5 Strategies to Assess Student Knowledge

This is always challenging, isn’t it? Finding evidence that students have learned what you taught, that they can apply knowledge to complex problems. How do you do this? Rubrics? Group projects? Posters? None sound worthy of the Common Core educational environ–and too often, students have figured out how to deliver within these guidelines while on auto-pilot.

Where can we find authentic assessments that are measurable yet student-centered, promote risk-taking by student and teacher alike, inquiry-driven and encourage students to take responsibility for his/her own learning? How do we assess a lesson plan in a manner that insures students have learned what they need to apply to life, to new circumstances they will face when they don’t have a teacher at their elbow to nudge them the right direction?

Here are my top five strategies to determine if I’m succeeding:

Anecdotally

I observe their actions, their work, the way they are learning the skills I’m teaching. Are they engaged, making their best effort? Do they remember skills taught in prior weeks and apply them? Do they self-assess and make corrections as needed?

11 Ways to be an Inquiry-based Teacher

It’s hard to run an inquiry-based classroom. Don’t go into this teaching style thinking all you do is ask questions and observe answers. You have to listen with all of your senses, pause and respond to what you heard (not what you wanted to hear), keep your eye on the Big Ideas as you facilitate learning, value everyone’s contribution, be aware of the energy of the class and step in when needed, step aside when required. You aren’t a Teacher, rather a guide. You and the class find your way from question to knowledge together.

Because everyone learns differently.

You don’t use a textbook. Sure, it’s a map, showing you how to get from here to there, but that’s the problem. It dictates how to get ‘there’. For an inquiry-based classroom, you may know where you’re going, but not quite how you’ll get there and that’s a good thing.  You are no longer your mother’s teacher who stood in front of rows of students and pointed to the blackboard. You operate well outside your teaching comfort zone as you try out the flipped classroom and the gamification of education and are thrilled with the results.

And then there’s the issue of assessment. What your students have accomplished can’t neatly be summed up by a multiple choice test. When you review what you thought would assess learning (back when you designed the unit), none measure the organic conversations the class had about deep subjects, the risk-taking they engaged in to arrive at answers, the authentic knowledge transfer that popped up independently of your class time. You realize you must open your mind to learning that occurred that you never taught–never saw coming in the weeks you stood amongst your students guiding their education.

Let me digress. I visited the Soviet Union (back when it was one nation) and dropped in on a classroom where students were inculcated with how things must be done. It was a polite, respectful, ordered experience, but without cerebral energy, replete of enthusiasm for the joy of learning, and lacking the wow factor of students independently figuring out how to do something. Seeing the end of that powerful nation, I arrived at different conclusions than the politicians and the economists. I saw a nation starved to death for creativity. Without that ethereal trait, learning didn’t transfer. Without transfer, life required increasingly more scaffolding and prompting until it collapsed in on itself like a hollowed out orange.

7 Ways Common Core Will Change Your Classroom

The biggest pedagogic change to American education since the arrival of John Dewey is happening right now. It’s called Common Core State Standards. Its goal: to prepare the nation’s tens of thousands of students for college and/or career. If you are involved in any part of teaching, administrating, or planning, you are holding your breath, downing an aspirin, and crossing your fingers, knowing a storm is about to hit. You’ve prepared, but is it enough?

46 states adopted the Common Core in an effort to bring consistency and uniformity to the hodge podge of state standards that dot the education landscape from California to Maine and Alaska to Florida. For most states, implementation is piecemeal, a bit at a time, with the full roll out not expected until sometime in 2015.

