Visual Notetaking » Mapping Media to the Common Core

Visual Notetaking » Mapping Media to the Common Core: "Visual notetaking is a process of representing ideas non-linguistically. (That’s a fancy of way of saying, “drawing pictures.”) Visual notetaking can include concept mapping, but also more artistic ways of visually capturing and representing ideas. On the simpler side of the visual notetaking continuum, visual notes can be used to create narrated art. "

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A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet: 64 Sites for Digital Storytelling Tools and Information

A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet: 64 Sites for Digital Storytelling Tools and Information:

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Cell phone cameras in the K-12 classroom: Punishable offenses or student-citizen journalism? | Dangerously Irrelevant

Cell phone cameras in the K-12 classroom: Punishable offenses or student-citizen journalism? | Dangerously Irrelevant: "Take a look at the seven YouTube videos below, all taken by student cell phone cameras in classrooms. Do we want students bringing to public attention these types of classroom incidents? Should students be punished or applauded for filming and posting these?"

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Free Technology for Teachers: The Old Reader - A Google Reader Alternative That Looks A Lot Like Google Reader

Free Technology for Teachers: The Old Reader - A Google Reader Alternative That Looks A Lot Like Google Reader: "Ever since Google announced that Reader will be shut-down on July 1 I have been recommending Feedly and Flipboard as alternatives. Both of those services use a magazine-like format to display your RSS subscriptions. Some people like that while others wish that they could stick with the old Google Reader lay-out. If you prefer the old Google Reader interface you might want to try The Old Reader. "

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Tip of the Week: Structured Academic Conversation | History Tech

Tip of the Week: Structured Academic Conversation | History Tech: "One of the best things about working with social studies teachers is that I get the chance to see all sorts of great ideas and strategies. Several weeks ago, I watched a teacher use something called a SAC or Structured Academic Conversation.

It’s a discussion / debate strategy that I haven’t seen used before. And it worked great so I figured I would share it with you."

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April 2 Tip of the Week – Fence Sitting | History Tech

April 2 Tip of the Week – Fence Sitting | History Tech: "One of the best things about being a social studies teacher is that we get to discuss and argue all of these great questions.

Should we have dropped the bomb? Is it ever okay to violate the Bill of Rights? What really happened during the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Is it legal for law enforcement to search student lockers? Why did the South lose the Civil War?

The problem, of course, is finding a structure that ensures that everyone gets involved. I’ve run across a great way to encourage participation and keep the focus on content."

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300 Free MOOCs from Great Universities (Many Offering Certificates) | Open Culture

300 Free MOOCs from Great Universities (Many Offering Certificates) | Open Culture: "Most of these courses offer “certificates” or “statements of completion,” though typically not university credit. (See the key below to understand the credentials offered by each course.) Courses are arranged by start date, while evergreen courses, which can begin whenever you wish, are found at the bottom. Also don’t miss our separate collection, 700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities."

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Hack Education Ed-Tech Guide

Hack Education Ed-Tech Guide: "What Techies Should Know About Education

What should education technology entrepreneurs know about education?

Below is a collection of resources to help technologists learn more about education — about teaching, learning, policies, and the history of the field and its institutions."

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Hack Education Ed-Tech Guide

Hack Education Ed-Tech Guide: "What Educators Should Know About Technology

What should educators know about technology?

For decades now, education technology — both hardware and software — has been appeared in schools without much input from teachers or students. But with the rise of consumer Web technologies and the ubiquity of personal computing devices (particularly mobile devices), that’s changing.

Below is a collection of resources to help educators learn more about (education) technology — the industry, its culture, its investors, its politics, and the code that runs all our shiny gadgets and applications. "

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The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy

The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy: "There's an article in this month's Wired Magazine about Khan Academy. The headline speaks volumes -- "How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education" -- as do the responses I've seen to the article.  As usual, there's plenty of praise for Sal Khan and his one-man-educational-video-making machine. But there's also push-back from some quarters, particularly from educators who are highly skeptical of what Khan Academy delivers and what it stands for."

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Entrepreneurialism, Student Voices and Authentic Work | Langwitches Blog

Entrepreneurialism, Student Voices and Authentic Work | Langwitches Blog: "Our 4th and 5th grade students(9-10 year olds) have been working with Mike Fisher, co-author of Upgrading your Curriculum and author of children’s poems. The goal of their collaboration is to create an eBook of Mike’s poems with students’ illustrations. "

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Moving at the Speed of Creativity | Create YouTube Channel with Custom URL (April 2013)

Moving at the Speed of Creativity | Create YouTube Channel with Custom URL (April 2013): "Following recent changes in Google+ and YouTube, the steps and menu options for creating a professional YouTube channel have changed slightly. The following steps outline how (as of April 2013) you can create a “custom channel URL or name” for a YouTube channel you associate with your school Gmail account or another Gmail account you own."

