Assigning Digital Work. From conducting simple vocabulary practice online to leveraging multiple platforms for complex demonstrations of learning, digital tools can be used for 21st century work in many ways in our classrooms. I propose asking the following six questions when considering whether digital work is suitable for a classroom task: What is the learning objective? When making decisions about whether to include digital tools in a lesson, the learning objective needs to always remain the focus.
As Perry Marshall (2013) once put it, "No one who ever bought a drill wanted a drill, they wanted a hole. " The task at hand must meet the parameters of the learning objective while also offering students a choice of ways in which to demonstrate their learning. Is the task worthy of a digital upgrade? Or is this just a worksheet on an iPad? Here's an example of effectively using technology in class after careful consideration of the above six questions. What is the learning objective? From Novelty to Sophistication.
10 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have. This past January I wrote "10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have" and I have decided to modify it for the "10 Tech Skills Every Educator Should Have". Here's my list. Overall, educators need to understand some basics about technology and that it is not a be-all-end-all solution to everything in a classroom. Technology can help teachers differentiate and provide new experiences for their students. Technology can also help students better understand a concept and provide extra help for them. Educators need to start with good pedagogy and lesson objectives and activities and then look for technology that can enhance those lessons, improve teaching and learning, and help students learn. The How's, Why's and Value of Educational Technology 1. UPDATED thanks to a great comment below.2. 3. 4. 5.
UPDATED thanks to a great comment below.6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Bonus: 11. What do you think are the top tech skills educators need to know? Related: My Favorite Resources for Students and Educators. Scope-pub-using-technology-report.pdf.
Pad let. Back channels. For a Better Flip, Try MOOCs -- Campus Technology. Flipped Classroom For a Better Flip, Try MOOCs Innovative faculty are running MOOCs and flipped-format on-campus courses on the same schedule and having the two groups interact online — with interesting results. What happens when you combine a MOOC and a flipped course? More interactivity, more consistency and some interesting avenues of student interaction, according to Bonnie Ferri, professor and associate chair for undergraduate affairs in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Ferri teaches a course called Circuits and Electronics, with 450 students per term split into several sections. A year and a half ago, she developed two MOOCs (delivered through Coursera) in conjunction with the class. "We have them do the same homework and we synchronize them with an online discussion platform called Piazza," added Ferri. Ferri was pleasantly surprised to find that the MOOC students were helping the on-campus students. Connecting Online. Dl-camarata-editable-rubric. Bringing Your Own Device – In Education.
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) philosophy and regime is becoming a serious consideration for many schools. As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is costly and obsolescence determines the practical life cycle and usefulness of computer and digital equipment, schools are coming to terms with cost effective and equitable provision. Budgeting and maintaining vast numbers of computers, tablets and other hand held computing devices have witnessed a change in how schools provide access to students and staff. Wireless networks have expanded exponentially to accommodate increasing numbers of smaller hand held and portable computing devices. Capacity, bandwidth and signal strength are the major considerations as well as provision for future upgrades. Building the infrastructure involves careful planning using a combination of fibre optic and CAT5 or CAT6 cabling to each area of the school.
Student Access BYOD can mean and represent different issues. Key Factors Specifications Equity Note. The Epic BYOD Toolchest (51 Tools You Can Use Now) PowerSchool Learning: (Previously Haiku Learning.) This is a full learning management system (LMS) that I’m trying to get our school to adopt.
It’s multiplatform and robust, which makes it a great fit for our BYOD environment. It also works on top of Google Classroom, so I have all those features too, plus my grade book. Google Classroom: Teachers are moving in droves to Google Classroom. While it doesn’t have all the features of a full-scale LMS, teachers are giving students assignments and so much more with this awesome tool. Sophia: A favorite of my friend Todd Nesloney, this is a basic tool to share a lesson or two. I started with this tool before going to PowerSchool Learning. There are many other content-sharing platforms, like Moodle, Canvas, and CourseSites. Screencasting and Capturing What Happens in Class If you’re going to share and interact with your students in the electronic and physical spaces (as you should), you must learn how to screencast.
