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Flipped Classroom on how students use classroom time to apply their learning in group activities and out of class time to watch videos or other online resources that convey the content.

by Ron Tanner, November 6, 2011 This article echoes some of what Geoff ? said several years ago. When I began teaching a course called "Writing for the Web," three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most of the 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the Internet, and even less about how to communicate effectively online. The media present young people as the audacious pilots of a technological juggernaut. Think Napster, Twitter, Facebook. Given that the average 18-year-old spends hours each day immersed in electronic media, we oldsters tend to assume that every other teenager is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Aren't kids crazy about downloading music, swapping files, sharing links, texting, and playing video games? But video games do not create savvy users of the Internet. Video games predate the Internet and have little to do with online culture. When games are played online, the computer is no longer an open portal to the world. It is an insular system, related only to other gaming machines, like Nintendo and Xbox. The only communication that games afford is within the closed world of the game itself-who is on my team? At their worst, games divert children from other, more enriching experiences. The Internet's chief similarity to video games is that both siphon off audiences from television, which will soon reside exclusively on the Internet. As a delivery system for television, film, and games, the Internet has proved itself a premier source of entertainment. And that's all that most young people know about it. Why wouldn't we educate students in sophisticated uses of the Internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world's time and attention? I'm not talking about a course on "How to Understand the Internet" or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (although that is useful, obviously

very good blog on June 5, 2011 by K. Walsh on 7 reasons why instructional uses of social networking software can create opportunities for learning, connecting, and engagement

Miami Dade, which has more than 90,000 students, for example, decided to require those who place into developmental courses to take a "success" course that teaches basic study and time-management skills. That requirement helped to double graduation rates for the college's minority students. Valencia, seeing data that students who added classes late had poor completion rates, instituted a policy barring students from registering for classes that have already met. To maintain some flexi­bility, the college introduced "flex start" sections, which begin a month into the semester. Another excerpt: Faculty-Led Efforts Faculty buy-in is another crucial component to colleges' meeting their completion goals. Finalists for the Aspen Prize all had faculty members strongly dedicated to teaching-and conducting research on teaching methods. "What we heard a lot from faculty was, 'How can I find better ways to deliver instruction to my students?'" Mr. Wyner says. As part of the tenure process at Valencia, full-time faculty develop three-year "action research projects" on teaching techniques that involve training courses, advisers, and peer-review panels. The faculty members test teaching strategies, assessing students' performance against that of control groups. Ideas that work find a place in the classroom. In one project, a professor tried giving individual lab assignments to developmental-reading students, rather than a blanket assignment for all students. The new method worked better, the professor determined, and all sections of that course on Valencia's East Campus now use that model of instruction. Valencia is not the only college where faculty drive the innovation. At Miami Dade, faculty members banded together to improve students' pass rates in math, choosing and testing several new teaching methods. Some showed promise, such as testing algebra students more often on smaller amounts of material, a practice that continued.

Preview of Google PLus's value to HE Excerpt: "Facebook does allow some selective sharing, but doing so is difficult to master. As a result, many professors have decided to reserve Facebook for personal communications rather than use it for teaching and research. "I don't friend my students, because the ability to share is so clunky on Facebook," says Jeremy Littau, an assistant professor of journalism at Lehigh University. "This gives us ways to connect with people that we can't do on Facebook." In Google Plus, users can assign each new contact to a "circle" and can create as many circles as they like. Each time they post an update, they can easily select which circles get to see it. B.J. Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab and a consulting faculty member for computer science, says he plans to use Google Plus to collaborate on research projects: "Probably every project in my lab will have its own circle." Mr. Littau is even more enthusiastic. He posted an item to his blog on Thursday titled: "Why Lehigh (and every other) University needs to be on GPlus. Now." "I want to start using this in my class next term," he says, adding that he aims to expose his students to the latest communication technologies in all of his classes. He plans to try the video-chat feature of Google Plus, called "hangouts," to hold office hours online. The new system allows up to 10 people to join in a video chat. Mr. Littau may also hold optional review sessions for exams using the technology. "I can host chats a few nights a week," he says."

