November, 2020

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6 Digital storytelling tools for hybrid learning environments

Neo LMS

Throughout the school year, we have many opportunities to engage students in digital storytelling. At the beginning of the school year, I find that by asking students to share their stories — either by creating an About Me or participating in some icebreakers — it helps build the essential relationships in our classrooms. Read more: Focus in the new school year: Building relationships.

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Using a Flip Flop Design for the Concurrent Classroom

Catlin Tucker

“I wish I could just focus on one group of students at a time.” This is a sentiment I’ve heard repeatedly from teachers navigating the demands of the concurrent classroom. As I’ve said in previous blog posts, teaching in a concurrent classroom is the most challenging teaching assignment I can imagine. Many of the teachers in my life who are teaching two groups of students simultaneously–one group in the classroom and one group online–are exhausted, frustrated, and not fee

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5 Best Practices for Managing Virtual Breakout Rooms

EdTech Magazine

Small group learning is absolutely essential today. In a virtual classroom, the instructor typically does most of the talking when leading a synchronous lesson. Students may find it more difficult to participate or think out loud in this environment. But with breakout rooms, educators can improve student engagement, differentiate instruction and give students more voice and choice in their learning outside of a traditional classroom.

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Upgrading the Remote Learning and Hybrid Classroom

A Principal's Reflections

These unprecedented and uncertain times have spawned a paradigm shift in the way teaching and learning are conducted. With many schools and districts struggling to not only maintain effective engagement with their students but to be able to quickly and easily adjust to changing and ambiguous guidelines is equally as challenging. The ability to swiftly and seamlessly adjust to the unknown, short- and long-term future of curriculum facilitation is essential for maintaining education continuity for

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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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5 Ways to Teach Gratitude in your Classroom #creativitymatters

The CoolCatTeacher

Lesson Plans that Teach Gratitude From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter Whatever your activities for November and Thanksgiving, I’ve got some ideas to inspire gratitude in your classroom. Use it to inspire art or just a change of heart as we help children become more grateful, joyful people. Teach about gratitude and encourage students to say thank you with activities and projects this November.

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Show Me the Money: How to Ace Your VC Meeting

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

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Among Us Classroom Style: Another Case for Game-Based Learning

User Generated Education

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my gaming club in Video Games for Relationship- and Team Building. It is still going very strong. Students from the three schools where I teach gifted students look forward to it all week long. We started with Fornite Creative but now they have moved onto Rocket League and Among Us. This is their gaming club so they get to decide the game.

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4 Tips for Enhancing STEM Engagement in a Hybrid Classroom

EdTech Magazine

COVID-19 upended virtually every aspect of business and society this year. Unfortunately, education hasn’t been spared. But there is an upside to the situation. As we continue to live in a more contactless world, innovation in education prevails. For instance, STEM educators are finding creative strategies to engage students remotely. I wrote about some of these strategies in a higher education context, but they also apply to today’s K–12 schools.

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Competencies for a Post-COVID World

A Principal's Reflections

It seems as of late that we are always in the midst of difficult times. As I am writing this post, the world is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. The challenges that this is placing on society goes without saying. In classrooms, educators continue to grapple with the impacts this is having on both remote and hybrid learning models. It's not easy, and many people are at a breaking point, but who could blame them.

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How to Improve Google Classroom & Remote Learning Experiences with Kasey Bell

The CoolCatTeacher

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter How to Improve Google Classroom & Remote Learning Experiences with Kasey Bell Teaching online is challenging for many teachers. In this show, we talk about best practices to re-engage students, the common mistakes districts are making, and teachers’ importance right now.

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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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How Two School Districts Have Adapted to COVID-Era Realities

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

In this opinion piece, Cognitive ToyBox Partnerships Manager Nikki Navta describes lessons her company has learned from the COVID experiences of two districts it's worked with closely. The post How Two School Districts Have Adapted to COVID-Era Realities appeared first on Market Brief.

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STEAM: STEM plus Arts, for a more enriching learning experience

Neo LMS

The ideal of the Renaissance man, the polymath with expertise in a wide range of fields, is long gone. We live in an era of hyperspecialization. And not without reason, as specialization has its undeniable advantages: the more you know about a specific field of knowledge (or subfield), the more chances you have to solve complicated problems. Just think about medical science, its many specializations, and the enormous advances in all the subfields.

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Computational Thinking in Preschool: What, Why, and How

Digital Promise

While computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) have received increasing attention over the past decade, CT integration in early learning settings is an emerging area of focus. Our National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, a collaboration with SRI International , Edfinity , and Curious Media , aimed to identify CT skills aligned with the abilities and interests of preschool children (age 3-5 years).

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How Assistive Technology Is Supporting Students Through the Pandemic

EdTech Magazine

Adjusting to a rigorous curriculum, learning new skills and understanding the nuances of classroom learning are just a few of the many pressures students face. For students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and related language processing difficulties, these struggles are amplified even in the most ideal learning environments. Shifting to remote learning because of the pandemic also posed additional challenges for these students.

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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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Overcoming Engagement Hurdles with Remote Learners

A Principal's Reflections

In order to empower people at some level, you first need to engage them. It is nearly impossible to create a culture of learning if there are elements of boredom, inactivity, and lack of relevance. This is a lesson I learned most recently as a presenter and workshop facilitator. Early on, I used more traditional strategies since this was a new arena for me.

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How to Engage Students in Zoom and Teach Effectively at a Distance

The CoolCatTeacher

Aaron Johnson shares the techniques to help us do it better From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Aaron Johnson Shares His Way to Engage Students Even at a Distance. Many of us are learning to traverse between online and in-person learning environments. Our guest Aaron Johnson, author of Online Teaching with Zoom , shares with us how to better engage students through Zoom, so we can all teach effectively at a distance.

