The Power Of Personalization In eLearning Ask 10 people to order a pizza and you’ll see just how individual we all are and that there are endless ways to create personal savory perfection. Thin base or thick? Order in or take out? More mozzarella… but hold the anchovies, thanks! Personalization allows us to add a touch of the pizza experience to eLearning through customizing content and features to the learner’s individual needs, preferences, and learning style. At PulseLearning we’ve taken a look at how personalization can create individualized, relatable learning to satisfy a healthy learner appetite: Allow for personal content customization.It’s not just pizza we’re particular about. When next considering developing content, take the time to look at introducing personalization to your eLearning!
5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback In recent years, research has confirmed what most teachers already knew: providing students with meaningful feedback can greatly enhance learning and improve student achievement. Professor James Pennebaker from the University of Texas at Austin has been researching the benefits of frequent testing and the feedback it leads to. He explains that in the history of the study of learning, the role of feedback has always been central. When people are trying to learn new skills, they must get some information that tells them whether or not they are doing the right thing. The downside, of course, is that not all feedback is equally effective, and it can even be counterproductive, especially if it's presented in a solely negative or corrective way. So what exactly are the most effective ways to use feedback in educational settings? 1. For example, feedback like "Great job!" Has a student's performance changed or improved since the last time you assessed her? 2. 3. 4. 5.
10 Principles of Proficiency-Based Learning 10 Principles Of Proficiency-Based Learning by Chris Sturgis 10 Principles Of Proficiency-Based Learning” by Chris Sturgis was originally published on CompetencyWorks. Great Schools Partnership continues to produce great resources to support states and districts converting to competency education. They have drawn from what districts are doing in New England and have created Proficiency-based Learning Simplified resources. They are a good resource for states, districts and schools to start the conversation about the new policies and practices that need to be put in place. We know that we are on a journey, and its a creative one, so don’t be surprised if you find that you want to take these ideas further or that you come up with other ways to address the policy and practice elements. Here are GSP’s 10 principles of proficiency-based learning. In practice, proficiency-based learning can take a wide variety of forms from state to state or school to school—there is no universal approach.
Two Case Studies: How Connected Educators Can Transform Schools Figuring out which new teaching practices or pieces of technology might work in a classroom can feel like a full-time job. Lots of educators spend their free time researching new ideas and connecting with other educators, but there are plenty more that find the process confusing and overwhelming. How much easier would it be to have a dedicated staff person whose job is to bring new ideas into the district, support teachers and smooth the way with administrators? That’s what Kris Hupp does for Cornell School District, a tiny district in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Our teachers want to learn and try new technologies, but if they try something and it blows up in their faces no one is going to be upset.” The most important thing about his job is to create trust with both teachers and administrators who sometimes find themselves on opposite sides of labor disputes and budget issues, Hupp said. Hupp also runs a Professional Learning Community (PLC) of both teachers and administrators.
Overview | Adaptive Learning | EdSurge Adaptive learning isall about cont Can the industry's most provocative softwaremake a difference in the classroom? Meet Aaron Cheng, my daughter’s sixth-grade math teacher. He’s a smart, technically savvy 28 year-old at the Alameda Community Learning Center, a progressive charter school just fifteen minutes from the tech mecca of San Francisco. I asked him the other day if ACLC was thinking of using any adaptive learning software. “What’s that?” journalist Why is adaptive learning important? 90 sec Thirty five miles south at Joseph Weller Elementary School in Milpitas, everyone knows about adaptive learning. Third-graders from Joseph Weller Elementary School, Milpitas (CA) | Photo Credit: Paty Gomes/EdSurge For us, the decision to use adaptive technology was about helping underachievers catch up. Of the two, Joseph Weller is simultaneously more—and less—like most schools throughout the US. Changing teaching practices. Well, I’ve only been teaching for three years, so I’d be willing to try.
Teaching Empathy Through Digital Game Play Digital Tools Quandary The playful approach to learning a new concept that kids usually take when playing a video game can be just the right jumping-off point for diving deeply into a topic. Games can’t do all the teaching, but can engage kids to start thinking. At least that’s how MIT’s Education Arcade and the Learning Games Network are approaching their new free game Quandary. The two groups designed the video game to teach ethics while aligning with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts for third through eighth graders. Quandary approaches the broad topic of ethics by helping students understand how to take a different perspective and learn how to empathize. “We see games as an organized space for playful exploration and through the process people encounter and form new ideas and concepts, they begin to construct knowledge.” The game currently has three episodes that follow a similar pattern. [RELATED: Empathy: They Key to Social and Emotional Learning] Related
Save This List! 21 Top Websites for Social Studies Teachers Every day on our Facebook page, teachers post "Helpline" questions and receive resource recommendations, lesson and classroom management ideas, career advice, and so much more. Recently, a high school teacher asked readers to suggest their favorite sites for teaching social studies. The list was so awesome, we just had to share it! 1. iCivics icivics.org 2.
