Group items tagged

PBS Learning Resources is an excellent site for teachers and students to find educational films as well as other media types such as sound, images, and lesson plans. This site has a couple thousand videos for you to see. These videos are all free.

In this article, Steve Wheeler discusses the changing role of teachers from traditional classroom teachers to global educators. He discusses the top five tools he believes global educators need to connect with global communities, resources and audiences.

This article presented that a common discussion point amongst schools is how to engage the student in order to make them more successful in the 21st century. It provided an angronym "SAGE" that helps the teacher focus on how to engage students so that they are using techniques to problem solve and process their learning. It is based on "Instruction that supports the development of globally competent student provides multiple opportunities to investigate the world, recognize and weigh diverse perspectives, communicate ideas and take action." I feel this article does provide great "coaching" for the teacher to help students use HOTS.

My favorite URL shorteners. These are used to take those long annoying URLs and shrink them down to a managable size. This tutorial will demonstrate the difference between Google URL shortener, CiteBite, and TinyURl. These all have their unique uses for the educator. Click the link to learn more.

Is it time to rethink the learning enterprise? I think that our profession has to be flexible in order to benefit both the student and the teaher. This article notes how to empower teachers by making differnt forms of technology available to them so that learning can be differentiated to improve students performance.

Here is an amazing Prezi focusing on the creative potential inherent in collaboration, social networking, and humanity's learning to collectively think "outside the box." The link to the Prezi is via Eric Tremblay's blog titled, "e-Learning Acupuncture." Enjoy.

After viewing the award winning Prezi, I can see just how creative we can get using a Prezi. I enjoyed the History for Music video presentation set to Lady Gaga's song. Now that was pretty impressive!

I loved the History for Music Lovers video presentation set to Lady Gaga's song! Spectacular! The award winning Prezi in the shape of a musical staff sign is also special. "Oh the places we will go!" (Dr. Seuss)

This post was useful to language teachers and educators who are novice at implementing technology in their teaching contexts. It has listed samples of some of how to integrate web2.0 tools into language classes to train linguistic skills.

Quite an interesting interview. Basically, DreamBox seeks to 'learn the learner as the learner learns'. In this manner, the adaptive software is able to formulate instruction so as to cater specifically to the individual student. Quite interesting indeed.

All education is self-education. Period. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in a college classroom or a coffee shop. We don't learn anything we don't want to learn. Those people who take the time and initiative to pursue knowledge on their own are the only ones who earn a real education in this world.

In this article, teachers are urged to push students beyond simply providing personal opinions as answers. By offering better prompts and questions, students need to be pushed into "critical reflection and evaluation" of the topic at hand. Having students move beyond simply Q/A formats, they are more engaged in their learning in terms of both the process and the outcome. Teachers need to provide feedback, challenging prompts, and encourage the discovery process (among others) to improve critical thinking skills. In addition, teachers can post open-ended questions, provide models of what synthesis looks like, and refrain from being the authority on the subject. While this article was not specifically related to Web 2.0 tools, the elements of how to increase critical / higher order thinking skills apply to all of the elements of technology use in the classroom.

This article discusses 5 technology tools to help teachers incorporate differentiated instruction into any lesson. These tools appeal to different learning styles and individual strengths. Advanced students can be challenged and struggling students can receive help. The 5 programs/tools cited are Museum Box, The Elements, Garage Band, Intro to Math, and Dragon Dictation.

Each of the apps listed in this article deserve a glance, some especially for the younger grades and special education. Garage Band appeals to all ages - my colleague uses it to set poems to music in her 2nd grade class. I hope to have students use it this year as background to a video. The Elements app is awesome! (I just spent an hour checking it out - I was completely swept away and so not focused on the task at hand.) I can also imagine an group project with Museum Box, that would appeal to the ultra-organized students. This article really showcases just how technology and all the ensuing apps has something for every student to latch on to and feel success with.

Brenda offers some great suggestions and ideas for using Voicethread in classes. Brenda suggests using Voicethread as an assessment tool for teachers but I am thinking it might be a great tool for students to assess/comment on each other as well.

Laurel, I agree that students could also use Voicethread in class as a tool for commenting on peers' work. I could see groups viewing each other's work and offering feedback, as well. I like that you can add images to this. Have you used Voicethread before? I will have to spend some time checking this out.

I am trying this again - last link went to site on news stand but not to actual presentation and would not open Example of prezi presentation. Also at the top are tabs to learn how to make a prezi presentation and an explore tab showing other prezi presentations and reasons to make one. Good background for anyone to learn more about Prezi.

Wowie zowie. That's a lot of information in that presentation! I could see how that would be a great overview of world civ to then have the students dig deeper for a research project.

This article discusses how students can gain real-world experience by blogging and podcasting.. They are able to hone writing skills, learn to take and give criticism and direction, use software in the production of the blogs and podcasts. They are using the essential skills of managing, analyzing, creating and evaluating, etc.

I found this video on Twitter tonight thanks to David Walker (@drdjwalker) who re-tweeted the video from The Partnership of 21st Century Skills. The video is called "Above and Beyond: the story of the 4Cs". Enjoy "In an increasingly complex, demanding and competitive 21st century, students need to learn more than the 3R's they are tested on in school. Although the 3R's are the foundation of learning (most especially reading), students must be prepared to Think Creatively and have Intellectual Curiosity in order to excel in the 21st century.

Oh, what fun! This video is a great tool to share with students. It's simplicity is a delight. The notion is that we all have different talents and skills we can bring to collaborative projects. We need to encourage students to take the time to share their creative ideas together; plan, explore, negotiate, compromise and problem solve together. My fifth and sixth graders will enjoy this video.

This video is fun, interesting and great for students to see. It stresses the collaborative nature of projects and how much more we can do together rather than alone. It reminds me of Odyssey of the Mind type projects, and I will definitely show this to my Advisory. I think they will find it interesting and funny, but more than that it can jump start a discussion about the creative power of collaboration. It also makes me think that it will demonstrate to students that diversity of ideas is powerful.

This is a fascinating article to read about a NJ school that took on the Google Platform. Much of what is documented in the article reminds me of why school district went with Google. The ease of emails, calendars, saving documents and designing websites through one platform is so helpful. What I found interesting is that the principal of the school operates with a BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) policy. Her arguments being that as soon as schools make investments in iPads, or laptops etc. the "hardware" is obsolete in no time. She advocates a "learn anytime, anywhere on any device" approach - which I find refreshing and so innovative. At my school, there are many teachers who want to outright ban all personal electronic devices in school - well...for students! This article is a powerful reminder that with guidance and careful, thoughtful planning and implementation, we can make use of everything students bring to school with them - including personal electronic devices.

This article speaks about the importance of challenging the students growth in life. This article shows that changing the identity of the student and pushing the students in a way that they never were pushed will carry much more weight then just regular classroom instruction. This collaborative method pushed the students ingenuity and brain power in much more then the basic course. This article also shows that a student who takes control of his or her own learning will establish a much deeper connection that can be used to have a better understanding of the foundations of learning.

This article gives a great description of flipped classrooms and how a flipped classroom will expand on media and 21st century learning skills in the classroom and outside of the classroom. It develops a sense of the changing paradigm of the typical sage on the stage teacher and creating the digital literate classroom.