How The Nearpod iPad App Changed An Entire School I have been wanting to write a post for a while about the amazing tool that we came across last year, that has truly changed the way we use iPads in our classrooms, but haven’t had a venue to do so. Now that I have my new website, I decided it was a must! If you aren’t familiar with this groundbreaking Nearpod iPad app , I want to take a minute to share it with you and explain how it changed our school. Nearpod is an App that allows teachers to share presentations; but wait, there’s more! Needless to say, it is a presenter’s dream come true. Starting Out With Nearpod I’ll never forget my first experience with Nearpod. At Pine Crest, we differentiate instruction, and the iPad is great for that, but we still also provide whole group instruction. Felipe came to me to share this revolutionary App and he walked me through the experience. Feedback Becomes Reality So, what are you using now that we suggested? Seeing this App grow from the very beginning has been a very rewarding experience.
Blubbr - Create Interactive Quizzes Using YouTube Clips Blubbr is a neat quiz creation service that I recently learned about on Danny Nicholson's blog. Using Blubbr you can create interactive quizzes that are based on YouTube clips. Your quizzes can be about anything of your choosing. To create a quiz on Blubbr start by entering a topic for your quiz. Applications for Education I think of Blubbr as being like TEDEd but with short video clips. Classroom of 2020: The future is very different than you think Imagine: you wake up at 9:23 a.m. one September morning in 2020. Your alarm failed to sound and now you’re late. But don’t fret. Your commute to school consists of carrying your laptop to the kitchen table. When you load today’s lecture video you don’t see your professor; instead, a classmate appears on the screen. Your classmate uses the word “atavistic” and you pause the lecture to look it up. After a while, your eyes wander to the window. If the above seems like a far-fetched prediction of what a classroom might be like in 2020, you’re behind the times. This is the brave new world of higher education, where students teach professors, technology enables digital note-passing and online courses enroll thousands of students. In an era when a student can access more information through her cellphone than a professor can consume in a lifetime, is the university as a physical place obsolete?
The mLearning Revolution Blog » 8 Things we MUST do in 2013 to seize the potential of mLearning 2012 has been an amazing year for mobile! This year we have seen technology companies introduce a myriad of mobile devices of all sizes, prices and operating systems. In 2012 Apple announced the iPhone 5, two new iPads and the new iPad mini; Google unveiled their first tablet, the nexus 7 and later the 10″ version; Amazon gave us three Kindle Fire HD tablets. Not to be outdone, Samsung announced the Galaxy Note II and the Tab Tablet, and of course Microsoft announced the Surface Tablet. Earlier this year Comscore reported that 2014 will be the year in which the number of mobile users will surpass desktop users for the first time. Here’s another statistic that bodes well for mobile, Apple sold more iPads in Q4 2011 than any individual PC manufacturer sold PCs. One final statistic I would like to include here is the fact that as of September 2012, Android alone accounted for 1.3 million activations a day, that’s roughly 39 million activations a month. Charles Darwin said it best:
Garden » Students as Questioners – Bloom’s Taxonomy “An educated person today is someone who knows the right question to ask.” Recently, I’ve been repeating this Ernest Boyer quote to myself. It encapsulates so much in so few words. It’s time to pass the baton to the students and develop their abilities to ask the high quality questions. Let’s call on our friend Benjamin Bloom for support. Bloom’s revised taxonomy is a great asset for making explicit your motivations behind classroom activities, assignments and discussion starters. Developing an Understanding of Bloom’s Taxonomy Socrative Solution: Utilize Short Response (SR), Multiple Choice (MC) and True/False (TF) Socrative easily allows everyone in your class to ask and answer the questions! These activities are not designed to be completed in one day or week. Provide an overview of the taxonomy with examples from your classroom. *These can be done anonymously* Performances of Understanding – Question Skills in Action Student Designed Entrance Ticket Post Presentation Questions
Does Mobile Learning Work? With more than 700,000 apps in Apple’s app store, mobile content is here to stay. But the jury remains out on just how effective mobile learning is. Todd Richmond, director of advanced prototype development and transition at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, said his gut feeling is that what a user gets out of mobile learning depends on the user. “If you have a user that is comfortable with a tablet or a smartphone, they will be more willing to put up with issues and engage with the content,” he said. Among mobile devices, desktops and laptops, there will always be tradeoffs in convenience, computing power and multimedia capabilities. Jan Cannon-Bowers, research director of University of South Florida’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, said the convenience of mobile learning makes it useful for refresher training in rare procedures. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? “We do this all the time.
