Rubrics for Evaluating Educational Apps How do you choose the best educational app for your classroom? Check out this great post from Tony Vincent on LearningHand, sharing his own rubric to help teachers evaluate educational apps and other rubric resources. Spotlighted in the Rubric are: RelevanceThe app’s focus has a strong connection to the purpose for the app and appropriate for the studentCustomizationApp offers complete flexibility to alter content and settings to meet student needsFeedbackStudent is provided specific feedbackThinking SkillsApp encourages the use of higher order thinking skills including creating, evaluating, and analyzingEngagementStudent is highly motivated to use the appSharingSpecific performance summary or student product is saved in app and can be exported to the teacher or for an audience Download Resources: apps, Rubric
iF Poems – The First Great Poetry App for the iPad I’ve Seen iF Poems is new poetry app for the iPad, described as ‘a poetry app for school-age children and for adults of any age’. It’s the first great poetry app I’ve seen for the iPad – apologies for the spoiler but I needed to mention that right off the bat. The app includes 270 classic poems which have been carefully selected as works that the publishers feel are ‘a joy to pass down the generations, to share, to educate and enjoy’. Many of the included poems have audio clips. These are read by the actors Helena Bonham Carter, Bill Nighy, Harry Enfield and Tom Hiddleston. Here are some of its other key features: You can record yourself reading a poem. Highlights – The content is superb. – The audio clips / readings for many of the poems are just fantastic. – The interface of the app is understated and elegant and feels just right for an iPad poetry collection. – You can browse the poems by author or by a good range of categories which reflect the app’s focus on children. Lowlights Overall More Posts
Common Core Support Tools Below you will find unpacking standards documents to support teachers in their understanding of the common core and essential standards. The unpacking documents demonstrate at a granular level the knowledge and skills students are expected to master at a particular grade. Important Note: The current Standard Course of Study will continue to be taught and tested during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. New standards and assessments are to be implemented for the first time beginning with the 2012-13 school year. Please send any thoughts, feedback, questions and ideas about additional resources that would help you start preparing to teach the new standards to feedback@dpi.nc.gov. English Language Arts Unpacking Standards Kindergarten (pdf, 608kb) 1st Grade (pdf, 646kb) 2nd Grade (pdf, 761kb) 3rd Grade (pdf, 849kb) 4th Grade (pdf, 833kb) 5th Grade (pdf, 1.6mb) 6th Grade (pdf, 1.3mb) 7th Grade (pdf, 1016kb) 8th Grade (pdf, 1.0mb) English I & II (pdf, 1.1mb) English III & IV (pdf, 1.2mb)
18 Ways iPads Are Being Used In Classrooms Right Now iPads are quickly becoming a popular and powerful educational tool for classrooms. Beyond the immediate benefit of engaging students, iPads can improve education efficiency and standards. However, many teachers are unsure of how to use them effectively. As the case studies below demonstrate, iPads are being used in education environments around the world with great success. So just what are they doing? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Similarly, First Words Animals aids with letter and word identification. 18.
BREAKING: Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple Steve Jobs, co-founder and two-time CEO of Apple, offered his resignation to the company's board Wednesday. "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know," he wrote. "Unfortunately, that day has come." Jobs has been in poor health for some time. Jobs advised the board to "execute our succession plan" — by naming Tim Cook to replace him. SEE ALSO: Tim Cook Named Apple CEO | Apple Stock Falls | Share Your Steve Jobs Moments Jobs will not be leaving the company altogether, and the move was clearly well-planned in advance. "I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it," Jobs wrote in his resignation letter to the Apple board. Apple stock was down 7% in after-hours trading but rallied and was down just 5% by 7:50 p.m. Here's a look at some of the most iconic moments from Steve Jobs's career at Apple:
10 incredible iPad apps for education Learning is rarely fun; it’s even less fun when being taught within the confines of a lecture hall or classroom. While this may be true, there’s no reason why you can’t make the process more entertaining and challenging. The tablet market has paved the way for educational resources in the form of slick, new apps, with text-books now being replaced by online downloadable versions of themselves. Evernote It seems wherever you look nowadays, there’s Evernote. ➤ Evernote Price: Free Paper Winner at the 2012 Apple Design Awards for Best iPad app, Paper has taken creativity of app development to new heights. ➤ Paper Goodreader You could be forgiven for thinking Goodreader as just as a PDF reader for the iPad. Price: $4.99 Bamboo Paper – Notebook Famous for its pen graphic tablets, Wacom’s first foray into the app market is quite an impressive one. ➤ Bamboo Paper – Notebook iA Writer ➤ iA Writer Price: $0.99
OS X Lion: 5 kleine wijzigingen (deel 8) Met de nieuwe big features zoals Mission Control, Launchpad en Versions zullen de meeste Mac OS X Lion gebruikers ondertussen wel kennis hebben gemaakt. Maar in Mac OS X Lion zitten ook hele berg aan kleine verbeteringen die ontzettend handig kunnen zijn. Vandaag hebben we vijf verbeteringen ingezonden door Appletips bezoekers voor Safari, Mail, iChat en Schermdeling. 1. In iChat worden alle accounts en contactpersonen standaard samengevoegd en in één venster getoond. 2. 3. 4. 5. Bedankt voor de tips! Kom je ook een nieuwe feature tegen in Mac OS X Lion die je met appletips bezoekers wilt delen laat het ons dan weten via het tip-formulier! De appletips.nl Genius community!
