The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 18, 2016
Note: G Suite is the new name for Google Drive From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. If you only used 15 tools in Google Docs and Apps, what would they be? Don’t be overwhelmed with all the choices. I can help. In this free masterclass, I’m going to share my 15 Best G suite tools for Schools and how to use them in the classroom.
A Principal's Reflections
OCTOBER 16, 2016
As I kid I loved play. Countless hours were spent building forts in the woods, creating sand castles at the beach, riding bikes, playing Atari (then Nintendo, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, etc.) or just running around for no apparent reason. Kids love play and it is a central component of their social and emotional development. Important qualities such as patience, compromise, creativity, focus, critical thinking, problem solving, determination, resilience, and resourcefulness, to name a few, are deve
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 19, 2016
A topic I don’t cover enough is 3D printing. It’s relatively new on the education landscape and I have yet to reach a comfort level with it. Thankfully, Ask a Tech Teacher contributor, Lisa Michaels, has lots of knowledge and experience on this topic. Here are her thoughts on the importance of 3D printing in education: The range of possibilities which 3D printing provides is almost limitless.
EdTech Magazine
OCTOBER 17, 2016
By Courtney Pepe, Stephanie Talalai These best practices from a New Jersey school for students with disabilities outline four ways wearable tech can head to the classroom.
Advertisement
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.
The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 19, 2016
Help for teachers curious or skeptical about Twitter From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. The curious teacher opened up Twitter. In the teacher’s lounge this morning, an excited teacher was talking about a new tool she’d found on Twitter that had her students raving. Rather than ask anyone, the curious teacher opened up Twitter (there was less pressure that way.
Ed Tech from the Ground Up
OCTOBER 20, 2016
Guest post By Nikki Navta, Founder and CEO of Zulama. Nikki has been inventing products that combine left-and right-brain thinking for more than two decades. Her work on the product development side of the educational textbook publishing industry gave her the experience and inspiration to launch an ed-tech startup. Through a series of courses developed with faculty at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center, Zulama helps students develop critical programming, art, and design skills.
EdTech Update brings together the best content for education technology professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 18, 2016
For anyone who missed the April announcement, Twitter switched its app category from ‘social media’ (where it consistently ranked in the top ten with Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Pinterest) to ‘news’ (now ranked #1, ahead of apps like CNN, Fox News, and Reddit). It makes sense; tweets and twitter streams have been part of hard-core news reports for years as an effective way for leaders and politicians to reach their constituents and pollsters to gauge wha
The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 17, 2016
Five stories to help us remember some important things about working with children From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Jasmine walked into the room with her feet shuffling. At this instant, she was tired. In addition to cross country, she’d been going to cheer practice and One Act Play. Furthermore, it was also the end of the first grading period and all of her teachers wanted everything YESTERDAY.
Ed Tech from the Ground Up
OCTOBER 18, 2016
The first step for any startup creating an iPad app is to find an app developer. Since our startup “team of two” were subject-matter experts in the field of speech-language pathology, we needed to learn more about the complexities of turning our ideas into apps. One of us was skilled in using SDK and Xcode for basic programming, but we soon realized that the development of our vocabulary apps would require an experienced developer.
Catlin Tucker
OCTOBER 18, 2016
My newest book Blended Learning in Action: A Practical Guide Towards Sustainable Change is available on Amazon! If you want to check out the book and its content, we’ve created a website you can visit to learn more! Feel free to join an ongoing conversation about blended learning using the Twitter hashtag #BLinAction. Congratulations to Louise Celebi who won a free signed copy!
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.
Neo LMS
OCTOBER 19, 2016
In the last week’s post I promised to address exactly 10 BYOD concerns that keep schools reluctant to allowing students to use their mobile devices in the classroom. But I only delivered five, so this post will address the other five. I invite you to check them out again. However, here’s a refresher of the previous post and the five BYOD concerns that are already put on the table: BYOD deepens the digital divide; BYOD will distract students; BYOD encourages students to cheat; Student
The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 21, 2016
The US Presidential Election Can Be Taught: But How? From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. The fifteen thousand pound Statue of Freedom placed upon the US Capitol Building is dressed to defend her country. Oddly enough, she does not wear the red liberty cap, originally worn by freed Roman slaves, which was given to the French and Americans fighting in the Revolutionary Instead, she wears a helmet, ready to defend her land.
Doug Levin
OCTOBER 21, 2016
Earlier today, the U.S. Department of Education released non-regulatory guidance for the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant (SSAEG) program (as authorized by Title IV, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act ). This guidance is important, because it lays out in (debatably) human-readable language how the Department interprets the legislative language and intent of Congress in implementing specific provisions and programs in the nation’s new K-12 education law.
EdNews Daily
OCTOBER 20, 2016
At the turn of the 21st century, public interest in games as learning tools took hold. In the eyes of digital game-based learning proponents, the general public and today’s teachers finally understood something that students and educational researchers knew all along. To put it in the words of an elementary student at the 2004 Serious Games Summit, “Why read about ancient Rome when I can build it?”.
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.
Teacher Reboot Camp
OCTOBER 15, 2016
“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.” – Arthur Conan Doyle. Halloween is a fun holiday and even though not all kids celebrate they do enjoy themes involving monsters, wizards, zombies, and other spooky creatures. As an educator or parent that has a mobile device you can capitalize on this time to help kids learn while integrating these spooky themes.
The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 19, 2016
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. You’re teaching your heart out. All of a sudden, you look in their eyes and wonder if they understand. But in due time, you decide enough of them know the material and it is time for a test. After they take the test, you start grading. In a moment, you realize that while one or two know the material, that you were hopelessly unaware that most of them needed some more teaching.
Ditch That Textbook
OCTOBER 20, 2016
Once, it was so handy to carry one of those disposable film cameras around in our pockets. Once, we were so thankful for our point-and-shoot digital cameras because they made instant photography so much easier. Today, so many of us carry cameras around in our pockets. We pull them out at a moment’s notice. Many [.].
User Generated Education
OCTOBER 21, 2016
Judy Willis in How to Teach Students About the Brain writes: If we want to empower students, we must show them how they can control their own cognitive and emotional health and their own learning. Teaching students how the brain operates is a huge step. Even young students can learn strategies for priming their brains to learn more efficiently. Teaching students the mechanism behind how the brain operates and teaching them approaches they can use to work that mechanism more effectively helps stu
Advertisement
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
Digital Promise
OCTOBER 18, 2016
Teachers, school leaders, parents, and, most importantly, students have been rallying around hands-on, creative, and design-centered learning that we have come to call “maker learning.”. Maker learning is important to diverse stakeholders in education, as it can help to: increase access and interest in STEM learning for diverse communities; develop important 21st century workforce skills like coding, robotics, and digital fabrication; promote social and emotional learning by building empathy and
The CoolCatTeacher
OCTOBER 18, 2016
A Big Thank You to Staples for their Support of Teachers and Students From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Almost one hundred thousand students (98,609 to be exact) were impacted by the $1 million donation that Staples made to DonorsChoose.org this past June. As I blogged this past June, Staples partnered with Katy Perry to help classrooms across the country.
EdNews Daily
OCTOBER 18, 2016
This is a four part mini-series; a must watch for educators who believe in taking charge to reform the system-in their own hands. The Wallace Foundation today released a four-part video series exploring Illinois’ bold actions to revamp the way school principals are prepared. The state required all of its approved programs to reapply for accreditation under higher standards, based on research about effective principal preparation.
EdTech4Beginners
OCTOBER 17, 2016
In English, my class have been studying discursive writing. The topic we have focused on has been zoos and whether they should be banned. During the unit of work, I made a display with the aim of it being interactive. I thought of many ways to do this, but decided on using augment reality (AR). Augmented reality is when an object or image is scanned with a mobile device and an overlay appears on top, giving more information in the form of another image, text or a video.
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.
The Web20Classroom
OCTOBER 17, 2016
The work I do allows me to travel all across the US and the globe talking to various groups of people about all aspects of education. One of my favorite things to talk about is leadership. For example, I will work with groups of Principals or Superintendents to talk about what technology leadership looks like or how they can grow their leadership through the use of technology tools.
Ditch That Textbook
OCTOBER 17, 2016
Trainers, bloggers and education pundits tend to use lots of catch phrases and buzz words to talk about the power of technology in education. You’ll hear things like this: Technology is a game changer. Technology can do so much for education. The Internet is full of resources we can use. Technology is the future of [.].
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 21, 2016
In these 169 tech-centric situations, you get an overview of pedagogy—the tech topics most important to your teaching—as well as practical strategies to address most classroom tech situations, how to scaffold these to learning, and where they provide the subtext to so many daily tech-infused education. Today’s tip: #160–14 Assessment Strategies.
EdTech4Beginners
OCTOBER 16, 2016
Drawing How To Draw is a brilliant website which features a huge number of drawing tutorials and lesson ideas. In my school, we have 30 minutes per week, in which the students get out their sketchbooks and draw something. This works well, as it develops both skills and creativity. The website is great to use in these lessons and I really like the way each tutorial is broken into steps which are visual and clear: Here are some examples of my students’ work: Why not combine the drawings an
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.
Education Elements
OCTOBER 18, 2016
One year ago, my colleague Keara Duggan introduced the concept of a “bingo board” for personalized learning , formally known as our Personalized Learning Implementation Framework. This framework outlines the 25 areas we think are essential for a district to effectively launch, support, sustain, and grow personalized learning. What a difference it made in our work!
Digital Promise
OCTOBER 15, 2016
Embedding new words into classroom conversations and assignments pegged to topics teens care about. This article originally appeared on Usable Knowledge from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Research shows that many adolescents in the United States struggle with reading, and one key reason is their limited vocabularies. Limited vocabulary, low reading ability, and low investment of time in reading often go hand in hand, since students usually learn more sophisticated words through readi
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 17, 2016
If you are using the SL K-5 Technology Curriculum , you’ll love this free service. Every Sunday, Ask a Tech Teacher will offer online, virtual Office Hours to answers questions about the curriculum. Any questions you have about how to unpack lessons, teach a skill, or tie into class inquiry can be asked at this weekly real-time Google Hangout: Sundays, 2pm PDT.
EdTech4Beginners
OCTOBER 19, 2016
My colleague recently shared with me how he used social media, in an innovative way, in the classroom. The lesson was secondary chemistry and the students were challenged to make infographics using the website Piktochart ( click here for my tutorial ). To motivate the students, they were told that their finished products would be shared on social media and the winner would be the one with the most hits / likes / shares.
This whitepaper explores integrating the PowerTeaching pedagogical approach within a HyFlex (Hybrid Flexible) educational model, focusing on employing cooperative learning strategies and efficient classroom management techniques.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
0 
Let's personalize your content