Facebook usage in academic work is going up! Excerpt: "The idea of students wanting professors to integrate more technology use into the classroom was a common takeaway from the survey. After e-mail, learning-management systems and e-textbooks were the two technologies that students wanted instructors to use more frequently, according to the survey. Learning-management systems are used by 73 percent of students, and e-books or e-textbooks by 57 percent."

Passionate about the impact of technology integration on student success! 2006 TCEA Classroom Teacher of the Year. Carol Mortensen: Blogger. Author.

Instructional Rounds, based on the work of Dr. Richard Elmore, is a process designed to examine what is happening with teaching/learning in classrooms and schools by working with groups of educators (networks) within a school, school district, or area.

"Ineffective use of technology happens because even when given the opportunity- some over burdened teachers shy away from working hard enough to understand how emerging tools can be used for powerful learning. Ineffective use of technology is a teacher problem, a PD problem, a leadership problem, a time problem, a systemic problem, a culture problem - not a computer problem."

Tagline: Love and Logic (c) provides simple and easy to use techniques to help parents have more fun and less stress while raising responsible kids of all ages. There is a section of the site devoted to classroom solutions for educators.

Sharon Hall recommends, saying "I have personal experience utilizing the concepts with very difficult students over the past 9 years."

"A comprehensive introduction to using technology in all K-12 classrooms."

Second edition book with practical for small measures of student learning--strengths and weaknesses. Has 3 sections: assessing course-related knowledge and skills; assessing learner attitudes, values and self-awareness; and assessing learner reactions to instruction.

Second edition of Engaging Ideas by John C. Bean

Microsoft education site for Digital Storytelling inthe Classroom PDF

"I'm teaching a writing class this summer, and I recently stumbled upon an effective method for encouraging students to discuss each others' drafts. It involves their thumbs. Allow me to explain . . ."

The Learning Network Blog on NYTimes.com. For two years, students, teachers, parents and others have posted and commented on this blog. Daily lessons for subjects across curriculum based on Times content are offered. Suggestions are given for using the The Learning Network posts in the classroom. The Learning Network is accessible without a digital subscription, as are the articles linked from Learning Network posts.

Interesting approach by PARCC on through-course assessments for K-12 students with particular significance for HS students as they assess how college ready they are, how they are growing content and skills to analyze, understand the content and apply, and how through-course assessments drive interventions, classroom practice, and support needed for teachers to understand CCSS and help their students to achieve them. Really like logic model on p 17. How does this, should this, could this affect MCNC's epi modeling? I-Lab practicum?

very interesting article on Forsyth County schools in GA (I just drove through there the other day and had no idea of their innovativeness!) encouraging students to bring their own technology to classrooms to use in project and inquiry based learning. Amazing!

Fascinating must read on how "attention blindness" prevents us from seeing the bigger world and how unstructured charges to students on finding academic uses of iPods they had been given as Duke first year students led to interconnected learning, innovation, etc. Excerpt: But it got me thinking: What if bad writing is a product of the form of writing required in college-the term paper-and not necessarily intrinsic to a student's natural writing style or thought process? I hadn't thought of that until I read my students' lengthy, weekly blogs and saw the difference in quality. If students are trying to figure out what kind of writing we want in order to get a good grade, communication is secondary. What if "research paper" is a category that invites, even requires, linguistic and syntactic gobbledygook? Research indicates that, at every age level, people take their writing more seriously when it will be evaluated by peers than when it is to be judged by teachers. Online blogs directed at peers exhibit fewer typographical and factual errors, less plagiarism, and generally better, more elegant and persuasive prose than classroom assignments by the same writers. Longitudinal studies of student writers conducted by Stanford University's Andrea Lunsford, a professor of English, assessed student writing at Stanford year after year. Lunsford surprised everyone with her findings that students were becoming more literate, rhetorically dexterous, and fluent-not less, as many feared. The Internet, she discovered, had allowed them to develop their writing.

Very good infographic on the growth in digital education and need for students, teachers and professors at all levels to be prepared to play on this field. How does or should this trend affect ePD? How does or should this trend affect high school student learning and pedagogy in the classroom whether online, blended, or face to face?