April, 2014

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5 Ways to use social media to spice up your next museum trip

The Innovative Educator

'It’s not uncommon for today’s children, brought up in a fast-paced, digital world, to become bored and uninterested when visiting cultural institutions. It doesn’t have to be that way though. Sometimes the first step to enjoying art is to look forward to a museum visit as something that is fun. Social media can provide a great way to engage young people during a trip to museum, landmark, or other cultural institution.

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Pear Deck

Technology Tidbits

'Pear Deck is a cool educational tool that interacts w/ Google Chrome (extensions) or Google Drive to create interactive quizzes/slides/presentations. The way this works is an educator creates a dynamic deck/slide w/ or w/out multiple choice questions, then has students join the sessions via their Google in Education domain or Chrome extension. Then the teacher can ask questions and have students respond to them on their own devices.

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Caution banning cell phones may interrupt learning

The Innovative Educator

'“The only difference between smartphones and laptops is that cell phones are smaller, cheaper, and more coveted by students” ( Richtel & Stone , 2009). Students, parents, teachers, principals, and elected officials know it is time to lift restrictions and embrace these tools for learning. Below is their wisdom and the research to support it. Students In general, 95% of teens use the internet and 74% are “mobile internet users” (Pew, 2013).

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Don’t be fooled on Facebook

The Innovative Educator

'This week a relative of mine, who is a senior citizen, friend-requested me on Facebook. Not only do I love to see more and more seniors connecting online, I also love that this provides further opportunity for generations to share their lives. Especially these days when families tend to have busy lives and be spread out. The relative was a cousin who I don’t see much beyond big family gatherings like weddings and funerals.

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Can Brain Science Actually Help Make Your Training & Teaching Stick?

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.

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#BYOD Management from the experts: @mluhtala @jksuter @hobsonjill

The Innovative Educator

'Listen as bring your own device (BYOD) experts discuss best practices for classroom management. Special guests Jill Hobson @hobsonjill, Michelle Luhtala @mluhtala, and Jason Suter @JKsuter all currently work in BYOD environments and share insights about the following topics: Getting started with byod management. Preventing distraction. Fostering trust in students who are using their own devices.

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Google Hangout on Air - Managing BYOD - Live on April 7th!

The Innovative Educator

'Join me for a BYOD Google Hangout on Monday, April 7 th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Topic Managing the BYOD classroom Guests will discuss the following Getting started with byod management. Preventing distraction. Fostering trust in students who are using their own devices. The role of students in classroom management. Explaining this will work to administrators.

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Help your child get inventive with these resources

The Innovative Educator

'Do you have students who love inventing, experimenting, and computing? Then check out my article on Answers.com which features quality, free or inexpensive places you can turn to help your students discover, explore, and develop his or her inner inventor. Visit " Help your child get inventive with these resources " to find out about more about resources like Super Awesome Sylvia, Tynker, and Makey Makey.

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Inspiring story of social media giving @CarlysVoice a #StuVoice

The Innovative Educator

'Carly Fleischmann hadn''t communicated with many people before she started using social media. That is because Carly doesn''t speak. Today however, social media has opened the door to give this very social young lady access to connecting with tens of thousands of people around the world. In the video below, Carly shares, "The moment when I typed on social media for the first time a sense of belonging and a feeling of being heard came over me.

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Ideas for enjoying tech-free meals

The Innovative Educator

'The research is clear. Time together around the dinner table has beneficial results including improving quality of daily life, your children's chances of success in the world, and your family's health according to the Family Youth and Community Sciences Department at the University of Florida. In fact, your child may be 35% less likely to engage in disordered eating, 24% more likely to eat healthier foods and 12% less likely to be overweight (Hammons & Fiese, 2011).

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Harnessing The Power Of Math Manipulatives

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.

