Technology and Teaching: Finding a Balance There is no doubt that finding the time to integrate technology is an overwhelming task for anyone. Throughout the course of a day, teachers find themselves pulled in many directions. However, technology is already integrated in nearly everything we do and nearly every job our students will encounter. So how do educators find an ideal balance for learning about and eventually integrating technology? Tomorrow's Literacy Technology is a literacy that is expected in higher education and in our economy. The contemporary job market requires us to adapt, continually learn, and apply various skill sets in many directions. It's equally important to expose students to information literacy skill sets. 3 Examples of Balanced Tech Integration Integrating technology doesn't have to consume your life as an educator. Here are some examples: Edmodo If I wanted to introduce my students to collaborative learning spaces or integrate a scaled-down learning management system (LMS), I would use Edmodo.
My Five Most Frequently Recommended Google Forms Add-ons I receive a lot of emails from readers who have questions about Google Forms and G Suite in general. Many of those questions are answered with a suggested Google Form Add-on. The right Add-on can go a long way toward streamlining your process for completing common classroom tasks like keeping track of supplies or organizing classroom volunteers. Here are the five Google Forms Add-ons I refer people to more than any others. CheckItOut is a great little Google Forms Add-on that allows you to create a simple check-out/ check-in system. With CheckItOut enabled in Google Forms you simply title the set of items that people will be checking out (iPads for example) then choose if you want people to choose from check boxes, a list, or multiple choice question. g(Math) is a Google Forms Add-on that allows you to insert graphs and mathematical expressions into your Google Forms. Choice Eliminator removes response choices from your Google Form as they are used up.
So you have a Twitter account. Now what? Listen to an extended version of this post as a podcast: Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:14 — 28.1MB) Subscribe: iTunes | Android | I hear it all the time: “I have a Twitter account, but I don’t really know how to use it.” I understand this thinking completely. But I kept hearing people say things like, “Twitter is the best professional development I’ve ever had.” Now that I’ve been using Twitter for a few years, I get it. At the end of this post, you’ll find information about my new online course, Twitter for Teachers and Students. In the meantime, here are some things you could be doing to get the most from Twitter. One of the greatest things about Twitter is that it allows you to find like-minded people, no matter where they are in the world. How to do it: When you first sign up for Twitter, you’re likely to follow people you know, plus a few other well-known accounts that Twitter suggests for you. How to do it: Well, this is one of the best uses of a tweet.
Web Tools Blog Series: Tools to Help Students Collaborate In previous blogs, we focused on web tools to collect and organize content and tools to help students create and present ideas. In this module, we focus on how to use web tools to foster collaboration. Randy Nelson (Pixar University) provides a brilliant definition of collaboration by using two principles of improv. First, accept every offer and second, make your partner look good. Principle 4: Shut up and Listen Good improvisers are not necessarily more clever, or more quick-witted. Principle 5: Action beats inaction Don't talk about doing it, do it. Principle 8: There are no mistakes Earlier I said that we have to be willing to make mistakes. As a quick example, watch this video (caution, one bad word near the end). Imagine what would have happened if the cast would have cut him off. Extending Class and Thinning the Walls A variety of web tools provide opportunities for students to collaborate with each other (in or out of the classroom) or with others outside of the class. Tools
Word Clouds for Kids! ABCya is the leader in free educational computer games and mobile apps for kids. The innovation of a grade school teacher, ABCya is an award-winning destination for elementary students that offers hundreds of fun, engaging learning activities. Millions of kids, parents, and teachers visit ABCya.com each month, playing over 1 billion games last year. Apple, The New York Times, USA Today, Parents Magazine and Scholastic, to name just a few, have featured ABCya’s popular educational games. ABCya’s award-winning Preschool computer games and apps are conceived and realized under the direction of a certified technology education teacher, and have been trusted by parents and teachers for ten years. Our educational games are easy to use and classroom friendly, with a focus on the alphabet, numbers, shapes, storybooks, art, music, holidays and much more!
48 Ultra-Cool Summer Sites for Kids and Teachers A good majority of northern hemisphere and international schools are winding down the 2011-12 school year, and doors will be closing as the students and teachers take off on their summer adventures. Here is a list of great sites for kids and teachers to keep you happily productive and learning this summer. These are in no way in any order of personal preference or coolness. Happy summer! 1) Magic Tree House If your students like The Magic Tree House series (and let's be honest, who doesn't?) 2) Toporopa Can't afford that summer vacation schlepping around Europe? 3) ReadWriteThink Printing Press ReadWriteThink creates a lot of great educational resources. 4) Spell With Flickr Spell With Flickr is a simple site that allows you to enter any word, and will then create a photo representation of that word using pictures from Flickr. 5) Freeology 6) Tagxedo Tagxedo is a Wordle-esque site that allows students to create beautiful word clouds. 7) Learn Your Tables 8) Virtual Sistine Chapel 9) Cool Math
www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/qr-code-treasur… instaGrok.com PBL and Culturally Responsive Instruction Cultural responsiveness in the classroom can often be written off as something patched by a quick fix, especially in an English classroom where swapping a traditional (read: Dead White Guy) text with something written by a person from an underrepresented background can take the place of more significant cultural response. Don't get me wrong, I think that putting Zora Neale Hurston, Chang Rae Lee, and Junot Diaz into "the cannon" is an important social step for our discipline, but doing this at the expense of also having substantive structural changes in the classroom is a temptation that one has to be careful of embracing. As my colleagues at Sammamish High School and I have struggled with development and implementation of a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum across disciplines, a great number of the discussions have involved a philosophical look at the place of seven key elements within our instructional framework. Inclusive Cultural Response Reactive Cultural Response
Zaption - Learn with Video A Twitter Abbreviation Guide To Make Sense Of All That Crazy Talk A Twitter Abbreviation Guide To Make Sense Of All That Crazy Talk Twitter is a wonderful platform to engage, lurk, socialize, read, distribute, share, or otherwise “do something” with ideas and content. Part of what makes it so useful is its 140 character limit. This requires users to be succinct in each tweet, which in turn has encouraged a bit of ingenuity on the part of the users, often in the form of acronyms and other abbreviations that can make things get confusing in a hurry. In response, we’ve created a list of abbreviations to make sense of all that crazy talk. That is, until it changes again. 27 Twitter Abbreviations Defined & Explained . # a hashtag; used to join ongoing, asynchronous conversations; a way to categorize your tweet @ the symbol used to designate a receiver, a “to” … ellipses used to indicate a lack of response, disdain, etc. DM Direct Message, which are like emails and only visible to receiver, DMs can only be sent to those who follow you AFAIK As far as I know