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Michael Walker

Three Ways to Increase the Quality of Students' Discussion Board Comments - 15 views

www.facultyfocus.com/...ents-discussion-board-comments

discussion board Comment tips blogging hybrid online

shared by Michael Walker on 02 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Generation of class norms by the students:
  • Having ownership of the norms that govern the course discussions will certainly affect the climate of collaborative learning in an online class by providing an impetus for students to post more constructive and meaningful messages
  • The employment of Grice’s maxims for self-evaluation:
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Quantity: make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required. Quality: do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack evidence. Relation: be relevant. Manner: avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be clear, brief, and orderly.
  • Retrospective analysis of posted responses:
  • self-critique and reflect on their performance and comment on their perceptions concerning the quality of their responses may make them revisit their learning and, more important, initiate them into rethinking about their postings to improve their talk quality.
  • Michael Walker on 02 Mar 10
     
    Study shares good, basic ideas for comments to discussion boards and blogs.
Dean Mantz

Free music, free books, free games, free poems and free puzzles that help teach childre... - 15 views

www.mightybook.com/index.html

education comprehension Reading books poems teaching learning literature literacy songs resources tools technology

shared by Dean Mantz on 04 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Dean Mantz on 04 Feb 10
     
    Multiple resources for educators to use in teaching reading and literacy to elementary and special needs students.
Ben Rimes

Executive Summary | U.S. Department of Education - 9 views

www.ed.gov/...executive-summary

shared by Ben Rimes on 15 Mar 10 - Cached
  • regardless of background, languages, or disabilities,
  • personalized learning
  • critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication should be woven into all content areas.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In all these activities, technology-based assessments can provide data to drive decisions on the basis of what is best for each and every student and that in aggregate will lead to continuous improvement across our entire education system.
  • Another basic assumption is the way we organize students into age-determined groups, structure separate academic disciplines, organize learning into classes of roughly equal size with all the students in a particular class receiving the same content at the same pace, and keep these groups in place all year.
    • Ben Rimes
      Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
       
      For good reason at the elementary level. It's called socialization. Students that are 2 or 3 years apart can exhibit radically different thought processes, levels of self-control, but more importantly, there are huge developmental differences socially, emotionally, and physcially.
  • The NETP accepts that we do not have the luxury of time – we must act now and commit to fine-tuning and midcourse corrections as we go. Success will require leadership, collaboration, and investment at all levels of our education system – states, districts, schools, and the federal government – as well as partnerships with higher education institutions, private enterprises, and not-for-profit entities.
    • Ben Rimes
      Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
       
      Perhaps one of the most frightening statements in the document to a large number of school districts. Teachers quite often are able to enact a mid-course shift, and students are most always extremely flexible, but at the administration and district level change can often be glacial as such radical change could very well mean replacing the hierarchy of leadership throughout a district, shifting positions, or eliminating them, and large organizations have a tendency towards self-preservation.
  • Vicki Davis on 15 Mar 10
     
    Current update to National Education Technology plan in the USA. Highlighted with diigo with comments.
  • Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
     
    Current update to National Education Technology plan in the USA. Highlighted with diigo with comments.
Ed Webb

Office of Educational Technology (OET) - 2 views

www2.ed.gov/...index.html

education technology edtech DOE government Duncan

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Secretary Arne Duncan invites comments on the draft National Educational Technology Plan.
  • This plan is a draft. "We are open to your comments," Secretary Duncan said. "Tell us about how technology has changed your school or classroom." Read the plan. Share your comments, videos and examples of how technology is changing and improving education.
anonymous

Building a Better Teacher - NYTimes.com - 7 views

www.nytimes.com/...07Teachers-t.html

Teaching education teacher school Improvement

shared by anonymous on 07 Mar 10 - Cached
  • There was no shortage of prescriptions at the time for how to cure the poor performance that plagued so many American schools. Proponents of No Child Left Behind saw standardized testing as a solution. President Bush also championed a billion-dollar program to encourage schools to adopt reading curriculums with an emphasis on phonics. Others argued for smaller classes or more parental involvement or more state financing.
  • This record encouraged a belief in some people that good teaching must be purely instinctive, a kind of magic performed by born superstars.
Jackie Ediger

