Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 21, 2015
Too often, students–and teachers–believe learning comes from success when in truth, it’s as likely to be the product of failure. Knowing what doesn’t work is a powerful weapon as we struggle to think critically about the myriad issues along our path to college and/or career. As teachers, it’s important we reinforce the concept that learning has many faces.
User Generated Education
OCTOBER 5, 2015
My background is in experiential education. One of the strategies used in experiential education is debriefing or reflecting on the experience. In other words, learning from direct experience is not left to chance. The educator becomes proactive in debriefing or processing the experiences to increase the chances that learning occurs. This is in line with John Dewey’s ideas: ‘ We do not learn from experience , we learn from reflecting on experience.’ A recent research study publ
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The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 4, 2015
I took four years of Spanish during my school years, though you wouldn’t know it if you tried having a conversation with me in Spanish. My experience is not unusual. The way language is typically taught in the United States often does not result with language acquistion at the end. I wonder if things would have been different if I was a student today in a time when technology provides such terrific ways to learn languages.
Technology Tidbits
OCTOBER 5, 2015
SpellingCity w/out a doubt is my favorite site for Spelling and Vocabulary. This is a great site w/ educational portal that allows educators to create word lists that can be incorporated into educational games. These games are not only fun but highly engaging and help students learn their "words". Also, an educator can track students, find an abundance of resources/videos, and even use it for mobile learning w/ a free mobile app (iOS/Android).
Speaker: Andrew Cohen, Founder & CEO of Brainscape
The instructor’s PPT slides are brilliant. You’ve splurged on the expensive interactive courseware. Student engagement is stellar. So… why are half of your students still forgetting everything they learned in just a matter of weeks? It's likely a matter of cognitive science! With so much material to "teach" these days, we often forget to incorporate key proven principles into our curricula — namely active recall, metacognition, spaced repetition, and interleaving practice.
CTE Learning
OCTOBER 15, 2015
Here is a video I had a hand in making that speaks to a common theme for all of us who work in STEAM/STEM careers. Our work is our art. STEAM careers, at their core, are highly creative. We each just need to take a moment and think about it. Enjoy the video – Steve KCALSI Annual Dinner Video 2015 from tmls studios on Vimeo. The post Video – Science to Art appeared first on CTeLearning.
STEM Education Central brings together the best content for STEM education professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 14, 2015
Digital portfolios have become a critical part of today’s classroom. Why collate student work into clunky 3-ring binders that can only be one place at a time, are subject to damage and page loss, and are difficult to update when there are so many easy-to-use, intuitive digital versions: Blogs–Kidblogs, WordPress, Edublogs. Digication. Dropr.
User Generated Education
OCTOBER 13, 2015
During Connected Educators’ Month I did a virtual presentation on The Mindset of the Maker Education. The description for this presentation was: Dr. Jackie Gerstein discusses why we are in a perfect storm for maker education and the maker mindset–new skills and roles (many of which you probably already have on your internal desk)–with a self-assessment to help you determine how maker-ready you are, and what you need to do if you want to get there… What follows are the sli
The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 6, 2015
Finally! The American Academy of Pediatrics has updated their stance on screentime. The new guidelines are better than the previously outdated ones which I critique here , here , and here , but there is still room for improvement. They continue to miss mark when it comes to the power of screens to make global connections, build learning networks, and bring people closer together.
Technology Tidbits
OCTOBER 27, 2015
Photos for Class is an excellent new site that is ideal for finding safe images for students. This search engine uses Flickr safe search as well as some built in filtering to find Creative Common licensed images. Best of all when a user clicks download the image gets cited automatically w/ the proper licensing terms. I highly recommend checking out Photos for Class by clicking here !!!
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Mathematics, a subject steeped in abstract concepts, often poses challenges to students, especially those in grades 5-10. But imagine a bridge that transformed this intricate maze into an interactive adventure.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 23, 2015
Here’s a short list of fun Halloween websites for your students. Enjoy! Websites: Ben & Jerry. Billy Bear’s. Carving Pumpkins. Enchanted Learning. Halloween games, puzzles –clean, easy to understand website and few ads! Halloween ghost stories. Meddybemps Spooky. Pumpkin Toss. Signing Halloween–a video. Skelton Park. The Kidz Page. Apps: Ace Math Halloween Games Free Lite.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 30, 2015
When kids read that America’s $18 trillion+ debt is accepted by many experts as ‘business as usual’, I wonder how that news will affect their future personal finance decisions. Do they understand the consequences of unbalanced budgets? The quandary of infinite wants vs. finite dollars? Or do they think money grows on some fiscal tree that always blooms?
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 2, 2015
Here’s a long list of websites to address Digital Citizenship topics you teach in your classroom: Avatars. to promote digital privacy. Avatar 1–a monster. Avatar 2–Lego you. Avatar 3–animal. MadMen yourself. Tellagami–a video avatar. Vokis. W ith comics, via Pixton — fee-based. Copyrights and Digital Law. Copyrights–BrainPop video.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 9, 2015
CanaryFlow is a classroom workflow platform that makes it easy for K-12 teachers to create lessons, add and grade assignments, upload resources, comment on student work or class activities, and schedule events. Class set-up is intuitive, with guided instructions as needed. Users (students and teachers) can access materials and submit work using the camera, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
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These easy-to-use design briefs outline student objectives, challenges, and materials needed to complete each 30-minute to 4-hour lesson. ITEEA’s Integrative STEM curriculum, Engineering byDesign, includes many more standards driven hands-on activities just like these!
