Group items tagged

This is a "news" article written to announce Skype's international collaborative efforts in education. For example, there are programs with orchestras and museums that classes can participate in, thus offering students the possiblity of interacting live with authors, musicians and the like. Although it contains useful information, it should be understood that this is essentially an advertisement for Skype.

Cacoo is a concept mapping/mind mapping/brainstorming site. It is free and allows for many methods of concept mapping. Great site to use with your classes and students.

A timeglider is a web-based timeline software for creating and sharing history and project planning. Our computer apps students learn about the history of computers and technology. The timeglider I looked at could incorporate video sound and images. I also think the timeglider would be fantastic in a history class. It could make the lesson so much more interactive and engaging, rather than just listening to a teacher lecture.

blogging platform for posts larger than Twitter and smaller than a traditional blog. Posts are usually rich with a combination of text and multimedia. A unique feature is the ability to "tumble" blog posts. This takes a post of a friend and posts it on your page. If you use Twitter, this is similar to retweeting. Tumblr is a nice tool for teachers and older students but everyone will need accounts. Create an account for your class and have your students create accounts as well. Then, follow your students' accounts and vice-versa. Now you are all connected and can interact in numerous ways. Your students now have an excellent vehicle for all manner of writing and multimedia projects.

I was looking for an article that had to do with blogs, but ran across this article and while it isn't on blogs - our topic for the week, it might help answer a question that has come up in discussion. The where-when-why to use blogs in the classroom question. This post talks about building expectations for a classroom as a group, teacher and student together. Why not do this with blogs? We have all said that they have value in the classroom - maybe the students can help us figure out where they would get the most value from them in their work/assignments. She contrasts that with a syllabus that "perform[s] as a living, negotiated document." (p. 41) It begins with these four questions: What topics or areas are of greatest interest to us as a class? How can we adapt the classroom space to be conducive to cultivating enhanced communication? How can we best connect our readings and discussions to our everyday lives?

This article provides (as it says) over 100 different tips on how to use Google as a search engine in a way that can get you around blocked websites, or to glean search results that are refined to what you are specifically looking for. I included this article as it seems useful when building a blog, to structure search links and topic links in a way that will result in the consumer of the blog obtaining the content they are looking for. As the article begins, time is precious. As an educator, I need my time in class (and outside if class) to be structured in a way where I can access information easily and quickly and teach students to do so as well. These 102 tips for how to use Google are the tools in the toolbag I believe are necessary to bring this need to fruition. As stated above, the relevance to Blogs is providing useful tips on the Blog for users to utilize to refine searches and yield more meaningful results. These "tricks" would also serve well for a Blog on how to search the Internet!

'We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice.' This opening sentence is intriguing yet inspiring to me. As said in the title, this article introduces 18 apps to support students developing creativity at different thinking stages. The writer also suggests some practical strategies which could be incorporated in our daily teaching practice. Nevertheless, what strikes me more is the reminder that we, as a class, school, or community, need to build a culture of trust in the first place to cultivate culture of creativity and innovation.

What a great article about creativity.  What I loved is that the article states that schools do not need to teach creativity.  Schools need to foster it by providing students a safe place to take risks and providing them tools that make that risk taking possible.  Creativity is about finding solutions to problems using one's own ideas and thinking skills.  Students can do this when given the power and opportunities to do so.

Like Chris, the opening to this post caught my eye. "We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice." Ms. Darrow's article captures the importance of creating a school that values it's students, encourages them to take some risks, and lets them practice these skills with abandon. With support and coaching from teachers, students can work through the steps outlined in this article using technology to streamline the process, help them develop real life/career skills, and appeal to their interest in digital media. I like how Darrow labels this process; there are clear steps to increase understanding. Collaboration or group work can use this format as well, group members' jobs are easily created with the resulting structure. It also creates natural places to scaffold the process for individualizing learning in a classroom full of all kinds of learners. Each activity we do in a class may not need all these steps and some may need more, but I plan to keep this article in mind as I tweak my courses this summer.

An article about a multi-school blog collaborative class

This article talks about ways teachers are trying to incorporate cell phone usage in class in a positive way. There are some great examples in this article--

I have tried a couple times having students use the phones they have for research in class to supplement the computers we have available.

Brief article about various ways teens use web 2.0 skills. Takes a look at proper use of tools such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Youtube.

This article is a review for animation software for the grade school level. While this article is not about HOTS directly it describes an interesting tool that can promote HOTS. Students are well versed in making PowerPoints these days and moving to a more extensive animation platform is the next logical step. The animation process involves HOTS because students must process the information into a format that is more then just memorization and repetition. This tool would promote the skills of analysis, synthesizing, and critical thinking as students take information presented in class and work to share their knowledge through film/animation.

Great article on using podcasts, from kindergarten through high school, to help with enrichment and review at home. Also the article discusses a switch in lecture and homework - do the lecture at home and front load or review the information and do the lab, experiment, work, activity during class time.

"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.

This post goes into more reasons for blogging in class. The 3 highlighted heare are distributing, discussing, and demonstrating. Each of these activities are done daily in the classroom. When and if Web 2.0 tools are available to assist the teacher and the learners they should be used to their fullest. The blog (web-log) is an easy tool to use in performing these activities.

Getting your Jing on!! The ability to enhance online courses with simple video elements helps students to complete assignments, readings, and discussions, and it motivates them to check into their classes more often which in turn helps instructors retain their students. The students will how to create a simple video, compress it, and access code to embed the file into a course management system or even upload it to a website, blog or YouTube. No expensive equipment or software is required, there is little to no cost, and the process is fairly quick and straightforward.

This article provides us with a clear example of the use of a 2.0 Web tool in class to improve students' comprehension of the topics taught. Likewise, it increased students'' concentration and encouraged the use of technology within the content.

Taking the necessity of a syllabus and applying it with even more detail for an online class.

This site offers a tutorial/class on information literacy. This can be used with your students and the site states that it will take 2-9 hours to complete. It has a self-assessment at the beginning to test your knowledge.