Group items tagged

It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after speech, thousands more before the printing press was invented, and a few hundred more for the telegraph to arrive. Today, new ways of relating are constantly created and a new communication medium emerges every time someone creates a web application-a Flickr here, a Twitter there. How can we use new media to foster the kinds of communication and community we desire in education? This presentation will discuss both successful and unsuccessful attempts to integrate emerging technologies into the classroom to create a rich virtual learning environment.

Contest to encourage student to create a vision of the future of technology. This site shows the inventions and the awards. This is a neat competition and you might want to plug in your math and science program, particularly the gifted program. Competitions help your top students reach higher and are a very important part of gifted programs (and others too!)

K-12 student competition for creating the future of technology.

The report concludes that effective uses of technology to enhance student achievement are based on four building blocks which are alignment, assessment, accountability, and access and analysis. Its definition of student achievement includes 21st Century skills. The report describes 21st Century skills as "a new set of skills necessary to prepare students for life and work in the digital age. These skills include digital literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication and high productivity abilities" (p. 32).

Countless universities, colleges and K-12 classes worldwide are using the technology to deliver recorded lectures, news and information to students. In fact, nothing has had a greater impact on students since the invention of the paddle. OK, I kid, but I'

"Ahmed ElAmin Published Jul 20, 2011 at 9:18 am (Updated Jul 20, 2011 at 8:01 am) Belgians have invented Smurfs, make some of the best beer in the world, and know how to fry a potato chip. However, one must say the country's leading newspapers scored an own goal when they took Google to court last year for listing their content in the search engine's news section and won on copyright. I guess they didn't look at how people arrive at a typical online newspaper site, which derives up to 50 percent or more of their visitors from Google. In addition to taking the group of papers out of its news section, Google also stopped indexing them in its search engine. Now the newspapers are complaining that they are being discriminated against unfairly! (...) Google has big power and the danger is how the company wields it in pursuit of profit. It brings traffic to websites, but the company that claims to "do no evil" can also taketh away ostracising those for good and bad reasons. The company is also stepping up its aggregation news service by trying to attract more volume through the "gamification" of Google News. Google is following a trend among news sites to bring readers in. With their consent, readers will be rewarded with "news badges" based on their reading habits. Badges of varying levels will be given out depending on the amount and types of articles you read. About 500 badges are available to suit a wide range of topics. Google News indexes about 50,000 sources. Keep reading and get those badges! Maybe."

Don't re-invent the wheel. Download ready made templates and then change them for your purposes

wow! if you can't find it here, they haven't invented it yet! nicely compacted list of tools geared towards learning

While this article starts out about a lawfirm in Birmingham UK that is going to "track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online" it becomes an amazingly poignant article on the very nature of the Internet today and the push pull between anonymous commenting and accountability of the commenter. Push pull between free speech and online identity and brand protection. One person in this article claims that this sort of thing is the sign that the "wild west" of the INternet is coming to an end. Oh dear, I hope someone invents a new one if somehow anonymous commenters are now going to risk such! Also love the article's discussion of the Streisand effect wherein Barbara protested the sharing of some photos of her eroding beachfront which caused a stir and more people looking at the photos than if she had left it alone. This article is going to be a must read for Flat Classroom students and would be great for college-level discussions as well.

This is an older post but really resonates with me. (Isn't it funny how you can read something from a while back and re-learn all over again some really cool things.) I had to laugh and remember - this was during my first year of blogging and everything is STILL TRUE about blogging. Gotta love this amazing blogging thing that lets us re-invent and re-learn about ourselves over time.

Since this post is already creating a stir, I'm bookmarking it to track it. This is my ponderings from the Georgia Tech Football Game vs. Miami about how blogging is like football.

Daily Wordle puzzles based on famous books, locations, and dates. Not the most complicated use of Wordle, but rather inventive. Would be better to have comments turned on, so people could guess and discuss the daily puzzle.

"From the outset, I want to be clear - Leonardo da Vinci, not Leonardo DiCaprio. But don't despair, there is a still a lot Mr da Vinci has to offer in our modern world, with many of seven key concepts that drove his inventive thinking still helping to influence our creative thinking. Ray Speakman and Ian Warwick, in their book, look closely at the seven key concepts that influenced da Vinci's life, and how they can make our own learning more original and thoughtful. The seven key concepts are no big secret, but the authors frame them into a modern narrative that makes understanding ourselves, nature and reality possible. Throughout, much is made of Leonardo's notebooks - the sanctuary where he noted his observations, thoughts and discoveries - where he was constantly pushing his understanding to the edges of what was possible during the period he lived. A lot can be learned from such an approach, as jotting down our thoughts, discoveries and inspirations can help us organise our minds - and could be beneficial for many young learners."

"Join the maker movement! There's a technological and creative revolution underway. Amazing new tools, materials and skills turn us all into makers. Using technology to make, repair or customize the things we need brings engineering, design and computer science to the masses. Fortunately for educators, this maker movement overlaps with the natural inclinations of children and the power of learning by doing. The active learner is at the center of the learning process, amplifying the best traditions of progressive education. This book helps educators bring the exciting opportunities of the maker movement to every classroom."

Laura Fleming is using Makerspace in her classroom. She's at New Milford HIgh School -- a place led by one of the best principals in the business, Eric Sheninger (his new book is awesome - out in January). Laura is using Mozilla's Web Literacy Standard and her Makerspace which includes robotics, stop motion animation and "Molecular gastronomy" and more. Wow. I'm fascinated. Take a look. "Setting up a Makerspace has been a priority of mine from the moment I started here at New Milford High School, and it's already well on its way to being achieved. Having a school principal who provides the perfect mix of encouragement and autonomy has, of course, been a great help, but it has also been very much a team effort: the school's tech team and custodians have been very supportive and cooperative, along with a diverse variety of students interested in 'making' experiences. At the heart of the vision for my Makerspace is to develop the space and to provide resources and opportunities that will aid in promoting web literacy.  These components encompass Mozilla's Web Literacy Standard.  The standard is make up of three key elements:  exploring, building and connecting and focuses on reading, writing and participating on the web.   "

To me it really brought home how artificial speeches about canned subjects in front of a class are little to no preparation about talking to people naturally in a real-world setting. It's like the students are only good at "pretend speaking"

Just went thru public speaking in our school... this rings painfully true!

inventor of the week, great for real life science application