Saturday, February 11, 2012
SCAN-We're Critical to Thinking: Give Me 5 - Critical thinking at its best!
SCAN-We're Critical to Thinking: Give Me 5 - Critical thinking at its best!: This was their challenge: Give me 5! This is what it is all about! The most impressive workshop I attended at TCEA was presented by stu...
Creativity: Anyone can learn to be more inventive, expert says
This article really hits why it is so important to engage all learners! Educators must believe that students can achieve! The power of STEM is connecting real world science and math application using technology to increase academic performance. We need less worksheets and more problem application, building, hands on approaches, and Skypes with professionals. It is not about technology. Ignoring technology is also not the answer. Technology is the tool we use to take action: collaborate, engage, analyze data, create, & research. The MMS Mission and NASA/ISTE program can increase the interest and academic achievement of all students in the area of Science. This is my new mission as an Integration Specialist and Career and Technology educator. Creativity: Anyone can learn to be more inventive, expert says
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Educational Technology Guy: Differentiator - free web app to help teachers dif...
Educational Technology Guy: Differentiator - free web app to help teachers dif...: The Differentiator is a simple web app that helps you create objectives based on Bloom's Taxonomy. You simple click on the thinking skill,...
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Screencast Recording on a Mac
QuickTime Player is an application that allows users to create screencast, audio, or video podcasts quickly and efficiently.
Before you begin recording, you will need to check your audio settings.
1. Go to QuickTime Player’s File Menu.
2. Choose Audio, Screen Recording, or Video.
3. Select the to make sure that you have the built in microphone option: Internal microphone selected and high quality selected.
4. Choose the Red Record button to begin recording your podcast.
a. Screen Recording: Will record your narration and computer screen. Select Start Recording after you select the red record button.
b. Audio: Will only record audio.
c. Video Recording: Will record video with the EyeSight Camera or web cam.
5. To stop recording, select the stop recording button at the top of your menu screen.
6. You can trim your video immediately. Select the located to the right of the fast forward button and above the time. Choose trim.
7. After trimming your video, you can share your video to iTunes or YouTube. Teachers working in lower grades can sync videos on iPods for sharing. Dublin High School and Dublin Junior High have a school channel on schooltube. Videos can be uploaded to schooltube , shared in Twitter, or embedded to a website in Project Share or on your school webpage.
To learn how to share your videos, please feel free to contact me for individual training, or visit schooltube to see a high school student’s tutorial on how to upload a schooltube video.
Example of ScreenCast Tutorial Recording From High School Student
Example of ScreenCast Recording from Mrs. Thomas's Geometry Class:
Example of ScreenCast Tutorial Recording From High School Student
Example of ScreenCast Recording from Mrs. Thomas's Geometry Class:
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Connecting Communities Using Technology
Motivating students, connecting parents to classrooms, and bridging the gap/divide between all partners and stakeholders in a community is a challenge that many public schools now face. How can we use our schools as a platform for students to showcase their own learning experiences? Giving students the opportunity to serve as a teacher or expert in a field can become a motivator.
We are trying to use a community computer lab to serve as a meeting ground for students to showcase their work, present material to a wide range of interested partners, and provide scenarios where students must problem solve to address technical and real world situations. We have only met twice, but our numbers doubled in just two weeks. Senior citizens, immigrants, and older adults lack technical skills, money, and access to learning services.
Students in our technical courses have a choice to either develop a video tutorial, teaching a technical skill, or participate as a teacher/tutor in our community lab. Video tutorials are recorded in English and Spanish. Adult participants in our community labs receive individualized training. Students working in the community lab serve as instructors. The problems and scenarios presented to students in a community setting require student to problem solve and apply a higher skill set.
Activities for teachers to consider in a secondary environment:
1. Have students record an eBook review to post to a classroom blog or tweet group. Ask students to share their recordings and experiences at the community lab and invite parents. Students could expose participants to online reading material. Many of our senior citizens and adults express interest in learning more on how to access Google Books, Overdrive, and iTunes.