Search the PopSci Archives | Popular Science - 6 views

www.popsci.com/archives

science magazine archives popularscience resources

shared by Jackie Ediger on 01 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Ted Sakshaug on 01 Apr 10
     
    Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives.
Dave Truss

ELT notes: IWBs and the Fallacy of Integration - 7 views

eltnotes.blogspot.com/...nd-fallacy-of-integration.html

learning technologyintegration leadership mycomments

shared by Dave Truss on 20 Apr 10 - Cached
  • motivation and control. One seems to need the other, apparently. Keep the students motivated and you are a great teacher in control of the learning process. But we miss the point. Motivation has a short-term effect. New things will be old again. If we equal motivation with learning we will cling too much to it and direct our best efforts (and school budget) to gaining back control. A useless cycle that can lead us to consider extremely double-edged ideas like paying students to keep them learning.
  • We need autonomous, self-motivated students in love with the process of how humanity has learnt.
  • There is a underlying idea in the framing of our questions that needs unlearning. The belief that there are "levels", layers of complexity, hierarchies that we can detect and... well, control. But wait! Isn't that the very old way we want to truly change with new technologies?
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • We already know it's about shifting power. Tight teacher control is a hindrance to foster empowered students who own their learning paths. We need to be aware of the old way finding its way to surface in what we question.
  • Tech is tech no matter what it does. It's innovative in its nature.
  • We can tell by the huge resistance to it. If there is no resistance in the process, we are probably facing improvements and weighing their gains in efficiency points. Good enough, only it is not an innovation. Innovation is not about "more or better", it's about "different".
  • What is the school picture today? What does my working context look like?I see an illusion that technology is to be bought, taught, used in class and then we can expect everyone to be happy. This false assumption seems to be guiding managerial decisions. This is the same old story behind the idea of technology "integration".
  • I doubt formal courses can make people adopt informal ways of learning. Courses could change teacher behaviour and leave their mindset untouched.
  • students are not digital natives. They know very little about educational uses of the technology they have been using for entertainment purposes only. They are quite ready to resist thoughtful, time consuming uses of the same technology. Particularly if they have had no part in choosing or deciding together with the teacher how we would use it.
  • First things first. Stay out of the tug-of-war. It is not a moment to think if the school is wrong in imposing it and teachers are right in resisting it. It's probably the moment to get together and go ahead purposefully. This is short-term thinking, though. Somehow teachers need to communicate to managers that the buy-don't-ask is an unhealthy approach from now on.
  • Ideally, we should envision a future where authorities engage teachers in conversations before buying.
  • Innovative teaching practices require innovative management practices. Let's think of adoption models that rely on having one-to-one conversations with teachers, experimenting together, asking them how far they feel they need mentoring, identifying what makes teachers happy at work.
  • Dave Truss on 20 Apr 10
     
    We need autonomous, self-motivated students in love with the process of how humanity has learnt.
Brendan Murphy

Teacher Magazine: Taking Back School Reform: A Conversation Between Diane Ravitch and M... - 5 views

www.edweek.org/...roseravitchschoolreform.html

shared by Brendan Murphy on 13 May 10 - Cached
  • deep-seated wish to create escape routes from public education.
    • Brendan Murphy
      Brendan Murphy on 13 May 10
       
      Does supporting vouchers mean we are giving up on schools?
  • Since there is no way to know who will be an effective teacher
    • Brendan Murphy
      Brendan Murphy on 13 May 10
       
      It is possible to determine if someone will be or is a good teachers through oberservation and coaching, which costs money and time and has rarely been used effectively in the past.
  • What if we could channel the financial and human resources spent on the machinery of high-stakes testing into a robust, widely distributed program of professional development?
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • He told them that the more they know about the particulars of instruction, the less effective they’ll be, for that nitty-gritty knowledge will blur their perception of the problem
    • Brendan Murphy
      Brendan Murphy on 13 May 10
       
