Group items tagged

Duckworth says, "This journal issue is about helping students get their minds, their awareness, and their feelings so active and thoughtful and informed that they are in a place where hums-or connections, understandings, new ideas-can find them." It presents an ideal of curriculum development. The author acknowledges that teachers using this model know their curriculum extremely well and have a wide variety of learning materials and activities to engage their students. Readers can keep this ideal in mind as they develop their curriculum. Through examples, she shows us the importance of student led learning rather than teacher led learning. With their two-fold process, Duckworth and McKinney suggest that it is how teachers use their knowledge that make for a powerful way to help people learn. By carefully selecting aspects of the subject matter for student activities, and listening carefully and enthusiastically to the learners' ideas about the open-ended questions in those activities, teachers facilitate students to drive their own learning further. The challenge as teachers in this process is to be able to develop ways to keep students engaged to go deeper into the subject. Duckworth and McKinney note that, "we find that contributing our own ideas and thoughts about the subject matter almost always short-circuits the students' thoughts, and decreases their interest. But when we help them to take charge of their own explorations of subject matter, they do remarkable work." They acknowledge that this critical exploration method can be complex and challenging. The teacher needs to be "exceedingly present" in their teaching to be able to follow up on what their students are doing, saying, wondering about as they respond to activities with open-ended questions given by the teacher. With such a teaching approach, teachers have to be very aware of respecting the learners' thoughts and not steer them towards their own ideas when responding

In the article, "Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age", Mitchel Resnick compares digital media with the creative interactive aspects of fingerpaint rather than the passive absorption of television. Like Eleanor Duckworth's article, "Helping Students Get to Where Ideas Can Find Them" he states, " that learning is an active process... people don't get ideas; they make them". To do this, he says we need to rethink how people learn with new technologies to take advantage of what these technologies can offer that older technologies could not. Learners need opportunities to become fluent with these new technology tools so that they can construct and create with them. He speaks about Computer Clubhouses as places that offer learners mentors to support them in a project based learning environment focused on the learner's interests. The creative process is the structure that uses new technology tools to actualize a significant creation. The Computer Clubhouse approach has clear connections to the two-fold approach mentioned in Duckworth 's article as well. Resnick recognizes that everything evolves; even new technologies are changing more to reflect the users of them and the purposes for them. The programable bricks sold as MindStorms is an example. He continues with stating the need to reform education with cross-curricular subject integration, grouping students by project interest rather than by age, changing the segmentation of the school day into longer blocks of time for deeper learning, as well as learning becoming not just a daylong but a lifelong experience. He concludes with the need for education to be teaching learners to be creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial with strategies and new evolving technological tools to discover the knowledge they need to create what they imagine.

This is a website by Susan Watt (who was our Monday guest speaker!), who posts a tech "idea of the week". When I first got my iPad, I used her site to find some starter apps which I could explore in the classroom. When you click on the idea, you will see a great summary and "how-to" section, to help you get going with the specific Idea of the Week!

Thanks for sharing Amanda, this is a great resource, been reading up on QR codes!!

I used Susan's snowflake making app in my classroom last Friday. We all had a great time, especially those who lack the fine motor skills to make the snowflakes with paper. Many of the students kept their designs to try and replicate them for "real" on paper.

This is a very interesting article from a notable publication, (Teaching Exceptional Children) highlighting the benefits of VoiceThread technology. Within the first paragraph the following should resonate: "educators often make herculean efforts to engage students, motivate them, and differentiate instruction for students who struggle." (Pg. 28) As an interactive multimedia slide show tool, VoiceThread portends to be the answer to these challenges. The article notes that "its interface and feature set are well-suited for promoting student engagement ... as well as for helping students develop as independent learners." (Pg. 30) This Web 2.0 tool was created to promote a collaborative learning environment. Something similar to, but more powerful than simple PowerPoint presentations; the creation of an individual VoiceThread allows a combination of images, documents and video clips. VoiceThread is web based and runs on numerous browsers. Microphones are an added bonus if voice-recorded comments are desired. Otherwise students may doodle on slides, type comments or participate in learning activities "within the VoiceThread environment." (Pg. 31) The basic account is free, but a more classroom oriented format has a nominal yearly fee. This arrangement allows for unlimited VoiceThreads that can be shared with their peers, but not made public. This latter feature is an added security feature of this web tool. The article contains a number of student profiles, where VoiceThread has been put into practice. All of these highlight the opportunity of VoiceThread to assist those shy students or those who require a bit more time to formulate a response. What a great way to 'show their learning' and allow these students to participate within the classroom. A good article with a firm base of information and numerous professional references for future study.

Article: If We Didn't have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today? Although a bit dated with references to CD Roms etc. (circa 2000), this article is talking about the difference between how we prepare our educators and the actual way students learn in a globally aware and connected world. We continue to base our public school system on the industrial age model where teachers are expected to know information, then parcel it out to students in a conscripted and linear manner. This article argues that today's learners have gone so far beyond this model, it's incredible that schools exist in the same way as they did for the last century. If engineers or doctors still operated the same way they did 100 years ago, they would have no credibility. Why then, do schools systems insist on continuing with the status quo. If we had the chance (if we weren't paid by provincial governments) would we still create the school system we have today or would we completely overhaul it? There is a place in Canada that is trying to do just that. My daughter has been looking into applying at Quest University, a private university in Squamish, BC where the educators don't call themselves professors, they have no defined departments, and the students have significant input into the curriculum. They work on a block system where students immerse themselves in one subject entirely for a month, then move on to another subject. They may take language for September, biology for October, then calculus for November etc. This creates the opportunity to immerse themselves in a discipline and develop a much deeper level of understanding. The similarities between Quest's mandate and this article is interesting. The author states "everyone becomes a learner in a Networked Learning Community, and the distinctions between students and teachers fade away." There are three dimensions to a networked learning community and today we only use the first one. Teacher.

A website of tutorials on many iPad Apps including: Explain everything, iMovie, VoiceThread, Google Drive, Dragon Dictation, Dropbox and many more