Social Media in Higher Education “Social Media Manager” was recently named one of the Best New Jobs in America, according to CNN. Looking ahead to 2013, social media is set to become a required skill-set, as demand for professionals experienced with social media continues to rise. Social media is gaining adoption company-wide, and currently there are over 13,000 job postings per month requiring social media skills. To meet this growing demand for social media experts in the workforce, HootSuite has created a Higher Education Program. In 2013, expect to see more universities incorporate social media education into their curriculums and degree programs, as undergraduate and MBA programs adapt to the changing market. The first school to host the HootSuite University‘s Higher Education Program was S.I. After a successful semester, over 20 professors entered into a pilot semester for Fall 2012, which saw over 800 students learn about social media and earn their HootSuite Certification. Jason Schmitt, Green Mountain College
Mobile Learning Support for New Teachers The mobile learning revolution is alive and growing in popularity every day. When schools move toward mobile learning in the classroom, they can take advantage of electronic devices such as tablets and cell phones that offer portability and ease of use. Mobile learning technologies can offer teachers a flexible approach to learning with their students in a variety of locations, and encourage this learning to continue at home. As schools begin to consider the movement towards mobile learning, it’s important to support teachers with strategies for success, particularly if they are new. As I began to research this topic I was disappointed to discover that resources for supporting new teacher use of mobile learning strategies weren’t easily accessible. So I reached out to my friend Lisa Nielsen and her co-author Willyn Webb to share with us how a new teacher might begin to use mobile learning in the classroom. Lisa Nielsen and Willyn Webb Success doesn’t just happen. 1) Notify Parents
Google's 80/20 Principle Applies to Students The 80/20 principle that Google practices has trickled down to students in classrooms across North America. For at least 20 percent of their week, students work on projects that interest them. Whether educators call it 20 percent time or genius hour, the concept is the same, said Gallit Zvi, a teacher at Georges Vanier Elementary in British Columbia's Surrey School District 36. "The goal as I see it is to give students time to explore what they wonder about or what their passions are," Zvi said. "They're in charge of their learning rather than me being the curriculum deliverer standing up in front of the class saying, 'This is what we need to learn." This process helps students understand that learning is a life-long goal, said Hugh McDonald, a teacher Zvi works with at the elementary school. "As adults, we learn things that we want to learn about," McDonald said, "so why shouldn't students be given that same kind of choice?" And it comes with student recommendations.
In this university’s laptop vending machine, the MacBooks are free Philadelphia’s Drexel University has installed a Macbook vending machine in the university’s Haggerty library. The kiosk dispenses MacBooks free of charge to Drexel students, staff, and faculty, who can use the machines for up to five hours at a time. The goal is simply to help students get better, safer access to technology. “We installed it in late December,” Niki Gianakaris, Drexel’s media relations director, said. To get a MacBook, students simply walk up to the vending machine, sign in with their student card, and receive a laptop. For now it’s a demo project with single vending machine, but it could grow over time. “This is obviously going to be very popular,” Gianakaris said. The program is part of Drexel Library’ knowledge transfer mission. Depending on students’ reaction and university finances, Drexel is considering installing kiosks at additional potential locations around campus. If the program is popular, iPads are next up on the list for consideration, Gianakaris added.
College Students To Tweet Even More In Class As Social Media Becomes A Major Retweet this if you want extra credit. That idea may not be too farfetched because according to the local Fox channel 57 in Columbia, SC, South Carolina's Newberry College is pushing the envelope of tech education, and will allow its students to major in social media. The kids will learn all about it, and how to use it, apparently...because all that time spent on their iPhones or home PCs using Facebook and Twitter and Instagram isn't enough of an education all of its own. Check out the news clip below to have your social world turned as upside down as a keg stand: Now, we agree that Web 2.0 (if we can use so outmoded a phrase) is all about the social experience of the web, with a side serving of revolution in mobile social Net access. The college, for its part, explains that this is one of the first interdisciplinary social media majors. So...last time we looked, the QR code was frowned upon by almost everyone, everywhere (though it does linger in the U.S.).