A Principal's Reflections

JANUARY 23, 2013

'The following is a guest post by Sherry Spier, a K-12 Media Specialist Coordinator in the Cinnaminson School District (NJ). In this post Sherry reflects on here recent visit to New Milford High School, which took place on January 11, 2013. For the last year, myself and four other members of the Cinnaminson School District staff worked relentlessly to start a pilot Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) program at Cinnaminson High School.

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BYOD Meeting Policies Technology 256

The Web20Classroom

JANUARY 21, 2013

'When I was teaching science one of the best lessons I learned was about formative assessment. In my first year of teaching I taught the way I was told to teach. Deliver content to my students, assess at the end, remediate if necessary. With that cycle, I always had kids who were behind, who never seemed like they could catch up. I was talking with a teacher friend the summer after my first year and she suggested something simple.

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Assessment Poll Everywhere BYOD Analysis 279

Educational Technology Guy

JANUARY 24, 2013

'Boundless is a service that provides free, open source, digital textbooks. There are 18 open textbooks with Creative Commons licensed content, for college subjects including accounting, biology, economics and more. Boundless provides a free alternative to expensive textbooks and they can also be used as supplemental materials for students. The content is changed and additions made, in direct contrast to printed textbooks that are usually outdated before they are printed.

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Resources Twitter Study Google 207

Baker's B.Y.O.D.

JANUARY 20, 2013

'While I use Twitter consistently for informal professional development and connecting with other educators, the opportunities for making connections on Edmodo are greatly increased. Unlike Twitter where one has to find and follow others (I follow 982, but only about 550 follow me), the communities on Edmodo provide areas for thousands of educators to congregate and post.

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Edmodo Twitter Groups Study 97

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The Innovative Educator

JANUARY 23, 2013

'David Karp began learning HTML at 11 and soon after was designing websites for local businesses. Unlike Nick Perez who spent years being drugged and tortured in a school that didn’t understand his particular passion, Karp attended high school for one year before dropping out. This allowed him to focus on doing projects that enabled him to pursue his passions.

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Dropout Education Learning 99

The 21st Century Principal

JANUARY 21, 2013

'A recent Gallup survey delivered what I would consider much worse news than that our students aren''t first place on the latest international assessments. That news simply stated was: "The longer our students stay in school, the less engaged they become." In a word, we are boring our students into oblivion. This issue is not something a new set of standards will fix, nor will a "new generation of assessments fix.

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Student Engagement Survey Education Assessment 91

EdTechSandyK

JANUARY 23, 2013

'Yesterday I learned from a TCEA Tweet that Google has launched an app search feature. What a cool tool for those of us working in mobile learning environments - whether they be individual teacher devices, pods of classroom devices, 1:1, or BYOD - to use to explore app possibilities without having to log into an app store first! I played with app search a little and made a quick tutorial video to show you how to access it and an idea I had for combining it with Google''s advanced search feature.

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Mobility Google Adobe BYOD 86

The Innovative Educator

JANUARY 22, 2013

'Innovative educators know that looking to Finland as the golden standard for education because of their test scores makes little sense for a number of reasons. This includes the fact that if we adjust for poverty and speakers of other languages in our nation, their results are no more remarkable than ours. Internationally, these tests are no more than a measure of poverty and ability to speak the national language in any given country.

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System Examples Education Learning 91

SpeechTechie

JANUARY 23, 2013

'The iOS Mail app is one that some avoid- perhaps not knowing how to use it, having privacy concerns or not seeing the reason why it is useful. I do find it an essential app for the purpose of file transfer, and often recommend that people at least add one account to Mail, even if its an account you create just for file transfer to and from your iPad.

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iPad Laptops Google Accessibility 61

Educational Technology Guy

JANUARY 22, 2013

'Google is once again hosting a Doodle 4 Google contest for K-12 students in the US. Students create a doodle of the Google logo based on this years theme: "My Best Day Ever." would be what? Think outside the box and use some imagination. The winner will see their Doodle on the Google homepage for a day, get a $30,000 college scholarship and get a $50,000 technology grant for their school.

Google 150

Google Training Twitter Technology 150

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.

Training

Connecting 2 the World

JANUARY 23, 2013

I know I haven't blogged for a while. Partly it is because I have been busy participating in commencement (it's official, I'm a Dr. and I have a picture to show for it), partly its family responsibilities (I AM in the sandwich generation), but mostly its because I'm working on some very interesting projects. The first is a blog I have started with my sister, a 50 something who I convinced should learn more about social media.

