Group items tagged

Some ideas for EBTL2

After learning more about the uses of QR codes in the classroom in ebtl2 class and from reading the blog comments about them on the Ning, I looked for an article that explained more about the educational implications. In this article, written over a year ago, the information may be a little outdated, but it helped clarify the big picture for me. I thought sharing it may help others better understand what a great classroom tool it can be.

I read this and immediately thought of ebtl2 where we are driven to think outside of the box. I wonder what our students will say when asked.

At the risk of Evernote overkill, this is a good overview of some of the most useful aspects of Evernote. I was particularly happy to see that someone has developed a web clipper app for Android and iOS.

If we do another edcamp session in EBTL2, I'd love to see how some of you are using Evernote on a regular basis. I have an account and some familiarity with it, but would like to use it more. I had a former student come to see me yesterday to give me a lesson and show me how he's using it in different classes in 7th grade. There seems to be a lot of great potential.

Evernote says they want to be people's brains. When they put it that way, I get a little nervous.

I have not been happy with the output of my Twitter account. I have come to the conclusion that I am not following enough people, and that some of the people I am following are not right for me. I started to do a search on the internet for Twitter and education and came up with this resource. It includes a long, varied, categorized list of people and organizations to follow in education. The categories include such topics as Special Education, Technology, iPads, Design, General, etc. I have started following several of the people/organizations recommended by this resource and am already getting much more out of Twitter.

Jan, this is really helpful. I've had a similar feeling about my Twitter account. I'll take a look at some of the hashtags in the article you posted and hopefully we'll both get more out of it!

This is an interesting and instructive post about one person's revised workflow as a paperless business and household. Worth a read.

Interesting article on setting guidelines for limiting the amount of time kids spend on a device. Also brings up issue of parents not really knowing how to help their child use the device for educational purposes. My guess is that most parents defer to their children as the experts on their devices and yield to what they want for apps.

For all you mathematically inclined types out there... For all you writers, best one liner - "After watching the video myself, I checked to make sure I still had my wallet and my watch."

Perhaps you've come across Greg at MassCUE presenting on iPads in the classroom, or perhaps you're familiar with his blog "The History 2.0 Classroom" at http://kulowiectech.blogspot.com/. This is a new site of his that is documenting "the process of only using an iOS device for one month." A few posts in, and there are already some great demos for using iPads for classroom work flow.

This was a very interesting article. Greg was able to complete many tasks using his iOS device. I noticed he used quite a few Google tools to complete them. I agree there are some good examples of work flow for iPads here, which I find is always a challenge, but never impossible!

This is a short lesson developed for Pearson to consolidate some clear, useful structures for activating students in the classroom. Some of it is definitely more geared towards Language Arts, but it's worth a look for approaches to take in any class, and is a good reminder of some of those methods we learned back when we were learning to teach.

Amazing 360 degree Aerial Panoramas of places around the world. Take your students on a virtual field trip with these amazing views. Can be viewed in different resolutions and there are settings for mobile devices. There are currently 2000 aerial panoramas on the site with the goal of adding more over the next 2-3 years.

This is a great site for my world geography class! Thanks for sharing.

Love this! Thanks for sharing.

Interesting read on how Kindergarten is the new first grade. I know that in my 18 years teaching that I have seen this shift. Things that I used in my first grade classroom are now being used in Kindergarten.

Thanks for sharing Kerry! I was actually just having this conversation with a colleague at lunch today following our curriculum and instruction meeting. We were reviewing the DIBBLES scores and discussing the kids that were in the yellow and discussing how we can get these "struggling" students to green. The piece that was not noted or discussed was that most of these kids were in the red at the beginning of the year. Of course we need to talk about how to continue to support all students, but I feel like we are focusing only on getting them to the green and not taking the time to recognize how successful and how much progress they have made this far. Some of these kids knew 4 letters and no sounds at the beginning of the year and now can name all the letters and their sounds, but are having trouble with newly introduced skills like blending and segmenting words. That is a lot of progress in just one area, never mind their progress in other areas. I don't know that I have personally progressed that much in any are of my life in the last year, never mind the last five months. On the other hand there are definitely kids in my class that are ready to or are reading and need to be pushed and challenged. My concern isn't that the standards are unrealistic, it's that it is unrealistic of us to expect that all kids will meet them at the same time and if they don't meet them in our set time frame we consider them to be a struggling student. As a result we push them harder and make them do more work with a skill that they might just not be ready for.

Thought this was a great lead in to vacation. I have visited the one in Austin, TX when I lived in Dallas, but I have not been to any others.

It seems as if Ohio has come up with a creative solution to snow days, or as they call them, "Calamity Days." It seems like something we could do very easily to preserve the school calendar.

It seems like the Flipped Classroom model could be very beneficial for something like this. Teachers could post lessons and and an assignment for students to complete at home. The obvious challenge would be accessibility, especially when child care arrangements are made.

New Hampshire uses blizzard bags. SNHU is also using a flipped model when their classes are cancelled. They post assignments to Blackboard for students to watch, etc. and complete classwork as well.

