Group items tagged

"What Do You Have to Lose? was a blog post I wrote 4 years ago… It is a new idea for many classroom teachers/students to move from writing, reading and "doing" work, not only for themselves, supervisors/parents or for a monetary compensation/grade, to share their work openly and freely with others. The idea of putting oneself "out there on the internet" (on a larger scale than the teacher lounge) and publicly "brag" about successes, admit failures, ask for help or document one's learning and teaching process, feels unnatural and even scares many of them. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, a lot has changed in terms of technology… It has been 4 years and my belief in sharing to amplify teaching and learning has grown stronger, even when the work I share gets taken, plagiarized and used for profit by others. I am continuing to make the benefits of documenting (for reflection, metacognition and connection purposes) visible, but the documentation can not be the end all. The next step must be sharing and disseminating that documentation. It is about sharing conversations, resources, model lessons, student work, reflections, innovative ideas, action research, etc. Sharing in service of benefiting the educational community and advancing eduction. Sharing in order to be part of a network that supports each other and and pushes thinking forward. Without individual parts, there is no network. The more parts, the larger and stronger the potential network. In the last few weeks, there have been many examples at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, that show the power of sharing and the ripple effect it created: Teaching others you will never meet Authentic audience Feedback Personal Branding Remix & Added Value Building a Personal Learning Network"

"In another post, Embedding Visuals Into Teaching and Learning, I looked at ways to support our students' ability to navigate a media rich world and "read and write" in that world. I shared how teachers could easily and quickly create visuals, that supported a question they wanted students to explore, break up long and monotone passages of text, review a concept discussed abstractly or make a real life connection. Wonderopolis is a fascinating site with great visual prompts for you to "hook" students into inquiry and further research."

"We are in the middle of a enormous change of the culture of teaching and learning. The teacher must see himself/herself as a learner, since he/she is on uncharted territory as well in our ever changing (digital) world. Key competencies and literacies, such as global, media, network, information literacy and digital citizenship amplify our traditional notion and expectation of basic literacy in education. In addition to the traditional content knowledge we are expected to teach/learn in schools, we must include learning how to learn."

"Note taking is a big topic among educators. How do we teach it to our students? What are the best methods? Is digital note taking worse than taking your notes on a piece of paper? I am a big advocate to "if I want to teach it, I have to experience it". Below, you will find my documentation of note taking methods I have used (at conferences) over the years (2003-2015). From solitary notes on paper to digital sketchnotes shared on Twitter and this blog."

"I came across Docs That Teach this morning " It is divided int three parts: 1) Activities 2) Documents 3) Account ... I think this site has great potential in the Social Studies and History classroom. I especially liked the CREATE area, honoring the highest level in the Bloom's taxonomy (which the site acknowledged on their Bloom's Taxonomy resource link)."

"Technology is not about "replacing" learning nor teaching. Technology is a tool to make learning and teaching possible in ways that it never was before nor that we had ever imagined (Well, maybe Gene Roddenberry from Star Trek had). I would like to share a small example of how technology tools can enhance a learning experience by making (personalized) connections to what is being learned in the classroom, bringing in the outside world, and taking learning literally "off the page"."

"This post title is "Teaching Information/Research Skills in Elementary School", but this post is as much for adults and older students. Many adults are overwhelmed with the quantity and new kind of media that is available and accessible through technology. Older students in High School and College might not feel overwhelmed, but have never been taught how to navigate, evaluate, save and retrieve the information that they are seeking."

"I am constantly wrestling with the issue of using technology in schools to TEACH and to LEARN. Long ago, I have resolved that teaching and learning DO NOT depend on technology nor are "not real", good or effective without it"

"Edna Sackson, Teaching and Learning Co-ordinator from Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne, Australia, documented a model lesson I was teaching at my recent visit to their school. Edna graciously agreed to allow me to cross post her documentation and reflection of that lesson below from her blog What Ed Said. Edna is an model example of beautifully and fluently combining documentation, reflection and sharing FOR learning. Does 'the research' know best? "I think that enough research has been done on the delusion of multi-tasking to say, yes, do all the back channel stuff, but perhaps leave it to afterwards?" … This is part of a comment left on my previous post, in which I introduced the notion of back channeling as a form of documenting for learning."

