Group items tagged

"The Internet has allowed us to retrieve as much information on any topic from pretty much any source we want. Wading through the junk can be tough. We have to rely on the collective knowledge of our friends and colleagues to help us sort the good from the bad. (Because remember, alone we are smart but together we are brilliant.) But that is only half of the curation process. Once we find the good we have to be able to store it and find it again. Having good tools at our disposal is crucial so that the hard work we go through to vet resources doesn't go to waste. These tools also allow us to share our learning and curated resources, adding to the global knowledge."

It has been a desired "central" lesson when I introduce Symbaloo - COllection & storage certainly, but in the curator aspect, lies evaluation and critical thinking. When I take kids to the art museum, we are looking at the concept of a "collection" - noun and those that assemble the collection are curators - what factors are considered to place an artifact in one collection as opposed to another? I admit that the curation aspect tends to become a mere add-on and gets buried under a mountain of other "stuff". But, as with all things, we endeavor to persevere...

"Established Goals (ISTE NETS Standards) 2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students: a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. 4. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students: b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project. 5. Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students: d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship. 6. Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students: b. select and use applications effectively and productively. d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies. Enduring Understandings: Students will understand that: Responsible digital citizens demonstrated shared characteristics, habits and attitudes. We can work together to teach others what we have learned. We can use web 2.0 tools to collaborate and communicate with a global audience. Essential Questions: What are the characteristics, habits and attitudes of a responsible digital citizen? How can we work together to teach others about responsible digital citizenship? How can we collaborate and communicate with others online? Assessment Evidence GRASPS Task Goal: Your goal is to produce a multimedia handbook about basic technology tools and digital citizenship for ISB

I laughed so hard when I read this part: First, stop expecting kids to pay attention. They don't owe you anything. They're only in school because it's the law and their friends are there. He also lists some good strategies - none that are new, but it is always good to review!

"Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing prior knowledge and experiences is a good starting place when teaching strategies because every student has experiences, knowledge, opinions, and emotions that they can draw upon. "

"The essence of character is not mere backbone. As Dewey said, it is good judgment borne of having learned to really think and to be held accountable for one's judgments by the demands of schooling:"

"In a unit on Transportation, our Kindergarteners read a large picture book "On the Move!" by Donna Latham Students got so interested into learning about different ways people around the globe got around. They were even ready to take a trip to Venice, Italy to ride in a Vaporetto. Since our 5 & 6 year olds have gotten pretty good at using PicCollage on the iPads, their teacher Arlene Yegelwel, wanted to personalize another collaborative classroom eBook. She took the time to find over 20 public domain images of transportation methods they had discussed in class on Wikimedia Commons and sent them in one email to each iPad. Student's workflow fluency looked like this: opened the PicCollage app chose one image of the different transportation methods decided how they could best place an image of themselves onto the picture asked a buddy to take an image of them acting out a particular position on the iPad edited the image by clipping the background resized the image to make it fit the ration of the transportation image rotated the image saved the image emailed the image to their teacher"

"This list came from a crowd-source appeal via Twitter and an email to colleagues and friends. Each book on the list received at least 5 votes from the 50 or so folks who responded; good enough for me"

Shares both positive and negative examples straight from classroom teachers. Good food for thought and consideration if you're attempting the model!

Great information on personalized learning. This site is really packed with good reads!

Scaling challenges nearly always come down to the same problem: the difficulty of spreading something good from those who have it to those that don't - or at least don't yet. It is always, in other words, the problem of more.

Blog devoted to higher order thinking and questioning with good resources.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenge we face as educators when well-intentioned learners make incorrect, inscrutable, thoughtless, or otherwise off-the-mark comments. It's a crucial moment in teaching: how do you respond to an unhelpful remark in a way that 1) dignifies the attempt while 2) making sure that no one leaves thinking that the remark is true or useful? Summer is a great time to think about the challenge of developing new routines and habits in class, and this is a vital issue that gets precious little attention in training and staff development. Here is a famous Saturday Night Live skit, with Jerry Seinfeld as a HS history teacher, that painfully demonstrates the challenge and a less than exemplary response. Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that we are always correct in our judgment about participant remarks. Sometimes a seemingly dumb comment turns out to be quite insightful. Nor am I talking about merely inchoate or poorly-worded contributions. That is a separate teaching challenge: how to unpack or invite others to unpack a potentially-useful but poorly articulated idea. No, I am talking about those comments that are just clunkers in some way; seemingly dead-end offerings that tempt us to drop our jaws or make some snarky remark back. My favorite example of the challenge and how to meet it comes from watching my old mentor Ted Sizer in action in front of 360 educators in Louisville 25 years ago. We had travelled as the staff of the Coalition of Essential Schools from Providence to Louisville to pitch the emerging Coalition reform effort locally. Ted gave a rousing speech about the need to transform the American high school. After a long round of applause, Ted took questions. The first questioner asked, and I quote: "Mr Sizer, what do you think about these girls and their skimpy halter tops in school?" (You have to also imagine the voice: very good-ol'-boy). Without missing a beat or making a face, Ted said "Deco

"Differentiation and personalized learning is lost in the pre-created curricula and assembly line experience of most distance courses and MOOCs" "The subject matter (and the learners' needs) should drive instructional strategies, not technology" "I'd argue that relationships are motivating. Seeing the passion good instructors bring to a classroom live and in person is motivating. " "My experience, and fear, is that online classes are too rigid, too much like a factory, and less responsive to individual students' learning."

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

This has been around for awhile, but it is very good stuff! I am thinking I might shift gears so to speak to see if I can create a challenge that is directly tied to the curriculum.Thank you for re-reminding me of the CBL!

Developing good questions is what it is all about! I really like Einstein's quote! I think I have a tendency to focus too much on answers. Going to work on this!

"How much time do we spend developing powerful questions - in our classrooms, schools or policy-making bodies? What message about the value of curiosity and questioning do we send students, teachers and education leaders in our "there's a right answer and a wrong answer, and students better get the right answer or someone's getting fired" approach to education reforms? Are we bypassing an opportunity to ask and wrestle with the questions that might lead to sustained transformation in exchange for more statistical data?"

"Slazinger claims to have learned from history that most people cannot open their minds to new ideas unless a mind-opening team with a peculiar membership goes to work on them. Otherwise, life will go on exactly as before, no matter how painful, unrealistic, unjust, ludicrous, or downright dumb that life may be. The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail."

""So often we ask people to do things that are outside their realm of possibility," Lemov said. That's a disservice to the learner because it gives the impression that the difficult task is insurmountable when in fact it was thrust on the person too quickly" - This makes me think about the times that we don't break down the learning for kids - particularly when we create project/problem based learning without thinking of scaffolding the learning...