Eclectic Technology

Career and Technical Education programs (often called vocational schools) have their students learn by doing. Learning by doing is known as experiential learning. Why is experiential learning beneficial? Below are the three reasons described in this post.

Reason 1: Experiential education promotes positive attitudes towards learning.

Reason 2: Experiential education provides true-to-life experience that enhances career exploration.

Reason 3: Experiential education helps create more engaged members of the workforce.

Each of these reasons is discussed in the post. There is also an excellent infographic, Experiential Learning in the Classroom: Learn by Doing.

What are some of the best ways to stay safe online? Google has been posting one suggestion per day and here they are an an infographic...thirty-one tips to help you stay safe. But that's not all. The post also includes a number of additioal resources. Click through and learn some new ways to protect yourself online.

Teaching student to think...we know this is not as easy as it sounds. This post suggests looking at this through the lens of the visual displayed above (which comes from The Foundation for Critical Thinking) and recommends that you use three simple steps (quoted from post):

1) TELL students that you want them to work on their thinking.

2) Choose ONE element of thought, intellectual standard, or intellectual trait and teach students what it means.

3) Give students something to think about and ask them to practice improving their thinking.  

Each of these ideas are discussed in the post and suggestions are provided to help you implement this in the classroom.

On Feb. 4, 2015 I posted an article "The Question Game: A Playful Way to Teach Students to Think" and a number of people have responded to it. This post provides some additional ways to teach students to think and many of them are playful also. If one of your goals in teaching is to help students gain this skill take the time to read this post.

Are you wondering what your infographic needs to be a great infographic? This post disects an infographic, sharing what is important to include. Sections include:

* A brief look at the history of infographics

* Does it have all the important parts

   * Gotta have brains: data and story

   * Ooo la la visualization

   * Shareability

Additional information as well as links to resources are located under the infographic. If you plan on having students create infographics this year you may want to share this as a tool for discussion as students review infographics and learn to identify great infographics.