Catlin Tucker
JULY 20, 2015
Whenever I’m asked the question, “How do we fix education?” I find myself emphasizing the importance of creating smaller learning communities within the context of the larger classroom. I passionately believe the most effective learning communities are those that allow teachers to spend more time working individually or in small groups with their students to customize and personalize instruction.
Ed Tech from the Ground Up
JULY 21, 2015
Many initiatives geared toward college and career readiness focus on a student's early years and high school, but middle school may be the best time to intervene. Click the headline to read the full post. Questions? Email websupport@epe.org.
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Teacher Reboot Camp
JULY 23, 2015
Recently added to the Survival Tips for Teachers . “The number one benefit of educational technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative … productive … learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.” – Steve Ballmer. Our students’ digital behavior influences our learning, language, rituals, values, routines, customs, and communication.
A Principal's Reflections
JULY 19, 2015
" Unless you get instructional design right, technology can only increase the speed and certainty of failure " - William Horton As budgets expand or money becomes available at the end of a school year, the knee jerk reaction of many schools is to go all in and spend it as quickly as possible. With advances in affordable technology, such as the ultra-cheap Chromebook, it has been tough for schools to resist spending these funds on devices.
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The CoolCatTeacher
JULY 22, 2015
Staples Back to School Council Students should be involved in their education. They can also change their world. I’m excited about filling my son’s locker with items from Staples because they are PRACTICAL. (The Designed by Students locker shelf below is so unique, I was like — why didn’t some adult think of that?). Staples worked with Ron Clark’s students (pictured above) and others around the country during this past school year.
EdTech Magazine
JULY 20, 2015
By D. Frank Smith The car company's 'gigafactory' will employ thousands, but Reno might not be up to the STEM challenge before investment and reforms.
EdTech Update brings together the best content for education technology professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 22, 2015
Classrooms are infused with technology. You rarely see a lesson that doesn’t ask for online this or digital that. Students are expected to collaborate and share online as young as kindergarten when they read digital books or draw pictures using iPad apps. By middle school, they work in online groups through forums, wikis, and Google Apps. Accomplishing this so it serves educational goals isn’t as much about knowing how to use the tools as constructing knowledge in an organic, scalabl
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 21, 2015
Brilliant or Insane If you are a new teacher, these four lessons just might impact your teaching career more than anything you ever learned in college or in your pre-service days. If you are a veteran teacher or administrator, you owe it to your new teacher colleagues to share this with them and challenge them to seriously consider these lessons, […] The post 4 Crucial Lessons New Teachers Never Learned appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
EdTech Magazine
JULY 22, 2015
By D. Frank Smith Looking back at last year's NMC list of tech trends in K–12, there were several surprising additions and removals.
Dangerously Irrelevant
JULY 21, 2015
Four big questions to ask about a lesson, unit, or activity… Deeper learning. Did it allow students to go beyond factual recall and procedural regurgitation and be creative, collaborative, critical thinkers and problem-solvers? Did it really? [ If not, why not? Our graduates need to be deeper learners and doers so that they can add value beyond what search engines, Siri, and YouTube already can do. ].
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.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 24, 2015
Natural disasters is a related discussion to any number of topics–geography, ecology, Earth Day, even problem solving. Here are 16 websites that bring the power of these natural forces to students: Avalanches. Earthquake simulations. Earthquakes. Earthquakes for Kids. Earthquakes–USGS. Hurricanes. Natural disaster videos. Natural disasters—National Geographic.
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 20, 2015
Brilliant or Insane In a recent Twitter conversation about how useless traditional homework is, someone wondered how parents react to a no-homework policy. This is one of the many questions parents ask progressive teachers that can be confounding and cause stress for educators. Parents are key players in education. They have many valid concerns about what is happening […] The post 8 Questions Parents Ask Progressive Teachers appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
EdTech Magazine
JULY 24, 2015
By D. Frank Smith STEM is taking off in big ways thanks to new makerspaces like Fab Lab DC.
Battelle for Kids
JULY 20, 2015
July 21, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 8, Number 11. Driving Question: What happens if the Acquisition Paradigm Shifts? Between this century and the last, there has arisen a dichotomous way of thinking about learning: acquisition versusu participation. Acquisition-based learning assumes that knowledge is objective and external, and can be transferred to learners, who are perceived as receivers of knowledge.
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.
Dangerously Irrelevant
JULY 24, 2015
Matt Caduff said (about a summer maker camp): When all I bring home is a piece of paper and I picked B instead of C, I don’t have a lot to talk about with my parents and because I picked C and the answer was B I don’t want to talk about it. If I’m bringing home something I made and it’s right because I made it – it was my plan – or I know how to fix it, I’ve got a lot to do at home. … I’ve watched kids be really successful and they’ve been successful, I’m pretty sure, in ways t
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 22, 2015
Brilliant or Insane When it comes to facilitating lasting change, educators are often told to start small and go slow. We adjust better to incremental shifts, after all. Starting small and going slow allows the learning to sink deeper beneath the surface, where we hope it will take up permanent residence. Here’s the problem with starting small and […] The post The Problem with Starting Small and Going Slow appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 20, 2015
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! Q: I got an email that looks legitimate, but I’m not sure. How do I check? A: You’re right to take a step back. ‘Phishing’ is an attempt to steal your personal information by posing as a trusted source (a friend, your bank–like that).
