Discovery Education: Web 2.0 Tools

Gov. Branstad, Lt. Gov. Reynolds announce participants of education roundtable discussions ★ Linda Fandel View Broadcast of Roundtable Discussion Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will hold three hour-long roundtable discussions on Wednesday, July 13, to gain a deeper understanding of changes needed to create world-class schools across the state.

6 Classroom Management Tips Every Teacher Can Use By Dave Foley Found In: classroom management, discipline, routines & procedures Effective teachers are passionate about educating their students. They want to spend their time teaching, not dealing with classroom disruptions. Here are some classroom management tips to help teachers settle problems, or prevent them from occurring, so that they can spend more of the classroom hour on teaching and learning. 1. What is Quipol Thousands of you have built polls to learn from and interact with the world, and I want to thank you now for your patronage, your feedback, and all the excitement that you have brought to my life. I owe you an explanation, so here it is: We’re not out of money, and we’re not out of passion—on the contrary, this journey has ended so that another one can begin. In July of 2012, I started building a new application with three other gentlemen, with the hopes of bringing a new level of simplicity, elegance, and usability to business-based education and training. I wanted to take everything I’d learned at Quipol about dead-simple workflows and ease-of-use and bring it to a market filled with products where the opposite was the rule.

Top 13 Web 2.0 Tools for Classrooms Top Web 2.0 Tools Every day in my K-8 tech classes, I use a variety of cloud-based tools to enhance the learning experience for my students. There are more of these ‘Web 2.0′ tools than I can keep up with, but when you teach tech or coordinate technology for your school, ‘keeping up’ is part of your job. Here’s how I determine which of these hundreds (thousands?) of tools are student-ready: Before I introduce a tool to my class, I try it myself. eXe The eXe project developed a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages. eXe grew out of the ​New Zealand Government Tertiary Education Commission's eCollaboration Fund and was led by the ​University of Auckland, ​The Auckland University of Technology, and Tairawhiti Polytechnic.

Our Future Depends on World-Class Schools ★ Linda Fandel Our Future Depends on World-Class Schools May 3, 2011 Dear Iowans, Apps for Professional Development Twitter App (free) Twitter is one of the most active and beneficial social networks on the web. All educators would be wise to join the conversation. If you haven’t used Twitter yet, I would recommend that you read these excellent blog posts: Google Voice (free) How to Make an Interactive Lesson Using Youtube We’ve been getting a lot of questions ever since our GMAT Choose Your Own Adventure video went up. Well, one question, really: How can I make one for my students? Answer: It’s easy! Youtube has a great tool called Spotlight that lets you make any video interactive. It’s really handy for lessons and quizzes.

Web 2.0 productivity tools Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, social benefit organizations, NGOs, educators, students, journalists, Web publishers, general public. Following are Web 2.0 tools we’ve come across that have increased our productivity. Part of the early adopters creed is to share discoveries with others. Please add your own recommendations in the comments! Academic search Socialbrite recommends:Alternatives: 5 Characteristics of Effective Instruction In addition to the 5 content areas in the Iowa Core, the Iowa Department of Education has identified 5 characteristics of effective instruction, or in other words, "what good teaching looks like." So not only will Iowa's high schools develop implementation plans for the content next year, they will also conduct a self-study to determine which characteristics need attention and put forward a professional development plan to improve in that area(s). From the DE, here are the descriptions of the 5 characteristics: TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDINGTeaching for Understanding is leading students (to engage in a variety of thought-provoking activities such as explaining, finding evidence in examples, generalizing, connecting, applying, making analogies, and representing the topic in new ways. Teachers assist students in making connections between prior and new knowledge to develop deep conceptual and procedural knowledge.

A Lesson at the Zoo: Enhancing Field Trips with iPads Recently I hosted 20 teachers in my school district at the zoo for an afternoon. The idea was to explore how we might use iPads during a field trip. It was certainly an exciting form of professional development. Instead of sitting at a desk and listening to someone like me talk about what you could do, we just went out and did it! Teachers had a lot of fun, and many ideas were shared. Below are some of the activities that we (I co-hosted the afternoon with a colleague, Diane) gave to the teachers, as well as some ideas that came to mind throughout the afternoon.