Besides turning your curriculum upside down, there are philosophic changes you as a teacher will have to buy into to fit the mold that is Common Core:

1. Depth not width—Dig into ideas. Make them clearer, more robust. Teachers will cover fewer topics in a year, but with greater detail. Trust that the breadth of learning will come from that deeper understanding. The accepted pedagogy that similar topics be introduced every year, each with more detail, is no longer. Now, students will cover new topics at each grade level–fewer but fuller.
2. Nonfiction, not fiction—Literacy and reading is likely to be comprehensive narratives rather than inference from stories. Why? Post-high school reading in both college and career is more often expository than fiction as high school grads study for college courses or receive specific training on a job. Students need to know how to perform the critical reading necessary to pick through the staggering amount of print and digital information required to thrive at the game called life.
3. Evidence is required–It will be paramount that students logically and dispassionately prove their claims with organic conversations and authentic, well-understood evidence. Statements must have supporting facts that stand up under cerebral scrutiny. A claim of acceptability because it is ‘their interpretation’ will not be sufficient in a CCSS classroom.
4. Speaking and listening--Anyone who thrives in the adult world knows the importance of these two skills. Now, they will be taught in the K-12 curriculum. The youngest learners will have guidelines for how to carry on a conversation–come to a discussion prepared, listen respectfully to others, take turns speaking, build on each other’s conversations, ask clarifying questions. As they advance grade levels, so too will the requirements.
5. Technology is part of most/all standards--Not overtly, but teachers will find a fundamental understanding of how technology scaffolds learning to be essential in delivering Standards correctly. Many times, standards expect knowledge be ‘collaborated on, published and shared’. This is done through technology–pdfs, printing, publishing to blogs and wikis, sharing via Tagxedos and Animotos. Students and teachers will use the internet, online tools, software, tech devices as vehicles for achieving educational goals. No longer will they be ‘fun’ tools employed in the computer lab. Now, they will be integral to the curriculum. This means teachers will have to be comfortable with iPads, online widgets, Google Docs, and all those geeky tools that they admired from afar, when colleagues used them, promising they would try them ‘one day’. That day has arrived.
6. Life skills are emphasized across subject areas.  It’s not good enough students can write in literacy classes. CCSS expects them to communicate just as effectively in every subject. And, where critical thinking has always been fundamental to math and science, that now expands to all classes. Students must understand cause and effect, transfer knowledge from one subject area to another throughout their educational day. That means, math teachers must pay attention to writing and literature teachers to cognitive processes.
7. An increase in rigor–Accountability will be expected of students and teachers. Too often, passing a test was all the assessment that was expected. CCSS will look for more–transfer of knowledge (see 6 above), evidence of learning, student as risk-taker, authenticity of lessons, vertical planning, learning with increasingly less scaffolding and prompting, and differentiated instruction so all learners get it.

14 Factors to Consider for Tech Report Cards

It used to be simple to post grades. Add up test scores and see what the student earned. Very defensible. Everyone understood.

It’s not that way anymore. Here are the factors I consider when I’m posting grades:

• Does s/he remember skills from prior lessons as they complete current lessons?
• Does s/he show evidence of learning by using tech class knowledge in classroom or home?
• Does s/he participate in class discussions?
• Does s/he complete daily goals (a project, visit a website, watch a tutorial, etc.)?
• Does s/he save to their network folder?

New Literacies Enable Smarter Researching

In my last post, we talked about “digital citizens”, the modern student who lives in two worlds. One he can touch with his hands, the other only with his mind. It’s this latter one that has revolutionized education, provided opportunities for students to talk to experts on astronomy, walk through the ancient ruins of Stonehenge, and dissect a frog without touching a scalpel. This world is scintillating, but challenging, demanding students be risk-takers and inquirers.

Inquiry and education

That last—inquiry—has changed the K-12 classroom from what many experienced just a decade ago, for students cannot be inquirers without being risk-takers. They take responsibility for their own learning by following practical strategies for uncovering information despite the billions (literally) of places to look. Consider this: If you Google ‘space’, you get over 4 billion hits. That much information is worthless. Digital citizens develop practical strategies for refining this list to a specific need.

Digital citizens also differentiate instruction so it works for themselves, not change their learning style to fit what the teacher delivers. They hear the big ideas, grasp the essential questions, and then develop a plan that delivers it in their own unique and personal way.

