April, 2015

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Stay Positive: 7 Ways to Cancel the Noise of Negativity

The CoolCatTeacher

She sounded like a banshee with a stubbed toe. The wail from the cubicle across from mine, as I sat down to try to write this blog post on a layover in Minneapolis, is worse than any caterwauling I’ve ever heard before. I can’t tell if she’s speaking in tongues or lost hers. Right now is not a time for the battery in my noise cancelling headphones to go out but it did!

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The Top 10 Ed-Tech Tools Suggested by Teacher Experts

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

There are lots of great ed-tech tools out there, but which ones should you use in your classroom? To narrow down the choices we asked teaches who are ed-tech experts for their best recommendations. Click the headline to read the full post. Questions? Email websupport@epe.org.

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Want to Code on an IPad? Here are 3 Great Apps

Ask a Tech Teacher

Coding has become the poster child for a tech-infused classroom. Over 15 million kids participated in Hour of Code this past December. So many teachers took students to Code.org’s curriculum offerings, the website crashed. So what is ‘coding’? According to the Urban Dictionary, it’s another word for ‘programming’ which means: The art of turning caffeine into Error Messages.

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Gmail: Undo a Sent Email

Catlin Tucker

Are you using Gmail with students, parents, or co-workers? If so, it’s helpful to know how to undo a sent email. This is an easy tip that allows you to “take back” an email even after you click “Send.” We’ve all experienced the sinking feeling of sending an email that has a mistake in it. As an English teacher, I feel immense pressure to make sure my messages are as close to perfect as possible.

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Quickly Create Personalized Learning Experiences that Work

How can we actively engage learners 24/7, on their level and according to their interests, while respecting their learning styles? It’s not impossible. In this guide: Explore how to transform traditional, one-way videos into two-way interactive learning experiences Understand different types of artificial intelligence (AI), including - Generative vs.

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Let Your Work Do The Talking

A Principal's Reflections

Let me start off by saying that this post has been brewing for a while. Maybe it is just the way I feel, but I am thinking that this is not the case. It seems like adults at times are the worse examples for our youth. Take sports for example. I was raised to enjoy many sports for the love of the game, teamwork, and competing amongst friends. Things sure have changed.

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'Mobile-First' Is Everywhere — Except in K-12

The Journal

The biggest technology companies in the world are racing to position themselves as “mobile-first" because people are using mobile devices all the time, everywhere. Going mobile-first is in — except in K-12 education.

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More Trending

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Five Tools and Tips for Working With Students Remotely

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

Connecting with students digitally can be a challenge. Here's a short list of tools and tips to make you a more effective online communicator with students. Click the headline to read the full post. Questions? Email websupport@epe.org.

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Learn How to Play a Musical Instrument on Your Smart Phone

Ask a Tech Teacher

AATT contributer, Sara Stringer, is looking at digital music tools this month. This is a topic I don’t say enough about so I’m thrilled Sara’s sharing her thoughts with you. There are at least three tools below I’ve never tried. After you read this, I’d love to hear your thoughts on her choices and any she didn’t mention you love.

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Schools Respond to Growing Threats with Sandbox, Endpoint Tools

EdTech Magazine

By Steve Zurier IT managers say the latest security tools complement anti-virus software to fight advanced persistent threats and zero-day exploits.

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Let’s Change the Conversation About Education (Technology)

Digital Promise

Sara Schapiro is the director of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools. Jason Tomassini is the communications director at Digital Promise. You can view the full-size version of the image above here. There’s been a lot of discussion among policymakers and the media recently about the pitfalls of using technology in the classroom. Many of these conversations are worthwhile – it’s important to be skeptical when spending scarce dollars for public education.

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Can Brain Science Actually Help Make Your Training & Teaching Stick?

Speaker: Andrew Cohen, Founder & CEO of Brainscape

The instructor’s PPT slides are brilliant. You’ve splurged on the expensive interactive courseware. Student engagement is stellar. So… why are half of your students still forgetting everything they learned in just a matter of weeks? It's likely a matter of cognitive science! With so much material to "teach" these days, we often forget to incorporate key proven principles into our curricula — namely active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice.

