EdTech
10 Reasons Why I Want My Students to Blog
First of all, blogging is writing, 21st century style, plain and simple. Blogging is a massive genre. It comes in many forms, addresses myriad topics, and can certainly range in quality. For my money (which usually means free), blogging provides the best venue for teaching student writing. As bloggers, young people develop crucial skills with language, tone their critical thinking muscles, and come to understand their relationship to the world.
SendHub Announces Shared Groups For Increased Collaboration
The fast-growing professional communication service SendHub announced this week Shared Groups, a new feature that will allow users to have a fast and simple way to share a group of contacts with others.
Staff Picks: Creative Cities, Edtech, Proficiency-Based Learning & Tribal Blends
Tom Picks “Creative Cities: Oakland” Tom says, “Why do innovations in learning cluster in some cities? Do learning innovations move between K-12, university, corporate, and consumer sectors? This week we kicked off a blog series investigating these questions. We started with Oakland because prominent advocates, school developers, and investors…
Creative Cities: Oakland
Social justice advocates have been working in Oakland for 20 years. Recently, they've been joined by reformers, talent developers, school networks, and investors seeking an affordable Bay Area hub.
Common Sense Media: Making Sense of the Learning App Explosion
Common Sense Media aims to provide "trustworthy information to parents and teens about technology and media." Founder and CEO Jim Styer has been working on this mission for 20 years. He's the author of a new book, Talking Back to Facebook: A Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age , a look at how digital media affects the development of young children.
3 Ways to Maximize Instructional Time With Screencasts
As educators in the 21st century, one of our goals should be to design student driven experiences that offer flexible learning paths, using a variety of tools to meet the diverse needs of all students. Of course, with limited instructional time, loads of content to uncover and varying comfort levels with the technology itself, implementing…
High School Wind Energy Project Inspires College Careers in STEM
Wind is the fastest growing source of renewable energy in the world today and the students at Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, Maine, have learned that first hand. Six months after the commissioning of the school’s NPS 100 wind turbine, the students, teachers and community have grown accustomed to the 121-foot-tall, sleek white tower that stands next to the athletic fields.
Q&A: Patrick Supanc Wants Students to Score with Alleyoop
Too many young people are entering their post-high school college and career worlds woefully underprepared, particularly in the areas of math and science. Despite all of the investment of time, effort and money they make to get into college, they are at high risk of dropping out or graduating late.
8 Examples of Classroom Musical Magic
I believe it was J.K. Rowling's Albus Dumbledore who said, "Ah, music. A magic behind all we do here!" This quotation comes to mind so many times when I witness the effect of catchy tunes and powerful lyrics on our creative students in Studio 113. Whether the classroom malady is a group of lethargic, uninterested students, a bulky reading assignment of seemingly ancient pages, or the misunderstanding of key literary characters, a solution often lies at the intersection of a crafty jam and a thematically connected excerpt of literature. The result? Classroom musical magic.
Staff Picks: Gaming, OER, Big Data
Tom Picks “All the World’s a Game“ Tom says, “Adam Renfro’s insightful look at the benefits of game-based strategies predicts expanded time on task with visual progress monitoring (intrinsic) and reward systems (extrinsic) expands.” Karen Picks “14 Open Resources For High School“ Karen says, “Slowly but surely it’s happening. I’ve…