How the Internet Neighborhood is Like Any Other Community

Education has changed. Teachers no longer lecture from a dais with student learning contained within the schoolhouse walls. Thanks to the pervasiveness of easy-to-use and free web-based tools, 93 percent of teachers have one or more computers in the classroom with internet access (National Center for Education Statistics–2009). Global home Internet users with fixed Internet access is expected to grow from 1.7 billion in 2011 to 2.3 billion by 2016 (VNI-SA Research)—that’s almost one-third of the world’s population.

Because of these changes, educators have come to expect students to participate actively in the learning process and transfer their knowledge from the classroom to life.  For example, when preparing a class project, a fifth grader will do the research using the internet, collaborate with classmates on Google Apps, write the report with a web-based tool (i.e., Google Drive), share it with the world using digital tools (i.e., Animoto or Glogster), and then use those learned skills in other classes.

Students have become digital citizens. The question is: How do we as educators teach them to thrive in the digital world?

How to Thrive as a Digital Citizen

Citizen of the internet

Thanks to the pervasiveness of easy-to-use technology and the accessibility of the internet, teachers are no longer lecturing from a dais as the purveyor of knowledge. Now, students are expected to take ownership of their education, participate actively in the learning process, and transfer knowledge learned in the classroom to their lives.

In days past, technology was used to find information (via the internet) and display it (often via PowerPoint). No longer.  Now, if you ask a fifth grade student to write a report on space exploration, here’s how s/he will proceed:

Understand ‘Digital Citizenship’

Before the engines of research can start, every student must understand what it means to be a citizen of the world wide web. Why? Most inquiry includes a foray into the unknown vastness of the www. Students learn early (I start kindergartners with an age-appropriate introduction) how to thrive in that virtual world. It is a pleasant surprise that digital citizenship has much the same rules as their home town:

Don’t talk to bad guys, look both ways before crossing the (virtual) street, don’t go places you know nothing about, play fair, pick carefully who you trust, don’t get distracted by bling, and sometimes stop everything and take a nap.

In internet-speak, students learn to follow good netiquette, not to plagiarize the work of others, avoid scams, stay on the website they choose, not to be a cyber-bully, and avoid the virtual ‘bad guys’. Current best practices are not to hide students from any of these, but to teach them how to manage these experiences.

Weekend Website #109: Google World of Wonders

Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, been excited to use.

Explore the world as a virtual tourist

Is Keyboarding Dead?

Should it be dead? Credit: Beeki

I was on one of my tech teacher forums–where I keep up to date on changes in education and technology–and stumbled into a heated discussion about what grade level is best to begin the focus on typing (is fifth grade too old–or too young?). Several teachers shared that keyboarding was the cornerstone of their elementary-age technology program. Others confessed their Admin wanted it eliminated as unnecessary. Still others dismissed the discussion as moot: Tools like Dragon Speak (the standard in speech recognition software) and iPhone’s wildly-popular  Siri mean keyboarding will soon be as useful as cursive and floppy discs.

My knee jerk reaction was That’s years off, but it got me thinking. Is it really? Or are the fires of change about to sweep through our schools? Already, families are succumbing to the overwhelming popularity of touch screens in the guise of iPads. No typing required–just a finger poke, a sweep, and the command is executed. Those clumsy, losable styluses of your parent’s era are so last generation. The day kids discover how easy it is to tell their phones what they need done (think iPhone 4S)–stick a fork in it; keyboarding will be done.

Truthfully, as someone who carefully watches ed tech trends, a discussion about the importance of keyboarding says as much about national education expectations as typing. Schools are moving away from reports and essays as methods of assessing understanding. Teachers want plays that act out a topic, student-created videos that demonstrate authentic understanding, multi-media magazines that convey a deeper message. Web-based communication tools like Voki, Animoto, and Glogster–all of which have limited typing–are de rigeur in every academic program that purports to be tech-savvy. Students are encouraged to use audio, visual, taped vignettes, recorded snippets–everything that ISN’T the traditional MS Word document with a bullet list of comprehensive points to convey the message. For much of what students want out of life–to call a friend, find their location on GPS, arrange a get-together, create a reminder–writing is passe. Email to your middle school and high school children is as anachronistic as snail mail. Even texting is being shunted aside by vlogs and Skype, and note-taking–with the popularity of apps like Evernote–has become something best accomplished with swipes and clicks.