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“Wonderville” Is New Virtual Classroom Site | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

“Wonderville” Is New Virtual Classroom Site | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…: "Wonderville just became available to the public and lets teachers (or parents) create virtual classrooms (for free) with content and multiple choice questions where children’s progress can be monitored. It’s focusing on K-5 content now.
It looks like it might be one of the better sites of its kind, though it’s perplexing to me why they’d include a YouTube video as a key part of each lesson — since YouTube is blocked by most schools, that means students won’t be able to view them there."

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Announcing Wikispaces Classroom

Announcing Wikispaces Classroom: "Wikispaces Classroom is a brand new product from the Wikispaces team entirely and exclusively for teachers and students.

Over the years we’ve distilled what we believe and do into one simple thing: help teachers help students. And Wikispaces Classroom is our attempt to take that to the next level."

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Free Technology for Teachers: gClassFolders Version 2 Improves Google Drive File Management

Free Technology for Teachers: gClassFolders Version 2 Improves Google Drive File Management: "Last fall I introduced many of you to gClassFolders. gClassFolders is a Google Drive script that will create folders for you for as many course sections as you need. The concept behind it is this; students have a "dropbox" folder in their Google Drive accounts that you have shared with them. To submit work students drag files into that "dropbox" folder. From there gClassFolders sorts submissions to the correct folder for each student."

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Free Technology for Teachers: 10 Good Video Sources for Math Students and Teachers

Free Technology for Teachers: 10 Good Video Sources for Math Students and Teachers: "Earlier this week I shared ten video sources for history students and ten video sources for science students. To wrap-up the week I have a list of ten video sources for math students. Like the other lists, I've intentionally left out Khan Academy because everyone knows about that option."

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Kids don’t hate history, they hate the way we teach it | History Tech

Kids don’t hate history, they hate the way we teach it | History Tech: "About 15 years ago, I had the chance to drive James Loewen around for a couple of days. He was in town for a two day workshop and afterwards had to get to Kansas City for a flight. As his chauffeur, I got the chance to pepper him with all sorts of questions. And much of what I wanted to know revolved around his most recent book at the time, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong."

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Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Ways to Add Interactive Elements to Your Videos

Free Technology for Teachers: 5 Ways to Add Interactive Elements to Your Videos: "Over the last few days I've featured a couple of free tools for adding interactive elements to your videos. In the last year I've reviewed a few other services and methods for doing the same thing. This is a round-up of the ways that you can add interactive elements to your videos. The first four tools could be used by students to create a series of choose your own adventure videos. These tools could be used by teachers to enhance the short videos that they create for flipped lessons."

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Moving at the Speed of Creativity | Is Embracing Digital Learning a Moral Issue for Educators?

Moving at the Speed of Creativity | Is Embracing Digital Learning a Moral Issue for Educators?: "While there have been and will continue to inevitably be older teachers who will retire from education rather than learn “new ways” of teaching and learning in the digital information landscape, that choice is not a moral one for those of us who choose to remain twenty-first century educators."

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Individualization vs. Differentiation vs. Personalization

Source: personalizelearning.com via Doug on Pinterest

Free Technology for Teachers: Teaching Objects - A Lesson Planner That Integrates Google Drive

Free Technology for Teachers: Teaching Objects - A Lesson Planner That Integrates Google Drive: "Teaching Objects is an online lesson planner that I stumbled upon today and that I think has great potential. The first thing that you'll notice when you try Teaching Objects is that you have to create your account using a Google account (either a personal account or a Google Apps for Edu account). Then you can optionally authorize Teaching Objects to access your Google Drive and YouTube accounts. Giving authorization will enable you to pull materials from your Google Drive and YouTube accounts into your Teaching Objects lesson plans."

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Free Technology for Teachers: Use Edcanvas in Edmodo for Visual Organization and Sharing of Resources

Free Technology for Teachers: Use Edcanvas in Edmodo for Visual Organization and Sharing of Resources: "Edcanvas is a well-designed service for organizing and sharing digital materials with your colleagues and students. I was impressed by the service when I reviewed it earlier this month. This week Edcanvas launched an Edmodo app. Now you can use and share your Edcanvas content within your Edmodo community."

