do... http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Ed...
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The classroom and campus are not divorced from the polarized language in the greater society wherein people are entrenched in their own views and arguments become heated, hateful, and accusatory. The focus of this study on political bias is not helpful under the circumstances. The greater argument is that students need to be taught how to argue effectively, with facts, logic and reasoning not just in the classroom but beyond.
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What happened to the 'Sage on the Stage' as the 'provacatuer-in-chief'? Some of my best classroom experiences came from faculty that prompted critical thinking and discussion by speaking from all sides of an issue. They were sufficiently informed to deflate weak arguments from students with probing questions. They also defended an issue from every side with factual information. In the best instances, I truly did not know the personal position of a faculty member. It was more important to them to fully and fairly cover an issue than it was to espouse a personal preference. That spoke volumes to me about the love of learning, critical examination of strongly held personal beliefs, and assertive but fair-minded discourse. Do those faculty still exist?
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The study suggests that those faculty do exist and in fact are numerous, but that students' ever-diminishing skills in critical thinking and argumentation lead them to misunderstand the questioning, challenging Socratic dialogue and "devil's advocate" work of the professor as simple bias.
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When I was teaching controversial subjects the advice from the Administration was, "Teach the debate." Its pretty hard to "teach the debate" without actually having some of those debates. When students "checked out" during those debates I always wondered if they were the ones who were going to report on their teaching evaluations that, "the professor was biased." Of course when the student intellectually "checks out," i.e., remains quiet, only says what they think I want to hear, etc., they are not doing A work in the class. This reinforces their view that "the professor is biased."
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The LMS and the adolescence of web learning « Lisa's (Online) Teaching Blog - 8 views
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there may be levels of web learning maturation at work here: Childhood: people who are very new to using the web for learning tend to accept what is given to them, because they don’t really know what the options are. When online learning with the LMS was new, most people were in this category. Adulthood: people who use the web a great deal and in varied ways tend to do better in online classes, and assess the worth of the LMS (or any tool) based on how well it works for the course. Adolescence: in between are the adolescents. They know just enough to be dangerous. They have enough experience to want convenience and not enough to understand the larger issues of pedagogy, including the restrictiveness of an LMS on what the instructor wants to do. They can drive but have no sense of how traffic works.
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Why it’s important to deal now with the “teen angst” of web-adolescence: 1. Not customizing the LMS to suit your pedagogy implies that we all teach the same way. If we all teach the same way, then a computer can do our work instead. (I’ve been reading Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind – he’s pretty clear that if a computer can do your job, eventually it will.) 2. Instructors should use the tools that best create the environment they want, and that increasingly means web applications that require multiple log-ins. Students should get accustomed to using separate tools for separate tasks, just like in the real world. 3. Acknowledging the teen view means taking it seriously, but it doesn’t mean developing policy around it. Just as parents try to mitigate the excesses of the teen diet and habits, we owe students our wisdom in creating the learning experience that is most appropriate. (Oh dear, I’m starting to sound like Edmund Burke again.)
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Michael Morpurgo: We are failing too many boys in the enjoyment of reading | Teacher Ne... - 1 views
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Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children.
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It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children
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I believe profoundly that everyone has a story to tell, a song to sing. I'm all for empowering children and young people to have their own words especially when they are young. Encouraging young people to believe in themselves and find their own voice whether it's through writing, drama or art is so important in giving young people a sense of self-worth. There are so many young people who don't believe in themselves and their mentality gets fixed in failure.
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1.Why not have a dedicated half hour at the end of every school day in every primary school devoted to the simple enjoyment of reading and writing.2. Regular visits from storytellers, theatre groups, poets, writers of fiction and non-fiction, and librarians from the local library.3. Inviting fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers into school to tell and read stories, to listen to children reading, one to one. The work of organisations such at Volunteer Reading Help and Reading Matters are already doing great thing to help young people and schools.4. Ensuring that the enjoyment of literature takes precedence, particularly in the early years, over the learning of the rules of literacy, important though they are. Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise.5. Parents, fathers in particular, and teachers, might be encouraged to attend book groups themselves, in or out of the school, without children, so that they can develop a love of reading for themselves, which they can then pass on to the children.6. Teacher training should always include modules dedicated to developing the teachers' own appreciation of literature, so that when they come to read to the children or to recommend a book, it is meant, and the children know it. To use books simply as a teacher's tool is unlikely to convince many children that books are for them, particularly those that are failing already, many of whom will be boys.7. The library in any school should have a dedicated librarian or teacher/librarian, be well resourced, and welcoming, the heart of every school. Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.
