An awesome graphic (click on the buttons on the graphic) from Edudemic sharing some excellent ways to use Google Drive in Education including templates, writers workshop, self grading quizzes, assignment tracking and more.
This edudemic list from 2012 still looks pretty up to date. Take a look at all of the places you can snag video. Of course, now, many are curating these into lists on pinterest, clacko, educlipper, diigo, and more, to align with standards, but these are good places to start.
Many options for "making" video games (or simple animations) have emerged. In this short piece, Edudemic shares how one can use GameStar mechanic to make games along with a video. It is well worth a try although, depending on the type of game, Microsoft Kodu or Scratch may also work. There are also some very cool games with the Xbox Kinect SDK app that let you capture a person's body movements much like they do to create characters like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
Fascinating Evolution of Classroom Technology over at Edudemic (hat tip Stephen Downes.) Look at how many of these technologies are still here in some forms. All I can think as I read about halfway down is the ah so lovely smell of that mimeograph paper!`
US Census data is out and is being sliced and diced liked done on this edudemic article:
98% of students aged 6-14 are enrolled in school; 93% aged 14-18 are enrolled in school. 60% of 3-5 year olds are enrolled in nursery school; 92% of 5-6 year olds are enrolled in kindergarten. These numbers represent huge increases for the 3-6 year olds compared with 1970.
In 1970, 20% of women and 27% of men attended college, compared with 38.6% of men and 47.5% of women in 2010.
Generally only about 52% of school expenditures are for instruction. 29.7% go to 'support services' (a category that is not clearly defined here)
Only four states spend more than $9,000 per pupil per year. 20 states spend $6,000 to $8,999, leaving the vast majority of states spending under $6K per year, per pupil.
Ted live subscription for your school? You can get a virtual seat at TED talks (it includes a Kindle fire - no one is sure why.) This is a great overview from Edudemic.
Awesome list of apps that has several that I need to explore including Writing House, Do Something, and Cool Math. Take time to flip through this list.
Learning Pyramid compares Passive to Participatory teaching methods in regards to average retention rates.
My concern is the research used to determine the percentages reported.
"On April 16th, PBS is going to air the first televised TED event, dubbed TED Talks Education. It'll be filmed a bit before the airing on April 4th in New York City. The first three speakers include Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone, Bill Gates, and Sir Ken Robinson. TED says there will be more speakers (including "dynamic teachers, speakers, and performers") announced soon.
The topic of discussion? Curbing the high school dropout crisis."
While they left out wearable technology and learning analytics is combined into the LMS category, this is a quick list that you can forward to your board of directors or others who want to look at a few things about changing technology.
"Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the biggest sources inspiration and innovation when it comes to cooking, design, and education. That's right, education is a prominent fixture on Pinterest now and that, of course, means that education technology plays a starring role."
If you want to see how Learnist is being used - here are Dawn Casey-Rowe's 10 favorite learnist boards built by teachers. This will help you see how this tool is used.