Do You Make These 9 Mistakes

…with your child’s computer education?

• Show your child how to do something rather than allowing him to discover
• Do for them rather than let them do it
• Say ‘no’ too often (or the other enthusiasm-killer, Don’t touch!)
• Don’t take them seriously
• Take technology too seriously. It’s a tool, meant to make life easier. Nothing more.
• Underestimate their abilities
• Over-estimate their abilities
• Give up too quickly
• Think there’s only one way to do stuff on the computer

Weekend Website #107: Google Search Education

Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, and become excited to use. This one is tools available for teachers to help their students maneuver the often-tricky machinations of the internet.

A complete course in how to search using Google

Will Texting Destroy Writing Skills?

Across the education landscape, student text messaging is a bone of contention among teachers.  It’s not an issue in the lower grades because most K-5 schools successfully ban cell phones during school hours. Where it’s a problem is grades 6-12, when teachers realize it’s a losing battle to separate students from their phones for eight hours.

The overarching discussion among educators is texting’s utility in providing authentic experiences to students, the type that transfer learning from the classroom to real life. Today, I’ll focus on a piece of that: Does text messaging contribute to shortening student attention span or destroying their nascent writing ability

Let’s start with attention span. TV, music, over-busy daily schedules, and frenetic family life are likely causes of a student’s short attention span. To fault text messaging is like blaming the weather for sinking the Titanic. Texting has less to do with their inability to spit out a full sentence than their 1) need for quickness of communication, 2) love for secrecy, and 3) joy of knowing a language adults don’t.

What about writing? In the thirty years I’ve been teaching everyone from kindergarteners to college, I can tell you with my hand on a Bible that children are flexible, masters at adjusting actions to circumstances (like the clothes they wear for varying events and the conversations they have with varying groups of people). There is no evidence to support that these elastic, malleable creatures are suddenly rigid in their writing style, unable to toggle between a casual texting shorthand with friends and a professional writing structure in class.

In general, I’m a fan of anything that gets students writing, and there are real benefits to giving students the gift of textual brevity rather than the stomach-churning fear of a five-paragraph structured essay. I’ve done quite a few articles on the benefits of Twitter’s 140-character approach to writing and my teacher’s gut says the same applies to text messaging. Truth, studies on this topic are inconclusive. Some suggest that because young students do not yet have a full grasp of basic writing skills, they have difficulty shifting between texting’s abbreviated spelling-doesn’t-matter language and Standard English. But a British study suggested students classify ‘texting’ as ‘word play’, separate from the serious writing done for class and results in no deterioration in writing skills. Yet another study found that perception of danger from texting is greater than the reality: 70% of the professionals at one college believed texting had harmful effects on student writing skills. However, when analyzed, the opposite was true: Texting was actually beneficial.

Now Available: 35 Extra Lessons for the SL K-6 Technology Curriculum

Available now:

How Technology Can Jump-Start the Inquiry-based Classroom:

35 Projects That Align with National Standards

What is in this book?

The question we get often from teachers—both new and seasoned—is: How do you teach technology skills while integrating it into classroom units AND keeping student interest? With the right resources, that’s easy. We’ve put thirty-five of them together in this book for you.

Each of the K-6 lessons in this book, How Technology Can Jumpstart the Inquiry-based Class: 35 Projects That Align with National Standards, includes practical strategies for integrating technology authentically into core classroom lessons. They are easily adapted to any number of subjects be they science, literature, history, math, reading, writing, critical thinking, or another. The focus is on easy-to-use online tools (with some exceptions) that are quick to teach, inquiry-driven, intuitive, and free. You introduce the tool, demonstrate the project, answer clarifying questions, and let students’ curiosity loose.