Cloud Syncing Expression. Education Technology Tools for Teachers. Massive Open Online Courses make it possible for students of all ages to access high-quality coursework at no cost. Colleges and universities across the country publish video lectures, podcasts, reading lists, practice exams and more for anyone who wants to learn about a particular subject and/or experience what it’s like to take a college class. Over the last decade, organizations such as Coursera and Khan Academy have taken MOOCs one step further by creating or aggregating thousands of free courses in areas ranging from early American history and civics to trigonometry and multivariable calculus. Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created by educator Salman Khan in 2006. Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School wanted to provide a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. Students and teachers have access to a personalized learning dashboard which allows them to connect to thousands of educational resources.
Algebra (University of California, Irvine)
Animation. Digital citizenship. Poll Everywhere. 50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About. Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we’ve compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher’s tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom.
Social Learning These tools use the power of social media to help students learn and teachers connect. Learning Lesson Planning and Tools Useful Tools. Ten Tips for Becoming a Connected Educator. Image credit: iStockphoto (Updated 10/2013) At this year's ASCD conference one of the main themes that kept surfacing was the need for more "connected educators. " At this conference, there were definitely some great "firsts. " The general session kicked off with a keynote from Freeman A. Hrabowski III, who tweeted his first tweet; an impromptu #edcampRogue sprouted up from in-attendance edcampers; and author and poet Maya Angelou was even tweeting at age 85! We all know that education budgets are getting cut more and more, and that meaningful professional development opportunities have unfortunately become a bit of an oxymoron in education. Not only can being a "connected educator" help change that, but it can also provide you with ongoing inspiration and support.
So with all of that said, I'd like to provide you with these ten tips on how you can get connected -- starting tomorrow. 1. I've been in so many meetings with educators who talk about the power of making mistakes. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What We Have and Haven’t Learned. I’ve been asked to give a talk that explores some of the top teaching-learning lessons learned in the past 15 years.
It’s a good reflection exercise that also brings up those lessons we haven’t learned or aren’t yet finished learning. I’m figuring the best place to start is with technology. During the past 15 years, technology has become a dominating force in every aspect of our lives and that includes education. As it descended upon higher education, we didn’t start out asking the right question. We got focused on the mechanics of “How does it work?”
(or, in the case of those of us not all that adept at mastering technology, “Why doesn’t it work?”) We’ve also discovered that technology has the power to change teacher-student relationships vis-à-vis social media and the many new ways it offers teachers and students to connect. Technology now makes access to information unbelievably easy. The next lesson of the past 15 years centers on active learning.
Ed Tech Terminology and Concepts Teachers Should Know About ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. Grab This Good Comic Creation App That is Free Today ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. An Excellent Free Graphing Calculator for Your iPad – Desmos | iPad Apps for School. Infographic: Evolution of EdTech. Wordle - Gallery. Wordle - Gallery. Info graphics. Blogging. Google + All things Google. GoAnimate for Schools. Moovly - Create Animated Content like a Pro. Muvizu | Animation software. Freemake.com. How to Make a Cartoon Yourself: Top 7 Animated Video Makers Compared Video production is not an easy and cheap matter. A short video for your YouTube channel or website may cost several thousand dollars if you address to professional video studios. No doubt, there are free and low-cost alternatives which can be easily mastered by any web user.
A self-made cartoon or an animated video is one of the options. Animated Video Makers: Pros & Cons Animated videos are illustrations existing in a purely fictional world. Animated cartoons are frequent on YouTube, since everyone can make them with online tools and ready design templates. So you don’t need to order a professional cartoon from a design studio or draw it yourself. Animation templates look professional;you don’t need to dub videos;templates are usually done in high resolution;pricing plans are scalable;characters look engaging and funny. However, there are several disadvantages: Top 7 Cartoon Makers 1. How to make a cartoon with GoAnimate? 3D presentation tool. Wordle - Word Clouds.
Tagxedo. GoAnimate for Schools. Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:What Would Socrates Say? Peter W. Cookson Jr. Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questions and testing tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual and virtuous circle of honest debate.
