World-Shaker

Mindmaps: Students Making Their Own Meaning →

If you’re interested in using mindmaps, this is a pretty good place to start.

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This student asked their instructor why they failed last semester.

"

Perhaps in the past when learning outcomes were more static, we needed students to be predictable. Tomorrow, however, we’ll need agility, divergent thinking patterns, and an ability to test ideas in messier ways.

In other words, we need digital age learners to be comfortable with failure. And we need learners who know how to fail better.

"

—

Teach Your Students to Fail Better

[slow clap]

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Want to Print Facebook? Better Get 11.5 Billion Sheets of Paper [INFOGRAPHIC]

Sidenote: Apparently “Infographic” now means “We put a bunch of differently-sized text into a large vertical image.”

Seven Survival Skills for Today's Students →

I especially appreciated this one. Click through for the others!

Agility and adaptability. Resilience and the learning mindset have gotten researcher’s attention, and studies have provided teachers with both insights into why effort is more valuable than immediate success (or “fatal failure”) and strategies for fostering a correct mindset in students. We need intentional, daily action to develop these foundational drivers of success in our students.

futurejournalismproject:

Click here to compare them.

Via Romenesko.

"The real issue, of course, is not social media but learning. Specifically, the fact that our schools are disconnected from young learners and how their learning practices are evolving. The decision to block social media is inconsistent with how students use social media as a powerful node in their learning network. Can social media be a distraction in the classroom? Absolutely. Will some students access questionable content if given the opportunity? Yes. But many students use social media to enhance their learning, expand the reach of the classroom, find the things they ‘need to know,’ and fashion their own personal learning networks. We have met students who have used YouTube to learn how to play a musical instrument—a not so insignificant fact for students whose families can not afford private music lessons. We have seen students use YouTube to help them pursue an interest in building their own gaming computer or share a multi-media project that they developed. Last summer I wrote about students from this same school and how they created a dynamic learning community to support their interest in creating games. Many of them shared YouTube videos with each other in order to learn how to use the game authoring software, GameSalad. (Because it was a summer program, the students and their teacher successfully lobbied to have YouTube unblocked)."

— What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media

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“Why do people suck at Trivial Pursuit?”

Keeping Students Engaged in a 1:1 Project-Based Classroom →

An outstanding post on how to work with 1:1 devices in the classroom. Short, but excellent advice and strategies that could be implemented as early as today. Here’s an excerpt:

Students make a plan. 
Students are most tempted to open widgets, games, and social chats when they are faced with a blank screen and have no plan.

Much of the time, students think they have a plan. If you ask them What are you going to do?, the answer is usually I’m gonna make a Power Point about… or I want to make a movie about… Those answers indicate that students are thinking of technology before content.

Instead, ask What are you trying to learn? or What are you trying to communicate? or What are you working on as a writer? Those questions get answers like I want to know more about the horses that Civil War generals rode or I want to convince people that Justin Bieber is the best singer ever or I’m trying to describe the character’s actions.

When you ask about learning and communication, you are signaling that the content is more important than the technology. Pull aside those who are struggling with plans. Let them talk together and encourage them to sketch their ideas with diagrams or bullet points and return to the computer later. Students with a plan tend to stay on task.

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I love teachers who have a sense of humor.

This is why you have breakfast before you brush.

That’s…that’s cheating!

125 Learning Sites for Students (and Teachers) →

A legitimately good collection. There are some non-surprises on here, but the list is large enough to find a gem or three. Every major subject area seems to be represented.

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*gasp*

"The problem, I began to realize, was my own understanding of how the iPads should be utilized in the classroom. I had seen them as a supplement to my pre-existing curriculum, trying to fit them into the structure of what I’d always done. This was the wrong approach: To truly change how my classroom worked, I needed a technology-based redefinition of my practice."

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Redefining Instruction With Technology: Five Essential Steps

This teacher gets it, and her article perfectly summarizes my feelings on educational technology, why it fails, and why it succeeds.