Teaching digital literacy, information literacy, citizenship literacy via journalism lessons and resources for 7-12 grade students. I like the combination of writing journalism with the deep thinking skills needed for information fluency.
Informed argument is one of the most important features of academic writing. When you start writing your academic paper, first thing you naturally think of is what your subject will be and what you know on the subject. You should be aware that different writing assignments require different level of your knowledge on the topic.
Within this site you will find lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for mathematics that embrace active learning, constructivism, and project-based learning while remaining true to the standards. The initial focus will be for grades 5 and up, but teachers of younger students may be able to find some uses or inspiration from the site. Higher level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and creativity are encouraged as well as technology skills and social learning. The scope of this site is mathematics, but many lessons lend themselves to interdisciplinary activities also.
I am in love with this site! I don't know how many times I have Googled a question for someone else because they didn't think to turn to Google themselves. This is too funny.
If downloading and keeping student work is an issue then let's connect Mahara so that our students have an electronic portfolio of all their work. Google Apps for Education is fairly new and has recently added Google Groups to the mix. Maybe with a little push Google would add even more to the list. To say that its disadvantages outweigh its advantages is simply overstated.
"GTA DC Gadgets
One of the highlights of the Google Teacher Academy is Ronald Ho's run through of hidden features in Google Spreadsheets. On the plane home I was thinking about how some of the gadgets he shared and how I could use them with my teachers. Here's a few I came up with."
how do we start to build and grow our PLN's beyond those who are already plugged in? I would love to access the incredible wealth of history teaching experience that is spread across our country, and I personally believe that tools like blogs and twitter are a powerful way to share and deepen our practice.
It would be nice to see Google offer an app specifically designed for educator collaboration, as well as a place to discover great educational content and lessons. Hopefully Google Wave will serve as a great platform for teachers to collaborate, sharing both ideas and content.
We've heard many ingenious ways that teachers have used Google Docs in the classroom. Here are just a few:
* Promote group collaboration and creativity by having your students record their group projects together in a single doc.
* Keep track of grades, attendance, or any other data you can think of using an easily accessible, always available spreadsheet.
* Facilitate writing as a process by encouraging students to write in a document shared with you. You can check up on their work at any time, provide insight and help using the comments feature, and understand better each students strengths.
* Create quizzes and tests using spreadsheets forms, your students' timestamped answers will arrive neatly ordered in a spreadsheet.
* Encourage collaborative presentation skills by asking your students to work together on a shared presentation, then present it to the class.
* Collaborate on a document with fellow teachers to help you all track the status and success of students you share.
* Maintain, update and share lesson plans over time in a single document.
* Track and organize cumulative project data in a single spreadsheet, accessible to any collaborator at any time.
Interview and chapter from Dr. David Barr, founder of the 21st Century Information Fluency Project. This Google book article from Joyce Valenza & Reva Basch's book Super Searchers Go to school reaveal some of David's thinking about the knowledge, skills and dispositions for successful searching.
Anyone who knows David Barr recognizes his amazing understanding of 21st century information systems. This is a gem. Don't miss it.
I'd been treating iCal as my "source of truth" calendar and then making it sync outwards to Google Calendar. As it turns out, I now realise I was thinking about it all wrong. The trick is to make the Google Calendar the "source of truth" calendar and then have it sync out to everywhere else.
"About Google for Educators
At Google, we support teachers in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That's why we've assembled the information and tools you'll find on this page.
Here, you'll find a teacher's guide to Google Tools for Your Classroom. And to spark your imagination, you'll find examples of innovative ways that other educators are using these tools in the classroom.
While you're here, you can sign up for the quarterly Google for Educators newsletter, as well as check out the latest from The Infinite Thinking Machine, a Google-sponsored, WestEd-produced blog for educators, by educators.
Since we launched the Google for Educators site, we've heard from many of you that you'd like an easy way to communicate with us, and more importantly, with your fellow teachers. To that end, we've launched a new community with the Google for Educators Discussion Group. Visit often to learn of new announcements from us and to share any of your ideas. "
Searching for information and making sense of it is a process that involves critical thinking. Google has many tools to help students sift through the overwhelming abundance of web content , but those tools are often not utilized by students and teachers. Google recently announced the launch of Search Education .
The traits you most need today are to be transparent, flexible, focused and collaborative.
Qualities we long admired but never thought absolutely necessary, such as cooperation and altruism, have become both survival skills and keys to competitiveness. A psychologically healthy life involves building those qualities into your conduct -- in a sense, learning to forget yourself.
Its corporate culture and management practices depend upon cooperation, collaboration, non-defensiveness, informality, a creative mind-set, flexibility and nimbleness, all aimed at competing aggressively for clear goals within a constantly changing environment.