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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Learn more about Flat Classroom! Connect your students globally.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Learn more about Flat Classroom! Connect your students globally.: "I get tweets and emails asking "what is this Flat Classroom thing?" When you flatten your classroom, you remove the walls. You connect your students to others around the world in a level playing field where they collaborate, work together and learn from each other. "

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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Make Google Reader your Powerhouse sharing system: "Productivity and simplicity, these are two things the modern knowledge worker craves. Google Reader is my "secret weapon" of productivity and I'd like to show you how I get the most out of this program."

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Understanding SOPA/PIPA

Most everyone has noticed the swath of websites that were blacked out in protest of the pending PIPA / SOPA legislation in congress, but not as many people understand exactly why those bills are such a problem. This short documentary explores PIPA and SOPA, how the bills work, who's behind them, and why all internet users have reason to be concerned. The fight to prevent online censorship in the U.S. is far from over. While SOPA's future seems increasingly bleak, PIPA has not been pulled from consideration in the senate, where it will be up for a vote later this month. It is important to understand that PIPA has the same fundamental problems of SOPA. It is NOT a compromise bill; at this point, it is little more than a legislative strategy to abandon the SOPA branding in favor of PIPA. Both bills contain vague language and reach too broadly, threatening free speech and innovation on the web. Both institute a private right of action for companies to block access to infringing content without due process. Both contain an immunity clause to protect these companies from legal consequence if they make mistakes. And both set the wrong global precedent by encouraging other countries to censor the internet based on their own domestic laws. While President Obama is opposed to the DNS-blocked mechanisms proposed in the bills, the language still exists. As well, Obama has not come against the legislation itself, nor has he signaled his intention to veto the legislation if it passes. These bills don't need to be fixed, they need to be scrapped. - Note this correction: David Sohn from the Center for Democracy & Technology is incorrectly shown as David Cohn. - Produced and edited by Chase Whiteside (interviews), Erick Stoll (camera), and Liz Cambron. Graphic design by Chase Whiteside. Motion design by Ashley Walton (ashleywalton.com). Music from Nicolas Jaar's brilliant debut album Space is Only Noise. THANKS: David Sohn and the Center For Democracy & Technology, Chris Riley and Free Press, Ashley Walton, Steve Bognar, John Aravosis, Jay Marose, Walter Herrera

Using TED-Ed Videos | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Using TED-Ed Videos | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…: "Using TED-Ed Videos
January 12, 2013 by Larry Ferlazzo | 0 comments
I have a number of reservations about flipped classrooms (see The Best Posts On The “Flipped Classroom” Idea) — both regarding pedagogy and practical issues (many students just wouldn’t do it).
However, I have found that some of the sites on my The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress list useful for a different situation — sometimes I have a student who is facing so many challenges, that periodically he/she needs a break from what we’re doing in class (and the class needs a break from them). During some of those times, I put the student at my desk in front of the computer, and he/she does a different project using one of those sites. It’s a far better alternative than sending the student to the office on a “referral.”
The two sites I think are the best for those situations are SAS Curriculum Pathways and TED-Ed talks."

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Personalize Learning: OMG! Teacher Roles are Changing

Personalize Learning: OMG! Teacher Roles are Changing: "Personalized learning means it starts with learners having a voice and choice in how they learn. They create their Personal Learner Profile using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens determining how they learn best indicating their strengths, challenges, aspirations, interests, and talents. They know how they prefer to access resources, engage with content, and then choose the best ways to express what they know. They self-regulate their learning. They own and drive their learning. It is does not mean technology personalizes the learning for learners. It does not mean that your role as teacher is no longer needed. Your role changes in a personalized learning environment more than ever as a partner in learning with your learners."

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World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12)

World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12): "ITU convened the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 3-14 December 2012. This landmark conference reviewed the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), which serve as the binding global treaty designed to facilitate international interconnection and interoperability of information and communication services, as well as ensuring their efficiency and widespread public usefulness and availability."

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Marking the birth of the modern-day Internet | Official Google Blog

Marking the birth of the modern-day Internet | Official Google Blog: "Today is the 30th birthday of the modern-day Internet. Five years ago we marked the occasion with a doodle. This year we invited Vint Cerf to tell the story. Vint is widely regarded as one of the fathers of the Internet for his contributions to shaping the Internet’s architecture, including co-designing the TCP/IP protocol. Today he works with Google to promote and protect the Internet. -Ed."

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Free Technology for Teachers: Gooru - A Great Source of Math, Science, and Social Studies Materials

Free Technology for Teachers: Gooru - A Great Source of Math, Science, and Social Studies Materials: "Gooru is a service that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math, social studies, and science."