"Documentation OF/FOR/AS Learning has many objectives, goals, levels, and components. My work is concentrating on making pedagogical documentation visible and shareable to amplify teaching and learning. I believe that using technology, as a tool, to be able to share best practices, to make thinking and learning visible to ourselves and others, is the key to transform teaching and learning..."

"We have heard plenty from teachers. We have heard plenty from educational "gurus" and theorists what students should/shouldn't be learning and how we should/shouldn't be teaching. I have written and talked plenty about the need for globally connected educators. I have even written a chapter in Heidi Hayes Jacobs' upcoming book about Global Literacies. It is time to hear from students!"

"I am honored to be able to cross-post Stephen Wilmarth's blog post below on Langwitches. If you are interested to read more about Steve's International Experimental program at the Number One Middle School in Wuhan, China take a look at: Take a Peek into China's First 1:1 iPad Class Learning…Young Chinese Perspective Bringing a 1:1 iPad Program to China"

"Helping students become quality Tutorial Designers has been on my mind and agenda lately. The reasons are plentiful, from the train of thought "if you can teach it, you know it", being a vital skill in the 21st century, Alan November's work "Who owns the Learning?"/ "Digital Learning Farm" to tutorials being an important piece in the self-motivated and self-directed learning of our times."

'I confess, I am a visual learner! I also relate better to metaphors, since they paint a picture in my mind."

"There is a lot of thoughts and ideas about what learning in the 21st century is supposed to look like. Most likely you are constantly bombarded with books, workshops, keynote presentations, webinars and good old lectures (yes, even on the topic of modern learning…) that remind you that it is time to upgrade traditional teaching and learning."

"We are fortunate to have a Visible Thinking Routine (VTR) expert at our school. Claire Arcenas, our MS/HS Physical Education teacher, previously a third grade classroom teacher who has done extensive readings and research in experiencing, implementing, embedding VTR in teaching and learning. Recently, she started sharing her experience and reflection on her professional learning blog: Visible Thinking Across Subject Areas. Claire invited me to an 8th grade PE class before a unit on Volleyball skills and allowed me to film her facilitating the VTR called Chalk Talk. She explains the overview of her volleyball unit on her classroom blog post: Can You Dig It?"

"Another glimpse into the classroom! Previous video clips: Socratic Seminar & Backchanneling, Visible Thinking Routine: Chalk Talk, Mystery Skype Call, Collaborate & Curate In the spirit of opening up classroom walls and creating a ripple effect of teaching and learning by sharing ideas, methods, action research and modern literacy upgrades, here is another video clip. You are watching a 7th grade Humanities classroom, led by their teacher David Jorgensen at Graded-The American School of São Paulo. The students are reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry and have been annotating their thoughts as they are reading individual chapters in a Google Doc chart/table, labeled: Observations Inferences Rituals Questions/ Predictions"

"Your moderators: Silvana Scarso (Brazil), Chic Foote (New Zealand), Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (USA) & Andrea Hernandez (USA) and Katrin Barlsen (Argentina) While we will be digging deeper into the topic, Documenting FOR Learning, by following the Q1/A1 chat format (see questions below), we will continue to practice what we preach and use this opportunity to AMPLIFY teaching and learning."

"Summer break is here for most of the schools in the Northern Hemisphere. Carefree summer months of vacation time jealously come to mind of most non-educators when they think of the teaching profession."

"If a teacher is lucky enough to have a SmartBoard at their disposal, it is their responsibility to use it beyond a "glorified projector screen". It requires a shift in thinking from the teacher's part to see a SmartBoard not "only" as a teaching tool, but as a learning tool."