And each lesson is aligned with the Structured Learning K-6 technology curriculum. Now, you have options. Cool, isn’t it?

The Elephantine Impact of Technology on Education

Have you noticed what’s happening in your child’s school? Technology. There’s rarely a lesson taught, be it math or science or health, that doesn’t include some form of technology

Education has changed

to enhance its message, increase its reach, improve its communication. If you haven’t been in the classroom lately, drop by this week when you pick up your wonderful student. There’s likely to be a Smartboard (or some sort of interactive screen) on the wall, a pod of computers (if not 1:1 laptops) overflowing from a corner, maybe iPads on desktops or in a mobile cart, a digital camera and microphones to record events, streaming video from Discovery Channel. Those ubiquitous samples of student work that traditionally clutter the walls now include many created with computers.

Today’s education happens by standing on the shoulders of technology innovation.

If you don’t have a school-age child, take a peek at Cisco’s VNI Service Adoption blog. There’s an uptick in the impact of technology on all parts of consumer life. As Cisco suggests, these changes are all about connecting students to their future, empowering them with responsibility for their own education in areas such as:

• access to learning
• quality of instruction and education assessment
• innovative learning models
• decision making
• reduced costs with administrative efficiency (not yet, but it’s a good goal)

Special Ends June 30th–98 Tech Tips FREE With Blog Follow

98 computer problems every teacher needs to know how to solve

Available now:

98 Tech Problems from the Classroom:

and How Students Can Solve Them

for FREE if you follow this blog!

What’s in this book?

Running a tech lab can be frightening. What if there’s a problem you don’t know how to answer? What if the computers break? What if they all break at once?

Several years ago, in an effort to create a practical strategy for technology success, I started tracking how often I got the same tech questions from students. Soon, I extended it to parents who, in a well-intentioned effort to help with school work, often got stuck on a techie issue. Some spent hours on a problem that could have been solved in minutes–if only they knew how to do that.

Turns out, 70% of the time, it was the same 98 problems.

I’m going to share these with you. You’ll find them inquiry-driven and student-centered, authentic solutions to organic conversations. If you’re a new tech teacher, make sure you know them because you’ll be asked for these answers over and over—in fact, you’ll be expected to know them. After all, you’re the tech expert.

Whoever you are, you’ll want to teach your students these practical strategies for fixing their biggest show stoppers.

Now Available: Grade-level Bundles of Common Core Lessons

Lesson plans for your grade level

Available now:

THE KEY TO ALIGNING YOUR K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS:

by grade level!

Now you can purchase a digital copy of this book aligned with the grade you teach (click the link and scroll down the page):

Kindergarten

1st grade

2nd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

What are Common Core State Standards and why do I need this book?

Here are two articles that will help you to understand the education standard now adopted by 46 states:

• How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards
• How to Align Technology with Common Core State Standards

What is this book?

The Key to Aligning Your K-5 Class with Common Core State Standards  is for classroom teachers, technology integration specialists and lab professionals, as a resource for aligning your technology program with the Common Core State Standards now implemented in forty-six states. You will find it a foundational tool for scaffolding technology into the areas of math, language, reading, writing, speaking and listening as is required in CCSS. Overall, they are authentic approaches to student-centered learning, asking the student to be a risk-taker in his/her educational goals and the teacher to act as guide. The essential questions are open-ended and conversations organic and inquiry-driven, ultimately asking students to take responsibility for the process of their own learning.

It can be used as a resource book, to provide exciting new lessons that seamlessly blend technology with lesson plans and involve students in the many new tools available to enrich their educational experiences, or a road map, plotting the vertical planning and differentiated instruction fundamental to CCSS goals.

Each of the five lessons includes:

Now Available: 98 Tech Problems From the Classroom: and How Students Can Solve Them

98 computer problems every teacher needs to know how to solve

Available now:

98 Tech Problems from the Classroom:

and How Students Can Solve Them

What’s in this book?