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Free Technology for Teachers: What's Your Strategy for Getting Comments on Classroom Blogs?

Free Technology for Teachers: What's Your Strategy for Getting Comments on Classroom Blogs?: "Earlier this week I received an email from a teacher that was looking for ideas on how to get more comments on her students' group blog. My usual suggestions are as follows:

1. Connect with and ask other teachers on Twitter if they will comment or have their students comment.

2. Submit your blog to the Edublogs community.

3. Connect with teachers on a network like The Educator's PLN. Again, ask if there are people willing to comment or have their students comment. You might also consider starting a group within the network just for the purpose of connecting classroom blogs for commenting. "

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The Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

The Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…: "A key concept that’s important for students to learn is the importance of engaging with the text — not just being a passive reader.
There are obviously many effective instructional strategies to help them practice that lesson.  One pretty explicit way is for them to have access to reading “choose your own adventure” stories where they are periodically given choices of what they want characters to do, and then participate in the construction of the story itself.  The Goosebumps series of books is a well-known example of this genre.  In the world of English Language Learner teaching, these kinds of stories are also called “Action Mazes.”"

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Liquid Networks, PLNs, and growing professionally | History Tech

Liquid Networks, PLNs, and growing professionally | History Tech: I can't capture enough of the article for it to make sense... Follow the link.

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Hacking Flipboard for fun and profit | History Tech

Hacking Flipboard for fun and profit | History Tech: "Okay. Probably not profit. But hacking Flipboard to make it all about you can be fun.

Yesterday I talked about creating your own liquid network, a professional learning network that makes you and those around you smarter.

But PLNs are not just people. Your PLN should also include news feed apps and RSS aggregators. If you’re not familiar with RSS, head to this handy Youtube video clip. Basically these are tools that you can customize so that just the specific news and information you want automatically appears in that tool. So you don’t have to go out and search for stuff, the stuff comes to you. (One of the easiest tools to use is Google Reader.)"

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MarilynMonrobot

MarilynMonrobot: "Heather is currently conducting her doctoral research at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and running Marilyn Monrobot Labs in NYC, which creates socially intelligent robot performances and sensor-based electronic art. Founder of the Robot Film Festival and Cyborg Cabaret, Heather was on the 2011 Forbes List for 30 under 30 in Science."

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Free Technology for Teachers: Gmail+1 = Student Email Addresses to Register for Online Services

Free Technology for Teachers: Gmail+1 = Student Email Addresses to Register for Online Services: "The Gmail+1"hack" isn't a new trick and I can't remember when I first tried it, but it still works and it still provides a solution to a problem that a lot of teachers run into when they want their students to use a new web tool. Let's say there's a new service that I want my students to use but my students don't have email addresses that they can use to register for that service. In that case I can quickly generate Gmail addresses for my students by using the Gmail+1 hack."

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A Summer of Android

A Summer of Android

Free Technology for Teachers: Professional Learning in the Digital Age - A Review

Free Technology for Teachers: Professional Learning in the Digital Age - A Review: "Last spring my Google Teacher Academy buddy Dr. Kristen Swanson sent me an email asking if she could interview me for a book that she was writing. I agreed and we connected over Skype for a conversation about the role that blogging has played in my professional life. This week Kristen's book came in the mail and I was surprised to see how much of our conversation made it into her new book, Professional Learning in the Digital Age. "

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Free Technology for Teachers: Meetingl - Free and Easy Video Conferencing

Free Technology for Teachers: Meetingl - Free and Easy Video Conferencing: "Meetingl is a free service for hosting video conferences. A Meetingl conference room can be created in less than a minute. To create your room just go to the site, click "New Room," name your room, and send out invitations."

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Free Technology for Teachers: 110 Page Guide to Publishing With iBooks Author

Free Technology for Teachers: 110 Page Guide to Publishing With iBooks Author: "Apple's iBooks Author is an excellent tool for creating multimedia ebooks, but there are some elements of using it that can be confusing and or frustrating. While you can figure it all out on your own as you go, that's how I've been going about it, you can save yourself a bunch of time by reading a good guide ahead of time. I wish I had done that."

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The Best Screenshare Tools To Help Others With Computer Problems | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

The Best Screenshare Tools To Help Others With Computer Problems | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…: "I’ve sometimes had to help my in-laws with computer issues, and have identified some useful tools that allow screensharing very easily.
I know there are quite a few out there, but these are the ones I’ve found to be the most simple and effective. Let me know if what you think is missing from the list.
Here are my choices for The Best Screenshare Tools To Help Others With Computer Problems:"

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Explore Island of the Blue Dolphins

Explore Island of the Blue Dolphins: "A thematic exploration of the historical fiction novel--
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell."

