The 20% Project (like Google) In My Class. *Update: If you’d like to learn more about running your own 20% Project – check out our latest post: Designing 20% Time in Education I recently assigned a new project to my 11th grade English students: The 20% Project.
Although it’s called a “project”, that term is merely for student understanding and lack of a better word. This project is based on the “20 percent time” Google employees have to work on something other than their job description. It has been well documented, and Google has exponentially grown as a company while giving this 20 percent time. An Influential Idea Katherine von Jan explains how Google’s idea came to be in her article, “Pursue Passion: Demand Google 20% Time at School”: “Google’s “20% Time”, inspired by Sergey Brin’s and Larry Page’s Montessori School experience, is a philosophy and policy that every Google employee spend 20% of their time (the equivalent of a full work day each week) working on ideas and projects that interest that employee.
A letter to my students and parents about the 20% Project. If new technology doesn't simplify your life, change it or dump it.
A little over a year ago our school switched from Moodle to Haiku for our LMS program. I'm really happy with Haiku, and I think many of our teachers are seeing the benefits. The assessments and gradebooks have saved me a lot of time, and I love how well they're all integrated. However, Haiku has one fatal flaw. It's slow. When I am building an assessment or managing my grades, I don't mind the time it takes for Haiku to authenticate me. Last year at Fall CUE, I attended Lisa Highfill's workshop on flipping the classroom. SMS Classroom Clicker: Response System for Polling Students. "Farce"bk. TwHistory. What Connected Learning Truly Promotes Might Surprise You. Technology has entered society like a massive, happy storm, and left few things unaffected.
It was only a generation ago that technology took the form of cordless phones, cable television, and the soul-deleting wizardry of the digital clock. Today there are mobile supercomputers shrunk down to the size of an index card in the pocket of students, a staggering reality that’s easy to take for granted. Computers in your pocket. What this means for education is, well, that education needs to be rethought. Or at least rebooted. Continuing to teach in the stretching shadow of technology while only dealing with it through glimpses and gimmick is an awkward arrogance we may be dealing with for some time to come. Of course it’s true that this is happening for adults as well. And this is all happening through technology’s overarching talent–the ability to connect. Access The simplest way technology connects students is through access. Dialogue is the most immediate effect of access. Super Teacher Tools. MasteryConnect Eases Common Core Alignment, Instruction & Tracking.
Email Share December 25, 2012 - by Tom Vander Ark 4 Email Share Three years ago Doug Weber and Mick Hewitt had left a web design agency and were consulting on a social network in Japan. During that same time, Cory Reid was CEO of Instructure . Trenton Goble, a school principal, and Mick were training for a marathon and discussing Trenton’s frustrations around tracking progress of formative assessments in a mastery learning approach. Goble wasn’t alone. Trenton asked Doug and Mick, “Can you make this easier for me on the web?” In 2009, they launched the beta of MasteryConnect to make it easy for teachers to create and share Common Core aligned assessments, to score assessments quickly and return feedback to students, and to track student progress.
In 2011, MasteryConnect launched a free community for teachers with premium services for schools and districts, a Common Core App for iOS, Android, and Windows 8. MasteryConnect is now the largest social networking site for formative assessment. Project-Based Learning Immersion: Designing Quality Projects. Why (And How) Teachers Should Start Using iTunes U. Courtesy: maconstate.edu With so many schools adopting the use of iPads I find it strange that we aren’t hearing more about the incredible opportunities available in iTunes U .
Well I suppose it isn’t that strange given that schools in the early stages of transitioning to an iPad platform are extremely busy and learning one more thing can seem overwhelming. Trust me, I understand that, but I believe if you were to learn one more thing it should be about the power of iTunes U. The possibilities of this incredible tool are endless. I’d like to provide you with just a few examples of the many uses of iTunes U in the hopes that more schools will join this incredible network of learning resources. The first and likely most exciting benefit of iTunes U is the multitude of incredible classroom resources at your disposal. When I think of the potential of iTunes U, the first thing that comes to my mind are the incredible communities that developed around SMART board users.
Solar System Ecosystems. Prolearning.canyonsdistrict.org/uploads/8/7/1/9/8719529/endorsement_brochure2.pdf.