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24 Google Doc Hacks for Every Teacher. By Reuben Yonatan As a teacher, it can be hard to stay organized, especially if you have hundreds of papers coming in and out of the classroom on a weekly basis. That’s where file sharing can come in handy. A file sharing program like Google Docs is a great way to have all those hand outs, sign up sheets, and lesson plans organized and stored in the cloud. That way, you can share them with colleagues and parents at the click of a button. Not only is Google Docs helpful for organization and storage, it’s also a great collaborative learning tool.

Understanding all of Google Docs capabilities will help you and your students use it to its full potential. Learn how to do this and more with this visual on Google Doc hacks and add-ons. More Google Resources:

OECD Education

Sir Ken Robinson. Prof. Sugata Mitra. Future of Education. Noam Chomsky. Global Education. What education is really about... Global Education Conference. Digital Learning Day 2012. Edublog Awards 2011. Best Practices in e-Learning #3. Web2.0. Alternatives to Google's web services and apps. I'm a huge lover and user of Google's numerous apps and tools. I use iGoogle, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Blogger, Google Sites, Google search, Google Tasks, Google+, Chrome, Google bookmarks, Google Reader, Google Voice, Google Maps, and much more. But not everyone likes Google or wants to use their tools and resources. So, what do you do? There are some great alternatives out there. Zoho is another suite of online services that educators can use. They have email, calendar, documents and more available.

Firefox is a great alternative to Chrome, OpenOffice can replace Docs, Facebook vs. Lifehacker, a great site for all things, has a great article where they list a bunch of alternatives to popular Google tools. Do you use Google, or do you use other services (or a combination like me)? Related: Google for Educators Resources Evernote for Educators Lifehacker - tips and information for everything.

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Social Studies. What is PBL? To help teachers do PBL well, we created a comprehensive, research-based model for PBL — a "gold standard" to help teachers, schools, and organizations to measure, calibrate, and improve their practice. In Gold Standard PBL, projects are focused on student learning goals and include Essential Project Design Elements: What Should Global PBL Look Like? Project Based Learning. Teaching. Free Online Courses. ¿Podemos imitar a Finlandia? « temas de educación.

Everyday Leadership. Free Professional Developement for teachers. iPad Apps for Autistic Students. Apps on portable devices such as the Apple iPad can help non-verbal children to communicate basic needs. Intuitive apps that employ colorful images and sounds can also hold a child's attention long enough to learn and offer effective tools to build vocabulary and reinforce word knowledge. The following iPad apps are designed to augment self-expression among children with autism spectrum disorders and other cognitive impairments.

Becoming more comfortable with language may also encourage more safe social interaction among family members and classmates. 1. Autism Xpress Apple iTunes Store Autism Xpress is a free app that encourages people with autism to recognize and express emotions. 2. Grace is a picture exchange system designed to encourage independent social interaction among people with autism. 3. iConverse iConverse is designed for children with autistic and other communicative disabilities who have not yet mastered basic speech. 4. 5.

EFL

Teacher Training. Learning without Frontiers. The Pocket Rocket. Monday Morning Inspiration – My Post for Brad Patterson’s (@brad5patterson) Blog Challenge. Some books from my collection A few weeks ago, Brad Patterson, a fantastic person and educator located in France, and a person I am honoured to call a friend, posted a blog challenge on his blog A Journée in Language – Brad asked us to say which quote defines our teaching style. In the comments section, there is a huge number of amazing and inspiring quotes! I mentioned one that I (still) cannot remember who said it or if it was exactly said that way: A good teacher is always a learner. I was going to write about that one. This morning though, as I was getting ready for class, drinking my coffee and checking out Twitter, I found this by Chris McCullough in Red Deer, Alberta: The best part of my job is that it has inspired me to always be a learner… #teaching #abed It hit me!

From social media: numerous are the posts and articles that mention Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to name but a few media that have greatly assisted educators worldwide to connect and learn from each other. Like this: Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words | Science. Scientists have picked up fragments of people's thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear. The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.

Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person's thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them. Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to speak as a result of a stroke or other medical conditions. Experiments on 15 patients in the US showed that a computer could decipher their brain activity and play back words they heard, though at times the words were difficult to recognise. "Potentially, the technique could be used to develop an implantable prosthetic device to aid speaking, and for some patients that would be wonderful.

