Free Recipes for Writing

StudentPublishing.com offers free story web, autobiography, plot, and biography worksheets along with lesson plans and a place to share ideas with other educators.

If you are looking for a way to publish a professional-looking class book or individual student books, StudentPublishing provides some of its services free as long as you send home materials to parents about the books in case they wish to order any.

How Much Do We Use Technology?

The information-packed graphic, Graduating with Technology by LearnStuff.com, contains facts about the growth of technology use among our students. As you examine the percentages displayed in the graphic, think about what they tell us about where we should head in education in the future. Some of the statistics include: 90% “of students think tablets help them study more efficiently”; students read more books if they have a tablet to use for reading them; “there are 20,000 educational apps and 30,000 free lectures, videos, and books”; and 70% of children, ages 2-5, can use a computer mouse.  Statistics in the graphic were gathered from USA Today, Apple Computer, Cisco, Twitter, NACS (National Association of College Stores), NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement), Venture Beat, and NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics). I think you and others in your school will find the graphic to be excellent.

Online Plagiarism Checker

WriteCheck, by Turnitin, is a great way to help your students avoid plagiarism. Using WriteCheck, student papers are scanned for plagiarism against over 200 million student papers, 90,000 publications, and over 20 billion Web pages. Once they submit a paper, they’ll usually get their results within five minutes, but not longer than ten to fifteen minutes. The results also include a check for grammar, style, and spelling errors.  Papers are returned in their original form, which allows students to better understand what changes need to be made.

Fees for the service run from $6.95 for a one paper credit (papers 5000 words or less); $24.95 for five paper credits, and $59.95 for twenty paper credits. With each paper credit comes three resubmissions per document.

Online Education is a Tsunami Coming

According to Theresa Johnston, in the Stanford magazine, “Online technologies are shaking up the Farm’s [Stanford’s] classrooms....” In the last school year 100,000 people decided to take an online course that focused on applied machine learning which in plain English is “getting computers to act without being explicitly programmed.” Taped lessons, assignments, and exams were all free to anyone all over the world. Students didn’t receive Stanford credits for completing the course, but they did receive congratulatory letters.  Although some Stanford professors worry about the trend to make lectures available online both to their enrolled students and to others, the university’s president John Hennessy believes that online learning can transform education, and refers to it as a “tsunami coming”.  The problem is getting ready for the storms which, like tsunamis, aren’t noticed until they hit shore. What part do universities play in offering courses for all, and how will high schools deal with this? How will online education affect what we think of as a university and what we think of as a high school? Is education, as we know it, going to be a thing of the past?

Librarians: Speak at Internet@Schools

Library and media specialists are invited to apply to speak at Internet@Schools, Computers in Libraries 2013, April 8-9, at the Hilton in Washington, D.C. The two-day conference will cover information about tools, trends, and practical topics. If you are interested in sharing your ideas with other library and media specialists, please submit your proposal by October 12, 2012.

Our World Is Changing Fast

Will 3D printers change the world as we know it?  Are Bot factories showing us the way to the future of manufacturing?  At the Bot Cave in Brooklyn, the company MakerBot uses its Replicator 2  to create products with eco-friendly materials.  It’s just the beginning of 3D printing, meaning that the output is often not exactly impressive. But, did you know that custom dental fittings are created through 3D printing and that many buildings, consumer items, and electronic gadgets were “prototyped on a 3D printer”?  In Japan, you can buy a 3D “action figure” of yourself, but you’ll need a head scan to do this. Students at school or home can turn their CAD designs into jewelry, figurines, and geometric puzzles. One day, 3D printers will be able to help you replace broken parts for products in your home, create fancy foods, and let you put your imagination to work to produce exactly what you want. The fact that these printers will soon be able to create electric circuits opens a whole new realm of possibility.  It seems to be important that just like our students were introduced to the first computers, they should be introduced to 3D printing. It is the beginning of what could become, as the Chris Anderson’s article in Wired says, “a Macintosh moment.”

FETC Virtual Conference

The Florida Educational Technology Conference & Expo has always been known as one of the best in the nation. Maybe, you’ve not been able to travel to Florida to attend one, but you can take part in the 2012 Virtual Conference on Thursday, October 18^th from home or school. Cheryl Lemke, well known for her work in promoting effective uses of technologies in schools, will give the keynote address. There will be an opportunity to attend interactive sessions with leaders in ed tech. At the Conference, you’ll find a virtual networking lounge where you can connect with other educators and educational leaders. There’s a virtual exhibit hall at the conference complete with product and service demonstrations.  You’ll also get free content downloads and presentations to take with you.  Registration is complimentary, but you must RSVP.

PBS KIDS Lab—Free For Home & School

Send Grades 2-8 students to the PBS KIDS LAB for free interactive mathematics games. The site contains the largest selection of math content games available as it helps students develop critical math skills. The cross-platform games include bilingual support for parents and caregivers, home activities, and out of school activities; making the site an excellent one to recommend for after school use. 

Parents and caregivers are given guidance in how to interest their children in mathematics and how not to be afraid to tackle math problems with their children. In addition to the games on the site, simple activities are recommended for insertion into a family’s daily routine.  The Lab features a Math Activity of the Day Calendar, Ideas to Go, and Lab News.

The Winner in Tech Integration—China

A survey by Dell, which included over 1500 interviews with students, parents, and teachers in the United States, Germany, and China “found that Chinese students say they spend more time with technology in school than students in the U.S. and Germany. The survey in China also noted that technology integration seems to be prevalent throughout the curriculum, that a greater percentage of Chinese parents “provide funding for technology students’ use in schools”, and that more Chinese students use technology to engage in summer studies. Ki Mae Heussner, author of the GIGAOM article, warns that the study’s results may not be totally accurate since answers were self-reported. However, she notes that: “it is an interesting window into how students in different countries say they interact with technology....”

Who Supports Use of Tech in Schools?

Parents and teachers do. That’s according to a poll published by the LEAD (Leading Education by Advancing Digital) Commission that targeted a random sampling of 800+ parents and 800+ teachers of K-12 students in the United States, including an “oversample of 200 low-income parents. Among the findings are that teachers and parents overwhelmingly believe that technology integration into the curriculum is essential and that access to high speed Internet at home helps students with their studies. In other words, parents and teachers are saying that technology can transform education.