Group items tagged

"You may have heard already that dig­i­tal lit­er­acy and increased tech­ni­cal capac­ity are crit­i­cal com­po­nents of the K-12 edu­ca­tion. I hap­pen to agree. The prob­lem is that pub­lic edu­ca­tion hasn't had suf­fi­cient means to put enough com­put­ing devices in the hands of stu­dents. Com­put­ers have been expen­sive and if you have had a com­puter lab that you could visit with your class once a week then you had more than most. Now with the evo­lu­tion of mobile plat­forms, net­books, tablets, and "Bring Your Own Tech­nol­ogy" pro­grams (like this one explained my @micwalker) there is a warm feel­ing in the edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity that mean­ing­ful 1 to 1 access in the class­room is pos­si­ble every­where. Teach­ers are excited, stu­dents are stoked, and tech­nol­ogy direc­tors are pet­ri­fied. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less includ­ing live streams from our class­rooms, social media at the hands of every learner, and every stu­dent becom­ing the smartest kid in school because she can search Google on her iPad. I am ener­gized that the promise of edu­ca­tional tech­nol­ogy - a world of con­nected learn­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and cre­ative design to engage and impact stu­dent achieve­ment - may finally be mature enough to imple­ment in all classrooms."

Two Indiana teachers, Harriet Armstrong and Autumne Streeval, whom I trained how to use tic-tac-toe as a strategy for implementing universal design for learning in February, won a national contest sponsored by Microsoft. They will travel to Brazil in November to compete internationally. Read more in eSchool News. View their award winning tic-tac-toe grid on the Industrial Revolution (9th grade), and view their rubric.

"Do you find that students often struggle to put together effective oral presentations? To help students, try this activity as a way to provide feedback before the big speaking day. The four-corners activity can foster confidence in students while informing them about effective non-verbal/verbal delivery, audience needs, and how to craft effective speaking notes. "