Running a tech lab can be frightening. What if there’s a problem you don’t know how to answer? What if the computers break? What if they all break at once?

Several years ago, in an effort to create a practical strategy for technology success, I started tracking how often I got the same tech questions from students. Soon, I extended it to parents who, in a well-intentioned effort to help with school work, often got stuck on a techie issue. Some spent hours on a problem that could have been solved in minutes–if only they knew how to do that.

Turns out, 70% of the time, it was the same 98 problems.

I’m going to share these with you. You’ll find them inquiry-driven and student-centered, authentic solutions to organic conversations. If you’re a new tech teacher, make sure you know them because you’ll be asked for these answers over and over—in fact, you’ll be expected to know them. After all, you’re the tech expert.

Whoever you are, you’ll want to teach your students these practical strategies for fixing their biggest show stoppers.

Now Available: KEY TO ALIGNING K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

30 Projects that align with CCSS

Available now:

THE KEY TO ALIGNING YOUR K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS:

30 Projects that integrate technology into core lesson plans

Click this link.

What are Common Core State Standards and why do I need this book?

Here are two articles that will help you to understand the education standard now adopted by 46 states:

• How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards
• How to Align Technology with Common Core State Standards

What is this book?

The Key to Aligning Your K-5 Class with Common Core State Standards  is for classroom teachers, technology integration specialists and lab professionals, as a resource for aligning your technology program with the Common Core State Standards now implemented in forty-six states. You will find it a foundational tool for scaffolding technology into the areas of math, language, reading, writing, speaking and listening as is required in CCSS. Overall, they are authentic approaches to student-centered learning, asking the student to be a risk-taker in his/her educational goals and the teacher to act as guide. The essential questions are open-ended and conversations organic and inquiry-driven, ultimately asking students to take responsibility for the process of their own learning.

It can be used as a resource book, to provide exciting new lessons that seamlessly blend technology with lesson plans and involve students in the many new tools available to enrich their educational experiences, or a road map, plotting the vertical planning and differentiated instruction fundamental to CCSS goals.

There are thirty lessons, five per grade level. Each includes:

Pre-Order: KEY TO ALIGNING K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

30 Projects that align with CCSS

If you would like to pre-order

THE KEY TO ALIGNING YOUR K-5 CLASS WITH COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS:

30 Projects that integrate technology into core lesson plans

…click this link.

What is this book?

30 Technology Projects Aligned With Common Core State Standards  is for classroom teachers, technology integration specialists and lab professionals, as a resource for aligning their technology program with the Common Core State Standards now implemented in forty-six states. You will find it a foundational tool for scaffolding technology into the areas of math, language, reading, writing, speaking and listening as is required in CCSS. Overall, they are authentic approaches to student-centered learning, asking the student to be a risk-taker in his/her educational goals and the teacher to act as guide. The essential questions are open-ended and conversations organic and inquiry-driven, ultimately asking students to take responsibility for the process of their own learning.

It can be used as a resource book, to provide exciting new lessons that seamlessly blend technology with lesson plans and involve students in the many new tools available to enrich their educational experiences, or a road map, plotting the vertical planning and differentiated instruction fundamental to CCSS goals.

There are thirty lessons, five per grade level. Each includes:

Weekend Website #98: TED-Ed

Every Friday, I share a website (or app) that I’ve heard about, checked into, been excited to use.

Lessons worth sharing

How to Adapt Lessons to Common Core State Standards

Common Core standards–adopted in 46 states

Common Core State Standards, proposed by the National Board of Governors and adopted by 46 states to date, provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn in the critical areas of math, science, language, reading, writing, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

They don’t specifically mention technology as a separate subject, but assume technology will support the teaching of math, science, reading, language, and writing. Last week, I discussed CCSS in general. This week–here are a few of the specific elements that technology can address and examples of projects (not in any particular grade-level order):

Anchor Standards

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing–Production and Distribution of Writing–6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

How to Align Technology with Common Core State Standards

This past month, I have had a rash of requests from school districts to assist them in aligning their technology program with Common Core State standards. This takes me back to the days when everyone wanted to match their lesson plans with ISTE NETS standards. We all had to review our activities, rethink connections and rework details.

