Welcome back everyone!

Before the break I was working with the Grade 9's on creating presentations. A visit to Slideshare often gives me some great ideas to work with, good and bad. Today I came across David Theriault's, Turning Your Learning Inside Out. David is a HS English teacher (you can follow him on Twitter) and today he has made my job so much easier. In his slide show below, he gives great examples of taking the lesson out of the classroom, or rather, going beyond the 4 walls and making the learning transparent and more meaningful at the same time. Yes, of course he uses social media; it's all about connecting, right? Take a look. I love the "Novel Blackout Poems".

Thank you David!

Turn your learning inside out from David Theriault

The iPad in Education: Uses, Benefits, and Challenges

A survey of 6,057 students and 302 teachers in Quebec has produced an interesting preliminary report.* Karsenti and Fievez asked important questions, but I found myself frustrated reading the results. While questions addressed the use of iPads (or touch pads) by students and teachers, benefits were attributed using a traditional classroom setting and did not allow for the potential of such mobile technologies in a different and emerging learning environment. The questions shouldn't be, "Can we do all the same things better with an iPad?"– but rather, "How can we transform learning with these devices?"
A student may not write better on an iPad, but imagine what would happen to his/her writing after a Skype session with an actual "Lost Boy of Sudan", or a curator at the Charles Dickens Museum, or a graphic novelist. Or perhaps the student's content would improve after following a twitter discussion on a novel, gaining the perspective of readers on a global scale.
Recommendations made in the report wisely include professional development for teachers, but we must be careful to move past mere adaptation and recognize the paradigm has shifted.

* Karsenti, T., & Fievez, A. (2013). The iPad in education: uses, benefits, and challenges – A survey of 6,057 students and 302 teachers in Quebec, Canada. Montreal, QC: CRIFPE.

Learning Spaces

So one thing I keep running into as an educational technologist is the need to re-design the classroom. I am far from the first to notice this and my research shows me there are amazing things being done, from small classroom spaces to beautifully designed schools that have completely broken from the industrial-age prototype, embracing both nature and technology. Score! Technology does not have to mean "indoors". In fact, the the mobility of our new technologies begs it not to be.
Still, considering we are not all moving into new buildings, there are some things we can do to our classrooms. I've put together a Learnist with great info from Edutopia, The Third Teacher+, and I've included a few dream schools to inspire us:   Learning Spaces

Eduslam

Okay, let's get a little more practical. I came across Eduslam on Google Hangouts. Tanya Avrith and Holly Clark have educators from around the world  talking about ideas, tools, apps that can transform the learning going on in your classroom.  Basically it's teachers teaching teachers. Short (about 5 minutes) videos explain a practice that has proven successful. I can talk on and on about emerging technologies, but until I can show how effective they can be in a classroom, they will remain untested. Eduslam has classroom teachers explaining their experiences – where things went wrong, and where things went right – giving valuable insight into procedures you might have wanted to try, but just didn't know enough about.

Some of the topics are: Using Stories in the Math Classroom, Collaborative Writing in Grade 3, The Best way for Seniors to End the Year, Using Twitter in Grade One, App Speed Dating... I knew you'd like that one. Check out Eduslam!

The Digital Future

Huffington Post has published an article by Matthew Lynch about the recently-released New Media Consortium Horizon which details six up-and-coming technologies for K-12 classrooms. The article, "A Digital Future: K-12 Technology by 2018" outlines how things like Mobile Learning, 3-D printing, Learning Analytics, and open content will develop over the next five years. Things can change rapidly in 5 years, but the 6 technologies projected here look like they're here to stay.

Khan Academy Dashboard

Welcome back everyone! For my first entry this year I want to revisit a site we are all familiar with: Khan Academy. This site just keeps getting better. Not everyone is a fan, I know, but let's remember, it's a tool. Use it in any way that helps you, or your students, best. The dashboard allows teachers to see at a glance where their students are struggling, so that individual attention can be applied when necessary. Students also have a dashboard to follow their own progress. I urge you to watch the video below to see how both students and teachers can benefit from Khan Academy.


 

Polleverywhere

This week I have been using Polleverywhere and it occurred to me that I have not written about it yet. "Pollev" can be a wonderful tool in the classroom. How does it work? Questions, either multiple choice or open-ended, are created online and posted. Participants can respond through a variety of options - text messaging, web devices, tweets, or private link. We use iPod Touch devices, much like a clicker response system, but computers or phones, work just as well. What we discovered is how this tool allows participation from learners who normally would not contribute to an oral class exchange. While anonymity is often disparaged online, here is a case for its effectiveness. How many times do we hesitate to add our opinion to a discussion for fear it might be deemed "stupid" by our peers. In a classroom where learning is supposed to be safe and yet where risks should be taken, Pollev might just be the answer.
For some ideas on how to use Polleverywhere check out their blog