Archive
component:for-whom.portfolios
Staff Picks: Smart Teachers, Digital Learning Policy, IWB, & Portfolios
Karen Picks “Battle for Whiteboard-Market Supremacy Heats Up” Karen says, “The crux of this issue is really in the following statement and question: Complicating those decisions are changes in the technological landscape that are raising questions about the long-term educational relevance of interactive whiteboards. Do classrooms really need…
Scooch Over LMS, E-portfolio Wants a Seat at the Table
Do you want to give your students a digital footprint? Even if your school is not already practicing e-learning or blended learning, you can still accomplish that with an e-portfolio. If you’re already using a Learning Management System (LMS), you might already have an e-portfolio available that can showcase authentic work.
Cleveland Portfolio Plans Promising–With Digital Overlay
Richard Lee Colvin, EdSector, posted a good summary of Cleveland's struggle to make the portfolio approach work. We'd suggest a digital overly with more and better online and blended options for Ohio students.
Get Up & Dance: 5 Ways to Motivate Zombie Students
The saddest moments I've experienced recently with the students I work with, especially with the jaded older ones who are close to graduating, have occurred when they have told me, "I don't have any passions" or "I can't remember the last time I felt intrinsically motivated."
Shift Your Classroom: Small Strategic Steps
For most of my teaching career, I’ve been a pretty traditional teacher (even now I slip back into that mode sometimes). However, as I went through the motions of trying to “teach” my students, something didn’t feel right. My students seemed to learn things only for the exam, were focused on the mark, not the learning that was supposed to be taking place. When the unit or semester was over, they dumped all their notes and assignments. Frustrating.
Start a Student-Generated Knowledge Bank
Have you ever finished a day of teaching completely exhausted while your students dance out the door, into the parking lot, onto the buses, and all the way home? If so, you are doing all the doing while your students are not. Unless, of course, you count their texting.
Building a Thoughtful Blend
Innosight Institute’s report The Rise of Blended Learning defines it as “any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.” To their definition, I add a requirement that the shift to an online environment for part of the student is intended to boost learning and operating productivity. Here's a description of rotation and flex schools and tools.
10 Frames for Education: A Case for Options
The cacophony that is U.S. public education is a function of overlapping frames—the variety of aims and perspectives from which stakeholders approach the ‘system.’ Following is a list of ten dominant frames: 1. Workforce development: the 21st century skills folks are primarily concerned with preparing a larger percentage of students…
Is There a Future in Broadcast Video?
Dan Goble discusses the use of video production in high school. Support provided by an Abby Sophir testimonial on SchoolTube.
Assessment as Portfolio of Personal Bests
In the most interesting comment of the day, Coleman said, “I like to think of assessment as a series of personal bests.”