Transforming Teaching for the New Millennium
Teacher Vicki Davis of coolcatblog created this excellent video about technology and the fear that people have around using it. It’s hosted on TeacherTube.com, a new educational alternative to YouTube.View this video file For more information on the reasons we need to teach technology in the schools, watch the presentation on 21st Century Skills.
Add comment March 28th, 2007
I knew it wouldn’t be too long before someone got smart and created a YouTube-like site that was geared specifically to students and teachers. Anne Bubnic of CTAP emailed me to let me know about TeacherTube.com.
TeacherTube has 11 channels for teachers to upload videos about best teaching practices, student projects and tutorials. The channels include technology, professional development and subject areas. Like YouTube videos can be rated, shared or embedded on other sites. Users can also post comments. Unlike YouTube there isn’t any offensive material…And of course, TeacherTube isn’t blocked at schools. Yippee!
3 comments March 25th, 2007
What are the skills that a student and citizen of the Information Age needs to have?
The Partnership for the 21st Century has conducted a survey to identify the key skills needed for success in the 21st Century. Every student in your school or district should be:
1. a critical thinker
2. a problem solver
3. an innovator
4. an effective collaborator
5. a self-directed learner
6. information and media literate
7. globally aware
8. civically engaged
Ken Kay, President of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, explains in his presentation at the FETC Conference about why these skills are important. This hour presentation includes 8 strategies that your school and district will want to integrate into the curriculum to best prepare your students for the quickly changing terrain, as well as why these skills are critical to our students.
I’m going to share this presentation with my colleagues. It will provide an introduction to discussing what are the skills necessary for success in the 21st Century. I would love to get a school-wide consensus about what skills our students need to have and how to best support them in acquiring these lifelong skills. If you haven’t seen Did you know?, you will want to watch this dynamic and thought-provoking presentation by Karl Fisch. It’s only about 6 minutes long. It’ll give you the inspiration and motivation to listen to the hour-long presentation, if you need a bit of a boost.
1 comment March 17th, 2007
Did you know? The rate of change on this planet is increasing at an exponential rate. The amount of information on the planet has doubled in the past few years and continues to increase at an amazing pace. We can only begin to imagine what the world will look like in 10 years. We live in exciting and wondrous times - and perhaps, it’s a bit unnerving.
Did you know? As educators, we have an important role in preparing our students for a world that is only just starting to take form. We live in the Information Age, a time of connection and expansion.
Did you know? China will soon be the largest English speaking country on the planet.
Did you know? Karl Fisch, Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, has created an amazing video presentation entitled Did You Know? It takes us on a brief journey into the future world of astounding facts that will make you think about where we need to be as educators and as a society. He has some additional presentations that you will also want to see. (Note:The music in Did You Know? is a mix of three tracks from The Last of the Mohicans.)
Did you know? Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota, has has an excellent blog, Dangerously Irrelevant. If you are interested in exploring the value and direction of education, you’ll appreciate what he has to contribute. He has also has links to Karl Fisch’s presentations.
For more information about the skills our students will need, read this post about 21st Century Skills.
Be in the know… it is the Information Age after all.
2 comments March 5th, 2007
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a website where people can create their own “lenses.” A lens is your perspective or favorite resources on a topic. For example, I created a lens on Fractions. It includes websites that have clear explanations of fractions, fun math games and practice, educational YouTube videos and books for further individual study. Squidoo lenses have great potential for teachers to aggregate helpful resources for students on a particular topic. I hope that this article inspires you to create your own and become a lensmaster.
You can build a site for free with the easy to use module-based templates. My first lens on integers took me about 3 hours to build. When I created it, I used my del.icio.us account to organize the different sites that I was interested in including. When I posted a site to my del.icio.us account, I tagged it with the lens topic. I’ve continued to add to it over the months and it’s now an excellent resource for both students and teachers. I’m delighted that it was included in the March National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) News Bulletin in the “Web Bytes” section.
There are a variety of modules that you can add to build your lens, including text/write, link list, amazon.com, poll, make a list, YouTube, Google maps and iTunes. The lens can be made more interactive by adding polls. I added a poll to my Ecological Footprint Education site about the size of people’s ecological footprint.
Most of the modules can be made more interactive with the “Plexo” feature. Plexo is a tool that allows your readers to rank or add to the data in your site. For example, on my Vedic math site readers can give feedback on which resources they found most valuable. The feedback automatically rearranges the sites from most to least popular. I’ve just started playing with Plexo modules this week. It feels like a nice way to help your readers sort through data and become an active learner. Plexo is also helpful because people can add other valuable resources to your site.
As the creator of the site, you can moderate how much interactivity you want. You can allow comments or not. You can also require that additions to your site be approved before they are published. So there is an element of quality control. As with most sites that allow rating, people must have a Squidoo account.
So what would you like to share with your students? What topic would you like to be a lensmaster on?