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Flipped Classroom Classroom Social Media iPad 55

The Innovative Educator

JANUARY 25, 2013

'Dayna Martin is a mother of four who is raising her children without school, textbooks, standards, or a curriculum. Instead her children''s passions, talents, and interests drive their learning. Check out Dayna''s interview below on the Jeff Probst Show as she explains why she''s unschooling her kids, and what her role is in their development and education.

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Groups Learning Education 83

SpeechTechie

JANUARY 21, 2013

'Over the years, I don''t know how many years exactly, I have discovered that I have a bit of a temporal concept problem. When communicating with others about dates and times, I constantly make mistakes. Wrong date, wrong time, wrong amount of time. When making plane or hotel accommodations, I have to sloooooow wayyyyyy dowwwwwn to ensure that I have the right dates, so I don''t arrive someplace and have no reservation until the following day.

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Google iPhone iPad Meeting 61

The Learning Revolution Has Begun

JANUARY 24, 2013

'This is an informal, web-based version of the "Big Ideas" talk I gave at the 2013 New Media Consortium "Future of Education" conference. The idea of looking at schooling as an institution has been influenced by many, but most profoundly by Ivan Illich. Seeing the broader two education reform movements both as being "institutional" I have explored many times in this blog, but most recently here.

Education 60

Education Conference 60

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.

Technology

mauilibrarian2 in Olinda

JANUARY 25, 2013

'Love this infographic, sent to me by Allison of Education News ! The data comes from an infographic in the Digital Reader, and that infographic''s data comes from Student Monitor. I recommend our students always check the sources of an infographic to determine its authority before they look at it. I pronounce this one a keeper. The chart is geared for college students and adults, especially the price comparison reference to Grey Goose.

Comparison 53

Comparison Data Education 53

The Innovative Educator

JANUARY 24, 2013

'Looks like more and more cities are following the lead of NYC and embracing the use of social media in schools. Most recently the Chicago Public Schools has put together toolkit of resources —video, documents, and links to other sites—for principals and staff who want to use social media to connect with their school communities. The toolkit , has useful resources that will be helpful regardless of what city or town you work in.

Social Media 76

Social Media Facebook Twitter Video 76

Learning with 'e's

JANUARY 19, 2013

There's a very useful and refreshing article by Tom Barrett in this week's TES Magazine entitled 'Education needs to plug into Web 2.0'. Never before have I read an article that I agree with so completely. Those of us who are immersed in a world where the use of social media is so sustained, embedded and familiar, forget that many schools still ban the use of Web 2.0 type tools in their classrooms.

Social Media 57

Social Media Guidelines Policies Tools 57

The Learning Revolution Has Begun

JANUARY 23, 2013

'Join me and Gina Bianchini, founder of Mightybell, for a live and interactive Webinar Thursday afternoon/evening (US Time). Gina will both share the new improvements to Mightybell and also ask for your feedback and suggestions as educators and learners. I consult with Mightybell on their education outreach, and Gina has a personal commitment to having the broader education community benefit from her social software projects (many of you will recognize Gina as the co-founder of Ning ).

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Blackboard Software Video Groups 47

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Comfortably 2.0

JANUARY 23, 2013

'I was having a conversation with one of our wonderful first grade teachers named Charis High a couple of weeks ago. During our conversation, Mrs. High mentioned that her students would be studying Ocean habitats soon and that it would "cool" to Skype with someone that lived near an ocean. If I had had that conversation five years ago, I wouldn''t have been able to help at all.

Study 40

Study 40

The Innovative Educator

JANUARY 19, 2013

'Here’s the roundup of what''s been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see the top weekly posts along with the number of page views. I hope there''s something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired, share it with others and/or leave a comment. Articles Page views Are CCSS sending children over an education cliff.

Education 66

Education 66

Learning with 'e's

JANUARY 21, 2013

Blogs are not simply about text. They also encompass hyperlinks, sounds, videos, and images. Blogging is also about telling your story. Today I was involved in teaching a session for a BA group on the use of digital photography and communication. Specifically, the session focused on images as narrative, and all of the group managed to create some impressive and in some cases stunning image sequences.

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Secondary Groups Examples Video 48