Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

At the end of Lord of the Flies , there is a section titled “Notes on the Lord of the Flies,” in which William Golding says, “The theme [of the novel] is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.” I asked students to design a thematic art gallery that explored the truth

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Google Common Core Study Examples 346

Ask a Tech Teacher

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Here are ideas of apps and websites that teachers in my PLN used successfully in the past during Hour of Code: Kindergarten. Start kindergartners with problem solving. If they love Legos, they’ll love coding. BotLogic –great for Kindergarten and youngers. Code –learn to code, for students. Daisy the Dinosaur —intro to programming via iPad. How to train your robot –a lesson plan from Dr.

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Khan Academy Robotics iPad Digital Citizenship 331

The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

Teachers are important! You can do this! We’re not here to teach, we’re here to change lives. We’re here to change minds. We’re here to shout encouragement. But we can’t do those things if we quit. We can’t do those things if we give up and wait for retirement. We can’t do these things with our feet up on our desk or doing time in the teacher’s lounge.

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Video Social Media Exercises Classroom 329

A Principal's Reflections

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

“The hardest challenge you will face is not changing yourself, but convincing or empowering your colleagues to embrace change.” – Eric Sheninger If you are reading this blog, trying out new ideas, implementing innovative strategies, or attending meaningful professional learning opportunities then chances are you embrace change. Additionally, you are more than likely to be using social media for your Personal LearningNetwork (PLN) to push your thinking like never before.

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Outcomes Social Media Professional Learning Strategy 324

Generative AI holds tremendous promise for all stakeholders in higher education. But guardrails are needed. Strong governance that empower instructors are at the core of a responsible approach to using generative AI in academia.

Education

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

Vocabulary instruction is important, but it can be really hard to find time for it with limited class time. Here are some ways to teach vocabulary that won't take up a lot of time. Click the headline to read the full post. Questions? Email websupport@epe.org.

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Learning 310

EdTech Magazine

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

By Eric Patnoudes Technologies will have little to no impact on learning if teachers are not also provided with training and professional development.

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Training Technology Learning Mobility 316

Ditch That Textbook

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

Using a document in Google Apps or Microsoft Word is perfect for many activities, but sometimes they can be so limiting. They’re restricting. They force you to enter information in a fairly linear fashion, and linear just doesn’t cut it sometimes. Sometimes, you want your work to be all over the place. Think of sticky [.].

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Google Microsoft EdTech Technology 219

The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

Every Classroom Matters Episode 189. I’m sick and tired of excuses. Everyone makes them but the biggest, most obnoxious dumbest excuse we’ve adopted is “we have to prepare kids for THE TEST.” Sure the test has become a reality. But with so many people seeing the schools KILL THE LOVE OF LEARNING so we can help kids memorize rote facts for a TEST — why isn’t more happening to CHANGE THINGS?

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Learning Facebook Classroom Resources 307

A Principal's Reflections

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

The embracement of the maker movement is being seen in K-12 schools and districts across the world. As a result, makerspaces are being instituted to allow students to tinker, invent, create, and make to learn. A makerspace can best be defined as a physical place where students can create real-world products/projects using real-world tools in a shared work space.

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Resources Maker Movement Wiki Software 306

Ed Tech from the Ground Up

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

Despite evidence that preservice teachers often view electronic teaching portfolios in a negative light, they are staples of most teacher education programs. It turns out they're fantastic ways to reflect on practice and learn from your own mistakes. Click the headline to read the full post. Questions? Email websupport@epe.org.

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Learning Education 279

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Learning

EdTech Magazine

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

By D. Frank Smith App creation has become a solid launching point for students interested in the pursuit of computer science education.

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Training Education Software STEM 315

Catlin Tucker

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

When my daughter began kindergarten, she would come home with notes pinned to her shirt–informationa about upcoming events, permission slips for field trips, and monthly newsletters. I found this incredibly amusing, but I had to admit it was an effective way to get information home to parents when you are dealing with 5-year-olds. As a high school teacher, I often wish I could pin announcements to my students’ clothing or backpacks to ensure they actually make it home to parents.

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Common Core Social Media Survey Google 309

Ditch That Textbook

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

In high school and college, I suffered through quite a few research reports and papers. I gathered data, cited sources, followed MLA style and double spaced. I turned in my papers. Then I never did anything else with them. I still have one political science paper I wrote hiding out in a trunk full of [.].

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Report Data EdTech Google 215

The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 7, 2015

Trends and Topics on Twitter This week’s top education tweets of the week have lots of interesting nuggets for us busy teachers. But one topic is flying around: flipping kids. No, not flipping them off. Not flipping your classroom — flipping a child like you flip a house. Turning their day around. The old cliche of “turning that frown upside down” is catching on.

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Microsoft Education Social Media Twitter 304

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Personalized Learning

A Principal's Reflections

NOVEMBER 15, 2015

"We must learn how to unlearn and relearn in order to create schools that work for kids." - Eric Sheninger Change is a word that is spoken about in education circles more and more each day. Herein lies the problem. Talk and opinions get us nowhere. The fact of the matter is that education has to change dramatically, but how this is initiated should no longer be a contentious topic for discussion or debate.

