Blog I am grateful for… With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I am taking some time to reflect on just how very fortunate I am. Since becoming a connected educator in 2011, my learning world has expanded beyond my expectations and then some. I know that many of the successes our school is experiencing would not have been realized without this support. Here are a few people and groups that have recently made an impact on my professional and personal life. read more Upcoming free webinars: Peek inside the Life of a Connected Learner Peek inside the Life of a Connected Learner Spend an hour chatting with us and find out about our unique brand of coached, team-based professional learning and how to learn like connected learners do – through action research, lesson plan studies, virtual classroom visits, and more. All the Connected Educator Month events you won’t want to miss October 8-14 We can’t believe we’re already into week two of Connected Educator Month! It’s here!
Top 10 FREE Plagiarism Detection Tools for Teachers - eLearning Industry Editor's note: We have originally written and published this article in November 2013. Thanks to your useful suggestions and our own following of the latest developments in the fast paced field of technology, we have updated this piece in October 2015 in the hope that you will keep finding it useful. Thank you for sharing! The act of taking someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own defines the concept of “plagiarism”. Are you still undecided about whether or not plagiarism checkers are really necessary in eLearning? Get 2 Free eBooks Get the eLearning Industry's Articles in your inbox.
Utah Coalition for Educational Technology (UCET) A Turn to Learn: September 2012 This idea is actually a gem that one of my students thought of a few years ago! One of my classes' favorite YouTube videos was this one... "If You're a Boy" from Harry Kindergarten. Well... my kids were chatty one day and I said "If you're a boy zip your lips." When my kids get chatty, all I do is start to sing the song! If they're extra loud, I have them do actions that will get the other students attention (e.g. ones that make them move more or make more noise) such as: pat your legs, jump up and down or clap your hands. If there's only one or two students chatting, I usually do more silent action, such as zip your lips, fold your hands. I actually also use this to get my students to clean up at the end of their writing period. How do you get your kids to quiet down!
The Cornerstone Guidelines for Online Teaching Success Years ago at a faculty meeting Larry Ragan, PhD, director of Faculty Development for Penn State’s World Campus, was trying to soft-sell the idea of performance expectations for online faculty. He didn’t want the discussion to be misinterpreted as an indictment against their teaching style, but he also saw an opportunity to share proven practices for improving the online teaching and learning experience. Finally a senior faculty member grew tired of the tip-toeing around the subject and said, “If you don’t tell us what is expected, how will we know what to do to succeed?” The faculty member’s point was well taken, and over the years Ragan and others on various committees at Penn State have worked to define: Core competencies for online teaching success – Currently there are 28 competencies across the three main topic areas of technology, course administration, and pedagogy. The online instructor performance expectations he discussed are: 1. The instructor is expected to: 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Worksheets, Lesson Plans, Teacher Resources, and Rubrics from TeAch-nology.com The Ten Commandments of Effective Classroom Management The Ten Commandments of Effective Classroom Management By William Shoap closeAuthor: William Shoap Name: William ShoapSite: See Authors Posts (1) William Shoap posted these commandments on the Classroom Management chatboard, and we thought them worthy of sharing here. One of the biggest barriers to teaching and learning in any school environment is the lack of effective classroom management methods. Young teachers, new to the teaching profession, may possess the necessary academic knowledge to teach their subject but often must learn classroom management skills on the job, which can make for a very challenging first few years in this career. Here are 10 practical tips for new teachers to aid in building a successful classroom management strategy: Thou shall be called by no other name than “Mr.” or “Mrs” or “Ms.” This entry was posted on Sunday, August 1st, 2010 and is filed under *ISSUES, August 2010, William Shoap.
Understanding Rubrics by Heidi Goodrich Andrade Understanding Rubrics by Heidi Goodrich Andrade Authentic assessments tend to use rubrics to describe student achievement. Every time I introduce rubrics to a group of teachers the reaction is the same — instant appeal (“Yes, this is what I need!”) What Is a Rubric? A rubric is a scoring tool that lists the criteria for a piece of work, or “what counts” (for example, purpose, organization, details, voice, and mechanics are often what count in a piece of writing); it also articulates gradations of quality for each criterion, from excellent to poor. The example in Figure 1 (adapted from Perkins et al 1994) lists the criteria and gradations of quality for verbal, written, or graphic reports on student inventions — for instance, inventions designed to ease the Westward journey for 19th century pioneers for instance, or to solve a local environmental problem, or to represent an imaginary culture and its inhabitants, or anything else students might invent. Why Use Rubrics? References
Rubrics to the Rescue By Melissa D. Henning, M.Ed. Read this teacher-friendly article for an overview of the rationale for using rubrics and tools and tips for implementing rubrics as an assessment tool in your classroom. You will be able to create and start using rubrics for student assessment within an hour. What Are RubricsWhy Use Rubrics? How Do Rubrics Help? Rubrics are multidimensional sets of scoring guidelines that can be used to provide consistency in evaluating student work. They spell out scoring criteria so that multiple teachers, using the same rubric for a student's essay, for example, would arrive at the same score or grade. Rubrics are used from the initiation to the completion of a student project. They provide a measurement system for specific tasks and are tailored to each project, so as the projects become more complex, so do the rubrics. Rubrics are great for students: they let students know what is expected of them, and demystify grades by clearly stating, in age-appropriate vocabulary, the expectations for a project. They also help students see that learning is about gaining specific skills (both in academic subjects and in problem-solving and life skills), and they give students the opportunity to do self-assessment to reflect on the learning process. There are two common types of rubrics: team and project rubrics.
Internet and Technology Lesson Plans Resources for School Librarians - Index Menu for This Page: General Technology Lesson Plans | Searching the Web | Web Quests | Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship Lesson Plans | Resources for Teachers | General Technology Lesson Plans Basic Computer Skills Curriculum - This is a good place to start if you are teaching students with little or no knowledge of computers. This is for PC users; there seems to be nothing for Mac users. This is from the St. Read Write Think Lesson Plans - There are many technology and internet related lesson plans here. Searching the Web All About Computers - Lesson plan for beginning internet use, Gds. Web Quests The Web Quest Page - Help in designing web quests and many examples. Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship Digizen - A good introduction to digital citizenship. Resources for Technology Teachers Technology in the Classroom - A wide range of technology topics covered by Education World. Blogging, Wikis, Podcasting, and Social Media Up to Top
MindPlay Educational Software for Reading Instruction brainpop Whether your students are using Apple©, Android™, Windows 8, or Chrome™ devices, there’s a BrainPOP app for you. Ideal for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and other mobile learning environments, mobile access is now an integral part of all BrainPOP Jr. (K-3), BrainPOP, and BrainPOP Español subscriptions. The BrainPOP Featured Movie and BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week apps regularly deliver fresh movies, quizzes, and bonus features right to your students’ handheld device. Our Featured Movie app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch has been downloaded millions of times and lauded in thousands of reviews. Visit BrainPOP Educators for a selection of mobile learning best practices! If you teach K-3, check out the BrainPOP Jr. For English language learners and teachers, there's the BrainPOP ESL app.