Now, for the 46 states that have adopted Common Core State Standards, that’s happening again, with a different tilt.

Let me back up. What are Common Core State Standards? According to the Mission Statement posted on their website:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Their bi-line speaks volumes…

Preparing America’s Students for College and Career

What About Teacher Tech Training–Part II

Teachers want to learn about tech as much as students

I posted a question from a reader under my Dear Otto column, where she asked how other schools handled tech training. When I get questions like that, I repost to my PLN so I can get a broad cross-section of input from technology professionals.

I want to share the answers I received so you can benefit as much as I have from what happens around the world when it comes to technology training for teaching professionals:

Sandra–Since our school implemented the Moodle platform, that is the PD available and given by the IT Coordinator. It is given after school, in teacher’s own free time and at that time many teachers are not available as they are tutoring or doing after school sports, so I would say the time the PD is given is not very appropriate. More PD options should be available (not just Moodle) to smaller groups of teachers depending on their needs.

Janet (at Expat Educator)–Our school doesn’t have many PD days dedicated to tech. We’ve gotten around it using a “1:1 Student-as-Teacher” model. My teaching partner or I do something new with technology (like make Google sites or introduce Prezis). The tech lessons are always in relation to a content learning objective – not teaching tech for the sake of tech. Then, our students go to another class and teach the next class. When our students “teach” other students, they are not allowed to touch the other’s computer. They must use language to describe the location of icons, they can point, or they can model processes with their own computers. It’s interesting to watch the students struggle to communicate in such an authentic way. And, more students get to experiment with some of the wonderful tech tools that are available.

How To Successfully Start a 1:1 Technology Program

There is a lot of interest in the education field about 1:1 technology–using laptops, iPads, or even smartphones to extend a students’ learning experience throughout the school day. 1:1 initiatives address universal

The popularity of tablets, netbooks, Chromebooks has brought 1:1 technology closer to reality

themes of equity in education, engagement of all learners, and empowerment as students learn skills that can be transferred to adulthood. It is a question I get often from readers and one I don’t yet have a good answer to. The program is relatively new and requires research in areas such as pedagogy, technology infrastructure, school district policy, stakeholder professional development, community engagement, funding, and organization before it can mature into a sustainable model for schools across the country.

That’s why I was thrilled when Mark Pullen offered to share his thoughts with me. He has first-hand experience using 1:1 technology in the classroom so has first-hand experience with its set up and roll out. He isn’t going to make the decision for you, merely provide factors you will want to consider if you’re investigating this approach. Please give a warm welcome to my guest blogger, Mark Pullen:

Technology has the power to dramatically transform education.  Realizing this, many schools have begun to introduce 1:1 (one computer per student) programs that allow all students to have access to technology at all times.  The benefits of 1:1 programs can be seen in all subjects: students are able to publish their writing for genuine audiences, practice math using adaptive programs that get harder or easier when needed, view interactive online science dissections, and so much more.

How Do You Use Twitter in Education

I first published this post almost two years ago. You can see the responses were anemic at best. At that time, the most common reason for NOT using Twitter in education was that it was distracting–encouraged the wrong environment for students.

Now, Twitter has become accepted in schools, often a chosen method of communicating with parents. I’ve posted several articles about Twitter in Ed

• How Twitter helps with writing skills
• More about Twitter and writing skills

…but it does so much more. Here are some reasons teachers tell me they use and love Twitter in their classroom:

Book Review: Disrupt Class–Yes, That’s What I Said

Schools believe that throwing technology at education problems will fix them. Every technology teacher I know understands this is flawed  and will end up frustrating both students and teachers. Technology is a tool, to be wielded with a skilled hand.

