The Top Posts Of Web20Classroom For 2011 Is it 2012 already? Another year has come and gone and like several of my good blogging friends have done I wanted to recap the Top 5 Posts from this year. I am sorta surprised at the mix but there are some, if I do say so myself, good posts. Quick List Of iPad Resources For The Classroom-This was my top post of the year. Twitter In Schools-A Getting Started Guide-In this post I lay out things to consider when starting a class/school/district Twitter account. Twitter Series-A New Kind Of PD- Back at the beginning of this school year I did a series of posts related to using Twitter as an individual. Twitter Series-Super Secret Tips And Tricks- Another post from my Twitter series, in this one I give you everything you need to know to get more out of Twitter and to find more good information. Taking Care Of Your Digital Self- Cultivating a digital footprint is important and in this age it begins even before birth. Image under CC License from Sunkato
How Long Will We Wait to Give Students Choice? – A.J. JULIANI It’s 2017. Communication is changing fast (my 7-yr old daughter and I just exchanged Snaps while I am in Chicago and she is outside of Philadelphia in different time zones, with real-time interaction). Collaboration has evolved to a point of instantaneous feedback loops (my colleague and I are on a shared Google Slide presentation changing and adding to slides for this week’s presentation in real-time, able to modify and go back to old versions if need be. Critical Thinking has become a necessity in order to not only solve big problems, but every day issues (we know teachers learn best from other teachers, but it is increasingly harder to get teachers into each other’s room due to sub shortages and other factors. Creativity is a part of our everyday lives. Yes, those bolded terms are what we commonly refer to as “21st Century Skills”, yet I’m fairly certain that these were always NEEDED skills. Socrates was talking about these 21st century skills over 20 centuries ago. Self Control Wisdom
Laptops, personalized learning replace lectures in schools From wire service reports Read more by staff and wire services reports Sixth graders at Waukesha STEM Academy work on an exploration related to baseball marketing for class. (Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MCT) Last year, Kim Crosby spent about 80 percent of her class time teaching math concepts at Waukesha STEM Academy in Wisconsin. This year, that time was reversed: 80 percent of her class time was spent moving from student to student; about one-fifth continued to be a standard lecture format. “To me, this makes more sense,” Crosby said. When it comes to challenging traditional ideas about how schools should operate, this two-year-old charter school is building a reputation with a curriculum that focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math, and where student schedules can change every day. It might sound like too much freedom for middle-schoolers, but not to Principal Ryan Krohn. Why do schools largely group children by similar age instead of similar ability?
The Best Resources For Beginning iPad Users Though I haven’t gotten an iPad yet (NOTE: Now I have!), we did get one for my mother-in-law. So, with an eye towards helping her now, and me in the future, I put out a call to readers to their suggested resources as well as hunting for them on my own. You might also be interested in The Best Sites For Beginning iPhone Users Like Me. Here are my choices, and choices suggested by readers (their recommendations are better than mine!), as The Best Resources For Beginning iPad Users: iPad Getting Started is from TC Geeks. The 10 best iOS apps of 2011 comes from The Telegraph. The best iOS apps for children, 2011 is also from The Telegraph. The top 50 iPad apps is from The Guardian. Choosing the Right Keyboard For Your iPad is from Read Write Web. The Best iPad Apps: 10 Essential Apps For The New iPad You Got For The Holidays is from The Huffington Post. Educreations lets you easily create video lessons. iPads In The Art Room APPiticdescribes itself as: Here are great suggestions from readers:
What is Personalized Learning? Advances in technology and personalized learning environments have created a historic opportunity to expand access and boost achievement and completion for learners across the globe. With student-centered, personalized learning, we can identify students’ unique needs and address them. Teachers possess powerful tools to personalize instruction and utilize real-time data for feedback to intervene exactly where each student needs it most. It is about optimizing learning every day and maximizing the amount of learning per unit of time. Students also amass a collection of evidence that demonstrates their learning. As an emerging and evolving field, it is essential to clearly define personalized learning to avoid confusion and frustration. Personalized Learning, Defined Each year, iNACOL surveys thousands of educators to inform and push our understanding of the field. The purpose of personalized learning is to open student pathways and encourage student voice and choice in their education.
