February 2012
9 posts
Google-Trained Minds Can't Deal with Terrible... →
visualturn:
infoneer-pulse:
College and university librarians are concerned about students’ search skills, and no wonder:
At Illinois Wesleyan University, “The majority of students — of all levels — exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process,” according to researchers there. They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases....
4 tags
To the DML Conference in San Francisco This Week
That’s Digital Media & Learning, a part of HASTAC.
Check out the program.
Some wild choices: http://dmlcentral.net/sites/dmlcentral/files/resource_files/dml2012program1.pdf
4 tags
“The essence of the modern revolution in education, begun 60-70 years ago with...”
– Grant Wiggins
A visit to Harvard and Exeter: Problem Solving Done Right
“With teachers, true expertise also includes mastery over many areas of...”
– Technology Transforms Teachers Into Master Chefs of the Classroom (via world-shaker)
3 tags
Winter Gathering
We have an interesting tradition here at school. One day each winter we invite all our parents into classes to see what their kids go through every day. It’s not the most authentic experience, because teachers try to plan something that will be interesting for both the students and parents. We have 35 minutes per class on this particular Saturday. I decided to gone experiential ed with...
January 2012
16 posts
“No question that interactive textbooks deliver results. A pilot study carried...”
– The future of teaching: Difference engine: Let the games begin (via world-shaker)
2 tags
Teachers criticized for displaying ally cards →
gaywrites:
Two teachers in Canada have stirred controversy among parents for displaying cards stating that they are allies for LGBTQ students.
Stephanie Fortier and Peter Wohlgemut are fifth-grade teachers who have received special training on sexual orientation and gender identity. As a result they are encouraged to display “ally” cards in their classrooms. The cards read: “As an Ally, I...
3 tags
Educational Design Challenge
Could you design a wholly self-contained learning experience that integrated both content and subject matter with the knowledge of how to best learn that content and subject matter?
Forget the teacher-student interaction for a minute (which I won’t deny can make or break a learning experience). What tools would you need to take one of the courses you teach and completely package it so that...
6 tags
“Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a...”
– Charles Eames - via spin.co.uk (via gregmelander)
3 tags
What online tools do educators wish existed to...
“You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class,...”
– John Green (via julieheartsbooks)
My Freshman Project Assignment →
coolcatteacher:
In my Grade 9 computer fundamentals course, we take 20% of our time and each student spends it on a self-directed project. This is a new element for my course this year and so far, I’m enjoying it (as are the students.) Feel free to join Tes (where I upload my free resources) and download it. (It is free to join TES.)
4 tags
The Human Knot: A Versatile Metaphor
Today I did the human knot with three of my classes. The kids loved it. We’re about 2 weeks into the term and I think the physical closeness was a big step in their bonding as a crew. For two classes (design) I used the knot as a metaphor for how to work together on group projects. For the other class (Art 1 foundation) we examined the emotions that different stages of the untangling knot...
5 tags
Edtech Challenge: School of the Future!
Who wants to collaborate and design the school of the future imagined for year 2025?
5 tags
Why Smart Students Don't Succeed →
world-shaker:
An outstanding collection of insight from reddit user lnri137. Here’s an excerpt:
You got A’s because you studied or because the classes were easy. You got a B probably because you were so used to understanding things that you didn’t know how to deal with something that didn’t come so easily. I’m guessing that early on you built the cognitive and intellectual tools to rapidly...
M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All... →
For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the “social injustice” of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. TheMassachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the...
December 2011
11 posts
4 tags
Ten Tips for Personalized Learning via Technology... →
I’m a fan of differentiation in the classroom, although I’ve been finding it difficult to employ sound methods in a private boarding secondary school. Expectations for what classrooms are and what happens in a classroom are so ingrained in the institution that it’s hard to shift away.
One of the biggest questions I haven’t yet resolved is about assessment of learning...
Returned from North Carolina Outward Bound Educators Initiative Winter Retreat feeling refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to try out some new ideas.
3 tags
On my way to Charlottesville, Va.
For a retreat with others involved in the Educators Initiative at North Carolina Outward Bound. We’re looking at how to bring NCOB principles into the traditional classroom.
5 tags
Is college relevant?
