Learner Profile – is it working for you? In my experience, I have found that the PYP Learner Profile is a much maligned, ridiculed and – even worse – ignored element of the PYP. Yet, it encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be a PYP school bringing up future “global citizens”. It gets laminated and stuck on walls. Yet, it is not often that we can put our hands on our hearts and say that the Learner Profile is alive, well and thriving in our schools. Well… part of it is confusion. With the Attitudes in the roots, they represent the hidden, internal behaviours that students need to develop. A second reason that we struggle with the Learner Profile is the paucity of our own ethical educations! The Learner Profile is the one thing that really sets the IB apart from other education systems. I will start a job as PYP Coordinator next academic year and this will be a major priority for me. Like this: Like Loading...
Five Essential Google Drive Skills For Teachers This school year I've worked with a few school districts that are using Google Apps for Education for the first time. A lot of what I have done with those school districts is help to get the teachers acclimated to using Google Drive. When I sat down to plan an upcoming Google Drive training session I thought about some of the essential Google Drive skills that teachers need in addition to creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Step 1: Step 2: Step 3: Step 4:
Five Essential Google Drive Skills For Teachers This school year I've worked with a few school districts that are using Google Apps for Education for the first time. A lot of what I have done with those school districts is help to get the teachers acclimated to using Google Drive. When I sat down to plan an upcoming Google Drive training session I thought about some of the essential Google Drive skills that teachers need in addition to creating documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Step 1: Step 2: Step 3: Step 4:
Lots of Answers to Common Google Apps Security & Privacy Questions This morning I received an email that I get on a fairly regular basis. The question always goes something like this... "we're thinking about using Google Apps in our school but we worry about storing company projects on a third party servers, can you give us some guidance?" The first thing that I always share with people asking that question is a link to the Google Apps security and privacy overview. To put it simply, Google does not own your data.
The Digital Curriculum Part 2… Eight Amazing Free Digital Curriculum Resources… Time to Explore Everyone is talking about a digital curriculum free of those hard copy textbooks that have been a part of schooling since the advent of the one room schoolhouse. This is the second post in a series devoted to investigating resources that can open up a world of digital curricula. First, your subscriptions mean a lot to me so sign up by RSS or email! You can also follow me on twitter (mjgormans) and please take a moment to share and retweet this post. As educators begin to distance themselves from the traditional textbook there is more and more need to find digital alternatives. While many educators have been moving the textbook from the center, other find it not quite as easy of a task. 1. As the site states… watch, practice… learn almost anything. 2. BLOSSOMS video lessons are enriching students’ learning experiences in high school classrooms for students across the globe. 3. This is the community of K12 open resources. 5. 6. 7. 8. By now you maybe wondering how to get started.
Essential Books for Kids and Teens Parents often ask us to suggest good books for their kids -- ones that will engage, entertain, and maybe even enlighten them. So we've scoured our recommendation lists and consulted with teachers, librarians, and book critics to assemble what we consider essential titles for your home bookshelves or to download to your ereader, smartphone, or tablet. From the classics to more recent must-reads, fantasy to funny, we have more than 150 great book suggestions for your kids and teens, from bedtime stories to chapter books to true literature, and more. Our goal in creating this guide was to choose books that are proven to click with all kinds of kids -- and can encourage them to become lifelong readers. Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are conducted by expert reviewers and are not influenced by the creators or by our funders.
How To Use Google Voice Commands In Google Drive Editor’s note: This is a revised version of an article we originally ran on March 22nd, 2014, updated to reflect the latest Google innovations. Since its inception, Google Drive has been a source of excitement for innovation-minded educators. However, as with any new teaching technology, you may find yourself thinking “it sounds intriguing, but will it really make a difference?” In regards to Drive features like audio feedback, the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. Aside from offering convenience and helping spare teachers from endless amounts of typing, the addition of voice commenting brings with it profound benefits to the learning experience as a whole. Below, you’ll find five compelling reasons to give it a try, as well as a simple guide on how to get started. Image via Flickr by Ben Marvin Conversational Grading: Red ink is synonymous with financial debt and academic failure. Unfortunately, there’s only so much that can be said with traditional grading methods.
Google Docs for Administrators – 5 Ideas to Get Started As another school year begins to come to a close, I have recently had some of our administrators (mostly elementary) contact me with ideas for making administrative tasks more paperless and create a more efficient workflow not only for themselves but for their teachers. Some of these have been regular “end of year” tasks and others are being put into motion in preparation for next year. Given my known affinity for Google Apps for Education, and being we are a Google Apps for Education district, my first inclination is always to figure out how these tasks could be completed using GAFE in one way or another. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What I think is also great about this is that there’s positive modeling going on for use of Google Apps for Education. Please feel free to add your ideas in the comments section! Like this: Like Loading...
Going Google with WordPress Plugins Peanut butter and jelly. Bonnie and Clyde. Yin and yang. Horse and carriage. Some things just seem to naturally go together. If you run a WordPress site, then unless you’re running a very unusual site in a very unusual way, you probably have it connected to Google in one way or another. Whatever it is, if you stop and think about it, you’re probably connected. Below we’ll give you some more potential connections – 25 to be exact. If you know of other good ways, let us know in the comments. Info & Download The “Google Adsense” plugin, as you might imagine, lets you easily place Google adsense ads into your site. Info & Download The Google Analytics+ plugin is one of our own here at WPMU DEV. As our Analytics plugin is not free, we’ll go ahead and mention a free one here too: Google Analytics Dashboard for WP. Info & Download The Google App Engine for WordPress plugin is one of only two plugins official maintained by Google itself. Info & Download Info & Download Info & Download Info & Download 8.
iPurpose before iPad The two above images are good examples of purposeful thinking about iPad usage in schools. One, a screenshot of an oft-used tool known as iPad As.. by edtechteacher.org, focuses on what the iPad can be used for and provides links to various apps that can be utilised for those functions. It goes without saying that it is a very useful website for schools thinking about iPads. It provides nutshell explanations of a number of apps that relate to each iPad as… category as well as pricing. The other, The Padagogy Wheel, is one of many variations on applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of skills to iPad apps. Both tools have supported my reflection on iPad use in school and are worth checking out in detail. The Padagogy Wheel provides many links between skills and tech activities but doesn’t really address what iPad apps address which skills and activities specifically other than lumping them into a particular category. Now this sounds like a big task and it is.