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Idaho Teachers Fight a Reliance on Computers - NYTimes.com - 8 views
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The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.
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To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators.
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And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.
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OK, several comments here. 1. I have no problem with "less a lecturer." However, I do not advocate the elimination of lecture. It is one of many methods for teacher and learning. 2. The implication of the last part of the sentence is that the computer is becoming the/a teacher, delivering instruction. I do not agree with this characterization of technology. It is a tool for helping students learn, not for teaching them (with some exceptions). It extends the learners access to knowledge and skills...
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And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.
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My question here is, "Why are the requiring online classes?" If it is part of the "high-tech vangard" thing, then I don't really understand. If it is because they believe that it is more effective for learning, well, that's a complex issue that depends on so many things that have NOTHING to do with the state's legislature. If it is because students will be taking online courses in their future, and then need to learn to take online courses while in high school, then I can support that. I do not believe that it is appropriate to compare online courses to face-to-face courses. Fact is, sometime online is the only way you can access the knowledge/skills that you need. We need to be comfortable with that. But it has little to do with technology. It's learning!
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improve student learning.
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This is a phrase that irks me. I think that we should be using contemporary information and communication technologies for teaching and learning, because our prevailing information environment is networked, digital, and info-abundant. We should be using tech to make learning more relevant to our time...
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“I fought for my country,” she said. “Now I’m fighting for my kids.” Gov. C. L. Otter, known as Butch, and Tom Luna, the schools superintendent, who have championed the plan, said teachers had been misled by their union into believing the changes were a step toward replacing them with computers. Mr. Luna said the teachers’ anger was intensified by other legislation, also passed last spring, that eliminated protections for teachers with seniority and replaced it with a pay-for-performance system. Some teachers have also expressed concern that teaching positions could be eliminated and their raises reduced to help offset the cost of the technology. Mr. Luna acknowledged that many teachers in the state were conservative Republicans like him — making Idaho’s politics less black and white than in states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where union-backed teachers have been at odds with politicians.
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The teacher does become the guide and the coach and the educator in the room helping students to move at their own pace.
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This is so far off the mark that I do not know where to begin. OK, here's what I would say. "Our children live in a time of rapid change. Therefore, they must become resourceful and relentless learners. Being a teacher in such classrooms requires an expanding array of skills and activities, among them, being resourceful and relentless learners in front of their students -- adapting to today's prevailing information environment and the information and communication technologies that work it." Probably need to find a simpler way to express this.
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The plan requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits
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Mr. Luna said this would allow students to take subjects that were not otherwise available at their schools and familiarize them with learning online, something he said was increasingly common in college
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becomes the textbook for every class, the research device, the advanced math calculator, the word processor and the portal to a world of information.
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Teachers are resisting, saying that they prefer to employ technology as it suits their own teaching methods and styles. Some feel they are judged on how much they make use of technology, regardless of whether it improves learning. Some teachers in the Los Angeles public schools, for example, complain that the form that supervisors use to evaluate teachers has a check box on whether they use technology, suggesting that they must use it for its own sake.
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That is a concern shared by Ms. Rosenbaum, who teaches at Post Falls High School in this town in northern Idaho, near Coeur d’Alene. Rather than relying on technology, she seeks to engage students with questions — the Socratic method — as she did recently as she was taking her sophomore English class through “The Book Thief,” a novel about a family in Germany that hides a Jewish girl during World War II.
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This is a wonderful method for teaching and timeless. However, if the students are also backchanneling the conversation, then more of them are participating, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing, and the conversation has to potential to extend beyond the sounding of the bell. I'm not saying, this is a way of integrating technology, I'm saying that networked collaboration is a relevant way for students to be learning and will continue to learn after school is over.
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Her room mostly lacks high-tech amenities. Homework assignments are handwritten on whiteboards. Students write journal entries in spiral notebooks. On the walls are two American flags and posters paying tribute to the Marines, and on the ceiling a panel painted by a student thanks Ms. Rosenbaum for her service
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Ms. Rosenbaum did use a computer and projector to show a YouTube video of the devastation caused by bombing in World War II. She said that while technology had a role to play, her method of teaching was timeless. “I’m teaching them to think deeply, to think. A computer can’t do that.”
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She is taking some classes online as she works toward her master’s degree, and said they left her uninspired and less informed than in-person classes.
