Group items tagged

Remind is a tool used to sent students or parents quick updates or reminders to their cell-phones via text (or to email). It allows teachers/facilitators to organize their classes into groups, and send messages without either party ever having to share their phone numbers with the other, therefore limiting privacy concerns. Instructors are able to have different classes or groups, which allows specific communication with individual groups, or even parent groups. Facilitators can also schedule reminders/messages to send on a future date and time, which allows seamless flexibility in when you want to send your reminders. It's a tool use regularly with my f2f classes, and the feedback is extreamly positive.

Practical steps on how to create a PLE

Sometimes forgotten, for it is certainly not new or "sexy", yet a powerful quizzing tool to add to your collection of non-LMS Web 2.0 resources. Very, very robust. Allows you to manage classes, quizzes, and reports. Easy to use. Stable (I first started to use it over a decade ago). Once you create an account, you will see the tabs across the top of the page for instructors.

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.

The CK-12 Foundation is a California-based non-profit organization striving to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. A leading provider of open educational resources, CK-12 provides free and fully customizable K-12 educational materials aligned to state curriculum standards and tailored to meet student and teacher needs.

The Learning Circle: Classroom Activities on First Nations in Canada, Ages 8 to 11 Researched and written by Harvey McCue and Associates for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, from 2006. Special thanks to: The First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres The National Association of Friendship Centres

This is a learning research from the Ministry of Northern and Indigenous Affairs (from 2006). It has learning and lesson activities related to topics relevant to First Nations in Canada today. The activities will not apply to all First Nations and should be adapted to appropriately reflect the knowledge and cultures of the local First Nations where you live and work. I like that this resource encourages a focus on contemporary First Nations communities and reserves. It also has a section on First Nations heroes and a section on critically examining stereotypes in media about First Nations people.

An article by Rick Wormeli at the University of Victoria that speaks to how to effectively manage rewrites and redos in the classroom. An interesting read.

I first saw this article a few years? ago and we used it to create a redo policy/guideline for our high school. It is a good article to share and really got me thinking about redos and re-writes. It got me promoting this allot more as a result reading this. The whole idea is to get students to learn and if redoing helps, well why not. the flip side is it has created more work for me by having to create another test if that is involved because I do not give the same one. Of course I have to re-mark it. All good as long as the student is putting more time into learning.

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/

Richard Byrne describes how to use this free online collaborative whiteboard tool, Stoodle. Stoodle provides users multiple "pages" to write on and the option to import files from a wide variety of sources including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Evernote. Students can work collaboratively on a file and chat about is in real time using the chat box and microphone features.

Free and stable. A very robust and secure online discussion platforms. Easy to use and moderate. Easy to set up and begin. Discussions, polls, debates. Allows attachment of pictures, videos, PDF, Microsoft documents. Reports and results; grouping of students...

A good tool to add to your Non-LMS toolkit

Something that needs close attention. If one is to be successful with online communication and information access (consider filling out an application form [more and more online only] or a tax form) literacy is imperative. Adult Basic Education seems to be first in line to be cut, which has some pretty major ramifications!

OpenLearn aims to break the barriers to education by reaching millions of learners around the world, providing free educational resources and inviting all to sample courses that our registered students take - for free!

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!

This Slideshare was well worth a revisit. Some aspects are definitely going to shift and change our approach to education.

Common Sense Media has been my go to place to stay abreast of online safety issues and perspectives on youth and media. This piece has some great reviews of services and apps... some benign... some scary. Quick and easy read. Well organized.

You must check out this blog. It presents ideas for efficient and effective tech integration. One tab focuses on professional development options for 21st century educators, each topic relating to using technology in the classroom. There is a page on Digital Literacy Badges, Google Docs; the list goes on as some of the pages have multiple tabs to take you to even more information. I could spend hours exploring. It is amazing the number of different online sites available for teachers to host content and for students to present their understanding. The host of this blog Sue Oxenvad also offers online professional development, which you can register for on the blog.

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.

Susan Oxnevads Blog has some great tools and she provides oodles of well-organized details on the tools she recommends. In this case she is recommending Flubaroo. A terrific script that a I have used to make Google Forms into a self-grading quiz or test. Not as robust as other tools designed as quizzing tools (Quizstar...), but it works. The only issue I came across was a difficulty in setting up the automated email back to the student with their results. Other than that it works peachilly. Avi