International speaker and freelance blogger Timmy Sullivan shares his perspective on the major differences between teachers and educators and the impact a
My students need Ozobots, Makey-Makey, littleBits, and Bloxels to work on coding. My class is excited to learn new things. They come to school each day ready for new and exciting challenges. I have 24 students that are enjoying learning with technology this year
Diana Rendina writes: "School libraries are starting makerspaces all over the world. It’s an exciting time in education as we rediscover the power of creativity. But many schools rush to start makerspaces so quickly that they neglect building the maker culture. Developing a maker culture is a lot like developing a love of reading, it takes time and persistence and it’s totally worth it. Here’s a few ways that you can work to cultivate a love of making and creativity in your students."
I know Diana's library is an incredible example of a makerspace, but that just didn't work for us. We are going to bring back a simpler, more focused version once our remodel is complete. Our high school librarian has set up a monthly maker corner that has been very successful. Projects that can be completed in a lunch period or that allow for collaborative work will be our goal. Diana's tips will help keep us from getting overwhelmed and keep the focus on making!
Ivan Illich’s groundbreaking book Deschooling Society (1971) offers a radical critique of the institutionalization of education within modern societies. Illich believed that we wrongl
Harvard University has a website on visual thinking that is designed for educators and students. Silvia Tolasano, the author of Langwitches Blog, has taken a number of their routines and created visualizations that would be useful for students, visualizations that you might post on your walls or provide copies of for students to put in their binders. There is one twist to a number of these visualizations...they are specific for blogging. The image above includes two of the visualizations. In the post you will find an additional five routines. You will also find an infographic of all the routines within the post available as an infographic
"Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning."
How can students use their iPad to answer these questions? I have founf allowing them to give feedback on assessment performance in Coneqt has been very valuable, as well as using collaborative brainstorm/idea tools like TodaysMeet and Padlet. These questions are part of Harvard's Visible Thinking Framework.
"Visible Thinking has a double goal: on the one hand, to cultivate students' thinking skills and dispositions, and, on the other, to deepen content learning."
This has so much relevance when teaching students questioning and critical thinking skills. Great tool for developing Inquiry based learning strategies. Also, I love an infographic!
When each new unit of inquiry is launched, teachers tune in and provoke students thinking with a carefully planned learning experience meant to get students thinking about the concepts and ideas that are about to be explored over the next...
James R. Delisle stirred a hornet's nest recently when he proclaimed, right here in the pages of Ed Week, that differentiated instruction doesn't work. I think he's focused on the wrong thing.
I've been asking the question: What makes a good teacher great? for 24 years. I have collected 26,000 responses from 8 different schools and patterns hav
LAST week's post on "guys" inspired some thoughts on the tricky landscape of gendered language. I mused that feminism and social solidarity between young men and women had made it a badge of honor for women to be addressed as "dude" or "you guys". But extending male terms to women hasn't always been a feminist victory.
Oral communication skills are often overlooked in school in favor of math, reading and writing. But this London school has put it front and center with amazing
We had to select a children book to animate for class. I liked Antoinette Portis' "Not A Box" So I decided to use her book. Book by: Antoinette Portis Animat...
The IB PYP is currently under review with a new set of principles and practices to be released in 2018. One of the features of the PYP which is up for review is transdisciplinary learning. "For...
Over the past several months, my team and I have been busy planning for the implementation of a One to World (often called 1:1) iPad program in grade 4. We have been successfully using iPads since 2011 at our school and have been piloting a One to World programme in three grade 4 classes throughout this year. The program has been enormously successful, largely because we focused primarily on learning outcomes rather than the device itself.
Pedagogy plays an important role in the successful implementation of any new programme. It helps to guide teachers in effective implementation and sets the foundation of what effective implementation actually looks like in the classroom. In developing our own model for the One to World Programme in grade 4 and choosing apps for teachers and students to use, we turned to research as well as to pedagogical models for learning and technology integration.
The key models that we looked at were Bloom's Taxonomy (using Bloom's 21), the Learning Pyramid, SAMR model for technology integration and the ISTE Standards. In addition, we are guided by the school's Mission (Engage, Enlighten, Empower), the IB framework and the Visible Thinking initiative. These models, as well as other popular models, all point to the same fundamental belief that students learn best when they are engaged in meaningful learning activities where they are given the opportunity to learn from each other and share their ideas and thinking with others. Inquiry Based Learning, Project Based Learning, Constructionism, Constructivism, and so forth, all advocate for student-driven learning.
In combining the different models into a pyramid, the focus on learning is on the bottom of the pyramid where the focus in on higher order thinking skills and activities which promote collaboration and creation. From the perspective of the SAMR Model, the aim is to move towards Redefinition so that learning can be transformative. The ISTE Standards sit outside the pyramid since these skills are interwoven throughout the curriculum.
Apps were placed on the pyramid based on the types of learning engagements which they promote. Those at the top serve more as digital substitutes for traditional classroom tools such as calculators, dictionaries, manipulatives and maps. They add interactivity but do not promote significant changes to how learning activities are designed. As we move down the pyrmaid, we find apps which focus more on shifting learning itself by promoting problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and collaboration and creativity and innovation. They help promote more student-centered and participatory learning and the transformation of learning itself.
This is not to say that there is not a place for apps at the top of the pyramid. It is natural to work through the SAMR Model throughout a lesson or unit or to spend some time on teaching styles such as lectures of demos. Important, however, is that teachers ought to recognize that they should work towards focusing more time and energy on learning engagements which are in line with the lower end of the pyramid.
This model was created as a Keynote presentation and recorded to explain it in more detail. A link to this presentation can also be found in iCloud. I would appreciate feedback from others on this model and how it could be improved.
The full list of apps we are using can be found here
This report is really great as it analyses iPad apps and their effectiveness in the classroom. The apps are divided to make a division between apps that are merely integrated into the learning, and apps that transform the learning in some way. The report uses the SAMR model to evaluate the apps and could really be useful in a classroom that has access to iPads.
James R. Delisle stirred a hornet's nest recently when he proclaimed, right here in the pages of Ed Week, that differentiated instruction doesn't work. I think he's focused on the wrong thing.
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