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If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity

Dangerously Irrelevant

Sir Ken Robinson said: Politicians often scratch their heads over [persistent educational] problems. Sometimes, they punish schools for not making the grade. Sometimes, they fund remedial programs to get them back on track. But the problems persist and in many ways they’re getting worse. The reason is that many of these problems are being caused by the system itself. … If you design a system to do something specific, don’t be surprised if it does it.

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School-Community Partnerships in 21st Century Schools: What's out there?

Battelle for Kids

May flowers! Outside to the garden! Into plain air! In this issue, author Elliot Washer reminds us of the time when the Impressionist's moved their paints and palettes outside the confining walls of studios and painted what they experienced in nature, in the plain air. Elliot's metaphor introduces the myriad ways schools and communities are extending 21st Century learning outside school walls.

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A SAMR deep dive: Deconstructing SAMR with examples

Ditch That Textbook

When I first learned of the SAMR tech integration model, it was like fireworks went off in the background. I was at a technology conference. I had been using technology in the classroom for a few years but had no framework for implementing it well. SAMR opened my eyes to the meaningful, intentional use of [.].

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Tech Tip #102: Doc Saved Over? Try This

Ask a Tech Teacher

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! Q: My youngers often save a blank document over their MS Word file. How? Instead of ‘file>open’, they use the menu command ‘file>save-as’ and then they lose all their work.

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Reimagining Chickering & Gamson's Principles Post-Pandemic: Technology's Central Role in Modern Edu

This white paper examines and proposes revisions to the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" introduced by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson in 1987 for today's technology-driven world.

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Google Launches Education Conference on Hangouts

EdTech Magazine

By D. Frank Smith Google is launching an online education conference in May that's focused on innovating with the company's tools in classrooms.

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How Independent Learners Thrive in an Evolving World

Brilliant or Insane

Brilliant or Insane. How Independent Learners Thrive in an Evolving World Jovana Čenejac As a teacher, I am continually reconsidering classroom strategies to provide an engaging environment in order to maintain the motivation and enthusiasm of my students. An inviting classroom atmosphere creates independent learners. Creating this environment is an integral part of supporting students in an evolving professional [.].

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Science for life and citizenship, not just for scientists

Dangerously Irrelevant

Arthur Camins said: Despite inducements to change, and a half-century of research-based consensus that students would be well served by more active learning and less lecture and memorization, the latter practices are still ubiquitous. While we remain the world’s leading generator of science and engineering innovation, far too many Americans lack sufficient understanding of the foundational principles of the scientific investigations and engineering designs that have improved our lives.

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We Day Says It All

Battelle for Kids

April 30, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 6, Number 1. Driving Question: How Can Students Lead the Way in Forming School-Community Partnerships? When it comes to school-community partnerships, We Day says it all. Yesterday was We Day and we missed it- no posts scheduled. Now we are "better late than never" putting two cents into the celebration of young people's action that are "changing the world" as we transition from our mathematics theme to school-community partnerships, the theme for May.

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Behind the Bell: The Underlying Impact of Tardiness in K-12 Schools

Managing a K-12 campus with constant pressure to meet performance metrics is challenging. And tardiness can significantly limit a school from reaching these goals. Learn more about why chronic lateness matters, and key strategies to address the following impacts: Data errors caused by manual processes Low attendance and graduation rates that affect a school’s reputation Classroom disruption, which leads to poor academic performance High staff attrition and “The Teacher Exodus” Unmet LCAP goals t

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Tech & Learning Live @ Boston: Join the Livestream Experience for free!

Educational Technology Guy

Tech & Learning Live @ Boston: Join the Livestream Experience! Join in for FREE from your home or office. Tech & Learning's live broadcast stream will be direct from Tech & Learning Live @ Boston this Friday, May 1st. Join this preeminent group of education leaders as they tackle some of the most pressing, and promising, issues for today's schools.

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K-12 OER Collaborative enters next phase

K12 Open Ed

[Disclosure: I am part of an advisory group for this project.]. Last week, the K-12 OER Collaborative entered the next phase of their project, awarding contracts for rapid prototypes to the following developers: edCount LLC. Expeditionary Learning. Illustrative Mathematics. Learn Zillion. Literary Design Collaborative. Mathematics Vision Project. Odell Education.

