ISTE Inspiration Awards: Nominate Yourself or a Colleague

ISTE (The International Society for Technology in Education) recognizes individuals who inspire others through innovative use of technology. If you know of a teacher or school leader who deserves this recognition, be sure to fill in one of the nomination forms.  Categories for recognition include: Outstanding Leader Award, Outstanding Teacher Award, Outstanding Young Educator Award, Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation, Public Policy Advocate Award, President’s Volunteer Service Award, and several more. Winners will receive recognition at the ISTE Conference and Expo, free registration, membership to ISTE, and other prizes and cash awards. Deadline: February 28, 2014.

Why Educators Should Blog

Edubabbling for the Masses! features K-12 Teaching Resources for teachers, students, and parents. In the blog, created by an educator from Canada, you’ll find ideas to motivate yourself and your students, current events, opinions, and resources. Some of the latest blog entries include reasons why you should get involved in blogging, ELL instructional strategies, information on whether bullying prevention programs are working, and four of the top trends in Education for 2013-2014. 

So, what does Edubabbling consider the emerging trends? Answer: virtual learning, personalized learning, early childhood education, and environmental/outdoor education. How about you? What do you think are the top trends for this school year?

The Future for Teachers

Marc Prensky, best known for his advocacy of games in education, refers to the traditional curricular subjects—math, English, science, and social studies— as MESS.  In the future teachers, Prensky suggests, will be teaching “motivation, respect, empathy and passion” because, although technology can do a good job of teaching content, it doesn’t do so well with personal qualities.  Prensky calls educators today, the last pre-Internet generation and tells us that we need to prepare our students for the future by stressing “effective thinking, effective action, effective relationships, and effective accomplishment.” —And he believes we shouldn’t  “judge the new generation based upon our old ideas and beliefs.”

Daily Infographic: Condensed Visual Information

It’s fun to look at the exciting visuals produced by Daily Infographic. The group puts out a new “poster” every day, and although not all will fit your course needs, you’re sure to find excellent resources among the infographics.

You can sign up to get one each day through RSS, eMail, Facebook, or Twitter and/or you can search available infographics by categories such as Contests, Health, Politics, Education, Environmental, Tech, Mind Blowing, and Music. Some of the education offerings are Bring Food Education Back, Famous Personality Types, Do You Love Science, and Reading for the Future.

Pay Attention to Teacher Learning Styles

We ask teachers to adjust their teaching to the needs of students, but often we don’t follow the same advice when helping teachers. Paul Sanfrancesco, School CIO Advisor, asks, “Which PD Models Work?” He writes about educators going to PD sessions where speakers drone on and on. You’ve surely encountered some of these as well as techies leading training sessions who go so fast that hardly anyone understands anything. —Or, how about those sessions where they throw everyone together—tech experts, tech users, and not-so-tech-oriented teachers—to learn? Some already know what is being taught and find it a waste of time, some benefit from it, some aren’t ready for it, and some will be sure it will never fit into the content they teach and/or their teaching style.

Sanfrancesco asks you to contribute to the blog by adding your comments about professional development. We know that a one-size-fits-all model doesn’t work well for tech professional development. But what does?

Project RED: How to Implement Tech Programs

In Project RED’s 2010 study of schools and tech, 997 schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia were represented. The study found that the leadership of the school principal was highly important in whether programs were successful; “online collaboration increases learning productivity and student engagement”; schools that put the key implementation factors to work outperformed other schools; and to get the best results, tech should be used every day. Based on research results, Project RED Community was launched to help transform education.

Be sure to take a look at the key implementation factors.  Those should benefit all schools.

EDUCADE: Lesson Plans & Teaching Tools

EDUCADE Beta is an online community designed to help you create what you want for your students and share your work with other educators. You’ll need to sign up to create lessons, resources, and materials, but it is free. You can search for lessons by subject, tool type, topic, and platform, or you can enter a keyword. Available lessons will be listed, along with a summary of each. Lessons include objectives, Common Core alignment, resources, 21^st Century skills, step-by-step guides, and more. As an example of what’s available at EDUCADE, take a look at the lesson featuring electrical engineering for Grades 4-9. It uses MaKey MaKey circuit board kits. Impressive.

Schoology for Learning Management & More

Schoology, a CODiE Award winner, helps teachers and administrators put easy-to-use tools to work to develop their own educational communities. The system encourages collaboration and integrates nicely with other platforms like Google Apps, Moodle, Blackboard, Turnitin, etc. It allows schools to put all content in one easily accessible place. edshelf reviews call it “Facebook-like in appearance and navigation” and an “unbelievable classroom tool”.  Schoology includes different levels of pricing and is free for basic management and administrative features. A limited admin plan is free for schools and includes privacy controls, word filters, and data import and export. Schools and districts interested in advanced management and administrative features should contact Schoology for pricing.  This program is getting a host of great reviews by teachers who use it.

Google Hangouts

Think Google Hangouts and you’ll come up with all sorts of ways your students can interact digitally with others. Perhaps, you’ll want to invite a few parents to “visit” your classroom to watch and interact with a group of students doing a special project?  Up to ten students and parents can hang out together in their own virtual space. An eduptopia article (February 1, 2013) suggests that Hangouts be used to connect with classrooms around the world, with experts in different fields, and with authors. To put Google Hangouts to work, you’ll need Google and Google Plus accounts and the inspiration to get a good conversation going.

Cell Phones, Browsing the Web, & eMail: Distractions for Teachers?

It’s difficult to fight the urge to check email, text messages, social networks, and/or app info on our cell phones, computers, and other digital devices. Although, schools often have rules against teachers making and answering personal calls while they are teaching, we all know it happens. Browsing the Web and checking personal or school email and messages are distractions we need to avoid while teaching. Some of us are so obsessed with checking our email and smart phones that this “need” interrupts lessons and takes time away from working with students. Administrators who suffer from these digital obsessions are often distracted from the running of their schools.

Peter DeWitt in his Education Week article, “Do You Check Your School E-Mail Too Much”, reminds us that if we read and respond to parent email when we receive it at home, on vacation, late at night or early in the morning, parents “will get the idea” that we are available all the time, “any day... any night”. Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to look and respond, but most of the time it’s better to resist.

 

Monster.com lists making too many personal calls and excessive Web browsing as two of the top ten ways to get fired from a teaching job.