World-Shaker

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gjmueller:

27 Simple Ways to Flip the Classroom

Read, watch, curate, communicate, research.

Embiggen here

How to Add Voice Comments to Google Documents →

iamlittlei:

everyfiredies:

windycitylibrarian:

um…how awesome is this??

Cooooooool! Actually, the voice comments function is one of my favorite parts of Turnitin.com. I’m glad I can leave them on Google Docs too!

Oh, neat!

Love it! I wish it was an integrated feature instead of a free, outside service, but this is definitely going into my toolbox.

"I worked on integrating the iPad to be part of our classroom, not a separate tool. Kids starting excelling as I was able to differentiate and personalize activities for their needs. In May, just four short months later, my kids all went to first grade reading above grade level for the first time in 22 years of teaching. We were all blown away."

— http://iteachwithipads.net/how-it-began/
 
-Kristi Meeuwese
 
(via edtech-collaborative)

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VideoNotes - A Great Tool for Taking Notes While Watching Academic Videos

VideoNotes is a neat new tool for taking notes while watching videos. VideoNotes allows you to load any YouTube video on the left side of your screen and on the right side of the screen VideoNotes gives you a notepad to type on. VideoNotes integrates with your Google Drive account. By integrating with Google Drive VideoNotes allows you to share your notes and collaborate on your notes just as you can do with a Google Document.

6 Expert Tips for Flipping the Classroom

A great list. Here’s one of my favorites:

3) Step aside and allow students to learn from each other. “Pre-class, my students access digital readings using a web-based, collaborative PDF annotation tool called NB, which was designed by MIT,” says Mazur. “I have been truly impressed by the energy with which my students dive into the readings. I thought I would need to give much more extrinsic motivation [for them] to do that, but the answer is no, not at all.

“Within a couple of weeks, my 35 students created 2,000 annotations in their text, discussing the readings asynchronously with each other. Their discussions were incredibly thorough, exciting, and in-depth. Yet, every time I participated in the NB annotations, I killed the discussion among the students, because I was seen as the authority. It stopped them from working it out on their own and finding the solution. [Now] I participate only if there is a situation where they are completely and utterly stuck.”

6 Tips for Successful Mobile Video Assignments in the Classroom →

An emphatic “YES!” to everything in here. These are the first two:

1. Good video doesn’t always mean good audio. While it’s easy for a student to see what their mobile camera “sees,” it’s impossible to hear what their mobile microphone is hearing without wearing headphones connected to their device. In our first in-class interview practice, students almost always hold their devices too far from the interviewee. Yes, it can be awkward holding a phone near someone’s face, but unless you have a handheld microphone that plugs into the phone, the device should always be within arms length of the interviewee’s mouth for good audio. The common “camera position” of holding the phone near your face doesn’t work for video interviews. it’s always more important that the device be closer to the interviewee than it’s to the interviewer. TheMobileActive web site offers more tips for good mobile audio.
2. Brevity is the soul of wit. Tell students to keep their interview questions focused and video clips as short as possible. With some practice, it’s relatively easy to stop and start the recording instead of capturing an entire 15 to 20 minute interview. (That also results in a huge video file.) With the right mobile app, each clip can be automatically uploaded to the cloud while the interviewee starts the next question and recording. In general, students should have only three or four good questions to ask.  If the interviewee rambles for several minutes, stop then start recording again asking the interviewee to summarize in a minute or less what they just said. This also produces a more focused and shorter clip for online viewers to watch later.

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7 Good Virtual Tours for Students

So many great resources in here. This is one I’m toying around with now:

The Google Art Project uses Street View technology to take you inside dozens of famous museums. An extension of this is Hangout Quest on Google+. Hangout Quest is a game that allows you to go on a virtual scavenger hunt inside the Palace of Versailles. The object of the scavenger hunt is to find artwork and other objects in the palace. If you invite others to your Hangout you can compete against them in a race to find the objects first. Hangout Quest uses the Street View imagery of Google Maps to bring you inside the Palace of Versailles. Another cool piece of technology added to Hangout Quest is facial tracking. The facial tracking technology allows you to move around in the Palace of Versailles by just moving your head instead of clicking around with your mouse.

MinecraftEdu Teaches Students Through Virtual World-Building

A New York City school teacher has crafted a version ofMinecraft for schools called MinecraftEdu. Given the sandbox indie game’s simple premise — a pixelated world of blocks that users manipulate with tools — plus the ability to add customizable maps, educators can drop students into a world of ancient cultures, Chemistry, English, and more.

MinecraftEdu creator Joel Levin, who teaches second-grade computer classes at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City and runs a Minecraft club for high schoolers, has been incorporating Minecraft into his classes for the past two years.

There’s an awesome video in the article where an instructor uses Minecraft in a clever way to demonstrate the difference between solids, liquids, and gasses.