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8 Must-Have Features for Next-Generation Firewalls

EdTech Magazine

By Michael Sheehan Discover the product capabilities and features to look for when protecting your network.

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Writing Manifesto: Writing is Making

Brilliant or Insane

Brilliant or Insane. Many writers need to move, and they need their writing to move as well. They need to write out of their seats and on their feet, spreading their ideas across whiteboards and tables, lifting pieces of them up with their hands, cutting them apart, randomizing them, and tacking them into new and completely unpredictable forms. [.].

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The Battle of the Authoring Tools: A 10-Point Comparison for Picking the Right One

Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.

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Trading pills for recess

Dangerously Irrelevant

Janelle Wilson said: For some reason, we have traded sunshine, wind on our faces, and running for more desk time and tests. Magically, older students no longer need to move and run. That’s what we pretend anyway. We’ve even started pretending that elementary students don’t need recess either, and then we wonder when our kids can’t sit still. Instead of prescribing some time outside in the fresh air, we prescribe pills for hyperactivity. via [link].

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Mathematics In The 21st Century Classroom: The Power of Pulled Learning

Battelle for Kids

April 28, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 5, Number 13. Driving Question: How Do Educators Design Classrooms Designed to Pull Learning, Not Push Information? Creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration are all a part of a 21st century math learning experience. 21st century math classrooms are not defined with program adoptions, learning resources and online tools, but rather are defined by how the learning experience is brought to life.

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SmallPDF - free, online PDF Tools - compress, convert, split and more

Educational Technology Guy

PDFs are one of the most popular document formats, mainly because you can view them easily on any device. Sometimes you need to modify them or convert them to other formats depending on your usage. SmallPDF is a free, online service that gives you the ability to compress, convert, split, merge, modify, (and more) PDF files. It's very easy to use. Select the function you want to perform from the home page and then just drag and drop your files.

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Using “Weekend Language” to engage students

Ditch That Textbook

Fly through a dry list of literary elements or steps in the Krebs Cycle or features of an oligarchy and you’re guaranteed one thing. A sea of glassy eyes, with heads propped up with hands so they don’t fall asleep. Tell a story about how your dog escaped from its fence and took you on [.].

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The Roses and Thorns of an LMS Strategy: How to Flourish with the Right LMS

Speaker: Amanda Davis, Chief Experience Officer and Liam O'Malley, VP of Association Solutions

The "new normal" is now a little less new, a little more normal. Does that mean your current LMS strategy is in need of a refresh? Is your organization or association leaning into the always-evolving eLearning environment to ensure you have the tools and content to remain relevant through all this change? There are many complex decision-making processes within your learning & development strategy and LMS lifecycle management, including: Selection.

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Leaders Gather to Chart Future for Games in Education

EdTech Magazine

By D. Frank Smith The Games for Learning Summit drew some big names from across industries.

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Auditing Your Classroom Environment: What Does Your Space Reveal About Your Values?

Brilliant or Insane

Brilliant or Insane. What we believe about children and teaching and learning is made visible in the way we design our classrooms. Instruction isn’t the only way we influence learning. The choices we make about classroom environment reveal much about the difference we’re trying to make for kids. Have you ever audited your space and considered how your [.].

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If you’re an Iowan, wear pink tomorrow

Dangerously Irrelevant

Tomorrow is #PinkApril30 , so named because of the unfilled teaching positions and educator pink slips that Iowa school districts will have next year because their operational funding won’t be enough to keep up with inflation despite our state’s strong economy and full reserves. It’s been an extremely disappointing year as we’ve watched our House propose to cut funding from both our public schools and public universities.

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The Stuff of Dreams

Battelle for Kids

April 27, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 5, Number 13. Driving Question: What stuff are our young people's math dreams made of? The history of the world is replete with dreamers. Lewis Carroll, Don Quixote, Christopher Columbus, Einstein, the American pioneers riding their wagons westward, the gold diggers of California, the astronauts heading to the moon, Jonathan Salk and Martin Luther King.

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Building the Foundation for a Modern K-12 Classroom

K-12 looks different these days. But one thing remains the same: you need a reliable learning platform that serves as the foundation for teaching and learning––for all students, in a variety of learning experiences. Discover how the Instructure Learning Platform supports today's K-12 classroom through: A central, consistent, connected hub of the digital learning environment.