This article is cross posted at EdTechInnovations.com
Recently, Christine Wiser T&L’s Managing Editor, asked the Tech Advisors the following question:
I thought that this was a great question that would generate a lot of discussion. So, I wanted to share with you my top three and see what you have to say. After all, sometimes, the more voices heard the more progress can be made.
http://www.techlearning.com/Default.aspx?tabid=67&EntryId=3280
There are some very stunning statistics out on the recent and escalating impact of the demand for digital content on the publishing industry.
Evan Williams (left) and Biz Stone, founders of Twitter, using the social networking service at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, April 13, 2009. Credit: Peter DaSilva—The New York Times/Redux.
According to the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group, by 2010, ebooks represented 6.2% of the total unit market share with nearly 112 million units sold, compared to only nine million units sold in 2008. The dramatic growth in digital products is even more impressive when….
Read more, CLICK HERE
I was honored this summer to do a podcast with TeacherCast and have been using the site quite a bit, but this new design is great. Makes things super easy to find. Looking forward to sharing with my students. If you have never visited the TeacherCast site, check it out!
“Dear Friends of TeacherCast
I am writing to you to spread the news of something big happening at TeacherCast. Our website has gone into what we are calling TeacherCast 2.0.
Thanks to your support and dedication to the website, we have grown tremendously and we are helping great educators in more than 80 countries and 49 states. Our iPhone app has been downloaded more than 200 times and our LiveBinders, Podcasts and Curation projects are widely tweeted about each day.
We are looking to grow TeacherCast even further in the next few weeks by adding great content such as app reviews, podcasts, and screencasts. We have added a video section to the website as well as a section we call “Software How-to’s”. In addition, our iPhone app, which features great blogs and content from many of you, was just submitted to Apple for our first major update.
Thank you for your help and support. Please help us by continuing to share TeacherCast with great teachers, administrators, parents, and app developers.
Please take a moment over the next few days to check out TeacherCast. Please write some great reviews for us on our iTunes feed and leave us a nice 5 Star Rating. This will only help TeacherCast grow exponentially. Please continue to tweet and retweet about TeacherCast to your friends and coworkers.
Once again, Thank you for helping me with my dream.
All the best,
Jeff
www.TeacherCast.net
@TeacherCast”
How to model technology use in the classroom
Veteran teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron offers 20 tips for using and modeling the use of technology in the classroom. Teachers should involve students in setting up new technology, use digital tools — such as document cameras, videoconferencing and interactive whiteboards — throughout the school day and use tech-inspired vocabulary, even when talking about offline activities, she writes.
Read the full story: Edutopia.org/Heather Walpert-Gawron’s blog
A ten-year teaching veteran and a California regional Teacher of the Year, Heather Wolpert-Gawron’s musings on educational policy, curriculum design, and daily school life can also be read at www.tweenteacher.com.
Large districts face challenges implementing school technology
Large urban school districts face complicated challenges when implementing new classroom and school technology. In Boston and Chicago schools, educator buy-in proved a crucial component to the success of districtwide technology programs. Meanwhile scalability and ensuring new technology programs are implemented equally throughout hundreds of district schools also are concerns in large districts.
Read the full story at T.H.E. Journal
Richard Bryne of Free Technology for Teachers has a great post today GLEAN Information Literacy Tools.
“From the same folks who bring us the Boolify Project comes two other useful tools for teaching information literacy skills. The GLEAN Comparison Search engine is a tool that allows users to compare search results for “positive” and “negative” perspectives side-by-side. For example, if I search using the term “Libya” I will be presented with lists of positive and negative terms. Clicking on those terms will change my results and give me quick comparison options.”
Read the full story, CLICK HERE
Many schools across the country have rules about tech in the classroom, but they’re not the rules you might think. Teachers instruct students to take out their smartphones, to power up their iPads, and to log in to Twitter.
Technology’s role in the classroom has been widely debated: does it simply feed an addiction to a mobile lifestyle, or does it give otherwise shy students a way to find their voices? A national survey released in April by Pearson Learning Solutions found that only “2 percent of college faculty members had used Twitter in class, and nearly half thought that doing so would negatively affect learning,” reported The New York Times. However, at the same time, a recent survey by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth found that “98 percent of higher ed institutions are on Facebook, and 84 percent are on Twitter,” said InsideHigherEd.com.
Read the full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/21/high-tech-schools-innovative-tech-in-classroom_n_925450.html#s326592&title=iPads
Name: Kevin Buran
Profession: 6th and 8th Grade Science Teacher
Location: Carmel, California
School: Carmel Middle School
I use Evernote, Everywhere:
I love…
- ScanSnap Scanner for scanning in worksheets and student work
- JotNot for taking snapshots of my daily itinerary and saving them instantly to Evernote
I use Evernote for..
