12 Good Tools for Gathering Real-time Feedback from Students Chatrooms and polling services provide good ways to hear from all of the students in a classroom. These kind of tools allow shy students to ask questions and share comments. For your more outspoken students who want to comment on everything, a feedback mechanism provides a good outlet for them too. This summer I tried out a few new tools for gathering real-time feedback from students. Those new tools are featured at the top of my updated list of backchannel and informal assessment tools. Newer tools on the block... 81 Dash is a nice backchannel platform that I learned about during the "Smackdown" at Hack Ed 2014. 81 Dash provides a place for teachers to create chat rooms to use with students to host conversations and share files. EverySlide is a free (for educators and students) service that allows you to share your slides directly to the iPads, laptops, Chromebooks, and Android devices used by members of your audience.
Great Resources for Integrating Technology in Class August 18, 2014 Over this weekend, I spent some time sifting through the piles of posts in this blog looking for materials and posts to help new teachers better integrate technology in education. The result is a list featuring some interesting resources that I highly recommend for any teacher planning to get their feet wet in the Ed Tech world. As you can see below, the resources I handpicked for you include rubrics, tips, tools, and visuals all geared towards empowering you with a set of skills to enable you to make a better use of technology in instruction. 1- Using Technology Vs Technology Integration Chart 2- Technology Integration Matrix 3- Three Working Models to Integrate Technology in Your Teaching 4- Resources for Integrating Technology in Early Education 5- Technology Integration Matrix 6- 11Ways to Use Technology in Class 7- Important Tips for Teaching with Technology 8- Technology Integration Rubric
Four Ways to Think About Using ThingLink - Rethinking ThingLink This is a guest post from Shawn McCusker of EdTechTeacher.org, an advertiser on this site. While there are some very creative web tools out there, ThingLink is one of my favorites. It has earned this status by passing several of my key benchmark-tests for the classroom: It is dependable and accessible.Students need not fear that their work will be lost as it automatically saves.It is relatively easy to learn and use.Rarely does a lesson become more about “ThingLink” than the topic about which students are trying to express their knowledge. For new users, ThingLink allows you to upload a picture and active links to a variety of media, essentially making an image touchable as illustrated below. Thinglink is a powerful tool, and some new uses are making it even more compelling. Use ThingLink to organize class projects with multiple online components. Image Credit: Shawn McCusker Thinglink can make sharing a class’ work with the rest of the school and community easier.
The Beginner's Guide To Learning Analytics We haven’t talked about learning analytics in awhile (at least not specifically), but that doesn’t mean learning analytics have missed the mark (last year, learning analytics were tagged as a ‘top trend’ in education). We talk quite often about blended learning and personalized learning, often times neglecting to consider that learning analytics are what really drives these concepts: without it, we’re just shooting in the dark (or dusk, really, since not everything is data!). The handy infographic below takes a look at exactly how personalized education is being driven by learning analytics, and more specifically, how learning analytics can take us from ‘traditional’ to ‘personalized’ education. Keep reading to learn more! Learning Analytics Bring Personalized Education Four Levels of Learning Analytics Descriptive: What has happened?
Do I Need a Digital Teaching Portfolio? Designing a well-organized and professional teaching portfolio can give you an edge in a competitive job market, and help you score high marks on your school's teacher evaluation form. It is, however, a time-consuming endeavor (the average portfolio takes about two to three days of work), and once built, your portfolio will require regular attention. This post will help you decide whether or not a portfolio will serve your professional goals and how to go about designing a professional-looking site that showcases your teaching skills. 1. There are several reasons to start building a portfolio: You’re looking for a new job. 2. Choose a platform. 3. Title page: your portfolio should have a clear title at the top. 4. Your portfolio is your 21st century digital business card. 5. The most challenging aspect of having a teaching portfolio is keeping it up to date. What tips have you learned from creating and maintaining your portfolio?
The Student Side of Making Editor's Note: Lisa Yokana, an educator, artist, and curriculum designer, co-authored this post. What do a jacket, a set of paintings, a wood sculpture, and a series of photos have to do with a student's success in life? Maybe everything. That's because making these pieces requires skills for modern learners -- namely, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation, and persistence. How to get them? But well-made and well-designed jackets, wood sculptures, paintings, and photos don't just happen. Learning Through Making Photo Credit: Gayle Allen Robert, like many of his high school peers, participated in a six-week capstone project that he designed. Not long into his work, he grew frustrated and angry. Robert was about to find out why the process of making is so valuable. Getting Unstuck Because he couldn't default to one right or wrong answer for his project, Robert had to grapple with the uncertainty of making. Making for Life
You Can Now Create Educational Games for Students on Android December, 2014 The popular iPad game developer app TinyTap is now available on Android. TinyTap is a very good app for creating educational games based on pictures. You can either upload your pictures or grab new ones to use in your games. To create your own game. 7 Ways Students Use Diigo To Do Research and Collaborative Project Work January 14, 2015 Diigo is an excellent social bookmarking tool that enable you to save, annotate, and share bookmarks. The power of Diigo lies in the distinctive features that it offers to teachers and educators. There is a special account for K-12 and higher-ed educators that empower registered teachers with a variety of tools and features. Here are some of the ways they can use Diigo group to conduct research in and out of class: Here are some very good video tutorials and screencasts to help you better use Diigo: 1- How to Create a Diigo group for your class by Mark Barnes 2- How to use Diigo to annotate, organize and research 3- How to autopost Diigo bookmarks to your class blog by Cool Cat Teacher 4- Explore social bookmarking with Diigo by Lynda 5- Organize your research with Diigo by Cult of Pedagogy Here some other relevant resources to learn more about how to use Diigo with your students:
Everything Teachers Need to Know about Evernote (Great Tutorials) ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning March 31, 2015 Evernote is definitely a great utility to have in your EdTech toolkit. Evernote combines a bastion of powerful features all in one single platform: you can use it to create notes, add reminders to your notes, separate your notes into notebooks, clip web articles, snap photos to add to your notes and many other interesting features. To help you learn more about Evernote and tap into its full educational potential, the video tutorials below are a must-watch. 1- Evernote Scott tutorials Scott’s YouTube channel features some wonderful tutorials on Evernote. Dottotech channel is one of our favourite go to places for EdTech tutorials. Evan Carmichael’s channel on YouTube has some very good video tutorials on Evernote.