10 Reasons to Educate Elementary Students about Social Media →

Such a great post! Here are three of the ten:

1. The Internet is Forever. Everything posted on the Internet will always exist somewhere.
2. Security and Privacy Settings must be regularly managed. For instance, Facebook continually it seems, changes its privacy settings, that all users must keep on top of. Further, even if a student is not ‘friends’ with someone on Facebook, they can still be tagged in others photos. Students with a Social Media account, can stay safer if their privacy settings are such that no one is allowed to tag them in photos. 
3. ‘Friends’ have a new meaning in today’s world of Social Media. For instance, perceived popularity is often measured by how many ‘friends’ one has on Facebook, despite the fact that the students may have never even met these so called ‘friends’. A students’ perceived and real social status is often measured by how many ‘friends’ one has. This is a very important reality for Educators to understand, and embed into Character Education Initiatives.

Ten Good Video Sources for Science Students and Teachers →

Oooothese are all going on my OER list! Here are two:

MIT Tech TV is a collection of thousands videos produced by students and faculty at MIT. The videos are arranged into more than 600 collections covering topics in engineering, education, science, the humanities, and more. You can view the videos online and most of them are available to download. Roughly 300 of the MIT Tech TV videos are also available on a YouTube channel of the same name. There are a couple of playlists within the channel that could be of interest to high school and middle school science teachers. MIT Engineering K-12 is a set of twenty-six videos in which MIT students explain and demonstrate things like gas pressure, gravity, Boyle’s Law, and the shape of sound waves. MIT Physics Demonstrations is a playlist of 44 short demonstrations. The videos don’t have narration, just the demonstration. The explanation of the principle demonstrated is found in the description below each video. 

Bright Storm’s YouTube channel offers video lessons for biology, chemistry, and physics. The videos are nothing more than an instructor lecturing with a whiteboard for a few minutes which could be adequate if a student just needs a refresher on a science topic.

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holtthink:

The difference between using technology and technology integration in classes. From the website Teachbytes

A solid introduction. If this piques your curiosity, I’d recommend exploring the SAMR Model next. SAMR works like this:

Substitution: Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional change  

Augmentation: Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional improvement

Modification: Tech allows for significant task redesign

Redefinition: Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable

You can learn a bit more in this great presentation (warning: PDF)

Five Essential Google Drive Skills For Teachers

Here’s one (click through for the rest): 

4. Give Yourself More Room to Work in Google Documents.
If you’re using a laptop that has a screen of 13” or less there will probably be times when you want more white-space to work in. This little trick will give you about another inch of viewable document. 

28 Creative Ideas for Teaching with Twitter →

A lot of oldies, but some fresh ideas as well. It’s definitely worth a look, especially since each idea comes with a source. Here are three (with sources):

1. Set up a poll: Teachers might want to set up a Twitter poll for either their students or the broader microblogging community. The applications are limited only by one’s own creativity; for an added bonus, combine the poll with some sort of geotracker.
2. ______ of the day: No matter the class, a vocabulary word, book, song, quote or something else “of the day” might very well make an excellent supplement to the day’s lesson. When teaching younger kids, tell their parents about the Twitter feed and encourage them to talk about postings at home.
3. Start a book club: Within the industry but outside the classroom, some educations band together via Twitter and host their own book clubs. A common hashtag and communicative network is all it takes to share insight and recommendations.

12. EdShelf

edtechdj:

edtechcatalog:

Website
www.edshelf.com

What problems are they trying to solve?
Teachers: “There are so many educational tools out there - how do I find what I need and how do I know which ones are actually good?”

How are they solving them?
By building the Yelp for educational tools

‘Building the “yelp” of educational tools’

EdShelf is awesome. Oh, and they have a Tumblr: http://edshelf.tumblr.com/

How to Get Hesitant Teachers to Use Technology →

Boom. Loved this. Rule #1:

Do not set out to “fix” anyone’s teaching

If you’re working with veteran educators, this is especially important. They have been successful in their field for many years, often decades. Perhaps they teach an AP course and are used to a high percentage of 4’s and 5’s on the AP exam. Maybe they teach a writing class and feel that they are effectively preparing their students with advanced writing skills. Regardless of their specialty, approaching a hesitant teacher with an eye to radically change their curriculum and pedagogy can feel threatening and critical.

Instead, try this: observe what they do in the classroom that’s made them successful and build out from there. Offer suggestions on how to make their good teaching practices more efficient or effective, using tools that clearly make tasks easier to accomplish. Perhaps DropBox will facilitate distributing handouts in the classroom, Google Drive is a better alternative to emailing drafts back and forth, or Google Earth can provide more interactive exploration of the Grand Canyon. Tailor your approach to each faculty member, with specific ideas to facilitate and/or enhance their teaching. As they become comfortable with new tech, they will very likely be open to conversations about other digital tools you are using in your own work.