Education Technology
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
"Personalization" is the buzzword of ISTE 2012 . In the years ahead, that word will be the frontline of the battleground between educationists with competing visions of the future of learning. "Personalization" has won the hearts of every camp in education. Whether you are a market-based reformer, an open education advocate, or a 21st century Dewey partisan, everyone agrees that learning should be personalized: learning experiences should be tailored to each individual student. We also agree that personalization is made feasible by new technologies.
Battling over the Meaning of "Personalization" - EdTech Researcher
Our journalists are failing us
Malcolm X said : If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. What an apt quote for media coverage of today’s ‘educational reform’ movements. We need journalists to do their jobs.Blogstitute Week 5: Reducing instruction, increasing engagement - The Stenhouse Blog
July 23rd, 2012 In the final written post for our Summer Blogstitute, Peter Johnston ( Choice Word s, Opening Minds ) shares the results of a study he conducted and asks us to ponder important questions about the amount of instruction students receive, the level of engagement with the text they read and with each other, and what this all means for teachers, students, and schools in the era of Common Core Standards. Be sure to check out the discussion of Peter’s book Opening Minds during an ongoing CyberPD event that will culminate in a Twitter chat on Thursday, July 26.
School district’s new approach to summer learning - The Answer Sheet
This was written by Linda S. Lane, superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools. By Linda S. Lane
Back in 2009, we published 100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School . But in nearly three years, Google has developed new products, discontinued a few, and offered new features, and more people have found great ways to save time with Google. So we’ve gone and found even more great tips for saving time with Google, and this time around, the list has made it all the way to 181 different tricks. Explore our collection of tricks to find new, faster ways to search, read email, manage your time, and more.
181 Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School [Updated]
Teach students higher order or critical thinking skills? Not if the Texas Republicans have their way.
The Republican Party of Texas states in its official 2012 political platform : We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. This is astounding since most everyone else in America seems to understand that our educational graduates and our employees need greater, not less, development of critical and higher-order thinking skills in order to be effective citizens, learners, and workers in our hyperconnected, hypercompetitive global information society. This political platform item is an absolutely stunning example of educational and economic cluelessness and is a surefire recipe for complete irrelevance in the 21st century.
Teacher Shelley Wright is on leave from her classroom, working with teachers in a half-dozen high schools to promote inquiry and connected learning. I think the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is wrong. Hear me out. I know this statement sounds heretical in the realms of education, but I think this is something we should rethink, especially since it is so widely taught to pre-service teachers. I agree that the taxonomy accurately classifies various types of cognitive thinking skills. It certainly identifies the different levels of complexity.
Flipping Blooms Taxonomy
WHEREAS, our nation's future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation's social and economic well-being (1) ; and WHEREAS, our nation's school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing, in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators and schools (2) ; and
National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing
Coaster Creator is an interactive game that explores the science behind roller coasters. Use your knowledge of potential energy and kinetic energy to design your own coaster. Rapid energy transfer is the key to roller coaster thrills but be careful – too much kinetic energy and you’ll crash, too little and you’ll stall. Play this game and find out if your coaster will be a smash or a snore! Important Words in this Resource:
Mission Center : Coaster Creator
Experimenting in Education
This originally appeared as our guest blog at eLearning Industry . Its hard not to use hyperbolic statements when describing Google Apps for Education . Its that good and its free! The diversity of apps you get with a Google account is astounding. I’ve felt for years that Google is an education company and they don’t even know it, but after hearing that institutions like Notre Dame University and Chicago Public Schools have adopted Google Apps I think they are starting to catch on, especially considering the latter is estimated to save 6 million dollars by moving to Google Apps. Our small school saves thousands annually on servers and email platforms alone.