I loved this commentary posted on Education Week. It talks about the importance of giving students unstructured time on a regular basis, and expanding recess or time for physical activity. As the author states, "Kids are built to move. Having more time for unstructured outdoor play is like handing them a reset button." This author also spent six weeks in Finland studying their education system. They seem to be achieving greater success with less class time, and more built in natural breaks. This is worth reading.

I wish we had more down time and outside time as well during the day. We barely get it all in as it is with one recess, but maybe going outside or having downtime will help them retain more day to day.

I'm so glad you posted this article, Julie. I think it is so important to continue examining not just what we teach, but how we teach it. My son shifted this January to the Waldorf school in Lexington, in part because he is a very physical learner, who is interested in the arts, music, and practical arts, but also because he was just sitting too much of the day, focusing almost exclusively on reading and math skills. In his new school, they practice counting and multiplication tables while jumping rope on teams, for example. It's not recess, but it is physical activity, it's fun, and it really reinforces and connects the math skill they are working on. I hear many examples like this from him each week, and it has really inspired me to try to incorporate similar approaches, even (or maybe especially?) with my 9th graders.

Great article with wonderful ideas for teaching students how to read expository text.

The text feature walk is a great strategy for teaching how photos, graphs, maps, and charts contribute to the understanding of the text. It is also a great way to predict main idea prior to reading. Very helpful. Thanks Kerry.

A great visual on multiple intelligences through the use of iPad apps. The apps are categorized for an easy way to find what matches a particular intelligence.

This is a thought-provoking article about the effects that our kids may be experiencing from use of handheld devices when very young. It's a question that I've had for a while about relative benefits of technology for very young kids. What do people think?

This could be an interesting debate topic. While I don't necessarily agree with some of the points made in the article, I do sometimes wonder how much overuse of technology is contribute to higher rates of ADHD or ADD. I don't have any hard and fast evidence, but based on what I see in the classroom, it seems difficult for students to "slow down" and focus on any activity for long periods of time. They so used to jumping from one thing to another, or texting on their phone while talking to a friend, that they're never really present in the moment, or focused solely on what's in front of them. I also notice it with myself. Having an ipad or cell phone or laptop at a meeting, it's hard to always stay focused on what's going on, especially when work emails are coming in that seem to need your immediate attention. It's definitely hard to shut off or disconnect. However, I also remember someone sharing in class thoughts from Tony Wagner's book that screen time in school where kids are working collaboratively on a project, or experiencing things that they can only experience with technology, is vastly different from playing video games, or watching TV/movies in a more isolated setting. Technology can be instrumental in learning, and I don't see how it wouldn't remain part of instruction in elementary schools. Maybe the debate is more in the quality of how it's used? Good food for thought; thanks for sharing!

I agree that this is a great topic to debate. As with with most things there are positives and negatives that both make sense. I agree with Julie that maybe the question should focus on the quality and quantity of how these devices are used with children under 12.

A really interesting reflective post about parents' concerns about screen time and our increasing use of screens as a way to encourage learning. What should schools do when curriculum and instruction conflicts with parenting? No easy answer here. Just posing more questions.

Interesting post, Kerry. I don't have any answers, either. And since I'm not a parent, it's hard for me to imagine how I might feel on the parent side of the issue at this time. It's interesting because in our jigsaw group discussion on chapter 6, we talked about a similar issue. Wagner points out how parents of the innovators he showcased in his book limited screen time, but also set an important distinction between screen time where kids are watching TV and playing video games, often independently, and screen time in classrooms where kids are engaged in collaborative learning projects. I certainly agree that there is a difference, but it makes sense that there should be some balance, or some limit, somewhere. In education it always seems that the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other before settling somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see how this issue unfolds. I'd also be curious to hear from the perspectives of the parents in our EBTL2 class, since they are also educators involved in the BYOD initiative and growing world of technology.

So, I'm a parent of a 7th grader and a 3rd grader, and obviously I'm also involved as a teacher at RMHS. We have 1:1 iPads in my LLD English classes but they stay at school. I haven't had any push-back from parents so far about assignments or screen time. I did look at this link, and I looked at the forum as well, and I think as a parent, what was a little concerning about the forum comments, was the lack of empathy and understanding from teachers towards parents. As a parent, I also have concerns about screen time, and I see that there are certainly ways that we can limit recreational screen time. We do as much as we can. But, sometimes if my 7th grader has a project, I might not know much more about it than she is able to communicate to me (sometimes this is a lot, and sometimes it is not much). There have only been a few times when this has happened, but I have tried to set some limit about how much time to spend on the project, my daughter has really fought it, because she's been concerned about not doing a good job, etc. Occasionally new technology or apps take longer for her to master than the intended time for the project or assignment, and so something simple or seemingly quick takes much longer than it should. Situations like this can turn parents off to technology if they don't understand the big picture, or if they don't have any confidence that the teacher understands the big picture. Sometimes we don't give kids enough time in class to "play around" with apps or new approaches before turning them loose to do an assignment independently, and that too, can lead to stressful situations at home where both parent and child don't know how to do the assignment. I think the point is that any change is going to make people uncomfortable, and some folks are going to react more strongly than others. The more we can communicate and explain what's happening, and let parents know that the technology and experimentation is a vital part of the learning proce