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JAM with Chrome: Play music live with your friends online | Official Google Blog

JAM with Chrome: Play music live with your friends online | Official Google Blog: "If you ever dreamed of playing in a band, now’s your chance to be a rock star. JAM with Chrome is an interactive web application that enables friends in different locations to play music together in the Chrome browser on their computers. No matter what your level of talent—from daydreaming air guitarist to music pro—you can JAM together in real time over the web"

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Educational Leadership:Teacher Evaluation: What's Fair? What's Effective?:Beyond the Scoreboard

Educational Leadership:Teacher Evaluation: What's Fair? What's Effective?:Beyond the Scoreboard: "The key driver of teacher development isn't accurate measurement of teachers' performance. It's guidance on exactly how to improve."

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Engaging Parents In School… » New Haven Seems To Do “Parent University” Right….

Engaging Parents In School… » New Haven Seems To Do “Parent University” Right….: "I’ve posted a lot about “parent academies” or “parent universities” around the country — and my critique of them for not being parent-driven by emphasizing issues that parents want to learn about.
I’ve often contrasted it with the Parent University program at our school.
I read an article in The New Haven Register today about a Parent University in that city which seems to really “get it.” Here’s an excerpt the illustrates what I mean:
“New Haven’s Parent University is unique in that workshops not only address how parents can support their kids in school, but also how they can enrich their own lives. Topics include tips for successful job searching, learning a trade, computer literacy for adults, resume writing and starting your own business.”
That’s what I’m talking about!"

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Free Technology for Teachers: Meograph - 4D Storytelling in Education

Free Technology for Teachers: Meograph - 4D Storytelling in Education: "Meograph is a digital storytelling tool that launched this summer. Using Meograph you can create a digital story that uses a timeline, a Google Map, images, videos, and your narration. I like the service enough that I have included it in a couple of workshops this summer and fall. Meograph recently launched a new education page on which they are featuring examples of using the service in education. I've embedded one of the samples below.
"

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Don't Know Much about History (of Education)

Don't Know Much about History (of Education): "Sal Khan recently sat down with Forbes’ Michael Noer to record a mini-lecture, Khan Academy style, about the history of education. It’s the history of education “from 1680 to 2050” in 11 minutes, so needless to say it’s a rather abbreviated version of events.

Of course, history isn’t simply a collection of events strung together on a timeline, such as the one that Khan draws for viewers here. History is explanation, description, and narration. It is framing and reframing. History is always partial, and it is always told from a particular vantage point — now — by a particular subjective storyteller — in this case, Sal Khan and Michael Noer."

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Free Technology for Teachers: Video Projects and Common Core Standards

Free Technology for Teachers: Video Projects and Common Core Standards: "Video Projects and Common Core Standards
Last week I ran two workshops on video creation in the classroom. A part of that workshop was a discussion of Common Core standards that can be addressed through video creation projects. I've pulled out some of the standards that I think a video creation project can address. The standards that I chose all came from the Language Arts standards. I would love to hear from mathematics teachers who have ideas about Common Core standards that can be addressed through video creation projects.
"

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Free Technology for Teachers: Use Studeous to Create a Discussion Forum for Your Class

Free Technology for Teachers: Use Studeous to Create a Discussion Forum for Your Class: "Studeous is a new service that teachers can use to create online discussion forums for their courses. In your Studeous account you can create a discussion forum for each of the courses that you teach. In addition to using Studeous as a discussion forum you can create an announcements page. If you upgrade to a paid account you can post files and images too (the free version limits you to two files). Students can join your forum by entering the access code for your course or you can send them invitations via email."

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Free Technology for Teachers: Bibliography Templates for Google Documents

Free Technology for Teachers: Bibliography Templates for Google Documents: "Tools like EasyBib, refDot, and Citelighter can help students format their bibliographies. One problem with those tools is that students have to install browser extensions, create new accounts, or both in order to use them. If your students already use Google Docs there is an easy-to-access alternative.

The Google Docs template gallery is a good place to check out before you create your next form or document that requires a lot specific formatting. Chances are someone else may have had a similar need and has already created and published a template that you can use. For example, the Google Docs template gallery has templates for creating bibliographies in APA, MLA, AMA, and Chicago Style.

Applications for Education
The Google Docs bibliography templates could be very useful for any student that needs to create a bibliography. The templates can be embedded into a classroom blog as a model for students to follow even if they don't use Google Docs to create their bibliographies. "

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