Group items tagged

"A while back, I was asked, "What engages students?" Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccurring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of babes, here are my students' answers to the question: "What engages students?""

Options for using captioning or interpreters for hearing impaired students. "  Deaf/HOH students       Using YouTube translatable captions & Picture in Picture of interpreter signing Translatable captions: I (Tim F) need to create a video showing the whole process of doing this but basically all you have to do to create translatable captions for YouTube is upload a script to a video that you own and YouTube will "magically" sync up the two and then make the captions available in 51 languages). Picture in picture: I used Camtasia Studio to easily add the video with the interpreter signing."

"How To Add Rigor To Any Lesson, Unit, Or Assessment Rigor is a fundamental piece of any learning experience. It is also among the most troublesome due to its relativity. Rigorous for whom? And more importantly, how can you "cause" it?"

"Last year my students designed infographics for the first time. I enjoyed the process and the products. It was a fun strategy to teach my students crucial research skills while encouraging them to think creatively about how to visually communicate information. This year I was literally blown away by the work my students did on their infographics. I wanted to share my process and examples of student work to help support other teachers."

"We want to prepare our students to lead productive and successful lives once they leave us and enter into the realm of adulthood. But what lies ahead for our students in the future? Did educators of twenty years ago know that so much of our world would be based on computers and technology now? Could they have known what skills would be needed in the job market today? Unlikely, but yet they had to do their best to prepare their students for this world anyhow."

"A professional learning network is a vibrant, ever-changing group of connections to which teachers go to both share and learn. These groups reflect our values, passions, and areas of expertise. Teachers build PLNs the same way they build any network: by investing time to find and connect with people they trust, who have shared interests and passions. To me, a PLN includes the organizations, communities, and individuals who help me learn and grow as a professional. My PLN also provides me with a broader perspective on education-beyond my classroom, school building, state, and even nation. It is a blend of face-to-face and digital interactions with professional buddies, mentors, and rockstars."

"Indeed, a host of national and regional surveys suggest that teachers are far more likely to use technology to make their own jobs easier and to supplement traditional instructional strategies than to put students in control of their own learning. Case study after case study describe a common pattern inside schools: A handful of "early adopters" embrace innovative uses of new technology, while their colleagues make incremental or no changes to what they already do."

"'Fluency' derives from the word 'flow' and when we think about being 'fluent' in any context, it refers to being flexible, accurate, efficient, and appropriate. In other words, the way we use skills, language and speech flows naturally and easily. In a digital context for learning, fluency involves using technologies "readily and strategically to learn, to work, and to play, and the infusion of technology in teaching and learning to improve outcomes for all students""

"Draftback is a Chrome extension that indexes the revision history of a document then allows you to watch a video of the doc being created.  You can watch as a document goes from a blank page to the final version that was submitted for a grade.  This is helpful on two fronts: 1. Clicking the document graph and statistics will show you exactly how much time each student spent creating the file.  This makes it very easy to see who participated in a group assignment. 2. Think a student plagiarized something?  You can watch to see if large portions of text were pasted onto the document from an outside source.  This is a great way to keep the student's honest."

"Create online forms the easy way. Whether you're looking to generate leads, collect order payments, conduct customer surveys, find applicants for a job, or register guests for an event, JotForm's easy-to-use form builder lets you build a customized online form to fit your exact needs in minutes. Make your own fillable PDF form for others to complete and send back to you in just minutes!"

"Dare to live the life you've always wanted. Find Your Grind delivers a unique approach to learning and navigating the path to self-discovery. We help individuals define their roadmap to discover who they are, where they are going, and the first steps to get there."

"Your favourite places: Share potential housing locations, holiday plans, or simply map your favourite coffee shops, bars & restaurants. Edit with friends: Easily share your map with friends so they can edit with you; simply give them the URL over email or instant messenger. Read-only maps: Add an optional password to your map to limit editing to those you want to. To create a totally private map, simply create a map with an unguessable name."

Starting a game is fast, easy, and doesn't require registration! This is the first draft (beta 1.0) of our website which we hope will be a fun, communal way to learn geography and other interesting trivia. The site was started by Jeff Borland, a teacher in Portland, Maine and one of his former students, Orkhan Nadirli. We believe that students need to know much more about the world and we thought that this game format would be a wonderful way to do that. In the coming months we hope to add lots of new features (like the ability to create your own trivia sets), so keep checking back.

"The editors had to ponder what would make a technology easier to avoid than try to implement, and came up with a list of broad technologies and technology trends that either A) caused, rather than eased, more problems and concerns in the classroom, and/or B) were not evolved enough to make an actual difference in teaching or learning."

"Edtech is making is easier and more efficient to help students at every level, and to bring even the most timid of learners out of their shells. Dr. Kenneth Shore, a psychologist and Chair of a child study team for the Hamilton, New Jersey Public Schools, explains that "Low self-esteem can lessen a student's desire to learn, his or her ability to focus, and his or her willingness to take risks. Positive self-esteem, on the other hand, is one of the building blocks of school success; it provides a firm foundation for learning."

"This version has been a year in the making. The code has been completely re-written from the ground-up to make it faster, more reliable, and easier to add features to. Flubaroo 3.0 will be available in the Script Gallery starting June 24. Just install it from the Gallery on a new spreadsheet, or follow these instructions to upgrade an existing installation of Flubaroo. "

This WebApp provides a simple way to merge PDF files. You can either select the files you want to merge from you computer or drop them on the app using drag and drop. After that use drag and drop to bring the files in the desired order. The resulting merged PDF file will contain all Documents in the order as they appear on the screen. When done, press merge to initiate merging.

"Many school administrators, teachers and parents want the education provided to children to be high quality, rigorous and connected to the world outside the classroom.Teachers are trying to provide these elements in various ways, but a group of schools calling itself the "Deeper Learning Network" has codified some of what its members believe are essential qualities of deep learning (check out how students lead parent teacher conferences in this model)."

"the following series of fill-in-the-blank prompts can be used by teachers to create lessons, students to create projects-or teachers to collaborate with students to create lessons-or projects."

"Search now to download properly attributed, Creative Commons photos for school! Teachers have told us they need a place to access safe images that are available to be used in the classroom and for educational purposes. Plus, they want accurate image citations. We've heard you and created "Photos For Class" to meet your needs for images!"