Scientist Brian Pasley enrolled 15 patients to take part. Team 15 2011-2012 Learning Action Table. Which problem is "just right" for you? Rethinking Homework. January/February 2007 Rethinking Homework By Alfie Kohn After spending most of the day in school, children are typically given additional assignments to be completed at home. This is a rather curious fact when you stop to think about it, but not as curious as the fact that few people ever stop to think about it. It becomes even more curious, for that matter, in light of three other facts: 1. 2. 3. It’s not as though most teachers decide now and then that a certain lesson really ought to continue after school is over because meaningful learning is so likely to result from such an assignment that it warrants the intrusion on family time. I’ve heard from countless people across the country about the frustration they feel over homework. What parents and teachers need is support from administrators who are willing to challenge the conventional wisdom.

So what’s a thoughtful principal to do? 1. 2. 3. Quantity, however, is not the only issue that needs to be addressed. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. An Aspiring Primary Teacher | A lifelong love of learning.

Evo 2012

Mitch Resnick - Learning from Scratch. How Do You Know When You’re Expert Enough? This is a guest post by Dan Johnson of Right Brain Rockstar. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. ~ Unknown But ‘well’ is such a subjective term. How do we know how well we need to do things? We may strive for expertise, but how do we know when we have achieved it? Do we need someone to give us a certificate or a medal before we can consider ourselves an expert? And once we achieve ‘expert status’, does that mean there’s nothing more to learn? First things first – What is an Expert? The Oxford dictionary defines an expert as a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area. Ok, but again, how knowledgeable do we need to be to be considered very knowledgeable?

Expert Enough to Do What? As stated in the Expert Enough Manifesto, expertise is relative. But for many less risky professions, there is no specific benchmark you have to reach before you can successfully earn a living. Constant Improvement You will always have more to learn. Image. "Lehr und Kunst" or "Theory and Practice." - what we strive for in education. "Lehr und Kunst" or "Theory and Practice. " (Learning and Skilled Arts) is the motto for my alma mater, WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute). I really like this as a motto for all education. The motto appears in the ribbon above the shield. The books represent theory and the arm and hammer represent the practice or skilled art.

We are trying to teach our students facts, knowledge and information, but they also have to be able to apply this to different situations. The practice of applying knowledge is so important. We talk about 21st century skills, like communicating, working in teams, life-long learning, analysis, applying, critical thinking, and problem solving.

How do we do this? Related: WPI Plan - a great educational model for all schools.

Poverty

Education, the Internet, and the ignorance of policymakers. Yesterday, along with thousands of other web sites, Dangerously Irrelevant shut down for the day to protest two bills, SOPA (House) and PIPA (Senate). I don’t think my little blackout had any major influence, of course, but I wanted to express my solidarity with the larger concerns. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the issues, Congress is debating right now whether the Internet in America and elsewhere should be hostage to the demands of a few private companies. If SOPA, PIPA, and similar laws are passed, the Web could look like this for all of us. Unfortunately, legislators are making policy out of ignorance. Jason Gots recently articulated quite eloquently that issues of copyright law, political control, privacy, and child protection are exciting governments around the world about stepping in to regulate cyberspace.

There are real dangers here. This applies to education too! Of course all of this is true for education lawmaking too. My home state of Iowa is a case in point.

Effective Learning

Home - Modern Egypt. GREAT MATHS SITES. Science Sites. 1.Introduction new. For teachers. Education. Teaching Screenagers:Character Education for the Digital Age. Our current technological trajectory promises unfathomable, roller-coaster innovation with no braking system. While the ride is exciting, it moves so quickly that we typically don't have time to think about the possible unintended consequences that might accompany it. The result is that we find ourselves unable to effectively respond to hot-button issues like cyberbullying and sexting because they seem to come out of nowhere. Our challenge is to find ways to teach our children how to navigate the rapidly moving digital present, consciously and reflectively. How we meet this challenge depends on how we address the following fundamental question about teaching our digital-age children: Should we teach our children as though they have two lives, or one?

The "two lives" perspective says that our students should live a traditional, digitally unplugged life at school and a second, digitally infused life outside school. Linking the Past and Future The Need for Character Education References.