Group items tagged

"Gillispie: At one of our instructional team meetings, I said, "I have an idea. This is what I want to do. I want to target at-risk students at the middle school level, focus on leadership, language arts, digital citizenship and lots of other things that tend to get less emphasis in our everyday classroom. And I want to use this game, WoW." At the conclusion of my spiel, they said, "We really don't understand all this stuff that you are talking about, but we know it's a good idea. Go for it." The principal said, "Yes, please come do this at my school."

''safe search for kids, by kids' - Kidrex (powered by Google). Wonder if there are any downside to using this vs regular Google in classrooms. (amount of the info limited? but safety assured due to filtering?)

Interesting - I understand the concern for safety but think that educators should also try and promote and support "safe googling" techniques. Here's a visual teachers can refer to or put up in their class (meant for older students I assume): http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/11/10-google-search-tips-all-students-can.html#.ULrCi6VRpUQ

A point of view challenging the rapid transition to digital textbooks. 

These op-eds and blogs keep popping up, but I have yet to read one that is at all compelling. It was particularly entertaining when this author referenced how digital photography put Polaroid out of business. Hard to understand why one would use that reference when defending the textbook. The funny thing is that textbooks were never a fantastic learning tool to begin with. The real danger is that digital textbooks will not not make the dramatic improvements that they may be capable of when it comes to teaching the material.

This is another project by CAST which has been particularly relevant to the work our research project is involved with. For more information click on the link below: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/43/1/68 This article was provided to us by our contact at CAST and attempts to validate this type of "Digital Reading Environment." It's also authored by Catherine Show of HGSE, and is just a year old. The statistical data is a little above my comprehension level but it is described at a level I can understand. CAST UDL Book Builder This wonderful and free online tool allows you to create your own interactive "books" to help young readers learn reading strategies to build comprehension. Enter your own text, images, and hints.

this was presented in one of my other classes (A-117). it provides an interesting way to use digital text for enhanced learning.

Really cool concept of using technology to match educators to experts to enhance learning experiences for students. I wish I had this tool when I was teaching.

I did some searching of this site to understand the transactions here. I could only find about 5 or 6 volunteers, although maybe there are more. The site says they have "granted" more than 29,000 wishes. I wonder if this is a counter of visits to the site. I love the idea, but I wonder how big the pool of volunteers and projects has to be in order to make it come alive.

Documentation of results of an analysis of Apple's Education section of the App Store, with a focus on understanding market dynamics, opportunities that are emerging in the educational apps market, and areas of innovation.

not clear this will lose votes for her, given how many adults are into fantasy gaming. Shows how bizarre the political process has become

Thanks for sharing Prof. I know of many educators who have actually started playing WoW just so they could understand their students' world a little better. I wonder how many principals would have supported them openly though.

An unfortunate article about student understanding in which the author thinks the only solution is a private tutor. How can we address this through technology? What technologies can change this issue in the classroom? How can we offer students personalized help?

Thought it was April Fool's for a minute

Wow, so online education is a political issue? How could Minnesota government think an arcane law to pay fees is going to deter anyone?

Update: apparently this article went viral and the MN state government was so embarrassed by the outcry that they have backed off and said that they will introduce legislation to amend the 20-year-old law in question, noting that it "clearly didn't envision free online classes from accredited universities." Read more about it here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/19/minnesota_coursera_ban_state_won_t_crack_down_on_free_online_courses_after.html

This article relating to speech and literacy discusses the possibility of an interactive system, Technology Assisted Reading Acquisition, to allow children to acquire literacy naturally as opposed to the traditional way of "teaching" reading.

The important thing is not the use of technology, but the new types of content, pedagogy, assessment...

I just logged on to post the same article! The interesting perspective that I got from the article was that the teachers continued to harp on this idea that in order to retain student's attention they needed to constantly "tap-dance" for their class. Instead of learning from this attention shift, teachers are becoming annoyed by it. Use the technology to give the responsibility of engagement to the students and only wear the tap shoes when necessary to facilitate a deeper understanding etc.

The Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators contains the process and methods of design, adapted specifically for the context of education. You can download the toolkit by registering on the website.

I really like this approach. I'm going to check out the toolkit. I like the intro video and it's approach to design thinking in education as part of the story that each teacher has. This reminded me of what Dede spoke about today in class about how he always starts out with asking and understanding why a teacher is teaching...

Great find, Rupangi, thanks for posting it! I like IDEO's approach to things, and they have been branching out into development, too. It's cool that they are promoting design for education; I definitely think there are lots of application opportunities!

Interesting article. I am still trying to figure out what Prof Dede said on the first day of class about top down vs bottom up and the characteristics of education in this country. (I am not from the states and I haven't worked at schools either so still struggling to understand the overall context of this article). From Japanese standard, this thing happening in NY (I am suspecting it is happening else where too like IL?) is pretty progressive. One thing I didn't really get here .... what kind of 'school information' will be texted going forward??

Found http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012%20(eng)--Ebook%20(FINAL%2011%2009%202012).pdf Chart D6.1. Percentage of decisions taken at each level of government in public lower secondary education (2011) in P500 to be somewhat helpful to answer my own question. (the first one)

While I understand the reasons behind designing tablets like these, that monitor the content kids consume really carefully, it does bring up the larger issue of how do you really want to introduce kids to the internet. Do you shelter them by only letting them use kid-friendly apps, search engines, etc. or do you teach them early about smart and safe digital practices? There are of course plenty of safety reasons to go with the former, but I'm also interested in seeing how the latter might look.

Yet another Virtual School Proposal. I think the economic argument is loud and clear. Do they understand how to design for learning?

This is a Facebook page started by parents at our local Elementary school about school.

Much of the conversation seems reasonable enough but it will be interesting to see how adults can model public conversation. I'm not comfortable with having adult conversation displayed for kids within the school environment. I think that this is the equivalent of parents fighting in front of their children. Kids don't process it in a healthy manner and adults who do it I think do so for their own convenience and at the peril of kids. I think if adult in this community can be disciplined in their comments and stick strictly to logistical information with the understanding that kids are watching (FB will never replace parent oversight), it may be a useful tool. I also think the only way teachers can influence this page is by jumping on and using it to communicate because it seems to me that is the real "ask" in establishing the page.

When a teacher must accept their restriction of their rights, as a special class of individuals, because it protects a district from the abuses of a free, everyone else must understand they are accepting the lost of freedoms for us all.

From MIT's CSAIL -- an interesting short video to gains being made in teaching computers to recognize elements of narrative -- a propos of our readings

Hope policy makers' gain a better understanding of online education.

In Disrupting Class we explained that prosperity is a bittersweet reward. Poverty often serves as an extrinsic motivator for some students, as it causes them to endure monolithic, batch teaching of subjects like math and science. When prosperity has removed this source of motivation, the solution must be to make learning intrinsically motivating. Student-centric learning will play a key role in addressing this challenge. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon another model from our research on innovation to dive more deeply into students' motivation to learn. If children are motivated to learn and if we enable each one to learn effectively, we will have an education system with a great performance record. As the late educator Jack Frymier often said, "If the kids want to learn, we couldn't stop 'em. If they don't, we can't make 'em."