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Building Your Own Textbook

Building Your Own Textbook
Textbooks are a multi-billion dollar industry -- an estimated $3.5 billion for the K-12 market alone. But the growing availability of digital content and open educational resources (OER) is giving schools the opportunity to bypass some of the traditional expenses of textbook purchasing. It's also giving teachers the opportunities to build their own textbooks. No doubt the move from print to digital content is shaking up the entire publishing industry. You can also include in a digital textbook (or "course packet" or whatever we'd call this new collection of materials) just those resources that students are actually assigned to work through. Considering the Source This sort of flexibility to reuse and remix content is made possible through the open licensing of educational materials. States and districts are increasingly turning to these sorts of open resources, particularly as budgets shrink.

Rubrics for Assessment Learn more about our Online Courses, Online Certificate Programs, and Graduate Degree A collection of rubrics for assessing portfolios, group work/cooperative learning, concept map, research process/ report, PowerPoint, oral presentation, web page, blog, wiki, and other social media projects. Quick Links to Rubrics Social Media Project Rubrics Wiki RubricCriteria for assessing individual and group Wiki contributions. Blog RubricAssess individual blog entries, including comments on peers' blogs. Twitter RubricAssess learning during social networking instructional assignments. Discussion, Teamwork, and Group Work Rubrics Online Discussion Board RubricAssessing ability to share perspectives, refine thoughts through the writing process, and participate in meaningful discussionPrimary Grade Self-Evaluation Teamwork Rubric (PDF)Features of a sandwich to graphically show the criteria PowerPoint and Podcast Rubrics A+ PowerPoint Rubric Joan Vandervelde's rubric provides 10 performance categories

Letter to Jane Magazine for iPad + Source Code by Tim Moore » Updates Contrary to what you might have believed, production on Letter to Jane has never stopped and today I wanted to share a preview with you all. The app has been rebuilt from scratch thanks to all the wonderful new things I've learned since becoming the Creative Director for 29th Street Publishing. I posted a preview of the app on Letter to Jane not too long ago, and I'd encourage you to check it out if you haven't. I'd also like to share a quick demo video of what the core of the app will function. How this handles images is something I've spent a great deal on and it is the heart and soul of this app. Also... I'd like to share the lineup you'll see in issue 04: Wim Wenders Marc Maron Miranda July Whit Stillman Marlene Marino Jeff Luker Katherine Squier Katarina Šoškić Sam Smith Sara Cwynar Ana Kraš Lukasz Wierzbowski Mads Teglers Neon IndianPlus more original work. Important Note for Backers With Ads Please get a hold of me ASAP so we can get your ad space in the issue, thank you. -Tim

How to Create Your Own Textbook — With or Without Apple By Dolores Gende Apple’s iBooks2 and authoring app has created big waves in education circles. But smart educators don’t necessarily need Apple’s slick devices and software to create their own books. How educators think of content curation in the classroom is enough to change their reliance on print textbooks. As the open education movement continues to grow and become an even more rich trove of resources, teachers can use the content to make their own interactive textbooks. Here’s how to create a digital textbook and strategies for involving the students in its development in three steps. 1. Teachers can work with colleagues within their subject area departments and beyond the walls of the classroom to aggregate resources through social bookmarking. Also try Paper.li or The Twitted Times, which will sift through your connections’ resources and organize them. 2. One of the most user-friendly tools to post resources for your course is LiveBinders. 3. Cybrary Man Educational Resources

Flipping the Classroom 4/27/2012 By: Teachers from around the world have adopted the flipped classroom model and are using it to teach a variety of courses to students of all ages. In the excerpt below from the book, Flip Your Classroom (©2012, ISTE® International Society for Technology in Education and ASCD), authors Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams outline reasons why educators should consider this model. Flipping speaks the language of today’s students. Flipping helps busy students. Flipping helps struggling students. Flipping helps students of all abilities to excel. Flipping allows students to pause and rewind their teacher. Flipping increases student–teacher interaction. Flipping changes classroom management. Flipping educates parents. Flipping makes your class transparent. Flipping is a great technique for absent teachers. Flipping can lead to the flipped-mastery program. VIDEO TIP: MAKING A ONE-TAKE VIDEO By Michael Gorman Assign the Groups In the spirit of PBL, students should be divided into groups.