2. App Night: Share your favorite app for learning, along with student integration examples.
3. Photography 101: Students take photographs of items related to academic vocabulary, develop flash cards, and showcase their flashcards to parents and community members. Students teach photography skills, introduce academic vocabulary, and give resources to immigrants interested in learning another language or improving their academic vocabulary.
4. Math Night: Many participants are eager to learn how to produce a family budget. Have students teach spreadsheet skills and graphing skills to adults.
5. Social Media for Learning: Students can actively participate in class and at the community lab modeling researching, connecting, and developing a professional learning network for a variety of professions.
6. Research: Students share research skill sets and could even present a classroom research project to the community.
7. Web Design: Students can help adults learn how to create a website or build an eportfolio. Students use their eportfolios as examples.
8. Web 2.0 Tools for Multimedia and Presentation Use: Students develop a How To Presentation and introduce web 2.0 presentation tools: Prezi, Google Presentation, etc. to the community. Students could also share a presentation that they created for class e to share with adults.
9. Surveys, Polling and Forms
10. Technology How To IT Podcasts: Have students develop short presentations/podcasts on an Technology How To Topic in either English or Spanish.
We are trying to use a community computer lab to serve as a meeting ground for students to showcase their work, present material to a wide range of interested partners, and provide scenarios where students must problem solve to address technical and real world situations. We have only met twice, but our numbers doubled in just two weeks. Senior citizens, immigrants, and older adults lack technical skills, money, and access to learning services.
Students in our technical courses have a choice to either develop a video tutorial, teaching a technical skill, or participate as a teacher/tutor in our community lab. Video tutorials are recorded in English and Spanish. Adult participants in our community labs receive individualized training. Students working in the community lab serve as instructors. The problems and scenarios presented to students in a community setting require student to problem solve and apply a higher skill set.
Activities for teachers to consider in a secondary environment:
1. Have students record an eBook review to post to a classroom blog or tweet group. Ask students to share their recordings and experiences at the community lab and invite parents. Students could expose participants to online reading material. Many of our senior citizens and adults express interest in learning more on how to access Google Books, Overdrive, and iTunes.
2. App Night: Share your favorite app for learning, along with student integration examples.
3. Photography 101: Students take photographs of items related to academic vocabulary, develop flash cards, and showcase their flashcards to parents and community members. Students teach photography skills, introduce academic vocabulary, and give resources to immigrants interested in learning another language or improving their academic vocabulary.
4. Math Night: Many participants are eager to learn how to produce a family budget. Have students teach spreadsheet skills and graphing skills to adults.
5. Social Media for Learning: Students can actively participate in class and at the community lab modeling researching, connecting, and developing a professional learning network for a variety of professions.
6. Research: Students share research skill sets and could even present a classroom research project to the community.
7. Web Design: Students can help adults learn how to create a website or build an eportfolio. Students use their eportfolios as examples.
8. Web 2.0 Tools for Multimedia and Presentation Use: Students develop a How To Presentation and introduce web 2.0 presentation tools: Prezi, Google Presentation, etc. to the community. Students could also share a presentation that they created for class e to share with adults.
9. Surveys, Polling and Forms
10. Technology How To IT Podcasts: Have students develop short presentations/podcasts on an Technology How To Topic in either English or Spanish.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Creating ePortfolios in the Classroom
Teaching students to build an online repository of their accomplishments, digital artifacts, and reflections fosters 21st century skills and aids in helping students with post secondary readiness. Global competition is fierce for top university placement and students now need to showcase and publish achievements using advanced technical, problem solving, research, media literacy, and higher order thinking skills.
Student portfolios are a great way to showcase a particular project assignment, student achievement, and allow for authentic assessment beyond standardized test performance indicators. Free web 2.0 tools can now push student portfolios to a new level. Embedding external video content, web 2.0 presentations, blogs, wikis, and collaborative tools adds elements of creativity, interactivity, and stimulating engagement to a portfolio.
