Ten Terrific Mind Mapping and Brainstorming Tools Today, I am running a workshop about using mind mapping and brainstorming tools to help students meet some of the Common Core standards in English Language Arts. Below are some of the tools that we will be using today. On a related note, if you're interested in having me come to your school or facilitate a virtual workshop, please click here for more information. Popplet is a great service that combines the best of online sticky note services like Wallwisher with collaborative mind mapping functions. Popplet allows you to create a wall of multimedia sticky notes that you can share with others. Text 2 Mind Map offers a great way to turn your typed outlines into mind maps. Realtime Board is a new online tool for hosting online, collaborative brainstorming sessions. Inkflow is an iPad app for visual thinkers who like to sketch to process what they're hearing, seeing, and learning. iBrainstorm is a free brainstorming application for the iPad and the iPhone.
What Can Higher Ed Learn from Libraries? I am puzzled and dismayed by all the hostility toward being generally educated these days. Apart from high-profile slams on entire fields of study by a governor who was disappointed by his daughter’s choice of major, so declared it universally useless, there is the fact that in the budget just signed this week, the National Science Foundation has been instructed by Congress to only fund political science research if it pertains to national security and the national economic interest. The implication, of course, is that advancing knowledge does not make our country more secure or better off. Knowledge is an unaffordable luxury in an age of austerity for all but the 1% who are empowered to make these decisions for us. Indeed. Higher education is in a weird place. Libraries are also in a weird place, but it’s different. I suspect, though, that people feel the library is theirs.
S.O.S. for Information Literacy Everyone Should Learn To Program, But Not Everyone Should Be A Programmer | Making the Complex Simple The recent free courses from Pluralsight on teaching kids to program really got me thinking about this subject. There seems to be a big backlash in development community against the idea that everyone should learn to program. I’m not sure exactly where it is coming from, but I suspect it has something to do with egos and fear. Even within the development community, there seems to be a distinction between “real programmers,” and “not real programmers,” based on language or technology choice. I have to admit, I have been guilty of this type of thinking myself, because a very easy way to increase our own value is to decrease the value of others. But what I have come to find is that not only is the distinction between “real programmers” and “not real programmers” a false dichotomy, but that the distinction between a programmer at all and a layperson, is also not quite as clear, or at least it shouldn’t be. Not everyone should be a programmer It’s true. Think about how that changes the world. No
10 Interactive Lessons By Google On Digital Citizenship 10 Interactive Lessons By Google On Digital Citizenship Added by Jeff Dunn on 2012-07-22 YouTube has a firm place in the current classroom. Google (which owns YouTube) built the lessons to educate students about YouTube’s policies, how to flag content, how to be a safer online citizen, and protect their identities. Below is a list of lessons, and the recommended flow for delivery. Or you can download the Full Teacher’s Guide or the Full Set of Slides in PDF . The killer feature for this curriculum is the extra features that come with each video. Category: Videos Tags: digital citizenship , guide , How To , presentations , Videos You may also like Second Grader Shows How She Uses Evernote For Fluency Added by Jeff Dunn 1 week ago 10.04K Views 3 Comments 0 Likes If you're learning a language or trying to organize your learning, check out this second grader sharing how she uses Evernote for fluency and organization. How Flipping The Classroom Is Working In Turkey Added by Katie Lepi 2 weeks ago
Library Journal librariesbuildcommunity: via about Van Meter Library Voice: Learning With SoundCloud….Look What It Brought To Us Today! building community #tlchatShannon McClintock Miller of Van Meter, Iowa inspires teacher librarians to expand the library beyond four walls. In her latest post, Shannon shares how she uses social tech tools, such as SoundCloud and Symbaloo, to facilitate her student’s knowledge creation and share their work with others to expand their learning as they connect to a vast community of students, teachers and teacher librarians with the same passion and vision. What would be a fun in-school poetry activity becomes an opportunity share and learn with the rest of the world.
6 Great Videos on Teaching Critical Thinking Critical thinking is a skill that we can teach to our students through exercise and practice. It is particularly a skill that contains a plethora of other skills inside it. Critical thinking in its basic definition refers" to a diverse range of intellectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information as well as evaluating our thought in a disciplined way ". All of our students think in a way or another but the question is , do they really think critically ? are they able to evaluate the information they come across ? Critical thinking is part and parcel of what is called critical theory and hence critical literacy. 1- A Quick Guide to 21st Century Critical Thinking Skills for Teachers2- What Does Critical Thinking Mean in Education3- Great Critical Thinking Poster for your Class4- 7 Great iPad Apps to Improve Kids Critical Thinking5- A Clever Tip to Easily Develop Students Critical Thinking What we have for you today is a great series of videos on critical thinking.
