A Quick Guide To The History Of MOOCs This Is How Students Use School Websites 8.45K Views 0 Likes It's important to have a proper appearance online. So why are there so many unhelpful school websites out there? This infographic shares what students want. Why TED Talks Have Become So Popular 5.67K Views 0 Likes TED talks are useful and free ways to bring high-level thinking and through-provoking ideas into the classroom and your home.
Create Digital Magazines With Glossi Glossi is a new service for creating digital magazines. Glossi magazines can include images, videos, audio files, and links to external sources of information. The magazines that you create are displayed with page-turning effects. Applications for EducationGlossi is still in a closed beta so you will have to request an invitation before you can start creating your own magazines.
Discourse Tools Brain Matters: Maximizing Your Classroom for Learning Teaching & Learning | Spotlight Brain Matters: Maximizing Your Classroom for Learning This educational consultant advises teachers to keep brain science in mind when figuring out how to help their students learn. By Dian Schaffhauser01/31/13 Teachers need to break up their lessons more during the class period and get the students moving if they want optimal learning to occur. Noting that teaching was the "only profession whose job is to change the human brain every day," Sousa offered a fast-paced tour of "educational neuroscience"--research that pulls together the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and pedagogy with the aim of increasing student attention, retention, and interest. At the heart of the science is the question: How is technology affecting students' attention spans. Based on the findings of educational neuroscience, Sousa offered a number of tips for maximizing learning. The Brain is Attentive to Novelty The brain is wired to pay attention to anything that's unexpected.
A Brooklyn High School Takes a New Approach to Vocational Education The building and its surroundings in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, may look run-down, but inside 150 Albany Avenue may sit the future of the country’s vocational education: The first 230 pupils of a new style of school that weaves high school and college curriculums into a six-year program tailored for a job in the technology industry. By 2017, the first wave of students of P-Tech — Pathways in Technology Early College High School — is expected to emerge with associate’s degrees in applied science in computer information systems or electromechanical engineering technology, following a course of studies developed in consultation with I.B.M. “I mean, in 10th grade, doing college work?” said Monesia McKnight, 15, as she sat in an introduction to computer systems course taught by a college professor. “How great is that?” Into this breach, school systems around the country have been aiming to start new high schools like P-Tech. Stanley S. “Because that is the problem,” he said.
A Fun Way To Make Your Own Newspaper Clippings I stumbled upon a simple web tool the other day that, among other things, animates cat GIFs with speech bubbles that say whatever you want. We all know the internet loves its cats! See example to the right. Upon further exploration of the site, I discovered that they also have a newspaper clipping generator , which allows users to input their own information and the program generates a fairly realistic looking newspaper article which could be used as a part of a larger project or for a stand alone assignment to write a newspaper article on a particular topic. Teachers could use the tool for special events, student birthdays, classroom blogs, or any other timely topics. Glossary of Instructional Strategies Current number of strategies and methods: 1271 Last updated: 27 July, 2013 Definitions written by Kelly Jo Rowan. ©1996-2013 Kelly Jo Rowan. 10 + 2 (Ten Plus Two) Direct instruction variation where the teacher presents for ten minutes, students share and reflect for two minutes, then the cycle repeats. 1st TRIP (First TRIP) A reading strategy consisting of: Title, Relationships, Intent of questions, Put in perspective. 3-2-1 (Three-Two-One) Writing activity where students write: 3 key terms from what they have just learned, 2 ideas they would like to learn more about, and 1 concept or skill they think they have mastered. 5 + 1 (Five Plus One) Direct instruction variation where the teacher presents for five minutes, students share and reflect for one minute, then the cycle repeats. A-B-C Summarize A form of review in which each student in a class is assigned a different letter of the alphabet and they must select a word starting with that letter that is related to the topic being studied. Acronyms
3 Secrets to Motivating Students Among the many titles I bear, that of cheerleader is often the most challenging. Entering the classroom day after day with a great enthusiasm, a smile from ear to ear, a little extra pep in my step, and pom poms raised high takes practice. We all have those less than great moments but I have learned over the years, that the more excited I become about learning, the more my students will be as well. The key is motivation. Motivation is defined as “the general desire or willingness of someone to do something” (Thank you Dictionary.com). Notice the words DESIRE, WILLINGNESS, and DO SOMETHING! So how do I motivate my students to learn? How I Create Desire Before any lesson or new skill, a “desire to know” needs to be established. All of these methods are great spring boards into your lesson. How I obtain willingness to pay attention I find this to be easier once I have established the desire to know. Other methods of maintaining attention include: Moving around the room frequently.
