Digital Differentiation Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences that address the diverse learning needs of all students and help them develop 21st Century Skills. At it's most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences fueled by Essential Questions offering flexible learning paths, it can be the ticket to success. Here is a closer look at three components of effectively using technology as a tool for digital differentiation. Note: The interactive graphics you see below have been updated. The goal is to design student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by standards-based Essential Questions and facilitated by digital tools to provide students with flexible learning paths. Essential Questions: Student-driven learning experiences should be driven by standards-based Essential Questions. Teacher Facilitated Learning Experiences:
Battling skepticism. “Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere.” Source: Wikipedia Yesterday in a conversation with an elementary principal colleague, I allowed myself to become irritated. I wasn’t irritated with Bill. Principal networking was the topic of our conversation. But I wonder – what about the two months between meetings? Bill shared that elementary principals in his county met for the first time using Elluminate. 2 or 3. “If you build it, they will come.” It takes courage and an open mind, too. Here’s my irritation: A participant in Bill’s session voiced his concern about Twitter, in that you’re not able to trust who you follow online because they might not be who they say they are. Could you possibly encounter someone online who is portraying themselves as an elementary principal but who really isn’t? Please add to the conversation!
Beyond the Transcript: Digital Portfolios Paint a Complete Picture Although not all components of the CollegeOnTrack portfolio will be published for college admissions officers to view, it can help students as they gather required documentation and prepare to write their essays. The tool looks more like a blog than like a social network, with tag clouds, archive listings and other blog-like navigational elements. The team is in the process of adding the ability to apply to colleges directly within the system; if it happens, the digital portfolio would be included in the submitted application. The annual subscription cost is $60, but the company offers volume pricing for counselors and school systems. Colleges seem to be moving toward a more robust system for assessing students’ ability to succeed and to fit in. “Traditionally,” says Philip Roybal, vice president of marketing for College On Track, “the way colleges have worked is they have looked at transcripts and standardized tests and tried to figure out who would make a good college citizen.”
What is Sandboxing? Posted 02/24/2012 at 2:23pm | by Michael Simon What is this "sandbox" that the developers keep talking about lately? And how is it utilized to make apps better for the end user? Let's say you have a beautiful garden with a well-manicured lawn, shimmering koi pond and brilliant bands of flowering plants. But if there was a way to contain the damage, say by building a small box around the perpetrator, cleanup would be a breeze and the rest of your garden would stay pristine. Replace "jerk" with "malware" and "garden" with "Mac," and you've got the essence of sandboxing, a security measure that, in Apple's own words, "protects the system by limiting the kinds of things an application can do, such as accessing files on disk or resources over the network." How? Sandboxing only applies to apps downloaded through the Mac App Store, so that leaves a whole landscape of potential malware. So what does all this mean for you?
Paperless – How I Teach From The Cloud « Mister Norris This school year, I made a conscious decision to go paperless. Last year I carried around my computer to every class, a planner and a pen. I constantly lost the pen or the planner. I used a LOT of paper. On top of that, if I wanted to check when I completed a lesson, I’d have to flick through my planner, find the task then find when I started and fished. I dreamed of the time when I could do a search of my planner. I knew there had to be a better way. The other way I utilized Google Calendar this year was with my parent teacher conferences (PTC). I then needed a way to plan my lessons. Last year I did all of my planning in my planner. This system worked but it was time consuming. So I planned to do this all on my computer. Evernote is very simple software that organizes your notes. I utilized the stack feature so that I have two main stacks in Evernote, private notebooks and work related notebooks. If I am ever at work and I need a word processor, I reach straight for Google Docs.
Driving Innovation in K-12 « February 9, 2012 by cultureofyes I have to give this post my usual preface that these slides are part of the presentation I am giving on innovation in K-12, but only one part of the story. Today, I am part of an event hosted by Simon Fraser University, Targeting Technology for Maximum Student Benefit. I won’t cover the ground I have covered before as the scenario and other background on the event is available (here), as well as from a substantial post I recently wrote on the appeal of one-to-one devices in the classroom and equity (here). Beyond this and going forward, there are a few key points I would like to emphasize as we look at my assumptions and thinking on what we should and shouldn’t be doing: Some assumptions for the next 5 years: What We Would Do: What We Wouldn’t Do: Distributive Learning, – we want all classes to be blended classes. With that preamble and a very brief explanation, here is my slidedeck.
Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration In Project Based Learning Welcome to the second in a series of PBL Mania Posts. For the next few weeks I am celebrating Project Based Learning by hosting a webinar at Edtech Leaders Online and giving a PBL session at the NICE Conference in Chicago. In this post I will introduce you to some outstanding collaboration tools found on the web that can be used in the PBL classroom. Before reading please take a moment to subscribe to this 21centuryedtech Blog by email or RSS and also give me a follow on Twitter at mjgormans. You will not want to miss this series or future posts involving STEM, Flipping the Classroom, Technology Integration, Common Core, and 21st Century Skills, So Sign Up Now! First Some Notes For PD This Week 1. 2. 10 Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration in PBL This PBL Mania post will explore some of those collaborative Web 2.0 tools that can enhance the PBL experience. Titan Pad – Great way for quick collaboration and sharing a document. Google Docs – Not much needs to be said. Like this:
The Innovative Educator ISTE Session Review - Extreme Web 2.0 Makeover by Steve Dembo I'm finally getting some time to go through all the things I learned at ISTE11 and start sharing things. One session that was very informative and fun was "Extreme Web 2.0 Makeover" by Steve Dembo. Steve is a member of the Discovery Education team and is a great presenter. Steve is very energetic, humorous, and knowledgeable. Here is the link to Steve's presentation: tinyurl.com/istemakeover You can also reach Steve at Teach42.com. Steve had a slide show to use (see above) but ended up making the session more interactive and took questions from the audience and showed them different tools and ways to use them in school. Here are some of the things I learned about in the session: QR Codes - he showed everyone how to create their own QR codes using delivr.com. ipadio.com - always you to create podcasts using your phone and then create direct links or even embed them. Ustream.TV - video podcast creation that can be embedded in a site or blog and also viewed live.
Search Stories Makes Documenting Research Fun The keynote speaker for NCTIES was my friend Ken Shelton. I've known Ken for a few years now and one thing that I know for sure about Ken is that he knows how to design a presentation (more on that in another post). In his keynote, Ken shared a great idea for getting students enjoy documenting the research process instead of groaning about having to document it. Ken's suggestion is to have students create Google Search Story videos. The Google Search Stories Video Creator allows you to create a short video about the searches that you perform on Google. Applications for Education As mentioned above, having students create short search story videos could be a good way to get them interested in documenting at least a part of the research process.
30+ Cool Content Curation Tools for Personal & Professional Use As the web becomes more and more inundated with blogs, videos, tweets, status updates, news, articles, and countless other forms of content, “information overload” is something we all seem to suffer. It is becoming more difficult to weed through all the “stuff” out there and pluck out the best, most share-worthy tidbits of information, especially if your topic is niche. Let’s face it, Google definitely has its shortcomings when it comes to content curation and the more it tries to cater to all audiences, the less useful it becomes. The demand for timely, relevant content that is specific to our unique interests and perspectives has given rise to a new generation of tools that aim to help individuals and companies curate content from the web and deliver it in a meaningful way. Here’s a look at over 30 content curation tools (mostly free, but some paid/professional tools as well) that will help you cut through the clutter of your information stream to find the gems. Comments(65)
Lessons and Legacies from Stanford’s Free Online Classes Digital Tools Teaching Strategies Stanford Artificial Intelligence Class By Steve Henn Last year, Stanford University computer science professor Sebastian Thrun — also known as the fellow who helped build Google’s self-driving car — got together with a small group of Stanford colleagues and they impulsively decided to open their classes to the world. They would allow anyone, anywhere to attend online, take quizzes, ask questions and even get grades for free. “Within hours, we had 5,000 students signed up,” Thrun says. You can only imagine what those meetings must have been like, with professors telling the school they wanted to teach free, graded online classes for which students could receive a certificate of completion. “I think the impact will be large and it will be widespread.” For decades, technology has promised to remake education — and it may finally be about to deliver. “We are still having conversations about that,” says James Plummer, dean of Stanford’s School of Engineering.