"Growing numbers of Twin Cities teachers are embracing blogs as a way to improve their students' writing skills, and students are discovering how they can connect with a global audience."

"Take a few minutes to watch the following "Quality Commenting on Blogs" video by third graders. Then follow along the description of the creation process and "behind the scenes" work that went into the production of the video. Let's dissect the video creation and look at the learning process itself. "

"Last night, I had the privilege of presenting at the Reform Symposium on something I am very passionate about - giving students a voice through blogging. In fact, I find whenever you can give students a voice in your classroom leads to a much more engaged learning environment. While the archives will not be up for another week or so I did want to share the slides I used for my message. "

"In the digital age, kids need to have an understanding of what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. They need to learn the technical how-to's, as well as a more global comprehension of how to navigate the online world. To that end, Melbourne educator Jenny Luca made a commitment to help her students start blogging and to create ePortfolios. Here are five reasons why, at her school, these skills are now a high priority."

"There's never a dearth of people I meet who come to the idea of blogging and feel that pit in their stomachs. "What would I blog about?" "Who would want to read what I write?" Or even, "I can't write at all." I try to assuage their fears by reminding them that they don't have to write manifestos or tell stories of their personal lives. That blogging can simply be a link to a good read, a short snip for flavor, and a few sentences of reflection. Start slowly. Build if and when it gets more comfortable."

Meet Linda Yollis Please use the navigation bar on the left to help you find information for your successful educational blog.

student created "how-to" video

discussion rubric

Online discussions & peer feedback; additional links

documentation & reflection prompts

Question starters

"A brief overview of how to use the iPad for visual recording/notetaking. Includes things to consider when doing this; how this is different from traditional (paper-based) visual recording; and comparisons of four tools (Ideas, AirSketch, Brushes, and SketchbookPro). For details about how I made this video, please see this blog post: http://ninmah.be/2010/08/02/ipad-visual-movie/ For my TEDx talk, "Drawing in Class," about personal visual note-taking on the iPad, please see this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tJPeumHNLY All media used in this video are licensed under Creative Commons and are used in accordance with their respective licenses. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons (by-nc-sa) 3.0 license. "

"Flipped classroom is a new concept that has been making the rounds for sometime now. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has already covered this topic in some previous posts ( see Flipped Classroom A New Learning Revolution, and Great Video Tutorials on Flipped Classroom).In this post, we are providing you with a new and updated infographic on Flipped Classroom. "

" it's not just how much students read that matters, but also what they read. In particular, students need to read and comprehend informational texts as often-and as fluently-as they do narrative texts." "we should ask what the research says about the benefits of reading nonfiction. Is it really worth tearing kids away from The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter books, or Diary of a Wimpy Kid? After all, with multimedia consuming so much of students' time, shouldn't we be happy they're reading at all?"

"the hidden skills and cognitive processes that underlie reading comprehension. A number of researchers (see, for example, Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995; Wyatt et al., 1993) focused their attention on a simple but unexplored question: What do great readers do when they read? By studying the behaviors of skilled readers, these researchers reached some important conclusions about what it takes to read for meaning, including these three:"

Tips for creating and assigning collaborative writing opportunities