Interactive Learning Sites for Education - Home The 6 Biggest Challenges Of Using Education Technology In an unplanned series of sorts, we’re showcasing a couple of posts about the 2013 NMC/EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Horizon Report for Higher Education . We’ve already talked about the key trends in the report , but it also addressed another important topic when it comes to classroom technology – the challenges involved with implementing new technologies. The Horizon Report identified six broad challenges to implementation which span the widest range of users – while recognizing that there are many significant local barriers that present their own challenges as well. In these six identified challenges, we seem to come back to the idea that technology for the sake of having technology is not enough; the technology needs to have a purpose for both teachers and students, and it needs to be the right choice for the institutions, teacher, and students involved. Teachers needs to be learning how to use the technology themselves, too. Do you teach at the higher ed level?
Don’t Use a 2.0 Technology in a 1.0 Way cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by jurvetson “And that’s the grand dilemma of social networking: it’s intended to allow participation, to let companies and individuals all engage and interact, but all too many are one way channels, broadcast media where responses or engagement is ignored completely.” — Dave Taylor Many organizations or schools are starting to get on the Facebook and Twitter bandwagon and seeing the importance of having a presence on the largest social networks. Yet, there is much more to Twitter than having an account, and unless you are Justin Bieber, you have to change your mindset to make meaningful use of social media. The old-school philosophy of communication lent itself to making a fancy website so that you had a nice Web presence. As we have progressed, not only in our use of technology but also our understanding of effective leadership, we know that communication includes effective talking but, more importantly, listening.
How Many Teachers Use Technology in the Classroom? Remember the good old days of reading textbooks in school and taking notes from a chalkboard? Yeah, neither do we. PBS Learning Media, in preparation for Digital Learning Day on Wednesday, Feb. 6, conducted a national survey of pre-K to 12th grade teachers to find out how many incorporate technology into their day-to-day classroom activities. According to a press release, close to 74% of all teachers surveyed said they use digital resources — tablets, computers — to expand and reinforce on content in their classrooms. Among the other highlights: 69% of those surveyed said educational technology helps them “do much more than ever before” for their students, with the most commonly used resources being online lesson plans, interactive web games and online articles. More than one-third said they use a tablet or e-reader in their classrooms — up from 20% last year. Take a look at the graphic below to see the rest of the results. Image via iStockphoto, sturti
Differentiation and explicit teaching in English | Teaching AC English Online Learning in the Traditional Classroom Staying put in your brick-and-mortar classroom? Here are resources to help you infuse some virtual education within those four walls. Guide on the Side: Administrators with the Idaho Digital Learning Academy have found it makes a big difference to have a real-live coach, like Centerpoint Alternative High School's Lorrie Houston, keep students on track when they take online courses in school. Credit: Grace Rubenstein Virtual schools might seem like a foreign land from your three-dimensional classroom. Free Online Lessons A little village of providers of free online lessons is sprouting up. Khan Academy is a growing library of 1,200-plus videos created by Salman Khan -- who holds a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science and an MBA from Harvard Business School -- from his California home. Connexions is an open-source content library created in 1999 by Rice University engineering professor Richard Baraniuk. Collaborative Online Projects GoNorth! Back to Top
Online communities are transforming professional development for teachers | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional It's strange looking back now at when I first started teaching 10 years ago. I moved a long distance to take up my first post, and so the only teachers I knew in my new area were the ones who worked in my new school. When I left three years later, this was still the case. In those three years, the only teachers I discussed teaching with were those who happened to occupy the same staff room as me. This form of professional isolation isn't a big problem if you work in a large and vibrant school where the staff and the leadership team are innovating and have open minds to change. This first began to change for me when I encountered blogging. And then Twitter arrived. But after a while, I began to feel something had been lost with the growth of the network - we'd lost the community. At the time of this realisation there didn't appear to be many majorly successful online teacher communities which provided the sort of positive environment I was looking for.
Beyond Q+A: Six Strategies That Motivate ALL Students to Participate Do you have students who rarely raise their hand when you ask a question? When I think back about kids in my classroom who didn't participate at first, I remember Jared and Maya (whose names I changed). Jared was polite, listened to his classmates, and did his homework. I often visit classrooms where I see teachers employ lots of Q+A. How can we get our shiest students, or even our student with her head down in the back of our class, participating? 1. According to researcher Mary Budd Rowe, the average teacher waits 1.5 seconds between asking a question and calling on a student. Accuracy increases"I don’t know" decreasesStudent responses get longerAchievement on tests increasesMore students participate I literally count at least three Mississippis in my head after asking each question. 2. Pre-plan a few questions that you want to ask (Saphier and Haley, 1993), write them on slips, and hand each student one question at the beginning of class. 3. 4. 5. Have a really debatable question? 6.