Kyrene improves walk-through procedure with iPads - Ahwatukee Foothills News: Community Focus Kyrene School District has found a way to help its students demonstrate academic growth by updating its walk-through procedure with the use of iPads. "Kyrene has received $6.8 million from a capital override, thanks to support from taxpayers," said Karin Smith, chief financial and operations officer for the district. "This is far more than we've ever received through the state funding formula and it helps fund items such as iPads, which cost $500 a piece." Each iPad is equipped with a duplicate of Kyrene's Improvement Walk-Through Instrument form, but is not readily available to just anyone. Patricia Weegar, director of instructional services at Kyrene, was the founding principal of Akimel A-al Middle School and recalled what a walk-through was like pre-iPads. "There are 1,200 classes and two different types of walk-through procedures for reading and math. "The most important thing is that students have the best possible education and it all starts with the teacher," Weegar said.
Mac Tricks And Tips: Top 100 Essential Mac Applications Hey I love my Mac and I have hundreds of applications installed on it. As a result I wanted to do a post on what I believe are the top 100 Mac applications that are essential to any user. I’ve picked a variety of applications that I could think of. I have tried to go for the cheaper free option, but quite a few you have to pay for. If you think I am missing an application leave a comment with a link to the app and why you should think it should be included, it doesn’t have to be long, I just want your opinions. Each application will be split into a couple of major sections. If you want to take your knowledge of Mac apps a bit further I recommend these two books on Amazon, Cool Mac Apps and The Little Mac Book they have got some raving reviews and are probably a good read. Computer Files This section is all about programs that can be used to work with files and applications 4) Grand Perspective Very similar to Disk Inventory X, shows you what files take up how much space on your website.
Using the iPad to Increase my Productivity Even though there are numerous other blog posts by principals using the iPad, I have said numerous times that my blog is a great place for me to reflect on my practice and seek the feedback of others. I have learned a great deal of iPad tips from other princpals, and I will list those blog posts/helpful sites below. I plan to use this post to explain how I am using my school issued iPad to increase my productivity and spend more time in classrooms (my ULTIMATE goal as a principal). As basic as it sounds, the top 2 reasons I use the iPad more than anything else are to keep up with emails and my calendar. When I am walking through classrooms, I have just used the Notes app on the iPad to quickly type feedback to teachers and email them. I have just begun to use Evernote in place of the Notes app. I keep track of my daily goals with the app "Simple Goals." I used to be the queen of post-it notes of to-do lists each day, but I have now been using the app "Get it Done."
Europa start onderzoek naar Microsoft - Consument Steffi Ophalvens − 17/07/12, 13u20 − Bron: belga.be, BuzzT © afp. Europees Commissaris voor Mededinging Joaquin Almunia. dm UPDATEDe Europese Commissie opent een onderzoek naar Microsoft. Het onderzoek moet nagaan of de softwaregigant de afspraken is nagekomen om internetgebruikers de mogelijkheid te geven hun eigen webbrowser te kiezen. © afp. Microsoft zou gebruikers van Windows nog steeds niet de vrije keuze voor een eigen webbrowser laten. Maar de Commissie vraagt zich af of dat het geval is bij het softwarepakket Windows 7 Service Pack 1, dat in februari vorig jaar op de markt kwam. Als blijkt dat Microsoft de eerder gemaakte afspraken aan zijn laars heeft gelapt, riskeert het volgens Almunia financiële sancties. Microsoft biedt excuses aan"We hebben verzaakt aan onze verantwoordelijkheden", zo erkende Microsoft in een mededeling. Microsoft ontdekte het euvel naar eigen zeggen pas recent.
Walk-Throughs Are On the Move! Classroom walk-throughs are a trend that is on the move! The non-threatening, non-evaluative walk-throughs give principals a quick snapshot of student learning. That snapshot is used to engage teachers in conversations about how to improve teaching. School leaders are under a lot of stress -- but if exercise is a stress antidote, then principals might be among the healthiest managers around. The walk-through technique is based on the work of Carolyn Downey and others (authors of The Three-Minute Classroom Walk-Through: Changing School Supervisory Practice One Teacher at a Time). The walk-through process can benefit teachers in many ways, according to Kathy Larson of the Cooperative Education Service Agency #2 in Milton, Wisconsin. As one teacher put it, walk-throughs "allow us to see where we want to go, with the students' best interests in mind." Principals who have been trained to use the walk-through observation technique speak clearly about its benefits.