Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

A roundup of online video hosting services and related tools that support publishing under Creative Commons. These are services for sharing documentaries, movies and short video clips that can be legally downloaded and freely distributed under the terms of license.

"Chris Dede, a professor of learning technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a leading authority on online teacher professional development. For 16 years, beginning in the early 1990s, Dede taught a course at HGSE called "Learning Media That Bridge Distance and Time." The rapid changes in interactive technology during that period brought the potential of online teacher learning into sharp focus for Dede. "I saw it as an important way of scaling up quality instructional practice, and an important lever for education reform, but also I saw that it wasn't going far very fast," he explains. Dede's investigations into online professional development led him to gather a group of researchers, distance-learning experts, and professional development providers at a conference at Harvard in 2005, and subsequently to publish, as editor, Online Professional Development for Teachers: Emerging Models and Methods (2006). The book, which explores the strengths and tensions of online teacher training, has become a key resource in the field."

Make a custom nature film with animal clips, sounds, and more. Then share your masterpiece with friends.

With technology evolving at the speed of light, and everyone looking to benefit from the latest, greatest hardware and software, keeping up can be challenging for educators, administrators, and school districts themselves. To help, THE Journal spoke with a handful of technology experts and came up with a short list of top tech trends you'll want to watch in the new year

Teachers have one of the most difficult jobs out there. As an educator, you have to manage a classroom of boisterous students, organize heaps of data, stay up-to-date with current events and plan lessons day in and day out. In today's technologically linked world, the ability to use web applications is at your advantage as an educator, and we are here to tell you the best tools to use. Here is a collection of 100 web and iPhone applications that make the grade for tech-savvy teachers:

"For a web-based learning to be truly effective it must be interactive. This means that it is not just a reformatted canned lesson of printed worksheets placed on the web. The web-based activity is inquiry-based and incorporates the full features available on the web - interactivity between computer and student. The learning activity must engage student critical thinking skills by using the scientific inquiry process."

"The use of this interactive wireless technology is ideal for stimulating student involvement using both interactive whiteboards and for one computer classrooms. "

"8 Wonders of the Solar System, Made Interactive What might future explorers of the solar system see? Find out by taking an interactive tour through the eyes of Hugo Award-winning artist Ron Miller. Text and narration by Ed Bell"

"Can the technology often derided as the favored tool of lowbrow cyber rogues actually be used to improve student writing? Educators are beginning to demonstrate it can."

"Elementary music games should be both fun and educational. After all, most students learn best when they are having fun at the same time. The sites that follow are as entertaining as they are educational so you can be sure that they will bring the fun factor to your elementary music lessons."

Met Any Good Authors Lately? Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here's a list of those who do it for free) Classroom author visits can happen via Skype (here's a list of those who do this for free)

I must admit I have a bit of an aversion to drill-type activities, but I realize there are times that students need to practice and memorize certain concepts in order to succeed. Certainly we all know that studying makes for more successful learners. Abraham Lincoln clearly knew the value of studying when he said, "I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come." I doubt that Abraham could have imagined the neat Web 2.0 flashcard-type applications that our students can now use to help them with their studies.

The most dreaded word in school reading for students: book reports. Teachers assign them, viewing them as a necessary component of assessing reading comprehension. Book reports can be a contributing factor to 'readicide'. "Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools." http://stenhouse.com/html/readicide.htm. So, how can we as teachers continue to monitor our students understanding of reading material without killing the love of reading? Enter technology. Technology can help bring some excitement and creativity to the traditional book report while still displaying students understanding of reading.

One of the major benefits of using technology in the classroom is the ability to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of every student in every lesson. Just as every student grows and develops at different rates, they learn in different ways and at different speeds. Technology makes it possible to pace lessons appropriately for each student's learning level and can be used to promote learning in the multiple intelligences. Below you will find website suggestions that address the different learning styles in your classroom with the help of technology:

There is currently a real interest in the role digital technologies can play in the application of MFL in the classroom. Social software and digital media are increasingly being used by teachers to help students' access language learning, and language labs have been newly incarnated for the digital age.

Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools.

Sammy Garey, a recent graduate of Burlingame High School in Burlingame, Calif., is a devoted user of Twitter. She's used the website with her classmates for online book discussions for her AP English class, in which they post and share feedback, analysis, and questions about novels such as Crime and Punishment. Garey also turns to the website to check breaking news and feed her interest in science by following the tweets of specialized Twitter accounts such as MedUpdates and DrugInfo.

True tech integrators know the digital projector can be used for much more than projecting. Here is a sampling of some creative ways to use your projector in any curriculum.