Group items tagged

and the useful tags are: administrator all_teachers bestpractices edublogger grants curriculum history literature math science technology language edu_news edu_trends edu_newapp digitalcitizenship techintegrator professionaldevelopment edublog

This is the current tag dictionary -- we really only get 17 that show up and I had to truncate the names -- but if you join the group and send pages to the group when you bookmark these tags will come up.

This is the page where I set up the dictionary for educators -- it may or may not let non administrators see it, however, I wanted to TRY to share it with the group.

Grading handwritten answers by students as a feature of a copier? Producing data analytics as a result. IF this works, it will not only sell more copiers, but also make handwritten work more of a commodity. Maybe if a computer can quickly grade the easy stuff, teachers can spend more time assessing project based learning and other work that computers cannot do. This won't help me much - except when I teach binary numbers and memory conversion which do require me to check work (I never do multiple choice.) I could see how math teachers would be thrilled. "Xerox later this year plans to roll out Ignite, a software and web-based service that turns the numerous copiers/scanners/printers it has in schools across the United States into paper-grading machines. Unlike such staples of the educational system as Scantron, which uses special forms where students choose an answer and fill in the corresponding bubble, Ignite will grade work where the answers are written in by the students, such as the numeric answer to a math problem. Ignite takes right and wrong answers and turns them into web-accessible data for teachers with reports that say whether a student or groups of students are consistently having more trouble with certain kinds of math problems. Those reports can be used by teachers to tailor what they're teaching - such as by identifying what group of students needs more help with a certain topic - or given to students so they know where they should focus their studying. It also opens the door to specific tests or homework assignments for specific students becoming more the norm, each tailored to academic strengths and weaknesses."

New Diigo Pioneer badge

If you want more "bling" for your blog -- Diigo has a new program to recognize educational pioneers using Diigo. Since the beginning, Maggie Tsai has listened to educators (not just me) in amazing ways and this is great. If you have a classroom diigo group, then log into your teacher console and snag your "diigo educational pioneer" badge - I'm going to get mine!! We use diigo groups for all of my classes and we have tag dictionaries based upon the major topics we cover.

For any history teacher who wishes to share sources, ideas and teaching strategies with other innovative history educators.

The information at the advocates for digital citizenship, safety, and success about the I read blocked blogs week. This loosely joined group of educators has created a central clearinghouse for activities such as this. Create activities that fit within digital citizenship and join and post. We have a blog, wiki, and more information -- everything is linked at http://www.netvibes.com/coolcatteacher#Ad4dcss -- Join in.

I strongly encourage you to join in the growing international group advocates for digital citizenship, safety, and success just to see information that we have and to add to it.

OK, I've been toying around with Goodreads, a website that so many librarians have recommended to me. Thus far it looks a bit like blippr although perhaps easier to use. Enjoying it so far. This particular group seems to be for educators.

Book club on goodreads for educators

Love this response, bonus opportunity by Suzie Nestico. When she emailed and asked for a response and the first would get bonus - 5 replies - listen to what DID get them to respond: "I sent a message to my students via our Google Group around 8:00PM on Sunday night. This message said, "Need any more bonus? Respond to this message for two points. If you tweet it, text it, call your friends, post as you FaceBook status, and another student mentions they got word from you, you get FIVE points." Guess what? By 11:00PM on Sunday night, I gave out bonus points to over THIRTY of the ninety students. By 8:00AM today, I gave out bonus to an additional eighteen students. In just changing one thing I did, I just reached nearly half of my students. I could have said, "the first ten students to respond will get bonus," in order to foster competition. But, I tried a bit of that several weeks ago. In Heidi's words, "Competition 0, Collaboration 1." "

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.

Google Digital Literacy Tour along with videos. Here are some great lessons and videos and a full curriculum. Just realize that you should involve students in discussions and activities, this is a pretty poor candidate for lecture-based delivery because it is changing so quickly. I use Digiteen but these are great resources. (Hat tip to Theresa Allen for sending this through the Digiteen google group.)

How to use Google Hangouts in the Classroom. Now that you can segment participation and let certain groups of students and educators participate in Google Plus, this is becoming a popular method of connecting classrooms. I'm setting up Google Hangouts on Air to record and send to the class YouTube channel to share conversations with guests and let those students who missed the day join in. I am also going to use these recordings as part of flipped classroom modules as I learn about using Sophia for flipping my classroom.

The Teach 100 is a ranking of top blogs in education. Many great blogs on this list - many are group blogs but there are also some single blogs (like me). Excited to be on the list.

Apparently, Pearson is involved in developing a group that will work on a national evaluation for teachers. Pay for the development week is $350 a day and includes travel/lodging in some cases.

free, secure, problem solving for you and your group

Website of a group of people collecting funny school stories for a book.

The educational "pack" of twitterers -- join this wiki and add yours -- this helps newcomers find twitterers grouped along a common topic. I'm exploring to find people in other areas to learn from!

This page lists many of the educational twitterers.

Looks like a useful tool to motivate students to read.