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Blended Learning: Building a Playlist

Catlin Tucker

At the start of a virtual workshop last week, a teacher sent me a note in the chat saying that she wanted to quit. She was frustrated and exhausted. This is a sentiment I’ve repeatedly heard this year as I work with educators who are teaching online, on hybrid schedules, or juggling the demands of the concurrent classroom. I worry about the impact that this moment in education is having on teacher engagement.

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The truth about “Maslow before Bloom”

Neo LMS

Among the many famous sayings that teachers know by heart, “Maslow before Bloom” stands out the most. Unlike other popular educational theories, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (HN) seems to have reached a universal agreement: students are motivated to achieve learning goals when their basic needs, such as hunger and safety, are met. Credit: Simply Psychology.

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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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New Micro-credentials Focus on Timely Topics for Distance Learning

Digital Promise

Micro-credentials allow educators to continue their professional learning on their own schedule, without having to leave their homes. This flexibility makes micro-credentials an ideal form of professional learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research-backed micro-credentials are digital certifications that verify an individual’s competence in a specific skill or set of skills, regardless of where and how they learned them.

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The State of Educational Technology in a Post-Pandemic World

EdTech Magazine

Some may say 2020 is the year of educational technology. When COVID-19 pushed schools to go remote, educators and students became more reliant on technology than ever before. The transition to this learning environment also revealed new insights on the state of technology in education. The “education system is evolving at an unprecedented rate, and making effective edtech investments will be critical in the year ahead,” according to a recent report by Promethean.

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3 Ways to Streamline Expectations While Making Things Easier for Educators

A Principal's Reflections

It seems like every day presents a new challenge or adventure, depending on how you view the current landscape. Educators are stressed, worn-out, and constantly wondering when the pandemic will end. There are no easy answers or solutions that will work for everyone. The fact remains that there was no professional learning to prepare for the reality that everyone is facing nor a plan for something like COVID19.

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The Quick, Easy Way I Show Kids Thankfulness

The CoolCatTeacher

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Thankfulness is a way of life all year long. As a student, however, I think I caught what teachers taught by how they lived their lives. I want to be that person who models everlasting love and joy for every human being I get to know! So, today is such a day! On this day, I like to share with each student in the class why I’m thankful for them.

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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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10 tips to use Google Classroom effectively and efficiently

Ditch That Textbook

Google Classroom can be even more powerful with a few tips and strategies to make it efficient and effective.Google Classroom streamlines the management of student work — announcing, assigning, collecting, grading, giving feedback and returning. It has certainly saved many teachers hours of work. Without a solid workflow and some strategy, grading digital work can be cumbersome. […].

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Print Versus Digital: We Need Both

EdNews Daily

By Cinnamon Scheufele The Covid-19 pandemic and rapid shift to remote learning have brought forward discussions that have been occurring on the periphery or in the background, at least, for several years. Is there still a role for print materials in an online world? Are schools living in the past if we still rely on print? Many districts have embraced online instructional tools and devices as go-to options for improved learning.

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How to Hold Effective Classroom Discussions

Waterford

Classroom discussions can be one of the best ways to boost student engagement. As students discuss their perspectives with each other, they’ll not only solidify their understanding of a topic—they may learn to see it in a new light, too. Teachers, looking for ways to get the most out of class discussions? In this article, we’ll go over why classroom discussions are important and introduce a few techniques to help you supercharge discussions with your students.

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How to Adapt Educational Leadership in the Age of Virtual Learning

EdTech Magazine

The art of leading looks vastly different for school administrators today. They are now tasked with adapting their leadership practices to an environment where digital tools and remote collaboration and communication are the norm. While this is no easy feat, it does provide a great opportunity for school leaders to create a stronger school community and embrace innovative learning and teaching methods.

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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.

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Supporting Mental Health in Schools

A Principal's Reflections

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on students’ mental health, from coping with stress and anxiety about their health or the health of loved ones, isolation from friends, and now, a school year that, in many cases, looks very different than any they’ve experienced in the past. Image credit All of these issues have a very real impact on students’ ability to succeed in school this year.

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New Research on Student Engagement Best Practices

The CoolCatTeacher

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Engagement is such a challenge for schools—now more than ever. Lots of anecdotal evidence is floating around, but right now, we need answers for what produces strong student engagement. We can dig in and find that in some excellent research from the 2020 State of Engagement report.

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20 virtual field trips for your classroom

Ditch That Textbook

Virtual field trips allow us to take our students where the bus can’t. Students can make connections with locations, concepts or people through the power of virtual field trips. What are the best virtual field trips out there? And how can we take the learning even further? Here are 20 field trips and 10 activities […]. The post 20 virtual field trips for your classroom appeared first on Ditch That Textbook.

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Books I read in October 2020

Dangerously Irrelevant

Books I finished reading (or rereading) in October 2020… What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism , Dan Rather & Elliott Kirschner [politics]. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous , Ocean Vuong [literary fiction]. The Guest List , Lucy Foley [mystery]. The Fifth Season , N. K. Jemisin [sci fi]. A Memory Called Empire , Arkady Martine [sci fi].

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Transform Your Classroom with Apple

Speaker: Aaron Webb, Jamf

Apple empowers educators and students by design. Whether using Macs, iPads, or Apple TV, Apple devices encourage creativity and can simplify teaching with apps to make the classroom more flexible, collaborative and personalized for each student. To unleash the full potential of the technology and create the best learning environment, you need to understand the tools and resources available, and develop an education-focused, comprehensive plan, from equipment purchase to deployment, management an