March, 2017

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Disengaged Teachers: A Problem We Need to Solve

Catlin Tucker

I frequently hear about high numbers of students who are not engaged in their learning, but I hear less about teachers who are not engaged in their work. However, a Gallop Poll found that 57% of teachers report that they are “not engaged” at work, with an additional 13% reporting that they are “actively disengaged.” This is alarming.

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Preparation for the New World of Work

A Principal's Reflections

A great deal has been written about the future and the importance of preparing students with the skills, mindset, and attributes necessary for success in a rapidly evolving world. Truth be told, this is quite the harrowing task and one that should compel us all to pause and critically reflect on not only where schools are, but more importantly where our students need them to be.

Robotics 357
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Doing More With The Classroom Makerspace

The Web20Classroom

When I was 6 or 7 years old I was at home on a boring rainy weekend. Being an inquisitive kid and generally looking for mischief I found some tools in a closet and decided something in my house needed taking a apart. I'd always wondered how a toaster actually made toast so it became the subject of my experiment. I spent a while taking it a part looking at all the pieces and, of course not knowing how any of it worked.

Classroom 361
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The 2017 Honor Roll: EdTech’s Must-Read K–12 IT Blogs

EdTech Magazine

By Meghan Bogardus Cortez From gurus to classroom tech champions to communities, we’ve got the latest batch of top K–12 blogs.

Classroom 419
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Reimagining Chickering & Gamson's Principles Post-Pandemic: Technology's Central Role in Modern Edu

This white paper examines and proposes revisions to the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" introduced by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson in 1987 for today's technology-driven world.

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Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the Classroom

The CoolCatTeacher

10MT | #29 Steven Anderson talks technology trends From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Augmented reality and virtual reality. Are these buzzwords or are they things that can be used to improve learning? Today Steven Anderson @web20classroom brings back the veil and helps us learn about these emerging technologies.

Classroom 277
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Always Know Which Virtual Speakers Are Available for Your Classes

Ask a Tech Teacher

Do you want to know which virtual speakers and field trips are available for your class? Use this auto-notification from Nepris for real-time updates. Click here for a step-by-step guide on how to sign up with any mobile device. . If you aren’t familiar with Nepris : It is an amazing source of experts available to meet virtually with your class.

More Trending

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Why EdTech Initiatives Fail (…and a support to help!)

Tom Murray

Over the past decade, as school district budgets have remained relatively stagnant, spending on educational technology has continued to accelerate. In working with district leaders across the nation, I can point to countless bright spots, where technology is supporting the acceleration of student learning, and empowering teachers to create authentic learning experiences for all students.

EdTech 278
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Music Training Speeds Up Brain Development in Children

Digital Promise

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Observing a pianist at a recital – converting musical notations into precisely timed finger movements on a piano – can be a powerful emotional experience. As a researcher of neuroscience and a pianist myself, I understand that the mastering of this skill not only takes practice, but also requires complex coordination of many different brain regions.

Training 232
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Data Analytics, Blended Learning Methods Make Sure Students Are College Ready

EdTech Magazine

By Meghan Bogardus Cortez Technology can assist administrators with getting students prepared for the future.

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Formative Assessment Tools and Tips from Monica Burns #FormativeTech

The CoolCatTeacher

Episode 37 of The 10-Minute Teacher Podcast From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. Monica Burns, author of #FormativeTech , shares essential tools and tips for effective formative assessment. Learn how to get results. Pick some tools. Accelerate learning. Monica’s book comes out today! Listen Now. Listen on iTunes.

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Behind the Bell: The Underlying Impact of Tardiness in K-12 Schools

Managing a K-12 campus with constant pressure to meet performance metrics is challenging. And tardiness can significantly limit a school from reaching these goals. Learn more about why chronic lateness matters, and key strategies to address the following impacts: Data errors caused by manual processes Low attendance and graduation rates that affect a school’s reputation Classroom disruption, which leads to poor academic performance High staff attrition and “The Teacher Exodus” Unmet LCAP goals t

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Celebrate Pi Day in Your Class

Ask a Tech Teacher

I posted this last year, but it’s still valid. One addition: new activities down toward the bottom of the post. Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form. Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant, holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.

