The passion gap Photo credits: positiveimperative.com “Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion.” — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher, 1832 I recently spoke at the Dell Innovation in Education Panel at the Texas Association of School Administrators 2013 Conference in Austin. When we were invited to sum up at the end, I realized that one guest had not been invited to the table: Passion. I was the first to interject this word, saying that “passion should not be the number one thing on the agenda, it IS the agenda.” The #TASA13 hashtag on Twitter, which had been moving moderately, exploded, with several dozen tweets supporting my statement. At any other conference in any other industry, passion is on the lips of nearly every participant, but at some education conferences, you are far more likely to hear the words “assessment,” “standardize,” “common core” and “pedagogy” than you are to hear the word “passion.” Why does passion matter?
200 Free K-12 Educational Resources This collection provides a list of free educational resources for K‑12 students (kindergarten through high school students) and their parents and teachers. This page is being updated and cleaned up during the COVID-19 crisis. Please tell us if we’re missing something valuable. Below you will find free video lessons/tutorials; free mobile apps; free audiobooks, ebooks and textbooks; quality YouTube channels; free foreign language lessons; test prep materials; and free web resources in academic subjects like literature, history, science and computing. Home Schooling Resources During COVID-19 Amazing Educational Resources: A spreadsheet of 300+ education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings. Free Audio Books, eBooks and Textbooks Free Audio Books: Our collection of 450 free audio books includes many children’s classics. Foreign Languages Video Lessons/Tutorials Art & Visual Culture (Web Resources)
Stump The Teacher The lesson you never got taught in school: How to learn! | Neurobonkers A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions. The report is quite a heavy document so I’ve summarised the techniques below based on the conclusions of the report regarding effectiveness of each technique. Be aware that everyone thinks they have their own style of learning (they don't, according to the latest research), and the evidence suggests that just because a technique works or does not work for other people does not necessarily mean it will or won’t work well for you. If you want to know how to revise or learn most effectively you will still want to experiment on yourself a little with each technique before writing any of them off. Elaborative Interrogation (Rating = moderate) A method involving creating explanations for why stated facts are true. An example of elaborative interrogation for the above paragraph could be: Reference:
6 Ways Students Can Collaborate With iPads The following post is written by Greg Kulowiec of EdTechTeacher . Join EdTechTeacher at the iPad Summit in Atlanta on April 10-12. The app store is loaded with options that allow students to create content on their iPads. From comic strip creators to mind maps, video editing and publishing, screencasting & digital books, the options for individual student creation are expanding. However, collaboration between students is often a critical component of any classroom activity or project and increasingly there are options available that allow for collaborative efforts across iPads. Below are six ways to support collaboration between student iPads that cover the spectrum of creation options that range from text to digital storytelling to video creation. Explain Everything ($2.99) A flexible and powerful screen casting option, students and teachers can collaborate on screencasts by exporting Explain Everything project files from an iPad. Google Drive (Free) BookCreator ($4.99) Subtext (free) Diigo
The Nerdy Teacher Manifesto for education change (This article is a compilation of tweets – feel free to add your comments and questions and advance the conversation.) Imagine Learning Manifesto for education change #edchat #education #cpchat The world is changing rapidly. Regrettably, education is not keeping pace with change. With clear shifts to online activity everywhere else, we should expect this to happen in education. Will schools have a role into the future? Physical space is just as important as virtual and/or pedagogic space. Leadership roles should match priorities, not history. I heard it said recently that “schools are not mortgage paying institutions”. Engaged learning cultures need to be stronger than any other culture a child experiences. Schools need to be located in new spaces avoiding/rejecting the ‘one box per batch’ classroom model. Teachers need to grow their capacity to be inspirational mentors, working in teams. Learning is life; life is learning. And assessment.
Knowmia Teach Is a Great App for Creating Lesson Videos Knowmia is a website and an iPad app for creating, sharing, and viewing video lessons. The Knowmia Teach iPad app is an excellent app for creating your own whiteboard videos in the Khan Academy style. I have found the Knowia Teach app to have far more creation options than the similar Showme and Educreations apps. All Knowia Teach lessons can be uploaded to the Knowmia website with just one tap of your iPad’s screen. Tags: Flipped Classroom, Flipped Lessons, free app, free apps, video creation
More pedagogic change in 10 years than last 1000 years – all driven by 10 technology innovations Pedagogy - one of those words that’s used when people want to sound all academic. So let’s just call it learning practice. Of one thing we can be sure; teaching does not seem to have changed much in the last 100 years. In our Universities, given the stubborn addiction to lectures, it has barely changed in 1000 years. So what’s the real source of pedagogic change? It’s not education departments who peddle the same old traditional, teacher training courses or train the trainer courses. Suddenly we had Google, then in the last ten years Facebook, Twitter, BBM, MSN Messenger, Wikipedia, YouTube, iTunes, Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox. 1. Education and training have been tied to the tyranny of time and location. 2. The simple hyperlink encourages curiosity and is a leap to more learning. 3. Google aren’t kidding when they state their mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. 4. Jimmy Wales should get the Nobel Prize. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
SmartBlog on Education - Making learning viral - SmartBrief, Inc. SmartBlogs SmartBlogs This post begins in a place that’s far away from, well, just about everything. We’re traveling to place called Zuni Pueblo in northern New Mexico. Zuni is miles away from McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and many other corporate flagships that permeate our society. For example, it’s a 45-minute drive down a one-lane road just to find a grocery store. After arriving at this remote destination, I decided some exercise was in order. He played “Gangnam Style.” Everyone in the room cheered in response, and the class was instantly in motion. Clearly some ideas are viral. But viral ideas should be much more than funny music videos or cat pictures. So, how can we make important ideas and skills replicate them once they’re inside our learners? 1. A learning experience that’s participatory invites people to join and contribute. 2. A learning experience that’s plain means that it’s simple. 3. Viral learning idea isn’t new. These three tenets of viral learning design have important implications for education.
Educational Technology and Mobile Learning: The 33 Digital Skills Every 21st Century Teacher should Have By EdTech Team Updated on march 2, 2015 : The original list that was created in 2011 comprised 33 skills , after reviewing it we decided to do some merging and finally ended up with the 20 skills below. The 21st century teacher should be able to : 1- Create and edit digital audio Here are some tools for teachers to develop this skill :Free Audio Tools for Teachers 2- Use Social bookmarking to share resources with and between learners Here are some tools for teachers to develop this skill : A List of Best Bookmarking Websites for Teachers 3- Use blogs and wikis to create online platforms for students Here are some tools for teachers to develop this skill : Great Tools to Create Protected Blogs and Webpages for your Class 4- Exploit digital images for classroom use Here are some tools for teachers to develop this skill :Web Tools to Edit Pictures without Installing any softwareTools to Convert Photos into Cartoons
The Wing to Heaven 'Grit' Is More Important Than IQ 5 Reasons Why Educators Should Network The period of isolationism in the United States ended during World War II, but while political isolation is no more, educational isolation is still prevalent in public schools today. Many teachers go to school each day, teach their students and leave. If they're struggling with how to teach a lesson that will engage their students, they might ask for advice from the teacher down the hall, but a lot of times, they struggle alone. That's not the case for educators who have built a network of people who share resources, advice and techniques, whether they call it a personal learning network or something else. Here's why educators should start a personal learning network, or PLN. 1. Teachers cannot know everything, so they should learn from one another, said Jerry Blumengarten, who spent 32 years teaching and retired from the New York City Board of Education in 2002. "It’s one of the most important things that you can have as a teacher, whether it’s online or in a school," she said. 2. 3. 4.