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The hottest posts everyone's reading

The Innovative Educator

'Here’s the roundup of what''s been popular on The Innovative Educator blog. Below you’ll see the top posts along with the number of page views. I hope there''s something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired use one of those icons below the post to share it with others and/or leave a comment. Entry Pageviews 5 Ways to use social media to spice up your next museum.

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The hottest posts everyone's reading

The Innovative Educator

'Here’s the roundup of what''s been popular on The Innovative Educator blog. Below you’ll see the top posts along with the number of page views. I hope there''s something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired use one of those icons below the post to share it with others and/or leave a comment. Entry Pageviews How obsolete is your school?

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The hottest posts everyone's reading

The Innovative Educator

'Here’s the roundup of what''s been popular on The Innovative Educator blog. Below you’ll see the top posts along with the number of page views. I hope there''s something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired use one of those icons below the post to share it with others and/or leave a comment. Entry Pageviews How obsolete is your school?

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The hottest posts everyone's reading

The Innovative Educator

'Here’s the roundup of what''s been popular on The Innovative Educator blog. Below you’ll see the top posts along with the number of page views. I hope there''s something that looks of interest to you. If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired use one of those icons below the post to share it with others and/or leave a comment. Entry Pageviews How obsolete is your school?

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Downloadable Design Briefs for an Integrative STEM Curriculum

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!

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Top 40 Web 2.0 Sites w/ Educational Portal

Technology Tidbits

'A while back I compiled a very important list of Web 2.0 sites that can be used in education. The reason for this was a lot of sites that are beneficial for education require that a student has an email account to login. This is very frustrating for educators that have to worry about district policy and CIPA/COPPA compliance to maintain student safety/privacy.

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EDpuzzle

Technology Tidbits

'EDpuzzle is a fantastic free tool for educators or students to take a video and "make it their own". The way this they do this is by uploading a video (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, TeachersTube, etc) and then edit it by: cropping, adding their own, narration, and even embed a quiz. This is ideal for educators looking to Flip a Lesson/Classroom and differentiate instructions.

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Virtual Nerd Mobile Math

Technology Tidbits

'Virtual Nerd Mobile Math is an excellent free iOS app by education leader Pearson. This is a great Common Core aligned app that allows users to find educational videos, concepts, and tutorials on MS/HS Math. The app has over 1500 easy to follow tutorials and are ideal for students, educators, and parents looking to review fundamental Math concepts in a wide variety of areas.

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Door 24

Technology Tidbits

'Door 24 is fantastic iPad app for learning computational fluency in 4th-8th grade Math. This game has students trying to solve the mystery behind Door 24 while completing Math equations that focus on a wide range of problems (i.e. division, multiplication, order of operation, etc). W/ their unique reward system, multiple endings, and engaging narrative makes for a fun/high replay value game.

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EverySlide

Technology Tidbits

'EverySlide is a fantastic new presentation tool that I just found out about from Free Technology 4 Teachers. This is a great place for educators to create or upload a presentation (i.e. Keynote, PPT) then share it w/ others via a unique access code. Being browser based this works on any mobile device and best of all an educator can assess an audience/students level of learning by embedding a poll that they can take.

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Sphero for Education

Technology Tidbits

'Last week I was lucky enough to receive a Sphero from the generous people of Orbotix. Kelly Tenkely just recently reviewed her Sphero which you can read all about here. Basically, the Sphero is a programmable orb that can be used to play games, as a controller, or even integrate into education. BTW, did I mention that it is waterproof too, and already has over 25 mobile apps to download.

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30hands

Technology Tidbits

'30hands is one of my favorite free iOS apps for easily creating a digital story. This is a great app because it can be used by any curriculum for any subject and is very easy to use w/ a drag-n-drop interface. All a user has to do is upload a photo, add text, and then record their narration to create a story. Also, 30hands has an excellent video tutorial which shows educators how to integrate into the classroom.

