Sage Advice: Students Teach Tech Credit: Getty Images Everything. Rachel Horwitz Librarian McKinley Middle School Albuquerque, New Mexico My students have taught me quite a bit in the last six years. Chris Clementi Computer-applications teacher Mountain Ridge Middle School Colorado Springs, Colorado Last year, I had a student in my class for a couple of months visiting from Peru who spoke no English, and I speak no Spanish. Deb Putnam Art teacher Gate of Heaven School South Boston, Massachusetts Everything I've ever learned of significance about technology, I've learned from my students. What my students have taught me about technology has driven innovation in my district. Cheryl Davis District curriculum instruction Acalanes Union High School District Lafayette, California I've learned from my students that a digital native looks at problem solving in a different way than a digital immigrant. To get a whole new perspective on problem solving, I suggest talking to a high school student. Richard Baim Adobe-certified instructor John Amato
Knowledge Networks in Education Inside thenextweb.com Photo: thenextweb.com Also Can machine algorithms truly mimic the depths of human communication? googlesystem.blogspot.ca Google Keep has recently added a few new features. Sweeping Away a Search History nytimes.com / By MOLLY WOOD YOUR search history contains some of the most personal information you will ever reveal online: your health, mental state, interests, travel locations, fears and shopping habits. And that is information most people would want to keep private. The Importance of Innovation in Education—how can we help? | (written by Laurie Cowgill) The National AASL conference opened with a keynote address by Tony Wagner, Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University. He expanded on his recent book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. Wagner contends that public education is missing the mark for student success. He presented the information gleaned from his research on the skills that really translate into success for students. Some of the points that spoke to me were: It is not what we know, but how we use what we know that is important.How do we, as educators, identify what critical thinking looks like? There are schools around the country that teach true innovation in education. Mr. Libraries are the perfect place to give students the freedom to pursue knowledge and understanding on their own terms.
Interview with Educator Heidi Echternacht Q: What do you say to educators who say they don’t have time to be more connected? Time is definitely a precious thing! An even less talked about consideration regarding connected education is ENERGY! I may have some time, but by the end of the day, my energy is generally running below zero! It’s important for people to think about the on-the-job intensity of teaching in terms of “throwing an eight-hour birthday party for five, nine, or 14-year-olds at your house and including 20 -30 children, (your child’s class size)”–and then do it again tomorrow–and then do it again the next day in correlation with reading, writing and math standards, with an added backflip of integrating differentiated and personalized birthday party experiences for each child. On the other side, I would say that teachers, as exhausted and stretched as we are, are in need of friends, colleagues and people who know what we are going through. Early childhood folks are a particularly wonderful group of people.
Resources and Downloads for Differentiated Instruction Tips for downloading: PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Click here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader. Click on any title link below to view or download that file. Resources On This Page: Lesson Plans & Rubric - Reteach and Enrich Sample materials used to teach, assess, reteach, and enrich one week's fifth grade math objective: differentiating prime and composite numbers. Back to Top Tools for Data Assessment Teachers at Mesquite meet weekly with the student achievement teacher to review the most recent assessment data and plan instruction for each student accordingly. 5th Grade Math Formative Assessment Tracking Sheet Sample spreadsheet used to track student performance on each objective. Culture Websites & Readings
Teacher Resources The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations. Discover and discuss ways to bring the power of Library of Congress primary sources into the classroom. Go to the blog Subscribe to the blog via e-mail or RSS. Using Primary Sources Discover quick and easy ways to begin using primary sources in your classroom, with teachers' guides, information on citing sources and copyright, and the Library's primary source analysis tool. TPS Partners The Teaching with Primary Sources Program builds partnerships with educational organizations to support effective instruction using primary sources. The Teaching with Primary Sources Journal
Feature: The Empowerment of Social Media (McLeod) Feature Pages 18-23 The Empowerment of Social Media Four Iowa school districts have moved beyond the usual fears to model creative applications in K-12 teaching and learning BY SCOTT McLEOD Here in Iowa, approximately half of our 340-plus school districts now have a 1:1 computing initiative. But whether children in school are using laptops, netbooks, Chromebooks, iPads, Android tablets or even smartphones, most 1:1 schools in Iowa are trying to move beyond device and bandwidth concerns to focus on powerful student learning. A few examples: In the Van Meter Community schools west of Des Moines, elementary students have co-keynoted the worldwide K12 Online educational technology conference and used flipped-classroom strategies to teach older students and educators how to apply digital learning tools and use Facebook, Smore, Instagram and other online accounts to help out their school library and share their academic work.
MOOCs by the numbers: Where are we now? Whatever your opinion of them, you can’t deny that MOOCs have come a long way in the last few years. To help put the massive online courses into some perspective, Alex Cusack, a contributing writer at Moocs.com, a blog that covers news about MOOCs (edited by Zachary Davis, a producer for HarvardX, a spin-off of edX) shared this handy infographic. Cusack, a consultant in educational technology, regularly works with corporations and universities looking to design online education programs. And he’s a MOOC alum himself; his own experience with the courses (he has variously started, completed and dropped out of classes offered by Coursera, edX, Udacity and Udemy) has informed his take on the topic. So what did Cusack find surprising while researching the infographic?
Advice From Teachers to Parents | Pete Mason Like many teachers, I have a good relationship with the parents of my students. I have been both a general education teacher (social studies and math) and a special education teacher, and found both ups and downs working with a variety of parents. I spoke to colleagues from across my teaching career and asked them what they would say to parents of their students, to provide perspective towards the workload that teachers have on their plate for 180 days of the year, plus professional development, planning, research and coordinating with fellow teachers on interdisciplinary curriculums. Our combined input has led to the following pieces of advice that hopefully sheds some light on this side of the teacher-parent relationship and encourages open communication for the benefit of students. After all, that's why we're here, right? Mind you, these are not a list of gripes, or an unfiltered telling off of parents. - Teach your children to be prepared; it's not just for the Boy Scouts.
Free Online University Receives Accreditation, in Time for Graduating Class of 7 Just in time for its first graduates, the University of the People, a tuition-free four-year-old online institution built to reach underserved students around the world, announced Thursday that it had received accreditation. “This is every exciting, especially for the students who will graduate in April, with a degree from an accredited institution,” said Shai Reshef, the Israeli entrepreneur who invested millions of dollars to create the nonprofit university. “This has been the big question for anyone who thought about enrolling. We have 1.2 million supporters on Facebook, I think second only to Harvard, and every day, there is discussion about when we will be accredited.” Now, with accreditation from the Distance Education and Training Council, a national accrediting group, Mr. Reshef said, the university will expand significantly. The university currently has 700 students from 142 countries enrolled in its degree programs in business administration and computer science.