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The group will also organize training for teachers. Ms. Cook said she did worry about how teachers would be trained when some already work long hours and take second jobs to make ends meet
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For his part, Governor Otter said that putting technology into students’ hands was the only way to prepare them for the work force. Giving them easy access to a wealth of facts and resources online allows them to develop critical thinking skills, he said, which is what employers want the most.
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“There may be a lot of misinformation,” he said, “but that information, whether right or wrong, will generate critical thinking for them as they find the truth.”
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If she only has an abacus in her classroom, she’s missing the boat.
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Last year at Post Falls High School, 600 students — about half of the school — staged a lunchtime walkout to protest the new rules. Some carried signs that read: “We need teachers, not computers.” Having a new laptop “is not my favorite idea,” said Sam Hunts, a sophomore in Ms. Rosenbaum’s English class who has a blond mohawk. “I’d rather learn from a teacher.”
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SmartBlog on Education - Q-and-A: Back to school with Arne Duncan - SmartBrief, Inc. Sm... - 3 views
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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shared by Dave Truss on 13 Oct 09
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Is the term 21st Century out of date? | U Tech Tips - 7 views
www.utechtips.com/-term-21st-century-out-of-date
techintegrator schools2.0 2.0Skills newcurriculum newliteracy
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They all tell us what we want our kids to turn out like. They all remind us what we need to value in education. But we don’t. At least not in action. (GENERALIZATION ALERT:) Schools continue to push content-driven curricula. Teachers continue to plan lessons building expertise within the discipline. And if students get our “21st Century Skills”, it’s because of an exception-to-the-rule teacher, choices the students make outside of class, or just plain luck. We all know that what we need is buy-in. We see the success stories, celebrate the schools that do it, and ultimately wonder, what does it take to make it work everywhere? Buy-in. So back to the teacher accessibility issue. How do we ensure that teachers see teaching a 21st Century Curriculum as part of their job?
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Common Core 360 Webinars - 5 views
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Learn effective strategies from Curriculum 21’s Ann Johnson for translating the English Language Arts (ELA) Common Core Standards.
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“Translating Mathematics Standards,” by Debbie Sullivan (CMI21) 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. MST Dr. Sullivan will demonstrate strategies for the translation of the Mathematics Common Core Standards to create rigorous classroom lessons and targeted assessments.
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“Student Engagement & Future Focus,” by Dr. Lisa Leith 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. MST How can the Common Core Standards help teachers reduce classroom conflict, increase student engagement and promote future focus? Dr. Leith will address the roles of collaboration and goal setting in the classroom, and provide direction for achieving desired results while freeing students to make their own choices. She will explore the connections between relationships, self-image, motivation, and student success.
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Education Department Grants Coronavirus Relief To Small Colleges : Coronavirus Live Upd... - 0 views
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The 20 institutions that received the most amount of money from the unmet-need fund serve less than 3,000 students combined, and about half are religious schools — including Bible colleges and seminaries — several of which serve less than 100 students.
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Much of the CARES Act's more than $14 billion for higher education is being distributed according to the number of full-time low-income students a college serves, which is measured through federal Pell Grants. The $350-million unmet-need fund followed a different formula. Miller says for this particular pot, schools that did not receive $500,000 or more from other available CARES Act funds were given the difference between what they did receive and $500,000 limit. "So the result is that the smaller you are and the less money you've already gotten, the more you get from this program," Miller says. But $350 million can only go so far. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was given the discretion to choose which schools would benefit from the fund, and by how much.
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Brad Smith, the president of Bakke Graduate University in Dallas, which was allotted $497,338 in federal aid, says he didn't learn of his school's eligibility until he was contacted by NPR. "I don't know anything about this," Smith says, noting that his school hadn't asked for additional federal help. "I'm taking responsibility to find out what it means."
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Online Education - Introducing the Microlecture Format - Open Education - 0 views
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in online education “tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.” The microlecture format begins with a podcast that introduces a few key terms or a critical concept, then immediately turns the learning environment over to the students.
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“It’s a framework for knowledge excavation,” Penrose tells Shieh. “We’re going to show you where to dig, we’re going to tell you what you need to be looking for, and we’re going to oversee that process.”
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It clearly will not work for a course that is designed to feature sustained classroom discussions. And while the concept will work well when an instructor wants to introduce smaller chunks of information, it will likely not work very well when the information is more complex.
