Becoming an Unteacher: Do the Unexpected I had the pleasure of seeing Jeremy K. Macdonald’s Soiree of Slides at the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference this past weekend . . . a beautiful five minutes. His message was that as teachers, we learn to do the expected. Jeremy’s Follow-Up Jeremy reported what happened next via his blog post #Unexpected. My student was at school today. My Own Doing the Unexpected: A Peak Experience I had a similar experience with 8 year old Sherry a while back. Sherry was a tough little third grader in my counseling group at a local elementary school. Sherry loved coming to the group, but was especially defiant this day – I wasn’t feeling so patient, tolerant, or compassionate on this day. I was ready to make the adult-in-charge-type-statement. I did the unexpected . . . Like this: Like Loading...
Adventures in Educational Blogging Bionic Teaching | stress testing the Internet 7 Top Tips to Attract EdTech Twitter Followers Eager to get involved in the thriving and enriching EdTech Twitter community? Take advantage of these top tips to help you bag a host of followers in no time! 1. Promote Yourself Remember, when they first come across you on Twitter, all other users have to go on when deciding whether or not to follow you is your brief profile description. Avoid the temptation to make a sarcastic or witty comment and focus on getting across the main points about your interests and expertise – let them know why you’re worth following and what you’ll be tweeting about. 2. Getting involved in a particular Twitter community means putting your ear to the ground and immersing yourself thoroughly in the trending topics and important issues being discussed. 3. A great way to ensure that you are ‘on trend’ is to keep up to date with some of the education technology community’s most popular hashtags. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Mike's Musings about Ed Tech Study Links Academic Setbacks to Middle School Transition Published Online: November 28, 2011 Published in Print: November 28, 2011, as Learning Declines Linked to Moving to Middle School Includes correction(s): March 24, 2012 While policymakers and researchers alike have focused on improving students’ transition into high school, a new study of Florida schools suggests the critical transition problem may happen years before, when students enter middle school. The study , part of the Program on Education Policy and Governance Working Papers Series at Harvard University, found that students moving from grade 5 into middle school show a “sharp drop” in math and language arts achievement in the transition year that plagues them as far out as 10th grade, even risking thwarting their ability to graduate from high school and go on to college. “I don’t see eliminating the transition at the high school level as important or beneficial as eliminating the transition at the middle school level,” said Martin R. Mr. Losing Their Edge For the Florida study, Mr.
Cool Cat Teacher Blog Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom — This blog focuses on education, technology and learning. It has been one heck of a roller coaster start to the school year. Lots of new tech to deploy, PD to develop not to mention new state standards to integrate and the likely hood of licensing changes. It is a lot to take in. But October is here and things tend to get into a rhythm and it is time to connect with others and indulge in some personal learning. As many of you know Pokemon Go was all the rage the last few weeks. It will be interesting to see how Niantic responds to this. As noted in the article about Pokemon revenue the game was beginning to lose players. UPDATE: Pokemongo support has posted a fix for some users, though not sure how this helps those who only have one gmail account and still have issues. This June the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education formally adopted new Digital Literacy and Computer Science Curriculum Frameworks. I have had fun exploring a variety of tools and websites geared toward K-5 students. Other resources?
Top 10 Social & Mobile Educational Games That Make You Smarter The Hague, The Netherlands (PRWEB) September 12, 2012 Gramble’s mission statement is ‘to make the world a better place through social gaming’, so it’s no surprise that Gramble has an interest in educational games. “Gaming can be productive, educational, and time well spent,” says Gramble CEO and co-founder Adam Palmer. “We all know students will spend many hours on their devices playing games anyway, so we are happy to offer some ideas for games that are not only fun but can also help make you a little smarter.” Here’s Gramble’s top-ten list of social and mobile games to learn from: 1- Apparatus (Engineering/Math/Problem Solving) Using the laws of mechanics, players build complex machines to perform simple tasks. 2- Words with Friends (English/Grammar/Spelling) Players take turns forming words horizontally or vertically on a Scrabble-like board trying to score as many points as possible for each word. 9- Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? About Gramble
open thinking | rants & resources from an open educator Mass customization in education Seth Godin and Ken Robinson have again taken schools to task for their industrial model of educating students, complaining that we are turning out robots and fail to encourage the natural creativity and problem-solving abilities of every student. Read Godin and watch Robinson. It's hard to disagree with anything about which they pontificate. What neither acknowledge, however, are the benefits that mass production have brought to society - the affordability of more goods for people at a wider range of economic levels. Mass producing cars, washing machines and blue jeans essentially made these items sufficiently inexpensive that almost everyone could purchase them. So too with education. Public schools were (are) designed to be economically efficient enough to provide a basic education for everyone. What Godin and Robinson argue for is an individualized education for every child. At one time, Levis had a website to which one could submit one's physical measurements.
Cathy Jo Nelson's Professional Thoughts