Educational Squidoo lenses to inspire you:
1. My Lensmaster Page, includes links to all of my Squidoo lenses
2. How-to Hoop Dance - my sister’s hooping lens; great for PE teachers (Yep! That’s me dancing in the videos.)
3. CTAP Middle School Math Project
4. 10 Tips for a Successful Parent-Teacher Conference
5. Thanksgiving Activities
Tips on how to create a Squidoo lens:
1. SquidLens: The Official Lens on Squidoo
2. How to add audio to your lens
These lists are just a start. I hope I can add one that you create. If you become a lensmaster, please post a link to your lens.
6 comments February 26th, 2007
Del.icio.us is a website that allows you to bookmark sites. It’s called a social bookmark because, unlike bookmarks you add on your computer, you can access them from any computer. You can use social bookmarks to research information, collaborate or share sites with friends and family. The bookmarks are by default public information; however, you can change the settings so that others have no or limited access to what you mark.
Why Use Del.icio.us
5 Things to Know Before Using Social Bookmarks
Before you start to post things to del.icio.us, there are several things I highly recommend:
#1: Decide how you intend to use del.icio.us.
Are you intending to use social bookmarks for research or collaboration? Do you intend to share this information with others or is this for your own use?
Deciding whether you intend to have your bookmarks serve as a reference for others or mainly for personal use will impact how you structure your bookmarks.
#2: Choose your tags before you get started.
Before getting started put some thought into key tags that you would use. For me, the main things I was researching were math resources for students, Vedic math, Information Age and teaching technology.
#3: Think about some umbrella concepts that help you “bundle” your tags.
My bundles are EducationalVision, Math, InformationAge and Family. The last category being sites that members of my family created.
#4: Be mindful of the user name you choose.
When you bookmark sites and they are public, you are creating an on-line profile. You are identifying yourself with the information you mark as a favorite. Be thoughtful about the on-line profile you are creating and that this information is public. Even if you choose to use a name different from your actual name, note that the web is an amazing place and that information gets linked and connected. So be thoughtful of what you want identified with your user name, even if it isn’t your actual name.
#5: Allow for Private Savings.
Go to the “Settings” button on the top right and change to allow for private bookmarking. This will put a “do not share” button option on your page when you go to save a site.
3 comments February 20th, 2007
As most students and teachers know, school servers block YouTube. Don’t despair. There is a way to bring good educational videos from YouTube into your classroom. You can download a video at home, carry it on a flash drive (or store it on a virtual disk) and then bring it to school.
Anne Bubnic, CTAP Region IV County Specialist, shared this link on how to download YouTube videos. She recommends following the directions exactly. Be sure to use the Firefox browser. One of her colleagues tried it in Safari and couldn’t get it to work. You will also need to download the VLC application for it to work.
If you haven’t heard of Metacafe, you’ll want to read this post about an alternative to YouTube. One fabulous benefit of Metacafe is it isn’t blocked at school. You may want to check if the video you are interested in is uploaded there too.
3 comments February 16th, 2007
If you haven’t heard about Metacafe, you’ll be happy to know that there is another company like YouTube on the web. There are a couple of noteworthy similarities and differences between the two companies:
Similarities
Differences
Here is one of my videos that I’ve uploaded to Metacafe about Vedic Math, the ancient mental calculating system from India. Whether you are “a math person” or not, you’ll enjoy this one. Promise!
1 comment February 15th, 2007
YouTube is a free website with a tagline of “Broadcast Yourself.” It’s full of junk and gems and it has great potential to support learning.I unknowingly created my first YouTube videos a year ago when my dad gave me a digital camera. For my sister’s birthday, I made some how-to videos on “hooping”, a dance form using a hula hoop. She emailed me asking if it would be okay if she posted the videos to YouTube, and then added, “Well, let me know if it’s a problem because I’ve already posted them.” Jessie received so much positive feedback and requests for additional instructional videos that she created a how-to hoop dance YouTube group and a Squidoo Hooping lens featuring the videos. (You can click on the link to see my first dance video. If you are a PE teacher, you’ll want to check out my sister’s other lens on how-to-make a hoop. Even if you’re not a PE teacher, you may be inspired to learn hooping. It’s fun!)
All of the positive feedback from the dancing videos inspired me to make some math videos. I’ve received dozens of appreciative emails about the videos. Now I have two YouTube groups specifically for helping people to learn math. One group is a pre-algebra group and the other is about Vedic math, the ancient mental calculating system from India. I refer students to these video collections for pre-teaching and reteaching and often post clips to my math classes’ blog.
Here is my latest educational math YouTube video, the Decimals to Fractions Song.
Add comment February 6th, 2007
When I was a kid, I loved the music of Tom Lehrer. His songs were brilliant satire that had me rolling on the floor in fits of giggles. One of my favorites was the song about the periodic table. Perhaps this song planted the seed of inspiration to major in chemistry.
Mike Stanfill of PrivateHand.com has created The Elements Flash Animation video that I’m sure you’ll love. He also has some other videos including “Dr. Art Does Science.” It may be worth checking out.
1 comment February 1st, 2007
Subscribe to this blog
[What is this?]
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||