      I suppose if all you care about is the budget then that is the correct attitude.
  • children from every background will respond to a curriculum that respects their minds and feeds them with rich experiences.
    • Brendan Murphy
      Brendan Murphy on 13 May 10
       
      Of course they will. Is your curriculum rich?
  • It is not just policy makers needing to spend time in schools. It is teachers needing to spend time in the policy making environment - yes, Dept of Ed has teacher ambassador program, but I would also suggest state legislators, Congressmen and Senators look more aggressively to having fellows on their staffs who are professional educators - it would save a LOT of problems downstream on both sides
  • Modeling modeling.asu.edu. This program shows improvement in both teacher and student understanding of physics.
  • CIMM which is a spin off of Modeling and is attacking the math problems in lower grades
Dennis OConnor

ALA | Interview with Keith Curry Lance - 1 views

www.ala.org/...interviewlance.cfm

ala 21cif library media specialist library2.0 research

shared by Dennis OConnor on 11 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • A series of studies that have had a great deal of influence on the research and decision-making discussions concerning school library media programs have grown from the work of a team in Colorado—Keith Curry Lance, Marcia J. Rodney, and Christine Hamilton-Pennell (2000).
  • Recent school library impact studies have also identified, and generated some evidence about, potential "interventions" that could be studied. The questions might at first appear rather familiar: How much, and how, are achievement and learning improved when . . . librarians collaborate more fully with other educators? libraries are more flexibly scheduled? administrators choose to support stronger library programs (in a specific way)? library spending (for something specific) increases?
  • high priority should be given to reaching teachers, administrators, and public officials as well as school librarians and school library advocates.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Perhaps the most strategic option, albeit a long-term one, is to infiltrate schools and colleges of education. Most school administrators and teachers never had to take a course, or even part of a course, that introduced them to what constitutes a high-quality school library program.
  • Three factors are working against successful advocacy for school libraries: (1) the age demographic of librarians, (2) the lack of institutionalization of librarianship in K–12 schools, and (3) the lack of support from educators due to their lack of education or training about libraries and good experiences with libraries and librarians.
  • These vacant positions are highly vulnerable to being downgraded or eliminated in these times of tight budgets, not merely because there is less money to go around, but because superintendents, principals, teachers, and other education decision-makers do not understand the role a school librarian can and should play.
  • If we want the school library to be regarded as a central player in fostering academic success, we must do whatever we can to ensure that school library research is not marginalized by other interests.    
  • Dennis OConnor on 11 Jan 11
     
    A great overview of Lance's research into the effectiveness of libraries.  He answers the question: Do school libraries or librarians make a difference?  His answer (A HUGE YES!) is back by 14 years of remarkable research.  The point is proved.  But this information remains unknown to many principals and superintendents.  Anyone interested in 21st century teaching and learning will find this interview fascinating.
Ty Hoggins

Qwiki - 10 views

www.qwiki.com

search information innovative

shared by Ty Hoggins on 27 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Ted Sakshaug on 27 Jan 11
     
    Qwiki's goal is to forever improve the way people experience information. Whether you're planning a vacation on the web, evaluating restaurants on your phone, or helping with homework in front of the family Google TV, Qwiki is working to deliver information in a format that's quintessentially human - via storytelling instead of search. We are the first to turn information into an experience. We believe that just because data is stored by machines doesn't mean it should be presented as a machine-readable list. Let's try harder.
  • anonymous on 27 Jan 11
     
    an online encyclopedia complete with sounds, beautiful images...
  • Ty Hoggins on 05 Jun 11
     