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Booktrack Classroom

Technology Tidbits

'Booktrack Classroom is a new site/app that I just found out about from Richard Byrne''s blog. This is an interesting tool that allows students or teachers to add a soundtrack to their writing. Here''s a list of ways Booktrack Classroom is being used in education. Narrative Writing – Students add music and audio to their original stories. Informative and Explanatory Writing – Students compose essays and articles selecting suitable audio to accompany their text.

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LOTR Map of Middle Earth

Technology Tidbits

'Recently, I came across a interactive Lord of the Rings Map of Middle Earth. I know lots of schools and students are reading this so I thought I''d do a brief post on this. This is a great place to find facts about the interesting locations in Middle Earth as well as being able to zoom in/out, click on items, and find out other interesting facts (i.e. age, population, life expectancy, etc.

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Been for Education

Technology Tidbits

'Been for Education is one of my new favorite Web 2.0 sites for collaborative browsing and bookmarking the web in a safe environment. The way this works is educators create, manage, and monitor the student accounts while the "guide" learning by browsing the web and collaborating in real-time. This is all done through an easy to use interface and browser extension and is ideal for researching/introducing a topic, guided learning, and much much more.

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Teacher Gaming Network

Technology Tidbits

'Teacher Gaming Network is a excellent site where educators can go to create their very own games. Educators control all the content in the game and choose different styles questions to incorporate into the game such as: T/F, matching, multiple choice, etc. Also, there are up to 5 different styles of games they can create (plus account) as well as browse through other games created by other educators.

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The Math Hunter

Technology Tidbits

'The Math Hunter is a new iOS game for helping students w/ their basic Math skills (i.e. addition, multiplication, subtraction, etc.) This is a super fun app that has players trying to solve Math equations so they have the ability to shoot monsters w/ their bow before they reach the player (or bottom of the screen). A nice feature is the ability to select which type of Math operation you want to work on (or can select multiple) as well as difficulty level.

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Padlet Update

Technology Tidbits

'Padlet, formerly know as WallWisher, has just released a major update that will have a major impact in its use in education. Thanks to Richard Byrne''s award winning blog, I noticed that Padlet now will let users use a username to login rather then an email address. This is ideal for schools where sites requiring a student email address is an issue (CIPPA/COPPA compliance).

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Quick Key

Technology Tidbits

'Quick Key is an excellent free iOS app that allows educators to scan a paper test/quiz and then has the app do the grading. The way this works is by snapping a pic of the quiz/test/survey (up to 30 questions long) and then app does the grading/assessment right on the mobile device. It can then be exported into any electronic grade book and a teacher can track student/classes as well.

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Classcraft

Technology Tidbits

'Classcraft is a site/game I covered awhile back when it was part of a kickstarted campaign. I''m happy to say that this innovative RPG style game is now available for classrooms. This is a fantastic site for bringing Game Based Learning to the classroom by putting groups of students into teams to work together to enhance their learning experience. This is all done in a unique way that incorporates familiar elements of a RPG by: choosing a class (i.e.

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DimensionU

Technology Tidbits

'DimensionU is a fantastic site/apps for Game Based Learning in the areas of Math and Literacy. These innovative games take place in an interactive 3D world and are designed for grades 3rd-9th and aligned to Common Core Standard. Also, these games are contained in an educational portal, safe to play, and help develop collaborative learning. I highly recommend checking out DimensionU by clicking here !!!

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Sanderling

Technology Tidbits

'Sanderling is a new social network for professional development. This online community lets educators share their professional development stories as well as resources. Members can also find a nice list o resources such as: lesson plans, reviews, articles/links, and more. I highly recommend checking out Sanderling by clicking here !!! Thanks to Technology & Learning for the tip.

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Answerables

Technology Tidbits

'Answerables is a wonderful site that is a cross between Game Based Learning meets a Learning Management System. This is an innovative place where educators can "Gamify" a lesson and have their students collaborative learn in a safe 3D dimensional environment (think Second Life for kids). Teachers can use the latest in technology for many different strategies for teaching such as: Guided/Blended Learning, Project Based Learning, and even Differentiating Instruction.