Archive for the ‘Classroom’ Category
Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade
The contemporary classroom, with its grades and deference to the clock, is an inheritance from the late 19th century. During that period of titanic change, machines suddenly needed to run on time. Individual workers needed to willingly perform discrete operations as opposed to whole jobs. The industrial-era classroom, as a training ground for future factory workers, was retooled to teach tasks, obedience, hierarchy and schedules.
That curriculum represented a dramatic departure from earlier approaches to education. In “Now You See It,” Ms. Davidson cites the elite Socratic system of questions and answers, the agrarian method of problem-solving and the apprenticeship program of imitating a master. It’s possible that any of these educational approaches would be more appropriate to the digital era than the one we have now.
Read also: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
The Social Nature of Classrooms with Blended Courses
As Moore noted, blending face-to-face meetings with some form of mediated instruction is certainly not a new concept in higher education; but as technology facilitates ever increasing channels through which learning communities can interact, the advantages that this classic model seems to offer in terms of student engagement warrant further consideration from instructors, administrators, and researchers. Certainly, integrating a face-to-face component is not feasible for students who enrol in fully online courses due to geographical or other constraints on physical attendance. Moreover, fully online students bring their own particular needs and strengths to learning environments that may be to some degree compensatory. Nonetheless, and based on this research, it is important to note that critical activities such as student-student discussion may not function the same way across classroom contexts and learning communities.
With this manuscript, we argue that students’ experiences across course formats are influenced by social dynamics and relational performances that influence classroom experiences in powerful ways – these influences render simple comparisons across classroom formats untenable.
GoSoapBox – Hear what your students are thinking
GoSoapBox is used during class to break down participation barriers,
keeping students engaged, and giving teachers insight into student
comprehension that was never before possible. Students and teachers join a GoSoapBox event through their laptops, smartphones, or tablets, and interact during class. GoSoapBox is anonymous among students, so teachers will hear questions and opinions that they never would have otherwise. By breaking down participation barriers, GoSoapBox allows teachers to quickly assess student comprehension, and address common problem areas.
Technology Integration Matrix
The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) provides a foundation for professional development for technology integration and a common vocabulary for talking about effective uses of technology in teaching and learning. The original 2005-2006 TIM included fifty example video lesson plans. The newly revised TIM was launched in February 2011, and features 100 classroom video example lesson plans, revised and expanded descriptions of student activity, teacher activity, and instructional settings for each TIM cell, focus pages for each characteristic and level, new professional development resources, and indices for grade levels and digital tools. The site includes 25 videos lesson examples in each of four core subject areas – math, science, language arts, and social studies. These lessons were videotaped in classrooms across Florida.
The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.
Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America
The digital revolution has hit education, with more and more classrooms plugged into the whole wired world. But are schools making the most of new technologies? Are they tapping into the learning potential of today’s Firefox/Facebook/cell phone generation? Have schools fallen through the crack of the digital divide? In Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson argue that the knowledge revolution has transformed our jobs, our homes, our lives, and therefore must also transform our schools. Much like after the school-reform movement of the industrial revolution, our society is again poised at the edge of radical change. To keep pace with a globalized technological culture, we must rethink how we educate the next generation or America will be left behind. This groundbreaking book offers a vision for the future of American education that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning with anytime, anywhere access, digital home schooling models, video-game learning environments, and more.
TeamUp – Form teams based on skills and interests, record teams’ progress
TeamUp helps teachers to form teams based on the skills, strengths and interests of learners. Learners can suggest topics for teams and vote on them. TeamUp forms teams that will satisfy the needs of both learners and teachers.
YouTube Edu and YouTube Teachers
Why Use YouTube in your classroom?
Increase student engagement
- Start your class off with an engaging video clip that brings a lesson to life and sparks a lively discussion.
- No longer will students be late for physics class when you begin the class with an engaging clip.
- Make the subjects applicable to your students’ everyday lives by showing culturally relevant YouTube clips.
- Teach students video production and editing skills through projects and upload the videos to your classes YouTube channel.
Free access to thousands of high quality educational videos
- YouTube provides free, unlimited access to tens of thousands of videos of high quality educational content.
- These videos range from the world’s best professors giving hour long lectures to great teachers giving short lessons.
- Check out the diverse array of educational content at YouTube.com/EDU
Teach to every type of learner
- Tap into the mind of the visual learner.
- Each student has different learning needs. You can create videos or playlists to suit the different types of learners in your classroom.
- On YouTube you can find videos explaining the same topic, many different ways. For example, here are four different videos, all explaining the concept of number patterns in a different way.
10 Ways to Use the iPad in Your Classroom
How can teachers use iPads in the classroom? Here are 10 ideas.
32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom
32 Ways to Use Google Apps in 50 Minutes.
Be able to implement Google Apps in meaningful ways in your classrooms to increase efficiency, collaboration and engagement