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NEW School Update: Class Size Matters

Catlin Tucker

This won’t surprise anyone in education, but class size matters. It matters a lot. The bigger the class, the harder it is to meet the individual needs of the learners in our classrooms. As I began to pilot NEW School this year, my goals were to: provide students with individualized learning paths. make time for conversations about where students are at in their learning. engage students in meaningful project-based learning. provide real-time feedback on student work.

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Top 5 Tips for Teaching English Online

EdNews Daily

Every day, more teachers leave the classroom, and they are looking for different ways to stay in education and still make a difference using their skills, talents, passion and knowledge. Becoming an online teacher is a big step , one that most educators have never even considered. However, online teaching is becoming an option for many. Teaching English online to students who live in other countries is starting to become a very attractive possibility for many educators.

Education 234
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Just Announced: FREE Future Ready Schools Institutes

Tom Murray

As many readers of my blog know, I serve as the Director of Innovation for Future Ready Schools® , a project of the Alliance for Excellent Education , located in Washington, D.C. So, today, I’m excited to share that we have officially released our 2017 Regional Institute dates and locations ! What’s great about these events? They are completely free for school leaders.

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The Battle of the Authoring Tools: A 10-Point Comparison for Picking the Right One

Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

There are plenty of great authoring tools for developing eLearning, but the one you select could directly impact your course's outcomes. Depending upon your learners’ needs and your organization’s performance goals, you could be overlooking considerations that impact the both effectiveness of your courses and how long it takes to finish them. From general capabilities to specific workflow structures, some aspects are critical when it comes to learning objectives and deadlines.

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How Will the Internet of Things Impact Education?

EdTech Magazine

By Jessica Leigh Brown Connected classrooms can help track people and things digitally, experts say.

Education 387
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Teaching Morals and Ethics In a World of Gray

The CoolCatTeacher

A Cathy Rubin Global Education Discussion From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter. The murderous mobster Jimmy Hoffa once said, “I may have my faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them.” If such an evil man – guilty of prostitution, gambling, corruption, murder and more — didn’t see his faults, what hope do we teachers have of teaching kids the difference between right and wrong?

Education 253
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Coding or Critical Thinking?

EdTech4Beginners

As the Hour of Code again approaches, I ponder the efficacy of encouraging all schools to participate under the banner of coding. To be involved in EdTech is to interact with articles , TED Talks , and apps that encourage coding. Still, I am not convinced that all students need to focus on coding per se as much as they will benefit from the skills that are acquired while learning how to code.

EdTech 215
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Tales from the Road: Highlights from a Tour of Districts in the League of Innovative Schools

Digital Promise

The League of Innovative Schools team had the opportunity to visit multiple districts in the first quarter of 2017 — and we have so much more to see! While the highlights of each of these visits are vast, below are five amazing schools we visited in League districts that are educating students in creative, forward-thinking ways. Mentor Public Schools – Mentor, OH.

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The Roses and Thorns of an LMS Strategy: How to Flourish with the Right LMS

Speaker: Amanda Davis, Chief Experience Officer and Liam O'Malley, VP of Association Solutions

The "new normal" is now a little less new, a little more normal. Does that mean your current LMS strategy is in need of a refresh? Is your organization or association leaning into the always-evolving eLearning environment to ensure you have the tools and content to remain relevant through all this change? There are many complex decision-making processes within your learning & development strategy and LMS lifecycle management, including: Selection.

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KidZania: Hands-On Kid Sized Cities Coming To America

EdNews Daily

The world’s fastest growing experiential learning center for children is coming to the U.S., promising to bring unique educational experiences to American children. KidZania’s are mini, kid-sized cities and experiential learning centers that allow kids to role-play in a variety of real life professions, from firefighter to doctor to TV news personality to marine biologist. .

Sony 215
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From Heartache to Hope

Tom Murray

This post is dedicated to the five people that lost their lives and the many that were affected by the events at the Fort Lauderdale airport on January 6, 2017. January 6th began like so many other travel days for me. After keynoting an event the night before, I woke up, packed my belongings from the hotel where I was staying, grabbed breakfast with some new friends I had met while at the event, and later that morning caught an Uber ride to the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Education 225
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4 Things to Learn About Digital Transformation from Meriden Public Schools

EdTech Magazine

By Meghan Bogardus Cortez The Connecticut school district offers advice on how to successfully transition from low-tech to tech-savvy.