Disrupt class–that’s the theory of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, by Clayton Christensen. Shake it up! See what’s going on. (for my complete review of Christensen’s book, visit Amazon)

Here are some great lines from his 2008 educational innovation book:

• If the addition of computers to  classrooms were a cure, there would be evidence of it by now. There is not. Test scores have barely budged.
• There has to be a better explanation than simply blaming students
• So if too little money, too few computers, uninterested or unprepared students, parents, a broken teaching paradigm, and strong unions individually are not the root cause of the US public schools’ struggles, might it be that they all are conspiring collectively to constrain the US? Of course but all … are at work in other nations’ schools as well… and many of them obtain better results…
• Every student learns in a different way
• Disruption is a positive force

Weekend Website #38: DSpace@MIT

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours, too.

Weekend Website #37: Microsoft Dreamspark

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

How Blogs Make Kids Better Writers

Edublogs--one of many classroom-minded blog services

If kids are inspired to write, they get better at writing. The trick is to make writing fun.

Blogs do that. The students get to interact with their favorite toy–a computer–and go online for legitimate purposes. They get to see their thoughts in print–what could be more appealing? Blogs and online forums are a teachers dream.

The problem is how teachers use this 21st Century tool. Like every good skill, blogging requires a few simple rules. These are similar to Other Writing, but not usually the most important techniques you’d teach. In blogging, they are near the top of what is required to be an effective blogger:

Can Technology Help Teachers Plan?

Today’s post is from the CEO and creator of Holler for Mastro Differentiation Help for Teachers, Kasha Mastrodomenico. Kasha has a Baccalaureate

Multiple Intelligences Help Teaching

in secondary education and history and a Masters in Social Studies Secondary Education from the State University of NY (SUNY). She has taught middle school and high school, and is certified in Special Education. Along the way, she became a passionate advocate of multiple intelligences and differentiation in teaching and a presenter on both subjects in her county education network. Through these experiences, she came up with the idea to speed up the implementation of multiple intelligences for teachers so it can become an easy-to-use tool in all classroom units of inquiry. She is currently writing a book on differentiation and how to enable teachers to plan it quickly.

I know you’ll enjoy Kasha’s insights:

Is there really technology to help teachers plan?

My department and I were lucky enough to be asked to give a staff development presentation on how to differentiate in the classroom a few years back to Hall County School District in GA. I was a teacher there at the time. My section of the presentation was on how to differentiate activities. This is a brief overview of my presentation:

Weekend Website #36: LearnItIn5

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours, too.

Weekend Website #27: TED

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #31: Elementary Tech Teachers Ning

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Life is a Computer Program

Don’t take my word for it. Paul Rothemund, a molecular programmer, details DNA folding

Weekend Website #26: Tagxedo

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

Weekend Website #23: Fourth Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

My Fourth Grade Class Wiki

What Should You Include on a Younger Child’s Computer

This is a question I get from parents all the time. First, at what age does a child need a computer at home, and second, what should be included?

Just the basics

I’ve addressed why children as young as second grade would benefit from a computer at home in this article. That decision made, let’s look at what should be on a school-age child’s computer. I’m talking about fifth grade and under.

Every parent I know wants to get what their child needs, as affordably as possible but they don’t want to save a few bucks at the expense of their child. Here’s my suggestions:

1. Start by talking to the classroom teacher. What are their expectations of the child. If they’re like the ones in my school, they will want access to basic software and the internet for research, maybe email. That’s it.

Weekend Website #20: Kindergarten Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

This is the last in my series of classroom wikis, to get us-all ready for school. Here are links for grades 1-5.

• First Grade Wiki
• Second Grade Wiki
• Third Grade Wiki
• Fourth Grade Wiki
• Fifth Grade Wiki

This one is Kindergarten:

My Kindergarten Class Wiki

Weekend Website #19: First Grade Class Wiki

Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

My first grade class wiki

25 Tips for Not-so-Techy Folk

Click on the PowerPoint below (opens in Google docs) and read these 25 tips before the school year starts. I teach tech and still found a few that I’ll be using in my classroom: