User Generated Education

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Recently I facilitated a simple machines leading into Rube Goldberg machines lesson with my gifted elementary students. As I’ve discussed in past blog posts, I use several criteria to guide my lesson design: Instructional challenges are hands-on and naturally engaging for learners. There is a game-like atmosphere. There are elements of play, leveling up, and a sense of mastery or achievement during the instructional activities.

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The Journal

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

In this week’s blogpost, we examine a new proclamation from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology: in addition to everything else educators already do, educators should now carry out rapid-cycles of scientifically-valid, classroom-based research.Piling more and more onto the backs of K-12 educators can’t be a strategy for effectively moving K-12 public education into the digital age

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Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

I’ve been in love with Shakespeare since college. However, the very thing I love about Shakespeare’s plays–the language–is the exact thing that alienates so many students. The language is foreign and the humor goes over their heads. I’ve tried a variety of techniques to hook my students from having them complete soundtrack projects for the plays to performing the scenes in class.

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Ditch That Textbook

DECEMBER 1, 2016

As teachers, we’re so used to assigning homework. Students are used to doing it. It’s what we’ve come to expect as the norm. Why do we do it? We hope that kids will improve. We hope they’ll be smarter, or more resilient, or develop positive skills that will prepare them for the future. But does it [.]. Homework critical thinking education reform education research homework passion-based learning problem solving

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The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Research Spotlight with Dr. Matthew Kraft From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. When a teacher first starts teaching, we know that their learning improves dramatically. Learning to be a good teacher will happen in just about any school during those first few years. But, over time there are schools where teachers keep learning. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in most schools.

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Digital Promise

DECEMBER 1, 2016

Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) has prioritized a culture of technology-enriched student learning through its Students and Teachers Advancing Tomorrow Initiative (S.T.A.T.). The central mission of S.T.A.T. is to transform BCPS into a student-centered, personalized learning environment. To affect this change district-wide, BCPS needed to shift professional learning for educators to a more competency-based, autonomous model.

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Ed Tech from the Ground Up

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

For all its controversy, the SAT better correlates more strongly with high school students' declining reading abilities than does GPA. The post A Positive Role for Ed-Tech Products in the Murky World of SAT Scores appeared first on Market Brief. The Startup Blog college Educational Technology/Ed-Tech literacy SAT SmartyReader

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The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Digital Citizenship Spotlight From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Most students use smartphones with unfiltered access to the Internet. Even worse, many students have no filter when they consider what they should share. Schools and parents need to get smart about how they talk to kids about smartphones. Listen to this show on: BAM Radio Network | iTunes .

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Ask a Tech Teacher

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Two great professional development presentations from Nepris : View this email in your browser. Why should kids have all the fun? This year, we’re offering two awesome industry chats meant exclusively for teachers. SE3D Corporation CEO Mayasari Lim helps you think about how you could integrate 3D printing into your science curriculum, and Amjad Masad of Repl.it introduces a simple, free platform that will save you time and help your students develop their coding skills. .

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Speaker: Dan Streeter, Vice President of Learning Strategy & Development at Blue Sky eLearn

In this 45-minute webinar, we’ll share real-world accessibility solutions and hidden tools in the applications you use every day such as Zoom, Microsoft Suite, Adobe Acrobat (PDF), Articulate Storyline 360, and Articulate Rise 360. This webinar will help you evaluate the accessibility of your current learning efforts and learn about the tools needed to ensure your eLearning is in alignment with the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (proposed WCAG 2.2).

Digital Promise

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

The fall semester is quickly coming to a close. Forty-six Verizon Innovative Learning schools have successfully rolled out tablets equipped with 4G data plans, providing every student and teacher with always-available access to powerful tools and resources, both in the classroom and at home. Now what? Teachers have begun adapting their lessons to allow for more at-home independent work now that they are assured that each student has equal access.

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EdTech4Beginners

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Technology certainly has pros and cons. However, assistive technology (technology designed to support people with special educational needs and disabilities – SEND) has had many positive impacts which have been life-changing for some. Below I have listed 5 pieces of assistive technology which can help children with SEND: YouTube – if you have a child with a hearing impairment, most YouTube videos now have captions and subtitles. Just click on the button below when viewing a clip.

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The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Are You a Teacher Kids Can Tell? From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. When bad things happen – do kids have someone they trust? Are you that someone? It breaks my heart when today’s brave teenager Sarah Beeghley speaks out about her bouts with bullying. Now a high school senior, Sarah talks about the heartbreaking journey she experienced.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

For decades, teachers have used videos in the classroom to share information. They communicate a message with audio, visual, motion, color, and spatial details, making videos much more effective than traditional approaches like reading from a text, lecturing, or showing a slideshow.

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EdNews Daily

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Article Written By: Hossein Rahnama. The conversation regarding higher education has never been more heated. Costs for students and parents continue to rise, while downturns in the economy threaten many smaller colleges’ financial viability, prompting questions about their continued relevance and how they can best thrive in the 21st century. At the same time, a number of factors suggest that perhaps college is not as tied to success as society has traditionally assumed.

