Group items tagged

Digital literacy blog about using google advanced search as a way to teach kids to use the basic google search tool. A valuable brief for anyone who uses the internet.

For our Principles of Education course, we were given a reading on digital literacy by Alan November. In it, this blog is referenced. The reading and this blog really opened my eyes to the way that search engines work. I realized that in order to teach students to be digitally literate, I need to become much more digitally literate myself. A very insightful read.

Website with a good blog with strategies for teachers to make learning fun and for teaching creative and critical thinking skills. "While that is still an important piece, it has blossomed into so much more. At this point, about 3/4 of the posts here are written by guest bloggers in the field of education. This has resulted in Minds in Bloom becoming an amazing resource for teachers, tutors, and homeschoolers, as well as counselors, and other professionals who work with children. In addition to posts about teaching strategies and classroom management, you will also find plenty of freebies and an occasional giveaway."

I have found a number of interesting and useful articles on the blog at Minds in Bloom. In particular, the guest posts by occupational therapist Loren Shlaes offer ideas about things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. How children sit, affects their brains and abilities to focus. Asking kids to sit still harms, rather than helps learning!

Through Jorum, you can find and share learning and teaching resources, shared by the UK Further and Higher Education community.

Putting Educational Innovations Into Practice Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education.

The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is "providing a high quality education for anyone, anywhere". The website supplies a free online collection of more than 4,000 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science. Khan Academy has delivered over 240 million lessons.

Editor's Note: This is an insightful analysis of assets and difficulties, both human and technical, in adopting and supporting teaching and learning with Web 2.0 Technologies. Students use these technologies constantly for their personal communications and for information access.

In this article, Justin Reich, a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Technology, Innovation, and Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argues that LMS are "homogenized, transient and disempowering" and that they serve "the needs of institutions, not individual students." The author describes teaching a course in a large-scale environment where "the specific goal is for students to learn to build networks of learning resources- people, readings, websites and communities- that can help them continue learning in a domain long after a course ends." His course, built on Connectivist principles, asks students to move beyond the course LMS and "curate links and connections and share their evolving ideas." Students used websites, blogs, Twitter and other Web spaces to share and store their ideas. The author discusses several advantages of moving beyond the LMS. Justin, R. (2015, February 13). Techniques for Unleashing Student Work from Learning Management Systems. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/techniques-for-unleashing-student-work-from-learning-management-systems/

Although more than 15 years old, some things are timeless and this applies! I think every teacher should have a short version of this tattoed to their arm... So relevant and so easily forgotten.

For those looking for a quiz/test tool, classmarker might be one that you could try out. I've used classmarker for about 5 years now, and I really like the many options it has. The ability to make question banks quite easily, and re-use quizzes/tests over and over again for different groups makes it really nice if you are teaching the same classes again and again. It can be a bit complex with all the different settings/tools/options/etc. but I think you will find it useful and easy to use if you are looking for a powerful quizzing/testing tool.

With the continued inclusion and emphasis of Indigenous teachings and culture in the new BC curriculum, I thought I would share the School District 79's Aboriginal Resource website. This resource is specific to the Cowichan nation, however, it includes information on how to teach Hul'q'umi'num' which is spoken in various Coast Salish Nations. It also includes printables of other Coast Salish traditions such as bentwood boxes. There is also information on how to contact cultural presenters to come to your classroom.

A few project-based tools for hands-on and collaborative learning experiences

Interesting shift in teacher education content. Indeed, harkens back to Randy's comment about use technology if it helps, not as a driver of education. :)

A huge list of free online tools for teaching/learning. "At least one excellent free learning tool (or site) for every learning problem, need or issue!"

Wow--quite a list! Thanks! :)

Another part of the equation --retention! Some interesting comments,too,about requisite skills

I stumbled upon this website while working on an assignment for another class. The site is self-described as "A comprehensive website and online community that increases knowledge, sharing, and adoption of what works in K-12 education. We emphasize core strategies: project-based learning, comprehensive assessment, integrated studies, social and emotional learning, educational leadership and teacher development, and technology integration." If you click on "Topics," they have some especially interesting material. Earlier I researched classroom management strategies, but there is everything from cross-curricular teaching to apps you might integrate into a classroom setting.

The Community of Inquiry Framework is a powerful tool for helping to design and organize online learning environments. The Webinar series are great learning activities for professionals engaged in online education.

As more educators turn to gamification to teach core curriculum and engage students, how can we ensure that these games have real educational value and are not just entertainment? This is a collection of stories and resources to help answer that question.

Reference: Freeman, W. & Tremblay, T. (2013). Design Considerations for Supporting the Reluctant Adoption of Blended Learning. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(1), 80-88. This paper presents a case study where an online course was redesigned as a blended course without involving instructor participation. It examines how the instructors struggled with this new format and offers suggestions to course designers on how to successfully design and implement blended programs.