Group items tagged

Technical.ly Philly reporters Juliana Reyes and Thomas Creedon contributed to this report. The lines between digital literacy and adult education are blurring. Today at Congreso , the well-regarded North Philadelphia nonprofit that has served its Latino community for 40 years, digital literacy is part of just about every adult education course.

I'm not sure whether Steve wanted an article on information/media literacy in the sense of evaluating news content, but I've interpreted it here as multimedia literacy, or digital literacy in the information age. This article is just another example of the reason I wanted to take this course in the first place: these days, digital literacy is essential.

This professor uses blogs to have students discuss readings before they are due.  It supports HOTS because they are connecting the readings to current events as well as evaluating perspectives. Plus the prof. felt she was able to better tailor the class discussions after reading the posts to force students to think more deeply.  Students reported that the blogging helped them understand course content and improve their critical thinking and writing skills.  The prof. had students reflect as a part of their final about how their verbal exchanges on the blog shaped their understanding of the events.  In other words, students explored how they were constructing their knowledge through the blog.  Interestingly, this professor had her students post anonymously to the "class blog".  She believed this encouraged honest and open participation.

MOOCs(Massive Open Online Courses) are now becoming important part of education and due to their quality and variety learners with different learning styles are adopting it in their education.

tudents have produced a range of podcasts based on the Year 11 and 12 Human Biology Course from 2006-2009. Check out his website to see the assignments set and his students' work.

The author shares a new collaborative tool, Pen.io, which can be used by students to create a working portfolio and can be shared, published and owned. Although it is similar to google docs, the author likes it better for its simplicity, the ownership status it provides, its content-focused nature and the control it allows over who can edit it.

Great tool. And, yes it is easier to use than Google Docs. Of course "easier" means fewer features, but it also means more simplicity. Plus, with a few HTML basics there is more you can do than with G-Docs.

This is exactly what I am looking for to complement some of my online courses. Items such as safety contracts need signatures and require the tedious use of a scanner or fax machine. This Pen.io would be a great acessory to make these types of task very simple and personal. Unlike google docs it provides much more controls over many items.

Ben Miller, a teacher at the University of New South Wales, wanted his students to build learning materials for his course. He decided a wiki was the best platform to capture the group's work over the semester. Ben chose to create his wiki on UNSW's Wikispaces Private Label site as it gave his students a university-branded environment for their academic work. Students loved the wiki and after several weeks, were building most of the content for the site - summarizing theories on free speech, arguing their viewpoints, and highlighting censorship cases that they wanted to further explore. The final product was a rich body of knowledge that helped the students prepare for their end-of-year exam. We encourage you to check out this wiki and listen to Ben's discussion about his wiki project.

In my opinion, participating in the webinar discourages students from surfing the Internet, playing games and Facebooking, which is rampant and distracting in regular classes."

Maryellen Weimer, in her article sets out clear reasons why collaborative work, enhances creativity '. Students can see how different perspectives, constructive deliberation, questioning, and critical analysis can result in better solutions and performance.' Working effectively in groups demands students to think outside the box, and use multiple creative skills.

It was many years ago that I attended a seminar at the former GE Plastics headquarters here (now Sabic) outlining what for years has been obvious. Two key points included: 1) the need to adjust the school calendar, both in number of days and hours per day from the agrarian-based schedule which so many districts and schools still follow; 2) the need to include more group work in syllabi and lesson plans. The presenter emphasized that companies do not want to hire a person who is intelligent if that person cannot work well in a collaborative group situation. Opportunities abound to prepare our students for higher education and careers through group work in face-to-face instruction, the flipped classroom concept and the design of VHS courses.

This was an interesting article and I found it pertinent since I am getting certified as an online teacher. Public universities are moving toward offering more virtual degrees to lower tuition costs. Some of the courses will be traditional but others blended. This will help students obtain college degrees in non traditional ways.

Heidi Beezley, instructional technologist at Georgia Perimeter College, explains tells how to improve teaching online courses with active learning, and providing students to have be able to meaningfully talk and listen, write, read, and reflect on the content, ideas, issues, and concerns of an academic subject"

In this article educational areas surrounding the changing trend of online and traditional teaching are highlighted. Online enthusiasm and concerns, the flipped classroom, the value of online courses and prioritizing teaching students on campus could be issues all educators will have to debate at the rapid pace online teaching are accelerating.

Technology competition opportunities for students.

This site was great. Our students compete in a few contests, but there is no comparison to what is out there for them to explore.

What I liked about the site and the TSA overall is that it is STEM related. Not specific to content area but general to all technology courses. Had many types of technical competitions. A change from FBLA or Robotics competitions which are specific.

The original link, found in the vhs newsstand, is essentially a bookmark. I post the destination URL here. This site teaches the skill of observation and that of reading for comprehension. I would use it for small group collaborative work at problem solving.

"Students were involved in creating their online textbook using a wiki that involved collaboration with students in 2 other schools where they peer reviewed the work posted by other students on the course". I think students would get a lot out of this!

This article deals specifically with how online writing through the use of either asynchronous or synchronous tools can enhance the traditional classroom. The use of a blog to discuss ideas and debate issues may not be as dynamic or interactive as some of the other Web 2.0 tools we have been discussing and using. However, this article makes the point that using blogs can make content more engaging, provide a way for students to be reflective, allow them the opportunity to practice presenting ideas and arguments and finding their voice. The author, Robert Baird from the University of Illinois, argues that these discussion tools are not used up to their potential. I resonated with this article because as a teacher of an online course that uses discussion threads extensively, I completely agree that students level of engagement and understanding of issues, as well as becoming better thinkers, finding their voice and being forced to use evidence in their answers is remarkable.

This article made me think of some of our discussion topics this week about blogging and how it engages students. I had wondered about the use of threaded discussions rather than a blog. However, this article focuses on how students preferred the blogging. They felt an online discussion was more academic whereas blogging allowed students to engage with their learning by applying to their existing lives and knowledge base. Students felt they could develop their own voice and create a more meaningful sense of community with their online classmates. I thought this was interesting because I have used both forms in my VHS and f2f classes. I really find the threaded discussions to be more productive, but it appears that students feel the blogging is more productive. I will need to rethink my tools.

Content Area/Grade Level/Course Title/Activity Type: English/Language Arts/High School/Literature/Student Activity Topic/Lesson Name: Literacy Circle Book Report

An intriguing article delineating several useful methods to bring online classrooms to life. While text and self-teaching methods were the way of the past, we now have a multitude of means to engage the student both visually and audibly via an incredible assortment of tools and resources just brimming with creative potential.

Using online math course as the example, this article provides teachers and students with a lot of technology tools to create a rich online learning and problem-solving environment. With these digital tools, students get more engaged in learning and become more creative thinking. It's a good reference for subject teachers.

This article asks how we teach students the tools to learn how to talk, read, write, and think online. It mentions many of the media literacy tools presented in one of our readings.