100 Free Foreign Language Classes Online | AccreditedOnlineColle March 1st, 2010 If you have always wanted to learn a language but were too put off by the high cost associated with most classes, then take a look at all these great opportunities to learn a foreign language online, at no cost to you. With so many learning opportunities online, it is a shame not to take advantage of all that you can, so be sure to spend some time with these classes. Whether you want to learn one of the major world languages or want something a little less popular, there are sure to be lessons here to help you start to speak whatever language you are interested in learning. French If you want to learn French, no matter your experience level, then check out these free classes. BBC Languages French. Spanish From the basics to more advanced college courses in Spanish, see what is available in this listing. Learn Spanish. German Learn German from these free classes. BBC Languages German. Italian Italian Language Course. Portuguese BBC Languages Portuguese. Japanese Chinese Chinese I.

21st Century Learning / 21st Century Skills and Web 2-0 Essential Questions: What does the teaching of 21st century skills look like in the classroom? What "tools" and resources support the instruction of 21st century skills? NOTE: Not all the following may be appropriate for direct student use but may well be appropriate for teacher use as a resource to develop activities for use in the classroom. Creativity, Productivity, Self- Direction Audio/Podcasting/Video creation: Colorado on iTunesAudacity (not necessarily Web 2.0 but a favorite for creating podcasts) - Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing soundsVoiceThread - A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Communication, Collaboration, Writing, Reading, Productivity Information Literacy, Critical Thinking Bookmarking/Tagging: Delicious - All your bookmarks in one place. l

Museum Box Homepage Five Best Practices for the Flipped Classroom Ok, I'll be honest. I get very nervous when I hear education reformists and politicians tout how "incredible" the flipped-classroom model, or how it will "solve" many of the problems of education. It doesn't solve anything. It fosters the "guide on the side" mentality and role, rather than that of the "sage of the stage." It also creates the opportunity for differentiated roles to meet the needs of students through a variety of instructional activities. 1) Need to Know How are you creating a need to know the content that is recorded? 2) Engaging Models One of the best way to create the "need to know" is to use a pedagogical model that demands this. 3) Technology What technology do you have to support the flipped classroom? 4) Reflection Every time you have students watch a video, just like you would with any instructional activity, you must build in reflective activities to have students think about what they learned, how it will help them, its relevance, and more. 5) Time and Place

How to Create Your Own Online Course: 100 Tools, Guides, and Resources How to Create Your Own Online Course: 100 Tools, Guides, and Resources Perhaps you have a special skill, talent, or knowledge-base that you want to share with others, and maybe you’ve heard that teaching online courses can make you a little extra money. The resources below will help you discover how to combine both what you have to offer and what you wish to gain by guiding you through creating and establishing an online course. No matter what age of student, subject you want to teach, or size of the class, you will find resources and information to bring your class online. Learning Management Systems Learning Management Systems host your online class and provide a place for students to receive and turn in assignments, class communication, and more. Moodle. Resources for Getting Your Class Online Read these articles to find out everything from using a free blog to host your class to selecting and implementing a Learning Management System. How to Teach an Online Course using WordPress.

6 Ingredients for the 21st Century Classroom Classroom Design | Feature 6 Ingredients for the 21st Century Classroom By Bridget McCrea01/11/12 Just stuffing classrooms with gadgets isn't going to result in real 21st century learning spaces. Start with the physical shell. Apps in Education Should You Flip Your Classroom? At its core, "flipped instruction" refers to moving aspects of teaching out of the classroom and into the homework space. With the advent of new technologies, specifically the ability to record digitally annotated and narrated screencasts, instructional videos have become a common medium in the flipped classroom. Although not limited to videos, a flipped classroom most often harnesses different forms of instructional video published online for students. Despite recent buzz, catalyzed primarily by Salman Khan's TED talk, flipped instruction is by no means a new methodology. The Pros Advocates of the flipped classroom point to its potential as a time-shifting tool. ". . . the focus of flipped teaching is different from other examples in that the technology itself is simply a tool for flexible communication that allows educators to differentiate instruction to meet individual student needs and spend more time in the classroom focused on collaboration and higher-order thinking." And Cons

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