OSPedagogy | Now you see IT – How technology works best This guest post was written by José Picardo @josepicardoSHS. Last week we handed out just short of 400 iPads to pupils in years 7 and 12 and new staff in the first phase of our staged 1:1 iPad implementation. This initial roll out was preceded by months of research, preparation and multitude of staff training sessions exclusively dedicated to tablets and other digital tools. Pupils have also spent a great deal of the last week immersed in iPad-related vocabulary and syntax: setting up their iCloud accounts, configuring their Exchange email addresses and enrolling on our Mobile Device Management program. Witnessing how words and phrases that were completely foreign to many of us can quickly gain currency and become part of the vernacular is remarkable. However, this is much more easily said than achieved. The key is not to remain at this stage for long. We often refer to the transformative potential of technology with unbridled enthusiasm. About the author
10 Ways To Use Instagram In Your Classroom Instagram is a hugely popular social network for photo sharing. Though the use of social media in the classroom may have skyrocketed, Twitter and Facebook definitely reign supreme as the key social media tools for schools and teachers. Somehow, despite the widespread popularity of Instagram, few teachers are employing it in the classroom. We’ve heard from a few of you that your concerns lie in the privacy arena. The handy infographic below takes a look at ten different ways you can put Instagram to use in your classroom. Student Work Showcase: Take photos of student work and showcase for your network to see.
Stop Teaching – Start Learning Do you ever teach a class? By ‘teach’ I mean talk to the whole class to share instruction or discuss content. If the answer is yes, then I would like to examine your aims in doing so. The three common reasons for talking to a whole class are: Task instruction;Delivery of content/concept/facts;Class discussion. I believe that only the first of these 3 can be said to succeed in it’s aims and even then fails often. Let’s examine each one in turn. A. A task instruction should be 5 minutes at most. B. Question: Why is traditional class teaching / lecturing still so popular? Answer: It’s the easiest option available to any teacher. An important aim should be that every moment in the development of young people in schools is fully inclusive. 10 assumptions behind teaching a whole class (single-point delivery of content) are that: All listeners are listening. First Step Your first step into student-centred learning is to remove the one-size-fits-all delivery and “Flip” the content online. Conclusion
La Silicon Valley est-elle un programme politique "Si la régulation algorithmique apporte les réponses aux problèmes de la société, quel sera alors la place pour les gouvernements ?", questionne le chercheur Evgeny Morozov pour The Guardian. Aujourd’hui, la technologie nous promet l’application des lois en temps réel, explique-t-il. Grâce à leurs capteurs embarqués, les objets du quotidien les plus banals sont en train d’acquérir un énorme pouvoir pour réglementer les comportements. Et les géants des technologies s’apprêtent à devenir partout les intermédiaires entre nous et nos objets. En insérant l’efficacité dans nos objets, c’est la manière même de faire de la réglementation qui est transformée, suggère Morozov. Où discuter politique dans ce qui est réglementé par des programmes ? Le monde utopique que dessinent les boucles de rétroaction infinies de la régulation algorithmique est-il appelé à être si efficace qu’il puisse transcender la politique, c’est-à-dire la faire disparaître ? Hubert Guillaud
With Tech Tools, How Should Teachers Tackle Multitasking In Class? Important research compiled on the effects of students multitasking while learning shows that they are losing depth of learning, getting mentally fatigued, and are weakening their ability to transfer what they have learned to other subjects and situations. Educators as well as students have noticed how schoolwork suffers when attention is split between homework and a buzzing smartphone. Many students, like Alex Sifuentes, who admit to multitasking while studying, know the consequences well. “When I was grounded for a couple of months and didn’t have my phone, I got done extra early with homework,” Sifuentes wrote in response to Annie Murphy Paul’s article, “How Does Multitasking Change the Way Kids Learn?” Parents also see a big difference in their kids’ studying habits. “Devices that once were just an entertainment tool are also becoming our educational and work tools.” “Look, it’s not going away. “Look, it’s not going away. How will students stay focused? Related
Cloud Servers Below you can see a map of providers offering cloud servers hosted in specific geographic areas. Click on a marker to see providers available in the specific area. Due to the many different definitions of cloud servers, or IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), we have limited the requirements to services that are based on virtualization and automatically provisioned. Filter Cloud Providers View only providers that live up to the following requirements: The intention with our database of cloud / IaaS server providers, is the build up a database of providers offering infrastructure as a service with as many relevant details as possible about the various offerings. The entries in our database are primarily added and maintained directly by the service providers themselves, which means that is always updated and growing with new entries.