The 5 Things All Digital Citizens Should Do Being a digital citizen is a fact of life these days. Everyone must be a well-behaved digital citizen looking to help others. Think of it like the Girl / Boy Scouts but online. That’s basically what this visual from Common Sense Media did when they detailed the five things all digital citizens should do. From respecting others to protecting private information, there are quite a few important responsibilities for everyone online. First off, let’s take a quick look at what the all-knowing all-powerful Wikipedia says about the topic: People characterizing themselves as digital citizens often use IT extensively, creating blogs, using social networks, and participating in web journalism sites. Personally, I don’t think the definition needs to be limited to people who ‘use IT extensively’ (whatever that means – are they swapping out servers and using desktops as stepping stools or something?) See Also: The Teacher’s Guide To Digital Citizenship
instaGrok | A new way to learn School Librarians As Facilitators of Learning “School Librarians As Facilitators of Learning” Texas Library Association Annual Conference. Fort Worth, TX (via Skype). Abstract: School librarians are more than teachers who work in the school library. They have the ability to bring whole new forms of instruction into a school. This session will cover new ideas and examples of school librarians moving beyond standardized testing and library management to help their students succeed.Slides: Audio: Screencast: School Librarians As Facilitators of Learning from R. Like this: Like Loading...
How To Make Students Better Online Researchers I recently came across an article in Wired Magazine called “ Why Kids Can’t Search “. I’m always interested in this particular topic, because it’s something I struggle with in my middle and high school classes constantly, and I know I’m not alone in my frustrations. Getting kids to really focus on what exactly they are searching for, and then be able to further distill idea into a few key specific search terms is a skill that we must teach students, and we have to do it over and over again. We never question the vital importance of teaching literacy, but we have to be mindful that there are many kinds of “literacies”. An ever more important one that ALL teachers need to be aware of is digital literacy. I could go off in many directions on this, but for the purpose of this post I’m focusing strictly on the digital literacy of searching. As they get older, kids often employ the tactic of typing a question into the search bar – “How do I find out about mummies in Egypt?” The real answer? 1.
Factbrowser – Research and Statistics Factbrowser – Research and Statistics Written by Teach Amazing! Factbrowser is a tool for finding the latest research and statistics. The goal of Factbrowser is to provide users with the facts they need without having to wade through irrelevant search results or fill out multiple forms to gain the information. If you know the industry and publisher of the facts you need, you can search for it directly. Factbrowser also offers information organized by categories and keywords to help you find research to support your stance for a presentation or paper or to help you learn more about a topic. Factbrowser and Education Factbrowser makes it easy for students to find relevant, accurate facts to incorporate into persuasive papers, presentations and research projects.
Five-Minute Film Festival: Teaching Digital Citizenship "Digital citizenship" is an umbrella term that covers a whole host of important issues. Broadly, it's the guidelines for responsible, appropriate behavior when one is using technology. But specifically, it can cover anything from "netiquette" to cyberbullying; technology access and the digital divide; online safety and privacy; copyright, plagiarism, and digital law, and more. But while there is much talk about the importance of teaching digital citizenship in this information society, not many are sure what that really looks like. Video Playlist: Teaching Digital Citizenship Watch the player below to see the whole playlist, or view it on YouTube. What is Digital Citizenship? More Resources for Learning About Digital Citizenship While we haven't solved the problem of finding time in the schedule to teach these essential topics, there is a wealth of great free resources to be found -- many of them aligned to standards, either the Common Core ELA standards, or ISTE's NETS, or both.
Getting Kids Engaged with Primary Sources | Cool Tools I vividly remember being disappointed during my first year of teaching: my students weren’t nearly as excited about primary source documents as I was. Primary source documents, as you know, offer readers a unique, real-world perspective, and I thought my kids would love delving into them. I soon learned that my disappointing results weren’t due to the documents that I’d selected, but rather how I was having students use them. That first year, they weren’t doing anything but reading them. Today, Web-based tools enable students to discover more primary sources than ever before and engage them in dynamic ways. The U.S. A related resource, National Archives Docs Teach offers seven free tools that educators can use to create interactive learning activities based on any primary source in the National Archives. The World Digital Library is a database of more than 7,000 primary source documents and images from around the world. How about your students?