Learning 331
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Safe teaching is risky teaching

Ditch That Textbook

I remember lots of important moments from my time in all levels of school. Many of them are my times with friends, conversations at the lunch table, sports competitions, etc. I remember some lessons from the classroom. The most vivid ones are projects I did with others or collaborative activities: I remember getting worksheet packets (blech!) [.].

Classroom 210
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Building the Foundation for a Modern K-12 Classroom

K-12 looks different these days. But one thing remains the same: you need a reliable learning platform that serves as the foundation for teaching and learning––for all students, in a variety of learning experiences. Discover how the Instructure Learning Platform supports today's K-12 classroom through: A central, consistent, connected hub of the digital learning environment.

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Some Brilliant Websites & Apps To Create Word Clouds.

EdTech4Beginners

I recently taught a lesson in which it was important for me to highlight keywords; a few of them were new to the class. I decided to ask the pupils to generate word clouds to find the words of most importance and then find the meanings. It was an effective way of doing so. An example of a word cloud. Here are some great tech tools to use to generate the clouds: Websites: Wordle.

Android 214
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Culture in the Classroom: Replacing Misrepresentation with Authenticity

Battelle for Kids

On an elementary school walk-through last fall, a colleague and I encountered a bulletin board ostensibly demonstrating students’ learning through crude drawings of European pilgrims and Native Americans. Each drawing included a short narrative about the experiences of that group during Westward Expansion. I saw my colleague, who is Osage, stop dead in her tracks.

Classroom 203
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Creating Control: Managing Bullying in the Classroom

EdNews Daily

One of every four students reports being bullied during the school year, according to the National Bullying Prevention Center. Bullying in the classroom has always been a problem, and educators are now taking bullying seriously. In today’s classroom, teachers must ensure that they offer all students a classroom environment free of bullying. Implementing classroom management strategies to create a safe haven from bullying can help students not only in their academic performance but also in their

Classroom 186
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6 Best Practices for Building Positive Teacher-Student Relationships

Brilliant or Insane

Brilliant or Insane. Chances are you didn’t need Hattie or any researcher telling you about the importance of student-teacher relationships. As a first year teacher, I somewhat smugly felt when it came to student-teacher relationships, “You either have it, or you don’t.” It seemed as if I had good relationships with my students. But was I bonding with […].

Strategy 178
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Transform Your Classroom with Apple

Speaker: Aaron Webb, Jamf

Apple empowers educators and students by design. Whether using Macs, iPads, or Apple TV, Apple devices encourage creativity and can simplify teaching with apps to make the classroom more flexible, collaborative and personalized for each student. To unleash the full potential of the technology and create the best learning environment, you need to understand the tools and resources available, and develop an education-focused, comprehensive plan, from equipment purchase to deployment, management an

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Accessible Technology Helps Students with Disabilities Pursue STEM Degrees

EdTech Magazine

By Meghan Bogardus Cortez Thanks to tech tools and awareness groups, more students have gone further in higher education.

STEM 330
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Customized email newsletters for every kid with Google Forms

Ditch That Textbook

Classroom newsletters are kind of hit and miss. If you’re sending photocopies of them home in students’ backpacks, I’ll bet your success rate is less than 50 percent. (And that’s being generous.) There’s a big reason I believe that these newsletters — which could be great parent/teacher communication tools — fall on deaf ears (or [.].

Google 207
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Writing For Purpose: 5 Ways To Use Technology To Give Children A Genuine Audience.

EdTech4Beginners

When announcing a writing task, on a number of occasions, I have been asked by my students, “Why do we have to do this?” It’s a question that can sometimes be difficult to answer. All too often the work is stuck into their English books and is only seen by the teacher. Here are 10 ways to use technology to give your pupils a real audience for their work: 1) Class blogs.

Wiki 205
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Student Empowerment - Getting From Vision to Practice

Battelle for Kids

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) agree that today’s students need learning that goes beyond the traditional subjects and modes of learning. In 2016, ISTE released updated standards for students that envision a significant shift in learning and teaching amplified by meaningful use of technology in education.

Education 178
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Enhancing HyFlex Education through the PowerTeaching Framework

This whitepaper explores integrating the PowerTeaching pedagogical approach within a HyFlex (Hybrid Flexible) educational model, focusing on employing cooperative learning strategies and efficient classroom management techniques.