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 16, 2015
Hour of Code, coming up this December 7-13th, is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. Since it began, over 100 million students have participated worldwide in over forty languages (data from HourofCode.com ). So far this year, almost 39,000 teachers are participating across the globe: As I did last year, I’ll be giving you a complete selection of activities by grade-level with lots of innovative ideas on what wi
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 7, 2015
As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! Q: I need to take a screenshot with my Chromebook. Here’s the shortkey: Hold down the Ctrl key and press the Window Switcher key.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 20, 2015
Drills have backstopped keyboarding since I was in high school. I still remember. rtyu. fghj. vbnm. Over and over I typed those until my fingers could find the keys with no help from my brain. It worked for thousands of us. So why don’t drills work for the new generation of typists. There are a few reasons: Kids are learning keyboarding at a younger age.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 13, 2015
Whether you teach science or PE, there are hundreds of apps to help you do it better. The response to this tidal wave of information has been confusion. As each teacher downloads their favorites, students spend as much time learning the app as applying it academically. There’s a move afoot to pick five that are cross-curricular, train faculty, and then use them throughout the school year.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 24, 2015
Three holidays are fast-approaching–Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. If you’re a teacher, that means lots of tie-ins to make school festive and relevant to students. Here are ideas for you for Halloween projects, lesson plans, websites, apps: Projects. ASCII Art–Computer Art for Everyone (a pumpkin–see inset). Lesson Plan: Halloween letter for grades 2-5.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 26, 2015
Here’s Melanie’s question about teaching keyboarding effectively: My problem is that I only see each group of students (PK – 4th grade) once a week for 30min. I see 1st and 2nd grade two times a week. How do I successfully teach keyboarding AND my regular tech curriculum with next to no time to do both? I’ve thought about doing keyboarding for the first half of the year and then my curriculum the next half. but I’m just not sure.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 22, 2015
For the first time ever, Windows is upgrading the existing Windows platform for free. If you use a current version of Windows, you’ll notice a little icon in the lower right tooltray that encourages you to upgrade. There’s a time limit to how long you can wait and still get it for free, but it’s long enough for you to research the upgrades and decide if they work for you.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 28, 2015
You know it will happen. One of the biggest reasons teachers don’t want to use technology is it isn’t reliable. For me, the solution isn’t to avoid technology, but to adapt when it fails me. Here are two articles on what to do when that eventuality occurs: What to do When Computers Are Down –This is a lot of suggestions on how to keep moving forward despite the failure of what was likely a cornerstone in your lesson plan.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 19, 2015
Dear Otto is an occasional column where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. If you have a question, please contact me at askatechteacher at gmail dot com and I’ll answer it here. For your privacy, I use only first names. Here’s a great question I got from Melissa: I have heard repeatedly from many of my high school social studies students that they rarely use teacher websites.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 12, 2015
As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents and teachers about their computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! Q: My students get distracted immediately when they go on the internet–by all the adds, bling, and websites they might like but I know are not age-appropriate.
Ask a Tech Teacher
OCTOBER 1, 2015
Every month, subscribers to Ask a Tech Teacher get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching. This month: 25% Discount off Tech Curriculum Upgrade. If you want to upgrade from an earlier digital version of the SL Technology Curriculum , you are eligible for 25% off that upgrade. Email Zeke.Rowe at structuredlearning.net with the name you purchased under.
The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 18, 2015
Most people think of social media as a distraction during face-to-face gatherings. But can it be used to enhance face-to-face experiences? Yes! Whether you have a group going on a trip to a museum, a fair, a conference, or a show, there are ways you can use social media to deepen the event experience and also build relationships of those attending the event.
The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 28, 2015
There are several quality free programs available for schools. Part of my work is helping teachers use platforms such as the ones below in the classroom. The challenge is that these programs are a change from conventional teaching and learning. The problem for teachers is that most administrators do not know how to evaluate a teacher whose students are learning in such an environment.
The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 11, 2015
As more and more schools make the decision to embrace student-owned devices for learning, it's important that they incorporate strategies for success. Lifting the ban on devices and inviting them into the school is a start, but it is also important to put building blocks for success in place. To follow are the seven building blocks you should put in place to ensure you attain success. 7 #BYOD Building Blocks for Success Start with pioneers - Incorporating cell phones and other student device
The Innovative Educator
OCTOBER 25, 2015
There were lots of cool tools introduced at Tech + Learning Live "Cool Tool Duel" this week. The format was really fun. Here is the description: During this lightning-paced smackdown, presenters will make their cases for apps, add-ons, and other edtech tools while the audience votes on their favorites. Who will be left standing at the end of this battle?
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