Personalized Learning – Swedish Style « June 14, 2012 by cultureofyes In the middle of an industrial park just outside of Stockholm is one of Sweden’s top-performing schools – Kunskapsskolan Tyresö. It is part of a network of 33 Kunskapsskolan schools in Sweden – all funded by a public school voucher system (Sweden has a national voucher model), and has no tuition, accepting students on a first-come, first-served basis. Having just spent some time with several colleagues who attended High Tech High, in San Diego, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in the stories they told (Here is a post by Gary Kern and by Lynne Tomlinson) about their experiences. The physical plant itself is modest. Here are some of the key elements we saw as we walked around the school and talked with teachers and students: The bullet points are all quite familiar for those following the personalized learning discussions. Here is Eiken’s full presentation: Just as with High Tech High, there are many “Yeah, buts”. Like this: Like Loading...
The ten things every learner needs from their teacher This post was written by Kimberley Rivett, a primary school teacher in New Zealand and was first published on her blog Dear Teacher, I am a learner. I have certain needs and wants so I would like to give you a short lesson in how to get the best out of me… Give me the choices I like to have choices, not directives. Trust me Do this by letting me have the power over my learning and the pathway that I follow. Help me find my learning style I really don’t know the inside-outs of HOW I learn. Discover my ‘IT’ and let me immerse myself in it Everyone has an ‘IT’. Find unique ways to enthuse me Dancing around the room…being dramatic…making movies of us…recording my/your voice…putting my work on the ActivBoard as an exemplar…read me stories in silly voices…anything you can do that makes me buy into your way of teaching me! Reward me – but with REAL stuff I mean, value me as a learner! Take me on an authentic learning journey Don’t just give me a topic an say, “This term we are learning about frogs.”
BYOT Network | Transforming schools and classrooms into learning communities with personalized technology tools and digital content Opportunity for Innovation | School Improvement Network Personalized Learning in the Common Core By Amy Esselman For years classroom learning has focused on how teachers can best convey concepts and topics to their students. What happens, however, if a student doesn’t understand, needs extra help, or falls behind? With the implementation of the Common Core growing around the country, the idea of personalized learning has started to resonate with teachers. The Common Core Standards’ primary purpose—finally—is the same as your own: college and career readiness. That brings us to the link between the Standards and personalized learning. By using personalized learning in their classrooms and incorporating it into their techniques, teachers can decide how they want to engage the students and how to best meet each of their students’ needs. With the implementation of the Common Core on the horizon, a window of opportunity for personalized learning and educational innovation has been created.
What makes a brilliant teacher? | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional While watching a brilliant teacher in action, you too may have wondered: "What is it that makes them excellent?" Do we, as an educational community actually realise what makes a true teacher? Is it purely down to perfect pedagogy, rigorous planning and assessing, diligent resource making and clever behaviour management; or is there something more? As important as all of the above are in excellent teaching, I believe that there is something else, something as of yet not commonly talked about, and it's called the "T Factor!" In my experience, teachers with the T Factor, run a happy, high achieving environment in which the pupils feel content, valued and achieve high respective standards academically and behaviourally. "So, what is the mystical T Factor?" Emotional intelligence and empathy are two huge features of a T factor teacher's practice. As social animals we require and therefore seek psychological attachments naturally and subconsciously. Could you be one of our bloggers?
Personalized Learning: A Working Definition A group of philanthropies and school and technology advocacy groups, with contributions from educators, compiled a four-part "working definition" of the attributes of personalized learning. They also identified critical questions for K-12 officials to consider in implementing personalized learning. Related Story: What Is 'Personalized Learning'? Sources: Developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Afton Partners, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, CEE Trust, the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, Charter School Growth Fund, EDUCAUSE, iNACOL, the Learning Accelerator, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Silicon Schools, and educatorsDesign & Visualization: Stacey Decker Coverage of personalized learning and systems leadership in Education Week and its special reports is supported in part by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
7 principles of learning design In this blog post I want to describe seven principles of learning design. I would welcome comments. Are there any others I have missed for example? The first is that teachers are bewildered by the plethora of tools available and lack the skills necessary to make informed learning design decisions. The second is that many of the tools use the power of visualisation as a means of representing the designs. The third is that there is a tension between design representations that are rigorous, precise and perhaps machine runnable and those that are more creative, ‘fluffy’ and nearer to real practice. We are in no way suggesting that beauty and precision are in opposition to one another, nor even that they are mutually exclusive concerns. The fifth is the fact that learning designs are both a produce and a process. I believe we are at an interesting watershed in terms of learning design research. Brasher, A., G. Conole, G. (2009).