Archive
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Share Student Voices & Gather Audiences With 10+ Tech Tools
Once the essays were written, students used my shared Symbaloo webmix, “Creative Gallery,” to locate an appropriate technology tool to showcase their essays. Although the majority chose Blogger, students also used Wix, Weebly, Storybird, Google Docs, Windows Movie Maker Live and YouTube to share their viewpoints. Furthermore, students were encouraged to suggest any mode of sharing their essays, whether it be an unknown app, website, or some overlooked traditional method. Take a look at my "Creative Gallery" webmix below.
More than Words Alone Can Say: Writing with Images in the Digital Age
Last week, on the day before Thanksgiving vacation, several of my fifth-graders voluntarily stayed after school with me to work on a project for which they would receive no grade: producing calendars based on poems and illustrations they had created for a class project.
Calling All Resources: Fostering the Right Time to Write
Creating the ultimate writing atmosphere that inspires students to produce their very best level has always coincided with a constant search, a continual revamping, and an open platform for students’ suggestions. As a collective writing community, Studio 113 students and I seek the most powerful writers’ tools; they may range from Stephen King’s On Writing to the soothing writers’ website OmmWriter to a simple online dictionary. During this incessant quest, we remain open to any ideas that will help us produce a setting conducive to crafting excellent, heartfelt prose, rhetoric, and poetry. In essence, we seek to create originals, and fostering the right time to write requires a number of resources.
Wikispaces For Designing Common Core Activities
Are you wondering where to begin to adopt the Common Core ELA standards? While there are many individual standards to sift through, it’s important to take a step back and look at the big picture to gain an understanding of the importance of the teacher’s role in designing learning experiences to facilitate a more active classroom that supports students as producers.
Need to Energize Your Class? Just Add Wax & Be Still
These stagnant classrooms, indicated by boredom-induced silence, constant class disruptions, or mediocre student work examples, benefit greatly from the implementation of interactive learning structures. One such learning model that is sure to invigorate any lesson is the "Wax Museum" learning structure created in Studio 113.
11 Essential Tools For Better Project-Based Learning
The rise of technology used in classrooms has made learning much more interactive. The emergence of iPads to browser-based tools in project-based learning, take teaching to a new level in the 21st century. Even the current trends in education include the use of new technology, from collaborative projects to blending traditional textbook teaching with innovative tools.
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.
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…
NCTAF Learning Studios: The Future of Learning
Every once in awhile, we see pictures of the future -- a graphic image, a set of relationships, new tools at work, the buzz of a culture that feels remarkably productive. For me, site visits to Big Picture and Edvision schools were really influential 12 years ago -- and why I'm still enthusiastic about flex school models that engage and empower students.
11 Tools to Turn Your Students Into Academic Superstars
I remember as an undergrad, I looked forward each August to the release of the official university student planner. That planner represented a fresh start: blank days to be filled with color-coded due dates, study group get-togethers, my work schedule at the bakery in the mall, and football tailgate details.