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Strategy Outcomes Meeting Policies 297

Brilliant or Insane

NOVEMBER 5, 2015

Brilliant or Insane. Most of my friends are educators: teachers, administrators, and service providers like me. I spend most week days facilitating professional learning throughout my region. Groups change, the work is complex and varied, and every day is much like a job interview. Last week alone, I taught five different lessons in elementary and middle school classrooms […].

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Elementary Professional Learning Groups Classroom 206

EdTech Magazine

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

By D. Frank Smith The latest CoSN report on the state of bandwidth in U.S. schools shows affordability is still a huge challenge.

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Report Online Learning Mobility Classroom 272

Dangerously Irrelevant

NOVEMBER 5, 2015

Richard Elmore said: The real argument is whether we want to develop a generation of people who have mastery of their own abilities to learn, or whether we want to perpetuate our obsession with training people to reproduce from memory what the current generation of adults thinks they should know. via [link]. Related Posts. Schooling for compliance and conformity v. preparing students for a life of learning.

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Training Learning 201

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.

Training

Battelle for Kids

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

Volume 2, Issue 12, Number 1. Driving Question: What new roles will effective teachers play for new generations of learners in a digital world? Working under the assumption, and it's a large assumption that the role of the teacher must change when faced with a modern world filled with vastly new and different opportunities to learn, what will those change roles look like?

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Technology Learning 182

The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 14, 2015

Trends and Topics on Twitter A subtle shift is happening in language as seen in the top education tweets this week. After we’ve gone down enough techno-innovation-as-Savior trails and found them to be dead ends, it seems many in education are circling back to one simple point: the greatest innovative force in the classroom is an innovative teacher.

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Education Social Media Twitter Facebook 289

Edutopia

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Andrew Miller Assessment Instead of issuing zeros, penalizing late work, and grading formative assessments, teachers should make the classroom a place of hope instead of fear.

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Assessment Learning Classroom 161

Brilliant or Insane

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Brilliant or Insane. In a different life, I was an English teacher. In fact, I spent the first half of my twenty-four year career in education writing beside middle and high school kids. Writing workshop was my passion, and Nancie Atwell was my hero (well, she still is). Naturally, I was thrilled when my principal tapped me to […]. The post How Do We Make Writing?

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Education Strategy 206

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Classroom

EdTech Magazine

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

By Eric Patnoudes Get an inside look at one of the year's most influential professional learning camps.

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Professional Learning Learning Online Learning Classroom 281

Dangerously Irrelevant

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

Michael Petrilli said: Last year, [Ohio] State Superintendent Dick Ross published a report on the testing load in the state’s schools that showed strikingly similar results as the new Council for Great City Schools study. It found that about one-quarter of the testing in the Buckeye State was linked solely to the need for data for teacher evaluations in subjects other than math and reading.

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Policies Assessment Data Study 193

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

There is much that’s wrong with the educational technology (“edtech”) market. However, the title of an essay I read last week sums up the biggest problem as succinctly as possible: Caring Doesn’t Scale. This three-word sentence captures so much. First, it clearly communicates that “scale” has become a virtue. More importantly, it implies that old-fashioned virtues – things like caring about people – simply can’t compare in importance to moder

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Technology Education EdTech OER 157

The CoolCatTeacher

NOVEMBER 5, 2015

Every Classroom Matters Episode 186 Here’s to you overloaded, exhausted, overworked teachers. Everyone is heaping guilt trips and criticism on you. But then, it happens. You look up and your classroom is in chaos. The lesson completely falls apart. Nothing works. Confusion builds. You realize that the kids are not learning because something messed it all up.

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Learning Facebook Classroom Education 287

Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.

Comparison

21st Century Educational Technology and Learning

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Welcome to a series devoted to facilitating proper student internet interaction in the classroom. This classroom might be 1 to 1 or might be using technology to leverage student centered learning. In this post I would like to discuss ten important ideas to consider when using internet resources and tools in the classroom. Before reading, please take a moment to subscribe by email or RSS and also give me a follow on Twitter at mjgormans.

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Resources Classroom Digital Citizenship Policies 129

Brilliant or Insane

NOVEMBER 3, 2015

Brilliant or Insane. Want your students to learn more immediately? Want higher test scores? Want the secret sauce for making your students like you and love your class? Well. ? Are you interested? Not only is this possible, it’s ridiculously easy. Think this is some sort of strange hocus-pocus? It’s not. It’s simple, classroom tested, kid approved best […].

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Learning Classroom Strategy 204

The Jose Vilson

NOVEMBER 8, 2015

Last week, I got to address the New Jersey Education Association about a number of different issues, but I need to leave this one note here for posterity. Here’s a remixed, written-out version of the remarks I made at the NJEA Convention. The intent of the message, and many of its controversial pieces, remain intact unapologetically. There’ll be video soon, and I’ll share it a.s.a.p.

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System Video Resources Education 123

Dangerously Irrelevant

NOVEMBER 1, 2015

My keynote for the 2015 K12 Online Conference is now available. It’s long because within it I profile numerous examples of innovative schools. Here is the description for my session: Whenever any sort of change or innovation is discussed, the ‘Yes, but…’ objections are inevitable. However, instead of allowing those resistance points to dominate and defeat promising ideas, teachers and administrators can reframe opposition into possibility by asking the questions ‘Why not?

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Conference Examples Education 193

This white paper examines and proposes revisions to the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" introduced by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson in 1987 for today's technology-driven world.

Technology