Head in the Clouds: The Benefits of Celestial Storage I've been thinking about cloud technology over the past few weeks and thought I would share a few great reasons why educators should consider making the move into the cloud. Back It Up This is the third time I am writing this post. By keeping documents in the cloud, they will safely sit in a folder waiting to be edited and shared when I want. Cootie Protection Kids are germ factories. Sharing Is Caring We are living in a world where collaboration is essential. I'm involved in multiple group documents at any given moment. Email Shmemail After school I am no longer tethered to my email account, sharing file after file of my epic lesson plans. While there are size restraints on some cloud storage options, most offer reasonable rates for larger storage. Tree Huggers Smile Going paperless sounds very trendy. The amount of time you will save by not being at the copier will simply blow your mind. These are just a few of my reasons for making the move to the cloud.
SAMR Ladder- A Wonderful Graphic for Teachers What will I gain by replacing the older technology with the new technology? Have I added an improvement that could not be accomplished at the fundamental level? Does the modification fundamentally depend on the new technology? Cool Tools for 21st Century Learners, my blogd97cooltools.blogspot.co.uk Research:Students can quickly access flexible search engines to find information. Writing:Students will begin to write more than with handwritten text. Digital Citizenship:Introduce avatars to get students thinking about protecting their identities when online. Research:Student can construct knowledge through research guided by Essential Questions and use that knowledge to create something original. Writing:Built in writing supports and integrated research and reference tools improve efficiency of the writing task. Digital Citizenship: Students learn about copyright. Research:Students conduct their own research. Writing:Students write for audiences.
Connecting Teachers and Students to the Best Digital Tools The recent news about ConnectEd, a federal initiative to get Internet connectivity and the technology to use it into America's classrooms, is full of promise for today's students. But overcoming barriers to access is only part of the challenge of unlocking educational technology's potential to transform teaching and learning. Teachers Want More Edtech A recent national survey of teachers and administrators by Harris Interactive for Common Sense Media reveals that preK-12 educators are passionate about edtech. Eighty-six percent of teachers tell us that using apps, computer games, websites, digital planning tools and digital curricula in the classroom is "important" or "absolutely essential." Almost all of them (96%) agree that it increases student engagement, enables personalized learning (95%), and improves student outcomes (89%). Teachers Deserve Help Despite their enthusiasm, teachers don't report using edtech very frequently. Teachers Meet Graphite
The Teacher's Guide To Digital Citizenship How you act online is important. Not just because everything is stored, backed up, and freely available to anyone with a keyboard. But because your online reputation is actually just your reputation. In an effort to keep everyone behaving, Microsoft has just unveiled a new (free) curriculum that’s all about digital citizenship , intellectual property rights , and creative content . How It Works Four units comprise the curriculum resources. Each unit has 4-6 of these project-oriented activities, one of which serves as the culminating lesson for the unit. The following is simply a description of each unit followed by the learning objectives for that particular unit. Unit One: Creative What? This unit explores the general topics of intellectual property, creative content , and creative rights. Student Learning Objectives Associate intellectual property with various legal rights to protect creative content. Unit Two: By Rule Of Law Unit Three: Calling All Digital Citizens
How to Build Support for Education Technology Image credit: iStockphoto Acknowledging that success -- for individual students, communities and the nation as a whole -- in the 21st century is being driven by new technologies, President Obama recently announced ConnectEd. This initiative aims to connect 99 percent of America's students to high-speed internet within the next five years. It also intends to increase teachers' skills in using education technology tools to improve student learning and encourages the private sector to develop educational devices and digital content. The White House reports growing bipartisan support for the initiative, and many in the education community applaud it as a much-needed effort to upgrade our schools' broadband capability. Convincing community stakeholders to support education technology can be challenging. Those are real challenges that need to be addressed. Instead, they should focus on the impact technology has on children. Belief: Education is a right. Belief: Options are good.
5 Social Media Rules Every Entrepreneur Should Know Social media can level the playing field between industry leaders and upstarts, between multinational corporation executives and small-business owners, making peers of all participants. Yet appearances can be deceiving. To borrow from George Orwell's Animal Farm, all social-media users are equal, but some are more equal than others. So what makes the difference between a following of 500 and a following of 500,000? What follows are five keys culled from darlings of the current social media landscape for increasing your influence in a way that can make a difference to your business strategies. 1. If you want to make your mark on social media, first and foremost you should provide quality content. One man who successfully balances both elements is entrepreneur, investor and author Guy Kawasaki. Quantity is not the same as quality, of course, but what is remarkable about Kawasaki, says Smith, is "his masterful ability to curate such volume. 2. 3. Jessica Northey, founder of Tucson, Ariz. 4.
The NMC Horizon Report – 2013 K-12 Edition i Rate This From NMC Horizon Report > 2013 K-12 Education Edition (full report) The six technologies featured in the NMC Horizon Report: 2013 K-12 Edition are placed along three adoption horizons that indicate likely timeframes for their entrance into mainstream use for teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. Near-term Horizon On the near-term horizon — that is, within the next 12 months — are two related but distinct categories: cloud computing and mobile learning . Cloud computing has already transformed the way users of the Internet think about computing and communication, data storage and access, and collaborative work. Mobile learning is becoming an integral part of K-12 education, as it is increasingly common for students to own and use portable devices. Mid-term Horizon Open content is the current form of a movement that began a decade ago, when universities such as MIT began to make their course content freely available. Far-term Horizon Key Trends Like this: Like Loading...
Parent’s Voice on Mobile Devices in Classrooms (K-12) In one of the most comprehensive studies of parents’ views on mobile devices in education, more than 50 percent of parents believe that schools should make more use of mobile devices in education and 32 percent agree that schools should require them in the classroom. These findings are from a new study of how parents perceive mobile learning and devices in and out of the classroom. The Living and Learning with Mobile Devices Study was conducted by Grunwald Associates and the Learning First Alliance and underwritten by AT&T. The study found – Parents recognize the benefits. Seventy-one percent of parents say mobile devices open up learning opportunities while, 62 percent say the devices benefit students’ learning and 59 percent say the devices engage students in the classroom.Parents are ready for change. With students already carrying their own devices to school, widespread mobile learning could be on the horizon. “Parents can be change agents in the school system.
IPads in the classroom: The right way to use them, demonstrated by a Swiss school Photo by Frederick Florin/Getty Images Touch-screen tablets for young students have become all the rage. Some districts are even buying iPads for every kindergartner, a move sparking both celebration and consternation. Do we really want to give $500 devices to kids who can’t even tie their shoes? What are these schools doing with these devices, anyway? Last month, I had a rare opportunity to ask those questions at a school in Zurich, Switzerland. ZIS, as the school is called, has distributed 600 iPads—one to every student in first through eighth grades, plus a set for teachers in preschool and kindergarten to use with children in small groups. I was wrong. The school has an unconventional take on the iPad’s purpose. One morning I watched first-graders taking assessments of what they understood about “systems.” Sam Ross, a second-grade teacher at ZIS, sees real potential in moments like this.