Eclectic Technology

If you are looking for a great guide on using videos in our classroom check out this post and download this Teachers' Guide to Using Videos. The guide is split into the following sections:

* 5 Awesome Sites for Instructional Videos

* 6 Excellent Sites that Supplement your Lessons

* What’s Good? Curating and Evaluating Video Content

* Blending Videos into your Curriculum – This section looks at:

     Ignite Conversations

     Pique Interest, Create Perplexity and Inspire Inquiry!

     Flip Your Classroom: Extend and Engage!

     Exercises for Flipped Classrooms

     Demonstrate Labs, Experiments and Abstract Concepts

     Opportunities for Publishing

     Ten Great Examples of Educational Videos

The post ends with this statement: "You’ll find a slew of valuable resources, including video links for all kinds of subjects — history, math, science, language arts, and more — and ideas on how to inspire students to use videos as a conduit to dig in, ask questions, and learn." Take the time to download the pdf (available at the site).

This post provides a more in-depth look at the new Amplify tablet. Here is a more in-depth descirption:
"It’s 10 inches long, with a hard exterior shell, and is pre-loaded with its own learning software, as well as Google Apps for Education, dictionaries, multimedia lessons, Encyclopedia Britannica, Khan Academy lessons, a graphing calculator. If the company wins rights from publishers, it can also be loaded with electronic textbooks. What’s more, teachers can keep track of students’ progress, as well as have access to classroom management tools that allow them to turn off apps when needed."

But more interesting to me is the questions that come up when you read the impressions of others. Below are two examples:

From TechCruch (quoted):

“While the News Corp. founder’s sudden transformation into an education reform advocate may seem a head-scratcher, the motivation becomes clear when, in Murdoch’s terms, one considers that K-12 education is a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone — and one that remains relatively untouched by corporations like News Corp.” (Remember that Murdoch is News Corp. founder.)

From Forbes (quoted):

“From my point of view, the problem with News being in this business is that it creates a channel to our youngest, most vulnerable minds for a guy with extreme politics and highly questionable ethics,” Kay wrote. Unlike the transparent profit motives of companies like Apple and Google, News Corp’s motivations should be further questioned, he said.

Additional information may be found in the post.

PBS has great resources, and this post provides links to five math lessons as well as short descriptions and grade levels. Click through to find links to the following lessons:

* Using Recipes for Fractions (Lesson Plan and Video)

* Re-roofing Your Uncle's House Interactive Game

* Cake Designer Video

* Area of Circles with Dive Dog Interactive Game

* Dunk Tank: Area of Squares and Rectangles (Video and Interactive Games)

This post looks at how multi-tasking in impacting student work. Although based on a recent study the post states that there is "a growing body of research focused on a very particular use of technology: media multitaskingwhile learning." The evidence shows "learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention. They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts."

After a brief review of a number of studies the post looks at information about the brain and multitasking as well as what might be done to help students prioritize.

Links to resources are provided within the article.

When is the right time to use computer games and when is practice with paper and pencial a better way to learn concepts in teaching? Below are two quotes that appear in this post.

"...Gary Stager, founder of theConstructing Modern Knowledge Summer Institute, recommend that computers be used to add “deep and meaningful experiences” to teachers’ lessons, much of what the 91percent of teachers with access to computers are doing may be just the opposite."

and "43 percent of classroom computing goes to playing educational digital games, while a Joan Ganz Cooney study showed that nearly 50 percent of teachers use digital games in class. But with nearly half of all classroom computer time dedicated to games — many of which are played to reinforce basic skills like phonics, spelling or multiplication tables — some teachers are wondering if games really are innovative techniques used to enhance student learning. Or are they just flashy, colorful ways of dishing out more of the same?"

The post also discusses the best use of iPads as well as SimCityEDU. Two questions are also raised in this post, are games being used to enhance instruction, and do we lose something when students use technology rather than paper and pencil to learn?

When you ask a middle school student what computers are good for they often reply "playing games." SimCity is going to be releasing a SimCity EDU version in the fall of this year. This new version "grew out of research conducted by the MacArthur foundation on how gaming can mirror formative assessments [PDF] – measuring understanding regularly along the learning path, rather than occasionally or at the end of a unit, as is most common. Their research found that games gather data about the player as he or she makes choices within the game, affecting the outcome. In games, players “level-up,” moving on to higher levels when they’ve mastered the necessary skills; similarly teachers scaffold lessons to deepen understanding as a student grasps the easier concepts."

The post also notes that there are those who question if assessment belongs in games. That is a topic that will continued to be debated.

MindShift shares four areas:

* Games and group work

* Learning Latin

* Reaching Students

* Creativity Play

Games and group work looks at what happens when a teacher brings in a wide range of technology incorporates game playing as part of the class. You may be quite surprised by the results!

Learning Latin uses an online video game to teach Latin with great success.

Reaching Students looks at how cell phones may be used in a classrom

Creativity Play provides a look at how teachers are using Minecraft in the classroom).
Each section provides many links to additional resources (and articles that have appeared on Minecraft).