Group items tagged

6 models of blended learning, from Michael Horn: "Face-to-Face driver, Rotation, Flex, Online lab, Self-blend, Online driver."

A passionate and eloquent plea from a university lecturer, attesting to the continued relevance of the lecture as a learning tool. I value her point that a lecture promotes active listening, but I disagree with the notion that a technology that has worked for thousands of years should see continued use simply because it has worked in the past.[1] Given the multitudes of other means of delivery of information today (remember, the lecture was developed when the only other means to spread information was handwriting), the lecture as transmission of information is a tool, not THE tool. She also equates books to lectures, and says that if we abandon one we move toward abandoning the other. A bit of tenuous logic, if you ask me. Still, perhaps worth a read.  [1] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptorium#Trithemius.27_Praise_of_Scribes

"Digital learning resources, tips, research, and teaching and learning resources. Feel free to join this group to share related resources."

This one is worth reading, but not because it's necessarily worth following. It's a wrong-headed approach to tech integration, one that values the tools above the pedagogical goals -- because it assumes that the use of the tool is valuable in itself. What it omits is why any one of these scenarios can support learning... which would be a much more effective way to lobby a teacher to use it...

"Today, though, as we move into Personalised Learning in the Age of Technology, it is time for us to break the shackles of traditional thinking regarding writing and technology. We can no longer afford to dwell on the negative impacts of spellcheck and copy/paste. Instead, let's focus on the benefits."

Bruce Leslie describes his kids' experience using Skype for language learning.

Example of VoiceThread in the classroom. (Just keep closing the sign-in box if you don't want to create an account.)

A physics professor at SLU uses free software to deconstruct the physics of Angry Birds. He measures velocity and acceleration over time using Tracker Video Analysis. Nice way to connect science to gaming...

If you've got an Android phone, you can easily build a program on it using this software. It uses a graphical programming interface that's quite simple to learn.

Smart post by Sam Gliksman on the reasons for classroom iPad use. A lot of what he says applies to technology in general.

It's somewhat hard to visualize a billion, let alone seven. Still, this video does a nice job of describing the population explosion of the last couple centuries.

Free materials to help support your PBL ideas. Not all are excellent, but there are some good ideas here that might be useful.

Interesting possibility for replacement of paper maps, built on Google Map technology.

Riverdale's year-long PTW experience in less than 6 minutes.

Graph Words is a free visualization tool to explore English dictionary and thesaurus, helps you to search the meaning of words and other associated words. It is not as powerful as the visual Thesaurus, which is a premium subscription RCS uses, but it is very easy to use, and could have immediate applicability for English vocabulary study.

The Figural TTCT: Thinking Creatively with Pictures is appropriate at all levels, kindergarten through adult. It uses three picture-based exercises to assess five mental characteristics: · fluency · resistance to premature closure · elaboration · abstractness of titles · originality

What does the new tech landscape mean for today's educational systems?

"the school's chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home."

"Here's a comprehensive list of open education sites MindShift has covered." Includes MIT Open CourseWare, Curriki, OER, and many others.

Great comparison of Bloom's original taxonomy to Anderson/Krathwohl's 2000 revision.