I first heard about Evernote about a year ago, but have become an avid user much more recently. Here are just a few of the ways that I use Evernote for teaching:
It’s getting to be that time of year. Your chances of seeing school supply commercials have increased exponentially. Kids are breaking out last year’s Elmer’s in anticipation of glorious glue feasts. Teens are cramming their entire summer reading into the last week of August. Yep, it’s back to school time, folks.
One thing that makes back to school a tad less stressful? Tech, of course! What did you think we were going to say — studying? Pssssh.
Take a gander below at these tech tools, apps, social media and parenting tips that will ease you or your kid into another school year. Here are Mashable‘s best education-related posts from the past year! Enjoy, you teacher’s pet, you.
Check them out….Click Here
- Tech & Mobile Education Tools
- Education via Social Media
- Education Tips & Stats
- Extracurricular Tech Education
Elementary-school computer teacher Mary Beth Hertz encourages educators to set some goals for integrating technology into the classroom this school year. Teachers should resist the temptation to do too much, she writes, but instead choose one new tool to implement during the first report period. She also recommends creating an implementation plan and considering potential pitfalls.
Read the full story, Edutopia.org/Mary Beth Hertz’s blog
Create a new folder: Command-Shift-N
Open a new Finder window: Command-N
Switch Application: Command-Tab
Find: Command-F
Select All: Command-A
Copy: Command-C
Cut: Command-X
Paste: Command-V
Duplicate: Command-D
Undo: Command-Z
Save: Command-S
Save As: Shift-Command-S
Print: Command-P
Close window: Command-W
Close all windows: Option-Command-W
Show or Hide Dock: Option-Command-D
Hide Applications: Command-H
Empty Trash (without warning): Shift-Command-Delete-Option
Empty Trash (with warning): Shift-Command-Delete
Move an item to the Trash: Command-Delete
Force Quit: Option-Command-Escape
Eject Disk: Command-E
Sleep: Option-Command-Eject
Quit all programs and restart: Control-Command-Eject
Take a picture of a selection: Command-Shift-4 (*essential shortcut—it’s far and away my favorite)
Copy an item being dragged: Option-drag
Move an item to new location without copying: Command-Drag
Select multiple files that aren’t next to each other: Command-click
Select multiple files in a row: Shift-click
Teacher Jennifer L. Barnett shares several ways in which educators can do a lot with limited classroom technology. She recommends several teaching methods that could be adapted in a single-computer classroom, such as the “pass it on” buddy method, in which students write their ideas on paper and teach each other to compile the digital product. She also suggests a group-consensus method, where students work in groups and designate one person to prepare the digital report, and the rotating-scribe method, in which one student digitally takes down the day’s lesson.
Read the full story at Education Week Teacher
The use of digital media to enhance learning for at-risk students should be considered a necessity rather than a luxury, says author S. Craig Watkins. Research shows digital technology has a positive effect on student learning and schools should ensure that all students have equal access to digital tools and projects, even amid budget cuts and other concerns. KQED.org/Mind/Shift blog
This QR code thing is pretty cool. I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, Turn a paper based book into an interactive book with QR Codes, and this week in my technology class, I did an exercise with my students. They are all future teachers, I showed them a couple examples of children’s books (grandkids) I did and asked them to bring something to class the next day so they could give it a try. Most brought children’s books, and not all worked well for the project. But, one student brought a road map of Kanas and found videos about various historical towns. One student, bought a book about the Rainforest, another a book about animals and so on. For the most part pretty good. But we did learn a few things…..
Of course, hind sight is 20/20! We had to go to our lounge lab where there is a printer and of course, pay for printing. So most screen captured the codes as they made them, and made the codes smaller so they could put a whole bunch on a page and not have to pay the 11 cents a page to print.
WHAT we learned!
1. Don’t shrink the codes! Mobile devices have to be a set distance from the code to focus. Too small, camera cannot focus.
2. Do not put codes too close together if more than one. The camera in the mobile device can only see one image at a time, too close together, you have to get close with the camera to only see one image and then it can”t focus.
3. Most of the QR Code makers have size choices for a reason, use the defaults.
4. If you are gluing the codes you made on things, try different kinds of glue, Glue sticks don’t stick very well in those slick pages of many children’s books.