Educational Technology Guy
JULY 20, 2015
Astute Hoot, a site, run by educators, that has reading and math strategy animals and accompanying books, hands-on tools, lessons, and graphic organizers, has a free download that has 10 template and sample files for teachers to help them get the new school year started a little easier. The FREE Top 10 Tools for Back to School includes the following sample files: 1.
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Battelle for Kids
JULY 22, 2015
July 23, 2015, Volume 2, Issue 8, Number 12. Driving Question: What If We Treated Teacher Engagement Like Student Engagement? We recently read the findings from Gallup's recent poll on teacher engagement. Surprisingly, findings show that only 30% of the 6,711 K-12 teachers surveyed report being "engaged. " This statistic, alarmingly, is consistent with a similar study conducted by Gallup conducted that found that 70% of American workers are not engaged at work.
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 24, 2015
Brilliant or Insane Summer is interview season for educators. New positions open as teachers shift grade levels or retire and new graduates enter the field eager to find the first classroom that they will call their own. In recent years, I’ve become acquainted with several districts that approach the process in smart and progressive ways, using a variety […] The post 10 Great Questions Teachers Ask During Job Interviews appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
Ask a Tech Teacher
JULY 21, 2015
MTI 562 (the Tech-infused Teacher ) and MTI 563 (the Differentiated Teacher ) just ended. More than a dozen of us–teachers, library media specialists, tech integrationists, lab teachers–gathered virtually for five weeks to experiment with some of the hottest tech tools available for the classroom–Google Apps, differentiation options, digital storytelling, visual learning, Twitter, blogs, backchannels, digital citizenship, assessment, and more.
Educational Technology Guy
JULY 20, 2015
The Mozilla Foundation is a global nonprofit that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet. Their mission is to improve universal web literacy , or the ability to read, write and participate on the Web. This summer, Mozilla is rolling out new, free tools and curriculum to help learners of all ages achieve web literacy. Webmaker Beta is a free, open source Android app that allows smartphone users of any skill level to create original content online.
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.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
JULY 19, 2015
July, 2015 As is the case with Book Cover Creator we reviewed in a previous post, Comic Creator is another useful tool from ReadWriteThink that students can use to easily design their own comic.read more.
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 18, 2015
Brilliant or Insane We must remember to teach our students and children about Nelson Mandela. In my 20 years as a classroom teacher, the only time Mandela was mentioned in my middle school language arts class was during Black History month and, occasionally, when a student chose Mandela as a topic of study during biographical research. As I […] The post We Must Teach Our Kids About Nelson Mandela appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
TeacherCast
JULY 19, 2015
Jeff sits down with the creators of a great musical app called iCanConduct to learn how it can be used, not only in elementary music classes, but also in upper advanced music classes to teach pulse, rhythm, and beat patterns to your inspiring musicians. . About Beans In My Ears. BeansInMyEars was founded by a team of software developers, teachers, professional musicians, and parents with over 35 years of combined experience.
Educational Technology Guy
JULY 20, 2015
The Teachers Guild is a really interesting new initiative with the goal to "Bring together teachers, just like you, to collaborate and solve 30 education challenges in three years. Building on each others’ ideas, we will amaze our students, schools and the greater system with a flood of new and better solutions designed by and for teachers." It is an ambitious, worthy goal that has some great potential.
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.
Baker's B.Y.O.D.
JULY 23, 2015
My edubuddies Sam Patterson and Cheryl Morris were featured in an Edutopia article, "6 Reasons Why Puppets Will Change Your Classroom Forever." I've known about Sam and Cheryl's puppet proclivity for years and have listened attentively as they shared their experiences with puppets in the classroom. I recognize the sound pedagogy and rationale for using puppets with elementary and middle school students.
Brilliant or Insane
JULY 18, 2015
Brilliant or Insane In Part I, I challenged Brilliant or Insane readers to distinguish entertainment from engagement and standardization from alignment. This was my attempt to establish clarity about two forces that have a significant influence on learning and teaching. I also suggested that talented teachers are able to leverage each force in service to the other and that […] The post Leveraging Alignment in Service to Engagement: Part II appeared first on Brilliant or Insane.
TeacherCast
JULY 19, 2015
Show Notes. In todays episode, we explore and examine the inner workings of podcasting cohosts. How should you set up your podcast when there are more than one voice? What types of applications are available when working in a multi author environment? What are some tips and tricks used to make sure everyone is contributing to your podcast? We explore all this and more in todays episode of Educational Podcasting today.
techieMusings
JULY 24, 2015
I had the opportunity to spend the week out at UCSB for a Learning and the Brain conference presented by Dr. Judy Willis entitled “Neuroscience and Classroom Engagement: Strategies for Maximizing Students’ Attention, Focus and Potential.” The Program. Schedule. Below you will find links to my full storified notes for each of the 5 (half day) sessions.
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.
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