Literary Studies in the Digital Age | MLA Commons Four Good Alternatives to Clicker Systems One of the benefits of allowing students to bring their cell phones into your classroom is that they can use them to give you anonymous feedback on sensitive questions and questions for which a name isn't necessary. For example, you might just want to take a survey of the average length of time your students spent studying for a quiz or how long it took them to complete an assignment. Here are four alternatives to purchasing clicker systems for your school while still gathering anonymous feedback from students. Socrative is my favorite tool for collecting anonymous feedback from students. Socrative uses cell phones and or laptops (user's choice) for gathering feedback from students. You can post as many questions as you like in a variety of formats. Socrative introduction video (new) from Socrative Inc. on Vimeo. Poll Everywhere is a service that allows you to collect responses from an audience via text messaging. Mobile Presenter Tools from Poll Everywhere on Vimeo.
How To Use Your iPad As A Digital Whiteboard iPads, whether you like it or not, are a popular choice among schools as the hardware of choice when talking about ‘new’ classroom technology. There are so many different ways you can use them , they’re pretty intuitive, and there are a number of teachers out there who have been sharing their experiences integrating these sexy little tablets into their classrooms. Something that we haven’t talked much about is using your iPad as a digital interactive whiteboard for your classroom. Turns out there are a number of different apps to aid you on this journey, ranging from free to paid with varying functionality that you may or may not need, depending on exactly what you’d like to do with it. Educreations Interactive Whiteboard Educreations Interactive Whiteboard is a free app that turns your iPad into a recordable interactive whiteboard. Show Me Interactive Whiteboard Show Me Interactive Whiteboard is also free, and allows users to record voice over audio for your whiteboard drawings. Doceri
Tips For Teaching a Research Essay by sithsheila I am an adjunct English instructor at a local community college. I’m finishing up my grading of the students’ research projects, and it is at this point I feel I’ve failed and feel like a fraud in teaching freshman how to write an effective research essay. I think I do a good job having students practice integrating sources and using our MLA guides to check it, but when I grade, it seems I’ve failed. Maybe I need help making sure students are properly integrating sources, but I am afraid this “cry for help” to my fellow instructors will expose me as unqualified to teach. Is there some “clearinghouse” where instructors share their best lesson plans in detail? I got a few notes with the research papers from students telling me “I never had to cite paraphrases before.” I’m looking for help with effective teaching practices not a scathing critique of what I should know/be doing as a teacher, as I’ve received in the past. Tags: Confidence, Teaching Tips
8 Things to Look for in An Educational App Picking up the right educational apps to recommend to your students and kids is not an easy task.There are several criterion you need to consider before you can comfortably claim that an app is educational or not. Of course there are no hard and fast rules to follow to be a good app reviewer and app reviewing is not an established science with clear boundaries but what we talk about here are simple conventions. These conventions are developed by experienced educators who , out of their long experience with app reviewing , have developed a sense of what works and what does not for educational settings. Experience here is very important because sometimes people learn more through experience than through formal instruction.
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. Coupled with concerns over the costs involved, iPad implementation in schools is seen as an unnecessary and expensive risk. As the case studies below demonstrate, iPads are being used in education environments around the world with great success. Teachers can have paperless classrooms, take attendance, share interactive presentations and test their students—all on their iPad. 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.
Digital Essay | English 211s: Digital Writing Your second main project for this course is to compose a digital essay—a piece of writing meant to be read on the screen rather than on the page. So the question is: What new possibilities does writing for the screen open up? Clearly, one thing you can do as a digital writer is to combine modes of expression, mix your prose with images, hyperlinks, videos, and audio files. You can insert written text into a video or slide show, or write the script for an audio file, or layer writing over images. But all that begs the really interesting question, which is: How can you use these new possibilities of expression in imaginative ways? Which raises the question of what it means to compose a digital essay. A digital essay is centered in writing. One thing a digital essay does not have to be is a Word document. I’ll ask you to develop your digital essay in a series of stages—including a proposal (due on Mon, 3/04), materials (Mon, 3/25), prose (Mon, 4/01), and a full draft (Fri, 4/12).
SMARTBoard Simulator for the iPad Educreations is a fantastic iPad app that simulates the SMARTBoard touch screen experience. You will use a regular projector and projector screen – I’m often projecting onto my SMARTBoard even though my iPad isn’t connected to it. This app allows you to use your iPad screen as a blank canvas to write on while recording your entire session. For example I might import a picture of a Scholastic News article and identify text features for my students. As I write on the screen I can record what is happening and these short videos can be played back for the whole class. It’s wonderful to be able to play these “mini-lessons” a second time for students who need repetition, or for students who might enter the class late or have been pulled out to work with a service provider. After adding a picture from your camera roll (here is a screen shot off of the Scholastic News website) you can write all over the text in a variety of colors. Links to your lessons can be emailed for view on other devices.
23 Things Every Teacher Should Be Able To Do With An iPad Using an iPad is simple due to its intuitive interface, elegant touch interface, and user-friendly operating system. Below we’ve listed 23 different tasks a teacher should be able to perform with their iPad. We’ve tried to focus on the basics, along with some typical tasks a teacher may be required to complete. We’ve also (roughly) arranged them from less complicated to more complicated, so consider yourself an Unofficial iPad “Basic Hacker” if you can get to the bottom. And let us know which important ones we’ve missed below on twitter or facebook. 1. Power button; long press and plug it in. 2. Apple has you covered: “To redeem an iTunes Gift Card or Gift Certificate, click the Redeem link in iTunes, enter the code on the card or certificate into the Redeem Code box on the page, and click the Redeem button. 3. For reference, check Apple’s help page, or Appducate’s page for some troubleshooting tips. 4. And this probably means social media messages, too. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.