Building the Backchannel: How to Use Twitter in Large Classrooms Part I When I first started flipping my classroom, I hated it. I was baffled, because I remember hearing about flipped learning and immediately thinking, “This is brilliant! I want to do this!” Technology has changed not only how students learn, but how teachers learn. Web 2.0 technology — the free digital tools that empower all users to create and share — has changed the way the world operates. What better way to kick off Advocacy Month than with the National School Boards Association’s annual conference in New Orleans? Student-centered learning — in which students are independent learners who take charge of their own education — has become something of a holy grail among educators. Developing a successful mobile learning program requires more than simply weighing the pros and cons of mobile devices. Girls want to change the world. There is a reason we each choose the profession we do.
geek.teacher » Blog Archive » Two week iPad trial: Part 1 I got a class set of iPads for two weeks. Let me be right up front when I say this: it was the single best two weeks of my entire teaching career, a banner cap to what has already shown to be my finest year as a teacher. Some of that had to do with just the very nature of switching, even if only for a day at a time, to a complete 1:1 environment with students. giving the students a mobile device for a day and telling them “this is yours for the day, take full advantage of it” has such an immense level of power beyond what I had sincerely hoped to be true. It makes me even more excited for the high school in my district, which is next year switching to a full time 1:1 environment. Another large part of it had to do with the devices themselves. Scoff if you will, but when Apple sells the iPad as “magical,” it’s pretty hard to doubt it after seeing them in the kids’ hands for two weeks. It’s not just the students. So how do I look back on an amazing two weeks? Part 2. Part 3. Like this:
Lafz̤ • Would you believe that there are some people out... James Gee: Assessment Drives Learning: How to Drive to a New Place Today many of our schools are victims of a "content fetish." Students learn to parrot facts and formulas for tests. However, we know from decades of research that memorizing facts and formulas does not correlate with being able to use them to solve problems. The world is chock full of facts with more discovered every minute. Facts only become important when one knows what to do with them, when they become tools for problem solving, argumentation, and interventions in the world. And then they are retained for the long term, a free benefit of thinking and acting with facts and formulas and not just memorizing them for tests. There are many ways to teach for deep problem solving, especially using digital tools. We will never get a new paradigm of learning in our schools unless we change our assessment system.
Tina Barseghian: Why Parents Should Both Monitor And Empower Kids Using Social Media With more than 500 million Facebook users across the world, it's hard to refute that the social networking site has profoundly changed the way we communicate and share information. But what is Facebook's effect on kids? When it comes to navigating the social networking world -- whether it's Facebook or fan fiction sites -- the terrain becomes even murkier. Parents worry about what is age-appropriate, what should be kept private and exposure to cyber bullying, among many other issues. "Parents can and should moderate sites, but they have to give kids the opportunities to figure out what it means to be digital citizens, and allow kids to be empowered," said Carrie James, who's conducting a qualitative survey of kids and social networks at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. CONNECTION AND SELF-EXPRESSION For better or for worse, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and their ilk provide ways for kids to connect with each other and to express themselves.
QR Codes in the Classroom If you haven’t noticed, there has been an influx of strange black-and-white codes showing up all over the place. Restaurants, stores, movie theaters, magazines, and even on the side of buildings! What are they? They are called QR Codes, with the QR standing for Quick Response. What does that mean for educators? QR Code Math Fun To create my worksheet, I had several steps to cover. My next two steps involved the technology: getting the codes to go somewhere and creating the codes to drop into the page. While the actual product does take some time and effort, the result will be an activity you can use on a yearly basis. Now you are ready to rock and roll! Thanks so much to Mr. Charity L.
New online high school free to Ga. residents The academy is backed by global education service provider EdisonLearning. Provost Academy Georgia expects to begin enrolling students in grades nine through 12 for the school year starting this August. Because spaces are expected to fill quickly, interested families are encouraged to learn more now by calling (866) 517-5582 or by visiting www.ga.provostacademy.com. As a new state-authorized public online school, Provost Academy Georgia is free of charge to residents of Georgia. Provost Academy Georgia offers more than 100 online classes, developed in collaboration with faculty of Stanford University's School of Education; including Advanced Placement and honors courses with a particular emphasis on high demand subjects, such as science, technology, engineering and math. Provost Academy Georgia uses a proprietary modular curriculum design so courses can be adapted to fit a student's individual needs, and content can be rearranged and customized for individual learning paths.
What Does "Technology Integration" Mean? One reason why I love blogging is the chance to get a variety of responses to my ideas and thoughts. A reader of my last post commented: "This article describes how to help children learn to use an unfamiliar computer program. Is that what 'integrating technology' means?" This got me thinking: what do we really mean when we talk about "technology integration?" To me, the term means that technology is not taught as a separate class, but integrated into the classroom. However, how do we get to that point? Therefore, technology integration may not look the way we want it to until our students move beyond familiarity with tools and into being able to choose the correct tool for the job. I see various levels of integration, with the ultimate goal being seamless integration. This table is by no means perfect, but is a starting point to think about how technology integration looks in your own classroom. To get to "seamless," you must ask yourself: What skills are applied to nearly all tools?
Should Cell Phones Be Allowed in Classrooms? Most Parents Say Yes A national survey conducted on the role of technology in education – comprised of 30,000 students from over 6,500 private and public schools – has just been released, and (surprise, surprise!) students really wish they could use their phones in class. The full Speak Up report, titled “The New 3 E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged and Empowered – How Today’s Students are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning,” is part of an initiative investigating how students, educators and parents see technology (cell phones, laptops, eReaders, etc.) shaping the future of education. Some of the results are startling. Some key bits: For high schoolers, 61% indicated they owned cell phones, though 53% of schools ban them outright. 74% of those students say they would likely use their phones to check grades, 68% say they would take class notes, and 44% would use them for digital textbooks. (via Read Write Web) More on TIME.com: Bill Gates: How state budgets are breaking US schools
Va. Board of Education urges policy on social networks as teaching tools Such assignments are coming under new scrutiny as Virginia and other states consider restricting how teachers and students interact on social-networking platforms such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Officials want to preserve the educational opportunity offered by Ludwig and other teachers but also want to prevent sexual predators from exploiting the casual tone of such sites to build rapport with potential victims. The Virginia Board of Education voted Thursday to encourage school districts statewide to adopt policies regulating social-media use by teachers. The move was not as bold as an earlier proposal but still ranks the state as among the first to address such issues. The push for new restrictions grew, in part, from the case of Kevin Ricks, a former Manassas High School teacher convicted last year of molesting a former student. Ricks exchanged personal messages with several students on Facebook, including the eventual victim. “The first guidelines looked out for children.