Group items tagged

Fun and educational technology to fill in when you have 5 minutes.

If you haven't had a chance to use Qwiki yet for checking out an interactive way to search the internet then read the following blog and give it a try yourself. It won't take long before you are hooked. Great tool for an educator.

Multimedia allows for students to express their creativity and show their understanding of material in a fun way. Multimedia is also a great way for teachers to represent information and allow their students to take in information an alternative way (compared to the traditional textbook, powerpoint slides, etc.). This site highlights some great apps for educators and students to make their own media!

"Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list."

Great list from Online University with ideas for using social media in the classroom.

A discussion of "disruptive innovations" and how online learning can be used in brick and mortar schools to engage students in richer, more complex learning experience and increase student/teacher interactions.

The article explains the importance of Problem-Based Learning in Education. It is crucial to create lessons that incorporate interesting, safe and useful activities.

I read this and thought how true it is that giving feedback to students taking an online course...or working on a website etc. is as important as feedback we give on essay writing, reading, speaking and listening. Feedback is a key communication tool for students to know where they stand. As is any feedback - provided it is constructive.

February 21, 2013 By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching and Learning Almost everyone agrees that student presentations benefit the presenter in significant ways. By doing presentations, students learn how to speak in front a group, a broadly applicable professional skill. They learn how to prepare material for public presentation, and practice (especially with feedback) improves their speaking skills. (Much of what we want for our students is to work, respect, support, find the good in one another, have fun and use web tools together! Highlighting the peer evaluative piece was one I am doing my best to work on. Great resource!) ~Tara

Tara, Good find. A nice way to get more students engaged. An interesting, approach to student presentations. The author does a nice job of describing advantages, as well as disadvantages, to requiring students to critique their classmate's presentations. The image of the "comatose" classmates in their seats as yet, another presenter tries to impress the teacher is comical, yet accurate. The students doing the critiques also had a vested interest as it represents a portion of their grade. A significant statistic was that," Seventy-three percent of the students agreed or strongly agreed that completing the evaluations made them pay more attention to the presentations. " A final point of interest is that students were clear in not wanting their classmates critiques to have an impact on their grade. Tom

The article looks at how to shift from limited classroom instruction focused on lecture, homework, discussion, memorization to using the web as a tool to expand the learning experience. Imagine getting a tweet from a student who is outraged when Lennie kills Curly's wife in Of Mice and Men? Aaron Iffland explains how to make your classroom viral while requiring students to engage more in their own learning.

I like this article and I think students learn best by doing. I think I am addicted to my phone. I can paly games, read, wrtie, email and socialize all at the sametime. It's fun and educational!

This article introduces a contest which promotes reading and media skills that began in 2008. It is sponsored by major publishers such as Simon and Schuster and Scholastic and 5 regional libraries, The contest is for students in grades 1-6. The students need to create a storytube on a book they have read. It is important to point out that teachers are not replacing a written report or are using this to enhance the report. I reviewed some of the winners and it is so great to see kids excited about what they read and using technology so easily. With students creating video media at such an early age and being so comfortable doing it only leads me to believe that when these students reach high school the work that they will create will be fantastic.

This article originally appeared in SLJ’s Extra Helping. Sign up now! By Jennifer Pinkowski -- School Library Journal, 07/09/2008 Funny accents, strange wigs, and spoiler-free plot summaries are the common elements in the winning videos made by contestants in StoryTubes, a new contest for kids that promotes reading-and new media skills-by capitalizing on the popularity of YouTube.

This link explains how libraries are using the power and popularity of YouTube to promote learning, literacy, creativity and technology. StoryTube is a great project idea that uses the power of the contest as a wonderful motivator.