    Great new tool - Facebook, meets Google, meets Wikipedia
Bret Willhoit

The Children Must Play - 20 views

www.tnr.com/...education-reform-Finland-US

education education_change reform edreform testing

shared by Bret Willhoit on 19 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Not only do Finnish educational authorities provide students with far more recess than their U.S. counterparts—75 minutes a day in Finnish elementary schools versus an average of 27 minutes in the U.S.—but they also mandate lots of arts and crafts, more learning by doing, rigorous standards for teacher certification, higher teacher pay, and attractive working conditions.
  • it had to modernize its economy and could only do so by first improving its schools. To that end, the government agreed to reduce class size, boost teacher pay, and require that, by 1979, all teachers complete a rigorous master’s program.
  • Finnish teachers earn very competitive salaries: High school teachers with 15 years of experience make 102 percent of what their fellow university graduates do. In the United States, by contrast, they earn just 65 percent.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Finnish authorities haven’t outsourced school management to for-profit or non-profit organizations, implemented merit pay, or ranked teachers and schools according to test results, they’ve made excellent use of business strategies. They’ve won the war for talent by making teaching so appealing. In choosing principals, superintendents, and policymakers from inside the education world rather than looking outside it, Finnish authorities have likewise taken a page from the corporate playbook: Great organizations, as the business historian Alfred Chandler documented, cultivate talent from within. Of the many officials I interviewed at the Finnish Ministry of Education, the National Board of Education, the Education Evaluation Council, and the Helsinki Department of Education, all had been teachers for at least four years.
  • Finland’s school system unique is that the country has deliberately rejected the prevailing standardization movement
  • Since 1985, students have not been tracked (or grouped by ability) until the tenth grade
  • The Finnish approach to pedagogy is also distinct
Gaby Richard-Harrington

Working Toward Student Self-Direction and Personal Efficacy as Educational Goals - 2 views

www.ncrel.org/...lr200.htm

student learning efficacy

shared by Gaby Richard-Harrington on 23 Mar 11 - Cached
    • Gaby Richard-Harrington
      Gaby Richard-Harrington on 23 Mar 11
       
      I think that this is worth listening to. It gives a really different reason for conferences.
  • she observes student-led parent/student conferences.
    • Gaby Richard-Harrington
      Gaby Richard-Harrington on 23 Mar 11
       
      I think this is worth listening to. It gives a whole new perspective on conferences.
  • improvement of instruction and for evaluation,
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • mutually-enhancing learning process.
  • In traditional classrooms the teacher is seen as the information giver; knowledge flows only one way from teacher to student. In contrast, the methods used in a collaborative classroom emphasize shared knowledge and decision making.
  • Teachers may have a great deal of difficulty learning how to share control of instruction with students.
  • helping students make their own decisions will conflict with some teachers' learned experiences as well as their feelings about being in charge.
  • For some teachers this is a most difficult challenge
  • Similarly, students who are used to relying on teachers to give them so much structure, direction and information will have to learn to start asking themselves
  • "What can I do before I ask an adult?"
  • Some psychologists point out that fostering self-determination and personal efficacy can conflict with our goals for collaborative work (Sigel) unless we find ways to mold both goals into our instructional programs
  • self-direction can refer not only to the individual but to a group, a class of students, that decides upon goals, designs strategies and collaboratively evaluates progress on a group basis. As Vygotsky (1978) notes,
  • learning to think occurs within a social context; group speech gradually becomes internalized as personal self-talk about confronting life's difficult, complex situations.
  • Finally, personal efficacy means taking control of one's destiny
  • school restructuring and change
  • Some critics (Apple, 1979) suggest that schools help students reproduce knowledge of a dominant social, economic class, and not engage in producing for their own knowledge.
  • Further, many parents are concerned that a reorientation toward student self-direction and personal efficacy will diminish the influence of home and school and inadequately prepare students for the work force.
Megan Black

Best of free typing games - Typing games : improve typing skills - 27 views

www.mytypinggames.com

free games Keyboardingsites keyboarding typing

shared by Megan Black on 16 May 11 - No Cached
  • Sandy Kennedy on 17 May 11
     
    An awful lot of ads at the top of these; some of them encouraging them to download stuff. Think I'll pass on this one.
  • Megan Black on 19 May 11
     
