Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts 50 Must-Have Educational Apps It’s time for holiday road trips and you know what that means: driving, flying, cranky kids, and… teaching opportunities! What’s that, you say? Well, there is so much downtime during the holidays where kids and adults spend hours just passing the time… why not try out some new apps on your phone? Many of these apps were found by The Teaching Palette, be sure to check out their fantastic site for more helpful resources! From learning the ABCs to doodling, there’s plenty of terrific apps out there that will pass the time but also educate. *Most of the links below are to the iTunes store which will open another window and/or iTunes. Great Apps For Kids (And Adults) Alphabet Animals Perfect for your talented toddler, this game is packed with colorful animations, animal sounds, and tons of tips for learning their letters. WordSearch Kids Kids search and highlight vocabulary words by tapping the first and last letters. Mad Libs Just as goofy and fun as your remember. SmackTalk Annoying?
Virtual Book Club I must have been in denial. It has taken me almost a month to get around to listening to the recording of the final session of Virtual Book Club. This opportunity to connect with educators around the world about a topic as important as #globalclassroom with a text as rich as Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds has been an unbelievably powerful growing experience. Listen to the last session yourself and hear the multi-layered, reflective conversation yourself! We’ve come a long way baby. Our first session was jammed with over 30 teachers from all around the world. The content of the conversation broached a number of different critical aspects of learning, technology, and global awareness. Our final session was probably our most probing and thoughtful and, interestingly, also concrete. And we really pushed ourselves to think about our big three This idea comes from a section in Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds called “If You Only Read One Thing, Read This.” And then, it was over!
Free Technology for Teachers 4 Ways To Encourage Learning Outside The Classroom The school bell rings and students are practically climbing over one another trying to get out the door; they’re off to spend time on any number of activities, gadgetry, and entertainment. Education has expanded beyond the classroom but it’s often too difficult to encourage your students to spend the extra hour working on their knowledge, let alone convince them it’s just as rewarding as spending their time on Facebook and video games. Students want to relax and have fun (like all of us) when they’re not in class but there are clever ways to get students excited about learning in their off hours. Here are four suggestions and experiments to try with your students: After-school clubs Clubs are a great place for students to make new friends and spend time discussing & participating in one of their many interests. A few ways a teacher could become part of the club (or at least get the students to add in a learning element) would to host and promote the clubs throughout their school. Startups
Global Education By Design Learn More About Global Collaboration Projects in This Book by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher is co-founder of the award winning Flat Classroom projects and co-author of Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds. Her second book Collaborative Writing in the Cloud (with Common Core) will be out in the Fall. How do engineers design a car? How do fashion designers design clothing? How do teachers design global collaborative projects, MOOC’s, and blended learning opportunities? Start with your “to be” list before you have your “to do” list. This concept comes from Classroom Habitudes by Angela Maiers. -Students will be collaborators and inventors -Students will be curious: about each other and their topic. These are just a few of the “to be’s” that have been on my list but the biggest “to be” is I want my classroom to be “flat.” Global education requires customization. Construct Communication Conduits. Communication Empowers Innovation Start Strong. Celebrate and Retrospect
Kwik survey has lots of possibilities In my attempt to use and evaluate tools on the web, I went into my polling symbaloo and tried a few. Kwik surveys was my favorite. The main reason, it's free and unlimited. You can create as many surveys as desired and it doesn't set limits like survey monkey. First off, create the free account. I have been a huge fan of google docs forms to create my surveys, but I really think I am going to change my toon with this site. A few wonderful things, aside from embedding, you can delete surveys but are required to input your password and you can duplicate a survey for a different class. How can I see it used? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. My mind is still racing with ideas to use this, but the ideas above are a good start. iOS App Development Tutorial for Beginners | Udemy Infinite Skills have a wide range of tutorials covering all the popular applications and programming languages. A full list of courses complete with free demos can be seen here on the Infinite Skills Web Site About This Tutorial In this iOS app development tutorial, you will learn how to create apps for iPhone and iPad devices. Expert trainer and published author Tony Bove introduces you to using the iOS Software Development Kit (SDK) and Xcode to build apps for the iPhone, iPad and Universal apps. Even if you have never programmed before or built apps before, by the end of this iOS app development tutorial you will be fully capable of building apps and submitting them to the App Store. Before you even start building an app, Tony takes you through what makes a good app, and the limitations you will face on the iPhone and iPad platforms. Please Note:-
CONNECTION We had our kick-off meeting last week on Tuesday 5 February 2013. I was able to connect using Blackboard Collaborate, something I had not used before, but unfortunately had to leave as I was at school. However, with it being Chinese New Year I have had an extended weekend, so was able to catch up and watch the full recorded version. I have also had a cold so have not felt up to tackling the mountain of marking, but have caught up on my reading for the next meeting, namely Chapters 1-3 of the book, 'Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds'; my Tweets about the most interesting salient points for me personally, can be found under @MrsHollyEnglish under #flatclass. Having reached the end of Chapter 3, I have come across my first 3 of the 15 Flat Classroom Challenges. Challenge 1: Set up your RSS Reader I already use Google Reader to tie all my blog and RSS feeds together and use Flipboard to 'pull' them to me along with my Twitter feed, some choice hashtags and other useful sites.
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