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EdTech4Beginners

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

I recently needed a short, engaging prompt to inspire my students to write. The lesson focused on ‘show not tell’ when describing feelings – i.e. instead of telling the reader how they felt “I was scared” , they show how the characters are feeling “my hands began to tremble and a cold pain shot up my spine” I thought, why not use virtual reality and see what effect it had? Is it difficult to use VR in the classroom? The answer is no.

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The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Research Spotlight From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Misbehavior happens in the classroom. From time to time, it happens to every teacher or principal. You can get angry, or you can make progress. With this in mind, Dr. Reggie Melrose explains a reason for some of the most difficult behavior. According to the National Center for Health Statistics , emotional dysregulation occurs in around 5% of students in the United States.

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Ask a Tech Teacher

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

For years, TechSmith’s ScreenChomp app has been my go-to resource for whiteboard drawings, screencasts, and for an uncluttered online art platform for students using iPads. ScreenChomp did a masterful job of making everything needed for each of these activities intuitive even for young users. For older students, ScreenChomp made it easy to provide personalized feedback by writing or recording comments directly onto their digital work and then sharing it back to them.

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Speaker: Aaron Webb, Jamf

In our webinar, we’ll explore the full range of Jamf education products to protect students, including quick and easy tools for IT admins, powerful apps for teachers to ensure student safety anywhere, and parental engagement tools.

Digital Promise

DECEMBER 1, 2016

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Friendship is often described as a major outcome of early childhood inclusive classrooms that support all children, irrespective of their abilities. Friendships provide children with joy, laughter and comfort. They may also prevent later bullying and support smoother transitions into kindergarten for children with a range of disabilities.

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Neo LMS

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

2016 so far has been a very challenging year, yet also very rewarding. We should all be thankful for all the good things that happened, and hopeful that the next year we’ll witness even more of them. One very good thing of 2016 was that the ed tech world never stopped evolving, not even for a second. Educators around the world either discovered or got better at using technology in their instruction, for both K-12 and higher ed students.

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The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Spotlight on Practical Everyday Teaching Problems From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. As a teacher, there are times many of us will substitute for our peers. Substitutes are fantastic professionals who do a tremendous service for schools. If you have some great substitute teachers, treat them well. But there are things you can do to help good substitute teachers be even better. Listen to this show on: BAM Radio Network | iTunes .

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Ask a Tech Teacher

DECEMBER 1, 2016

Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching. December 1st-December 15th (ten days only): K-8 Technology Curriculum 6th Edition. get 10% off with coupon code TECHCURRICULUM6THED. get 25% off if you’re upgrading from the 4th or 5th edition (contact zeke dot rowe at structuredlearn.net for coupon code). What’s included in lessons: an Essential Question. a Big Idea. suggested assessments.

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Dangerously Irrelevant

DECEMBER 2, 2016

Seth Godin and Tom Peters on blogging. Yeah, this is pretty much why I blog (and maybe why you should too)… No related posts. Blogging blogging

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Education Elements

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

As a child growing up, my family didn’t take the traditional summer vacations. Instead, we had a boat named “Sadie”, which we sailed to different locations on Lake Ontario. During these sailing adventures, we experienced many unforgettable moments. I remember one such occasion during a cross-lake trip to Canada. We were roughly halfway across the lake. There had been no sight of land in any direction for hours, and it would be a few more hours before we would see land again.

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Ed Tech from the Ground Up

DECEMBER 1, 2016

Having a group of experienced company leaders to share experiences with can help you run a healthy, successful business. The post CEO Support Groups Provide Perspective, Advice, Lessons appeared first on Market Brief. The Startup Blog business CEO Lean Startup Listenwise startup

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The CoolCatTeacher

DECEMBER 1, 2016

Practical Advice from Research to Classroom From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Too many times the research is completely disconnected from the classroom. But in today’s show, we talk about some very practical issues for teachers. First of all, we talk about the characteristics that make effective formative assessment. This includes some important tips for adjusting your instruction based upon formative assessment.

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Speaker: Aaron Webb, Jamf

In our webinar, How to Best Use Managed Apple IDs at Your School, hear the real-world experience of Steven Palomo, IT Director at Beverly Public Schools, regarding how he successfully managed his entire tech stack.

TeachThought - Learn better.

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Author information. Terry Heick. Director at TeachThought. Founder & Director of TeachThought, humanist, technologist, futurist, failed philosopher, macro thinker extraordinaire. Twitter | Facebook | Google+ |. The post How Technology Should Have Already Changed Your Teaching appeared first on TeachThought. Teaching Technology Terry Heick Elementary School General Veteran Teacher

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A Principal's Reflections

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

There are many lessons we can learn from the business world and adapt in ways that align with education. Take the concept of branding. Since the advent of media organizations across the globe have worked tirelessly to build a positive brand presence that resonates with potential consumers. In short it represents a promise that is woven into a combination of words, design, colors, music, video, logo, service, etc.

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Dangerously Irrelevant

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Folks say that when you haven’t been blogging for a while, you shouldn’t explain or apologize, you should just get back at it. So I’ll do just that, beginning tomorrow. I could make lots of excuses related to our move from Iowa to Colorado: a new home, a new community, new schools, a new job, and a new educational policy environment. But the bottom line is that I’ve dropped the ball.

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