    I have the Adblock app from Firefox on all my student computers so they did not show up. This helps with a lot of free educational sites. You might want to give it s try. It installs quickly.
Vicki Davis

Dictionary Squared - Improve your Vocabulary - 22 views

www.dictionarysquared.com

sat education dictionary edu_newapp

shared by Vicki Davis on 22 Jul 11 - Cached
  • Vicki Davis on 22 Jul 11
     
    A website to help students with vocabulary.
Claude Almansi

Canadians Move to Improve Captioning Standards for English and French TV Broadcasts | C... - 0 views

www.coataccess.org/10043

standards english french captioning closed captioning TV Canada Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology COAT Accessibility

shared by Claude Almansi on 29 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Claude Almansi on 29 Sep 11
     
    "August 15, 2011. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has begun a rulemaking to strengthen and expand their current TV closed captioning standards for both English TV and French TV broadcasts. However, they will not be looking at standards for digital and new media platforms in this process. The CRTC seeks input on:"
Ed Webb

Times Higher Education - Dummies' guides to teaching insult our intelligence - 0 views

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Aug 09 - Cached
  • When I started, largely out of exasperation, to investigate the educational research literature for myself, I was pleasantly surprised to find there was some genuinely useful and scholarly work out there, which recognised the demands of different subjects and even admitted that university lecturers aren't all workshy and stupid... It's a shame that this better stuff doesn't seem to have fed through into the generic courses that most institutions offer. My personal advice to anyone starting out as a university teacher: find a few colleagues who take their teaching seriously (there are almost certain to be some in the department) and ask them for advice; sit in on their classes if possible; remember you'll never teach perfectly but you can always teach better; and close your ears to well-meaning interference from anybody who's never actually spent time at the chalkface!
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 25 Aug 09
       
      Sounds like excellent advice
  • Magueijo's could acknowledge that some people teaching these courses are genuinely concerned about improving teaching, and they need academics' help in designing better courses that do so. Sotto's side should acknowldge that however much they talk about how important teaching is (as if they discovered this, and academics did not know), they are not listening to the people attending their courses if those people feel utterly patronised and frustrated at the waste of their time. If academics treated their students like educationalists treat their student academics they'd be appalling teachers. A simple course allowing us to learn from a video of our own lectures would be immensely useful. Instead whole empires of education have developed that need to justify themselves and grow, so they subject us to educational jargon and make us write essays on the educationalist's pet theory.
  • I would have preferred that David Pritchard had written it; his comments above are perfect.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Most colleagues with excellent teaching reputations seem not to oppose training per se, but bad training.
Ben W

CogDogBlog » New! Improved! With Extra Sheen! Flickr CC Attribution Helper - 0 views

cogdogblog.com/...ickr-cc-attribution-helper-new

flickr greasemonkey attribution tools digitalcitizenship bestpractices

shared by Ben W on 24 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Ben W on 24 Aug 09
     
    Creates super easy html & text attribution that can be copied & pasted directly from a flickr page. Pretty dern sweet.
David Hilton

Home | Say Yes to Education - 0 views

www.sayyestoeducation.org/...Itemid,1

education organisations communities poverty teaching schools initiatives

shared by David Hilton on 11 Sep 09 - Cached
  • David Hilton on 11 Sep 09
     
    An organisation devoted to improving inner-city graduation rates in the USA.
Anne Bubnic

New Image for Computing [PDF] - 0 views

www.zephoria.org/...NICReport.pdf

ad4dcss digital_youth computer_science 21st century skills research

shared by Anne Bubnic on 13 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • Anne Bubnic on 13 Jun 09
     
    Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, New Image for Computing (NIC) is currently in the first stage of what is planned as a multi-phase project that aims to improve the image of computer science among high school students (with a special focus on gender and ethnic disparities) and encourage greater participation in computer science at the postsecondary level. Download the full report.
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