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1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture. 2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts. 3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera. (The college information-technology department can provide advice and facilities.) If you want to produce an audio-only lecture, no Webcam is necessary. The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long. 4. Design an assignment to follow the lecture that will direct students to readings or activities that allow them to explore the key concepts. Combined with a written assignment, that should allow students to learn the material. 5. Upload the video and assignment to your course-management software.
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the microlecture format similarly requires teachers to get the key elements across in a very short amount of time. Most importantly, it forces educators to think in a new way.
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In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The study of the humanities evolved during the 20th century “to focus almost entirely on personal intellectual development,” said Richard M. Freeland, the Massachusetts commissioner of higher education. “But what we haven’t paid a lot of attention to is how students can put those abilities effectively to use in the world. We’ve created a disjunction between the liberal arts and sciences and our role as citizens and professionals.”Mr. Freeland is part of what he calls a revolutionary movement to close the “chasm in higher education between the liberal arts and sciences and professional programs.” The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently issued a report arguing the humanities should abandon the “old Ivory Tower view of liberal education” and instead emphasize its practical and economic value.
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Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard and the author of several books on higher education, argues, “The humanities has a lot to contribute to the preparation of students for their vocational lives.” He said he was referring not only to writing and analytical skills but also to the type of ethical issues raised by new technology like stem-cell research. But he added: “There’s a lot more to a liberal education than improving the economy. I think that is one of the worst mistakes that policy makers often make — not being able to see beyond that.” Anthony T. Kronman, a professor of law at Yale and the author of “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life,” goes further. Summing up the benefits of exploring what’s called “a life worth living” in a consumable sound bite is not easy, Mr. Kronman said. But “the need for my older view of the humanities is, if anything, more urgent today,” he added, referring to the widespread indictment of greed, irresponsibility and fraud that led to the financial meltdown. In his view this is the time to re-examine “what we care about and what we value,” a problem the humanities “are extremely well-equipped to address.”
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shared by Eloise Pasteur on 17 Aug 08
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Clark Aldrich's Style Guide for Serious Games and Simulations: A Taxonomy of Interactivity - 0 views
clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/...taxonomy-of-interactivity.html
interactive_taxonomy learning_taxonomy taxonomy teaching
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Many conversations around interactivity in formal learning programs rests on the tools. Does WebEx allow polling? Can you have threaded conversations in Second Life? What if you gave keypads to members of an audience? And those are all good questions. But at the same time, we need to nurture cultures around interactivity that are independent of any technology. We need vocabulary and expectations around interactivity itself.Here's a suggestion, hopefully useful in practice if not in theory:
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Level 2: The instructor tests the audience and based on the collective response, skips ahead or backtracks.
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Level 3: The instructor asks multiple choice questions of the audience, where a student might have the opportunity to defend different answers, or the instructor asks real time polling questions for data.
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Level 5: Students engage labs or other activities and create unique content; however, most solutions will fall into fairly common patterns if done enough times.
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Level 4: Students engage labs or other activities that have a single, typically process solution, such as putting together an engine.
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Level 6: The students engage in long, open ended activities, such as writing a story or creating and executing a plan, and where the class "ends up" is unpredictable.
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Culture, not TechnologyBut again, while technology examples are included, all of this can be done in a traditional classroom.
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The implication is not that Level 6 should always be used. Most programs will start ideally at Level 1, and then transition to Level 3, 4, 5, or even 6 as quickly as possible.
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Using visuals to discover deep metaphors » VisualsSpeak blog - 0 views
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is the description how often we are lead astray in our thinking by focusing on surface differences rather than searching for the significant similarities expressed in deep metaphors. Three Levels of Metaphors The Zaltmans describe three levels of metaphors, and use this example: Surface Metaphors Money runs through his fingers I am drowning in debt Don’t pour your money down the drain The bank froze his assets Metaphor Theme Money is like liquid Deep Metaphor Resource
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shared by Suzie Nestico on 27 Mar 11
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12 Rules for Writing Great Letters to Request Action - Wrightslaw - 1 views
www.wrightslaw.com/...12rules_letters.htm
education curriculum writing language letter writing special education
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4. You negotiate with the school for special education services.
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Fear of the Unknown As a negotiator, one of the most powerful forces you have on your side is the "Fear of the Unknown." When you threaten, you are telling the other side what you plan to do. If you tell them what you plan to do, you have told them how to protect themselves. At that moment, you lose your advantage - which is the wonderful, powerful Fear of the Unknown. Never telegraph your punches – you will destroy their power and effectiveness.
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9. Write letters to the school as business letters.