10 Ways to Teach Innovation. Getty By Thom Markham One overriding challenge is now coming to the fore in public consciousness: We need to reinvent just about everything.
Good Read: Are Teachers Who Question Ed Tech “Technophobes”? A fifth-grade teacher who embraces technology for its benefits, though also expresses skepticism, wonders whether she’s considered a technophobe.
She writes: “Accuse me of being a tech resister, a slow adopter, or an ‘old school’ educator for raising these questions. But I am not afraid of technology… We need to stop oversimplifying the role tech plays in our students’ lives. A deeper, more thorough, look at tech’s benefits and trade-offs is needed. How Teachers Can Best Use Education Technology. I spend a huge amount of my time reading about the top 5 apps for teachers, the best software for collaborative writing, the best web tool for this, that or the other, how to do something that I’ve never heard of but should have and now feel guilty about, so I’m going to Google it and try to drop it into a conversation next time I’m face to face with another teacher, so that I seem on top of the ever-burgeoning world of education technology.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan. I might even describe myself as being someone close to the cutting edge of what is going on, but the more I read, the more concerned I become about the quality of what is going on in schools. For every success story, there seem to be a couple of examples of really poor practice; schools that have launched a 1:1 initiative that has backfired, or teachers that use web-based-project-based learning as an excuse to sit down and let the kids get on with it. Why (Not How) We Should Use iPads In Education. Last November, Justin Reich, our co-founder at EdTechTeacher, wrote a piece on his Education Week blog, If You Meet an iPad on the Way, Smash It.
The piece came out the morning of the first iPad Summit in Boston and put iPad use in schools into perspective. As Justin explained in the piece, “If the nitty-gritty details of iPad use distract us from our larger mission, then we need to smash them. If we get too lost in the “how” of iPads in classrooms, then we need to stop and ask ”why?” Why iPads is a critical question that must be addressed, and the schools that are making the decision to introduce these devices into the classroom are hopefully examining the why before the how.
27 Ways To Be A 21st Century Teacher. The 8 Elements Project-Based Learning Must Have. If you’re contemplating using Project-Based Learning or are already trying out the latest craze to hit the modern classroom, you should know about this checklist. It details if you’re actually doing it correctly. For example, does your project focus on significant content, develop 21st century skills, and engage students in in-depth inquirty (just to name a few)? If not, you might want to reconsider your PBL approach. See Also: What Is Project-Based Learning? The checklist is by the PBL masters over at BIE and they’ve outlined 8 different ‘essential elements’ that must be present in a project in order for it to be considered PBL. These elements are actually useful for even more than PBL. What do you think about this PBL Checklist?
Via TeachBytes and BIE.org. The 8 Characteristics Of A 21st Century Teacher. Some call them ‘connected educators’ while other use the phrase ‘digital teacher’ and many prefer the term ’21st century teacher.’ Whatever terms you use to describe modern teachers, it’s important to know what the terms actually mean. There’s a fabulous wiki devoted to just this topic here which houses some incredible bits of information. It’s by Andrew Churches who has curated quite a treasure trove of useful information for any teacher looking to outline what he or she actually does as a modern educator. See Also: The 10 Skills Modern Teachers Must Have So what are the 8 characteristics of a 21st century teacher? How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms. A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies have helped them in teaching their middle school and high school students in many ways.
At the same time, the internet, mobile phones, and social media have brought new challenges to teachers. In addition, they report that there are striking differences in the role of technology in wealthier school districts compared with poorer school districts and that there are clear generational differences among teachers when it comes to their comfort with technology and its use in their classrooms.
Asked about the impact of the internet and digital tools in their role as middle and high school educators, these teachers say the following about the overall impact on their teaching and their classroom work: AP and NWP teachers bring a wide variety of digital tools into the learning process, including mobile phones, tablets, and e-book readers About this Study The basics of the survey.