We need to approach the contemporary knowledge explosion and the technologies propelling this new enlightenment in just that manner. Otherwise, the great knowledge and communication tsunami of the 21st century may drown us in a sea of trivia instead of lifting us up on a rising tide of possibility and promise. Two Opposing Camps Some advocates believe we can Google, blog, Skype, and Twitter our way to enlightenment. In opposition are the skeptics, such as Mark Bauerlein, who argues in his book The Dumbest Generation (Penguin, 2008) that this incessant communication is really a complex manifestation of miscommunication that does not lead to intellectual growth, but rather to a stunting of genuine intellectual development. The 21st Century Mind A child born today could live into the 22nd century. Iowa ASCD :: Teacher Guides for Technology.
Over the last couple of months, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has been working diligently on a variety of educational technology guides for teachers and educators. The majority of them have been posted here and, thankfully, have received a huge and unprecedented interaction from their readers. These guides come in very handy for every teacher looking to better integrate technology into his/her teaching. They are very simple,developed in a step-by-step process, illustrated by pictures, diagrams, video tutorials, and examples, and concluded with a webliography containing links to a variety of other websites relevant to the topic under discussion.
Pedagogical implications are included in the review of the web tools featured in the guides. These guides are completely free for you to use and all that is asked by Educational Technology and Mobile Learning is that you pay credit to Educational Technology and Mobile Learning if you want to reuse them somewhere else. 5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools.
I thought I could read my students' body language. I was wrong. As an experiment, I used Socrative when I taught binary numbers. What I learned forever changed my views on being a better teacher. Why Formative Assessment Makes Better Teachers Formative assessment is done as students are learning. Here's what happened in my classroom. "We've got this, it's easy," they said. I looked at the other students and asked, "Do you have this? " They nodded their heads furiously up and down in a "yes. " My teacher instincts said that everyone knew it, but I decided to experiment.
I was floored. I taught for another few minutes and gave them another problem. But the end result was not what you think. I am sold. Good teachers in every subject will adjust their teaching based upon what students know at each point. Formative Assessment Toolkit Learn the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. 1. Socrative can be used for quick quizzes and also on the fly, as I've already shared. 2. 3. 4. 5. Bridging The Digital Divide | Next Generation Learning; Today... Over the past decade, the growth of social media has been quite remarkable. Global citizens have embraced new ways to communicate which have, quite literally, changed The World. Text messages and emails are fast becoming a thing of the past as new and innovative social media concepts continually spring up and pave new ways for communication and sharing.
Just the other day, I was conversing with a friend of mine, @hallboy10, via Garmin Connect; a social media for runners and cyclists to share their exercise statistics and comment on achievements. It dawned on me that I was using at least 5 different mediums with which to communicate with the same person depending on the context! The graphic on the left was made using Piktochart and demonstrates how the methods by which I communicate have changed since the 1980s. However, burying our heads in the sand is simply NOT an option.
What Comes First: the Curriculum or the Technology? It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when handing a student a calculator to work through algebraic equations caused many teachers and parents great consternation. It makes you wonder what type of pushback the creators of the abacus faced! In both cases, while the tools students were using may have been more advanced than previous generations’, the goal remained the same – to enhance classroom learning. But before moving forward with technology integration, every school must first have a great, robust and adaptable academic curriculum. Only then can you begin to find ways in which technology can help to elevate it. It’s important to never force fit technology – if it’s not supplementing what’s already happening in the classroom or a teacher’s goals for the school year, the addition will become more of a barrier to learning than a catalyst.
Photo via Flickr Creative Commons by Brad Flickinger A Few Questions to Consider Think Curriculum Enhancements, Not Technology Implementations. Kahoot! | Game-based blended learning & classroom response system. Two Tools for Turning Outlines Into Mind Maps. 75 Practical Ed Tech Tips Videos. Frequently Overlooked Google Search Tools and Strategies. Let Tech Organize Your Teaching.
Social media. Pearltrees - Visually Organize and Share Collections of Files and Links. How to Create Online Collaborative Whiteboards. Google docs. 10 Charts Comparing Popular Ed Tech Tools. 5 Videos on Making Flipped Video Lessons. Producing Infopics. Twitter in the classroom.