Group items tagged

This blog emphasizes the importance of stressing being a "good citizen" when using the Internet with our students. A week was spent with the following learning objective: "A renewed focus on the choices we make and how they affect us, specifically about balance, responsibility and safety." Each day time was spent on some aspect of this objective. As a culminating activity, students were invited to an assembly where the theme was " Digital Citizenship mean..... to me" Students were able to share what they learned throughout the week.

Michele I had read this article when reviewing them for our assignment. It was great to see all of the topics touched upon, especially about balancing on and off line activities. Love that they stressed being a good digital citizen just as we stress being a good citizen in general. I think we forget to stress some of these points with our students and that they are important in our online life even outside of school. The kids and adults alike.

This article is about using Skype in the classroom for global education. I am categorizing it as media literacy because of the use of skype. Thousands of teachers are involved in a large variety of global educational projects. One of the partners in this program is NASA's Digital Learning center. Projects there are live so that students can learn how to prepare a space vehicle for take off or for them to design something for the spacesuit. There are many other partners to this program.

Great article to support how to go about teaching students how to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively.

I picked this one for Media literacy, but looking at it different. When students have access to media, they look at what we want them to and then wonder off to other items and sites, thus impacting their ability to accurately analyze, evaluate, and create.  

Helpful tools to use web 2.0 in the classroom

fur.ly is a great place/idea for educators who are struggling with students finding the right websites or who are having their students copy long URLs off of the board. This tool will let you have one URL that will open multiple websites at one time.

Awesome Web 2.0 Tools page on Professional Development site.

A new tool discovery! Looks like an interesting combination of some apps we just "mastered"

We use it with 5th and 6th grade! The only drawback that I see is that it connects to Flickr for images and not google which limits that feature. It does also connect to You Tube for educational videos, however. The kids use it quite easily. I like it.

This is a free screen sharing service from the makers of Screencast-o-matic. just go to their website, select share your screen, and enter your name. Quick Screen Share will then provide you with a URL to share with the person with whom you are screen sharing. When that person opens the link you he or she will be able to see your screen.

From the makers of Gronckit the collaborative, social, online learning and test preparation company comes their latest venture Learnist. Learnist is a continual learning and professional development platform kind of like Pinterest, but with more features. Learnist is a community geared for creating, sharing, communicating and improving collective resources.  I signed up for an account and started to follow @LearnistTweets on Twitter.

By using social media in schools, students will learn about online engagement and the importance of making connections and networking.

To begin and use a blog (or wiki) to "poll" the students...good reminder to just ask what they would find to be helpful in learning.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ed-tech-worth-the-hype-bob-lenz?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&utm_content=Netvibes Is Educational Technology Worth the Hype? Some of the key points emphasize the approach to technology that forward thinking educators should take. To prepare today's learners to meet the demands of tomorrow in a society that demands a proficient and prolific use of multiple technologies and the intellectual skills necessary to survive and thrive in our modern digital world in order for them to create, develop, and publish authentic works.

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

This article published in TES Magazine explores the idea of teaching thinking in the classroom. The author(s) ask "Is it possible to teach thinking skills?" They say that most experts agree that you can but Philip Adey of the Centre for Advancement of Thinking at King's College London, says that "thinking skills described in the national curriculum are not skills, they are mental processes. You can't teach them directly. But you can create a learning environment that will stimulate their development." I somewhat agree with this assessment however, a teacher can easily provide examples that the student(s) could apply to different scenarios. I'd call that teaching.

"Recommended:memorial Group dictionary:web2.0educationtoolsresourcestechnologyteachinglearningschool2.0webtools4educatorsenglishmlearningtabletsappselearningcooltoolsedtechnewselttefleflyounglearnersadultskidswriting Add to a List "

This article by Andrew Miller builds upon the initial posting by Grant Wiggins on assessing creativity. It provides suggestions on quality indicators, modeling thinking skills, reflective processes, and a few rubric examples with some very good descriptors.

This article provides four points to increase parent involvement and communication: 1) Make a case for increased parent involvement, 2) Reach out to parents who want to make a connection, 3) Find ways to involve families in school culture, 4) Make the commitment to join the conversation with other teachers and parents. Within each of these four points, there are various links to more actively engage with tips, articles, and discussion groups.

Every school has a need to increase parent involvement for a variety of reasons, with such intended results as a better sense of "community" among families, faculty and students, improved student achievement, and the like. This can be a challenge for all these entities. It's helpful from time to time to have reminders of strategies that work.