Resources for Making QR Codes and using in the classroom
Article to read from the blog, (http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/) Teach Paperless; seeking solutions to the mysteries of 21st century teaching and learning: Thinking Outside-the-Box With QR Codes by Noah Geisel
Augmented Reality in Plain English: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/augmented-reality-in-plain-english.html
Kaywa: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Daqri: https://daqri.com/accounts/signup/, check out their great tutorials and the cool things you can do including video tutorials for How-to http://blog.daqri.com/. This one is in beta………daqri is a content publishing platform that will make Augmented Reality accessible to anyone. daqri is currently in public beta, but you still need an invitation. Get one from an existing daqri user, or sign up on the list up above to request one from us. You have to request an invite. I did and just got mine, WOW is this tool amazing!
Cybrary Man’s extensive list of QR Code resources. http://cybraryman.com/qrcodes.html
Top 10 Free Online QR Code Generators: http://freenuts.com/top-10-free-online-qr-code-generators/
Making it work on your Mobile device: Your device (iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Android, and many more brands) must have a camera. Just look for an app that reads QR codes. I am using the one by Tapmedia on my iPhone & iPad. It is FREE although they do have a paid version too. The Free version seemed to have worked just fine so far. http://www.tapmedia.co.uk/ or to download from iTunes. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-reader-for-iphone/id368494609?mt=8
Article for using with your WEBCAM on your computer. http://www.dansl.net/blog/?p=256
Using the WebCam on you MAC: There is an Application in the Mac Apps Store called QuickMark for $3.99. It amazing.
And Classtools has an app with a really good idea about creating a scavenger hunt and they have lots of examples.
So, give it a try and let me know how it goes. Here are a few more resources from TEACHERS!
QR Huh? What The Heck Is A QR Code? Steven Anderson
QR Codes in the Classroom Richard Byrne & Charity L. Preston
Interesting way of using QR codes in the Classroom Tom Barrett
QR Code Classroom Implementation Guide Vicki Davis
Hot QR Codes in the Classroom and Library Gwyneth Jones
QR Codes in the Classroom David Hopkins
10 Ways to use QR Codes in the Classroom Barbara Schroeder
Technology know-how alone will not lead to effective teaching, suggests instructional coach David Ginsburg. He writes that teachers should focus first on quality classroom management, then on the use of technology in instruction. Before teachers begin lesson planning for the start of the school year, Ginsburg recommends they develop a classroom management plan to ensure that students get the most out of instruction.
Read the full story at Education Week Teacher/Coach G’s Teaching Tips blog
Project lets K-12 students archive websites
A nationwide project sponsored by the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress has students creating virtual time capsules of primary-source websites and digital content that reflects their lives and interests. The K-12 Web Archiving Program is aimed at teaching students collaborative, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills as they choose sources and sites to include.
Read full Story, CLICK HERE eSchool News
Sometimes teachers and administrators need a kick in the pants to see what they perceive as problems re-framed in a different way.
Adam S. Bellow, author of The Tech Commandments, and founder of eduTecher, spoke to a roomful of receptive teachers at the recent ISTE 2011 conference, and demonstrated some of the ironies and contradictions the education system is mired in.
And he had some advice. CLICK HERE
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/07/the-seven-golden-rules-of-using-technology-in-schools/
The Seven Golden Rules of Using Technology in Schools
Adam S. Bellow, author of “The Tech Commandments,” advises schools to make teacher training in technology a priority and to integrate technology throughout the curriculum rather than allow it to be confined to a computer lab. Technology in education is not a passing fad, and schools should work to overcome the fears associated with the use of new digital tools that most students already have access to, suggests Bellow, the founder of eduTecher.
Read the full story, CLICK HERE
Even if you’re already a tech savvy teacher, I’m sure you remember how intimidating it can be to integrate new tech tools into your classroom. If you know some teachers who need help incorporating technology into their classroom, or maybe that teacher is you, I am here to help!
32 Tips For The Techphobic Teacher
Download your free eBook now.
SimpleK12 helps hundreds of thousands of teachers from around the world learn and use technology. They’ve seen how the power of technology can transform classrooms and change students’ lives. This eBook shares real tips from real teachers from around the world. If you’re a bit techphobic, or know someone who is, “32 Tips for the Techphobic Teacher”, is a must-read.
Get your copy now
http://files.simplek12.com/workbooks/32TipsForTechnophobicTeachers.pdf
In it you will find tips, written by actual teachers, like: “Always have a Plan B, always. A tech savvy educator always has a Plan B for those moments inevitably when things go wrong: it happens to the best of us.” -David C.
Enjoy your free eBook, and if you’re like me, you’ll learn a thing or two, even if you ARE tech savvy.