An Introduction to Technology Integration Sal Khan: People have been integrating technology in the classroom forever. What I think is really exciting about what we're seeing now is that technology is being used to fundamentally transform what the classroom is. Fundamentally transform what you can do with a classroom. Adam Bellow: I think to define technology integration, it's really using whatever resources you have to the best of your abilities. Technology, it's a tool. Divya (student): This is a list of different applications that you can use to like make music or do art. Divya: My eyes were drooping. Mary Beth Hertz: Students today are creating using digital tools. Mary Beth: Kids can create podcasts, movies, songs to express their ideas, express their thoughts. but also to express their learning. Adam: When you create, you take ownership of your learning. Mary Beth: And sometimes they learn things we didn't expect them to learn. Mary Beth: This internet thing that has become a big part of our lives.
Thoughts on Leadership, Teaching & Learning - Moving Teaching from ‘Good’ to ‘Excellent’: Part 1 Colleagues Supporting Colleagues Ross McGill, 29th January 2013 on the state of CPD: “CPD can be a gloomy picture in most schools. Inset days, at worst, are one-size-fits-all chalk and talk in the school hall or even self-directed time which we will inevitably be used for marking or planning. I don’t want to play the Ofsted game, but I want my colleagues to have opportunities to develop their teaching, to be able to move to really excellent (or ‘outstanding’ in Ofsted speak) teaching. After Ross Mc Gill’s article, I mwant to develop our in-hiouse training to take CPD forward. 1. This is the only way to share good preactice. t promotes ther sharing of good ideas and practice. Caution: I know that the term ‘TeachMeet’ is focussed on out of school time, informal sharing of ideas, the coming together of colleagues from various schools. We have had some two successful PD Days this academic year. We now have three kinds of TeachMeet: 1. 2. 3. These sessions will continue.
The Harsh Reality of the Classroom of the Future In the UK, private schools often use ‘small class sizes’ at 6th form (16-18 years old) as a selling point to entice parents to choose their school over another. I regularly have the opportunity of teaching groups of 10 or less in their final year of study and this certainly has significant benefits. What is fascinating about teaching 6th form students is how 2 significant things change in the classroom: the teacher stops standing at the front of the room, and the use of varied teaching resources stops. Of course this is a horrible generalization, but it is certainly true more often than it is in other lessons. Frustratingly this combination is what stops pedagogical progress, both for the older students I have just described and the younger students who have a teacher at the front of the room, but more access to varied teaching resources. The Current Setup vs Ideal Setup There is no need for a teacher to stand at the front of the room. Observations Via Wired.com
10 ways to change the minds of tech-reluctant staff We often hear about tech-savvy educators and administrators who have an array of best practices and whose love for technology is evident. But as anyone who’s ever been part of a school or district knows, not all teachers and administrators are as comfortable or familiar with technology. In a recent “Question of the Week,” we asked our tech-savvy readers: “How do you get tech-reluctant teachers and administrators to use technology effectively?” Here are our readers’ top answers (edited for brevity). 1. “To get educational staff on board with tech, encourage and support them using tech for their non-work purposes. 2. “As a principal, I make time to offer and teach the [professional development] myself. “During the past 12 years, and through all of the technology changes we have encountered, I have found that the most effective way to get others to effectively use technology is by modeling.
Student Blogs: Learning to Write in Digital Spaces Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can’t stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). Andrea Hernandez and I are working on a “spiraling” blogging skills guide for each grade level in order to facilitate skill building connections from one year to the next. Creating the platform and the username and password and teaching the kids to log in is the EASY part. The focus needs to be in using the platform to guide students to : By “translating”, I mean… By “transforming”, I mean…being able to do something that was impossible to do before: write for a global audience. While I understand that “translating” and “substituting” (take a look at the SAMR model) analog, traditional tasks with online digital tasks is part of the process, it is only a step. Like this: Like Loading...
How Does #Edchat Connect Educators August 7, 2012 by tomwhitby For educators who have been connected since the early days of social media, it is difficult to understand the reason people would ask, “What is #Edchat?” We must remember that many educators using social media for professional reasons have joined only recently. #Edchat began on Twitter three years ago. The popularity of Twitter for many is a result of its simplicity: Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so the writer isn’t required to say much. Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell), Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) and I (@tomwhitby) created such a chat to focus on topics for educators. The power of the hashtag was still developing in those days. There are about 70 education chats working for specific focuses. Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) maintains other education chats. Like this: Like Loading...