Colleges are like qwerty keyboards. They’re relics of educational design that might have already passed us by, just as qwerty keyboards are relics of their mechanical typewriter counterparts. They’re here to stay until someone designs a revolutionary alternative to make them obsolete.
November 2011
13 posts
4 tags
1 tag
On Having and Giving Up Expectations
I try to give up having expectations for those around me and having expectations for experiences as often as I can, because I believe the mantra that when we approach life with no expectations, it’s very hard to be disappointed. I love the idea of “beginner’s mind”, where we choose to remind ourselves of how little we really know about what’s going on around us and...
3 tags
Designing Course Expectations that Determine and...
In this job you’re never not thinking about teaching.
Last night I woke up at 4am, apparently because my brain was processing ideas for the upcoming term, and I had to write some things down.
If you don’t have Noteshelf for the Ipad, it’s a terrific app that lets you write really easily using your finger or a stylus (I prefer stylus).
I wanted to get down some ideas about...
Reflections from over 11,000 blog posts →
Great advice from a blogger 10 years in the making:
10 lessons learned:
Blogging is communal: In 2008, I wrote that “blogging is not just an act of publishing but also a communal activity. It is more than leaving comments; it is about creating connections.” That is the single biggest lesson learned of these past 10 years. Every connection has lead to a new idea, new thought and a new...
6 tags
Facing the Truth about Education: There's no...
I hear educators say that “Technology is a tool and we have to use it wisely to achieve our outcomes” in schools. We decide what we want our students to know/understand/do and find the technology that best suits that type of learning. Targeted Technology Use. Sure, sounds nice, and perfect, but crucially: it sounds manageable.
But, it’s also true that the technology will...
polygonal-lasso asked: I’ve thought about this a lot too, but the issue I keep running into is how exactly laboratory classrooms would work. I mean sure, there are charter schools, but even they have to conform to the current larger structures we have in education. Any ideas I come up with would require exemption of the students that I’m working with from that larger structure, and I don’t see that...
Is REAL Formative Assessment Even Possible? - The... →
Insightful reflections on one teacher’s journey into the demands of formative assessment.
I’m really starting to wonder whether or not effective formative assessment is even possible in the classroom.
Here’s why: I’ve spent the first four weeks of this school year trying to make formative assessment a bigger part of my own instructional practices—and it’s damn near killed me.
Don’t get...
7 tags
Flaws in Education Research
I totally flaked on my intention to blog the “Learning and the Brain” conference last weekend.
They cram so much into the day, that I’d lose the chance at taking notes and processing some of the information if I simply reported on what was happening (which was the form many of the microblogs from the conference were taking). People were tweeting under the hashtag #lb30, but it...
Gamification for Learning in the Classroom →
world-shaker:
In it’s basic form it is using the techniques behind gaming as a basis for classroom learning. Gaming involves problem solving, replaying parts of the game again and again until you get to the next level, finishing off an end of level adversary and can involve multiplayer opportunities where teams work together to solve the problems they face. As players progress through...
On Tracks
I’ve never travelled from Trenton to Boston on the train. It’s early. The quiet car is still quiet.
I boarded, slipping through car after car of sleeping passengers, likely in their fourth or fifth hours of travel.
Dawn now floods the horizon as we glide past the new york skyline, a lawn of navy silhouettes superimposed on orange. I feel the weight of waking hours pressing on my...
3 tags
Journey To Boston: Learning and the Brain
Heading to the Fall 2011 Learning and the Brain conference tomorrow morning (bright and early). The Keynote begins at 1:30 and I should be on the train for 5 or so hours.
I will blog. All weekend.
Make comments.
Mobile Tech Learning: #iPadChat: Must Visit Links... →
mobiletechlearning:
And we’re back with our weekly #iPadChat link roundup! What’s your favorite #iPadChat oriented site to visit?
40 Most Awesome iPad Apps for Science Students
5 Good Productivity Apps For The iPad2
Apps for The Classroom
iPads in The Classroom
Why Amazon Doesn’t Scare Apple
October 2011
7 posts
8 tags
Art & Technology: Creating an Assignment at the...
These days articles are published everyday about the disadvantages of technology in education. Will Richardson recently tweeted about his frustration that the media always make the argument “black and white, rather than right time, right place.”
I cannot argue with the fact that technology has made my life easier (even if it’s only made it easier to live a life where I’m a...