20 Must-See Facts About The 21st Century Classroom The Current State Of Technology In K-12 7.62K Views 0 Likes What is the next device most students will soon purchase? How many schools have a digital strategy? Turn Pictures Into Stories With Fotobabble This morning I shared an old post about Fotobabble on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. In response to that post Stewart Whitney shared his experience of using the Fotobabble iPhone app. Stewart's comment got me to try the Fotobabble iOS app. Fotobabble is a free service that allows you to quickly turn a picture into an audio picture story. Using Fotoabble is easy, just upload an image to Fotobabble, allow Fotobabble to access your computer's microphone, and start recording your voice. Applications for Education The Fotobable iOS app could be a great app for students to use to quickly create short audio stories about pictures that they take with their iPhones and or iPads (the app isn't optimized for iPad, but it works on it). Over time your class could build a collection of audio captioned news images by embedding each of their Fotobabble creations on a class blog or wiki.
Differentiated Instruction Made Easier Shuana Jordan Product Manager Differentiated instruction creates a learning environment that motivates students to learn and helps meet the diverse needs of individual students. Technology supports differentiated instruction and provides the opportunity to improve teaching and learning. Below are instructional strategies that will encourage differentiated instruction, along with examples of how to apply these basic strategies and recommendations for supporting technology. Tiered strategy Tiered or scaffold activities can help you not only assess student readiness, but also meet students where they are in their understanding of the content. Have students research a topic of interest and create an online presentation on their findings to demonstrate their understanding and applications of key concepts. Reinforce/review strategy Implementing activities that reinforce and review concepts allows you to assess student readiness and evaluate student growth and understanding of the concepts.
Using Essential Questions to Improve a High-School History Course Using Essential Questions to Improve a High-School History Course In this thoughtful 2008 article in Social Education, teacher educator Heather Lattimer (University of San Diego) says that all too often, despite their charisma and talent getting students involved in classroom activities, “teachers are the ones doing all the thinking in the classroom.” To counteract this tendency, specifically in social studies and history classes, she recommends using essential questions for each unit. Here’s why: • Essential questions get to the heart of the discipline. • Essential questions have more than one reasonable answer. • Essential questions connect the past to the present. When is violence justified? Such questions address fundamental concerns that each generation should ponder anew. • Essential questions enable students to construct their own understanding of the past. • Essential questions reveal history to be a developing narrative. • Dig deeper through the use of historical case studies.
7 Ways to Create and Deliver Online Quizzes Creating and delivering quizzes and tests online offers a number of advantages over paper-based quizzes and tests. Many online quiz services allow you to create quizzes that give your students instant feedback. Some of the services provide the option to include picture and video prompts in your quizzes. And all of these services save you the hassle of printing your quizzes. Here are seven ways that you can create and deliver quizzes online. Blubbr is a neat quiz creation service that you can use to create video-based quizzes. Zoho Survey is a feature-packed tool for creating online quizzes and surveys. Quizdini is a free tool for creating online quizzes. ImageQuiz is a free service that allows you to create quizzes based on any images that you own or find online. Socrative is a free quiz/ survey tool that I've been using a lot over the last couple of years. Infuse Learning is similar in concept to Socrative with a couple of differences worth noting.
7 Great Note-taking Tools for Teachers and Students This is another post that was prompted by a reader's email. The email was looking for a list of recommended note-taking tools. I've reviewed a lot of note-taking tools over the last five years, but I have never made a list. InClass is a free iPhone and iPad app that could be a very useful tool for students carrying those devices. Color Note is a simple note-taking app that I've been using on all of my Android phones for the last year (yes, it's been a rough year for phones in my life). Save Meeting is a meeting recording app for iOS and Android devices. Notes.io offers a simple platform for taking and sharing notes. No list of note-taking tools would be complete without mentioning Evernote. mySchoolNotebook is a service for taking, saving, and sharing notes online and offline. If your students are already in the habit of using Google Documents to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets it just makes sense that they take notes in Google Docs too.