Project Share, Texas Education Agency’s collaborative course management system, includes an ePortfolio tool. Project Share is very user friendly and serves as an excellent resource for Texas secondary students, educators, and post secondary students. The Project Share ePortfolio tool includes a very simple resume wizard that high school students find easy to navigate, allows for instructors to certify student work examples, and gives students flexibility options. Google Sites is another excellent choice for students and professionals to use. Google offers many video tutorials, how to steps, and examples of classroom use. Google Apps integrates nicely with Google ePortfolio tools.
Need some resources to help you incorporate portfolios in your classroom?
Google ePortfolios How To
Evernote: Ages 3rd grade and up can use and incorporate a reflection or video resource
Livebinder: You can find examples and create portfolios in livebinder.
Examples of High School Students Blogs
Dr. Helen Barrett is an expert in this field. Dr. Helen Barrett has published new resources, implemented an ePortfolio Academy for educators, and encourages teachers to focus on managing your workspace using real learning scenarios and to showcase student work, which produces the end result.
Project Share ePortfolio
Student portfolios are a great way to showcase a particular project assignment, student achievement, and allow for authentic assessment beyond standardized test performance indicators. Free web 2.0 tools can now push student portfolios to a new level. Embedding external video content, web 2.0 presentations, blogs, wikis, and collaborative tools adds elements of creativity, interactivity, and stimulating engagement to a portfolio.
Project Share, Texas Education Agency’s collaborative course management system, includes an ePortfolio tool. Project Share is very user friendly and serves as an excellent resource for Texas secondary students, educators, and post secondary students. The Project Share ePortfolio tool includes a very simple resume wizard that high school students find easy to navigate, allows for instructors to certify student work examples, and gives students flexibility options. Google Sites is another excellent choice for students and professionals to use. Google offers many video tutorials, how to steps, and examples of classroom use. Google Apps integrates nicely with Google ePortfolio tools.
Need some resources to help you incorporate portfolios in your classroom?
Google ePortfolios How To
Evernote: Ages 3rd grade and up can use and incorporate a reflection or video resource
Livebinder: You can find examples and create portfolios in livebinder.
Examples of High School Students Blogs
Dr. Helen Barrett is an expert in this field. Dr. Helen Barrett has published new resources, implemented an ePortfolio Academy for educators, and encourages teachers to focus on managing your workspace using real learning scenarios and to showcase student work, which produces the end result.
Project Share ePortfolio
Monday, November 28, 2011
Enhancing Your Project Share Course
Project Share is providing classrooms and educators with many new resources, collaboration features, and productivity tools, which will really enhance mobile learning opportunities for students. How can you enhance your courses and collaborations using Project Share? Here are some tips that I have found useful.
1. Reach out and collaborate daily. Add and invite students and professionals to join you in professional learning and dialogue. Post a cool new resource, ask questions, or give student examples of integration for other educators to use. Begin by searching for groups in your content area. Don't be afraid to email other educators or teachers that you find in project share. I have found that many educators are excited about the possibility of collaborating and just need an invitation or push to do so. So send a quick note to someone within project share that can add to your collaboration efforts in the classroom.
2. Use productivity tools in project share courses. I began doing this by creating weekly announcements, utilize the calendar feature, post your syllabus, and use your course mail system to keep students up to date. There are many other productivity tools you can encourage your students to use. These include the Take Notes feature, Work Groups, and Drop Boxes. Teachers should consider creating a drop box for each assignment submitted. Other classroom productivity tools include: attendance, grade grid, reporting features, Test/Quiz generator, and alert feature.
3. Use collaborative classroom tools: I am finding that students really love embedding content in the course wiki, forum, and blog tools. Encourage students to post feedback and model feedback for students. Consider grading feedback and teach students how to participate appropriately in a collaborative educational setting. My students are graded on the following scale. Fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is on their original posting of content to the course in the collaborative tool. Was the content appropriate or did it add meaningful subject matter to the course? Did students embed content? The other fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is how students respond to other peer postings. Did students pose a higher order thinking question? Was the response and feedback thought provoking? Did it generate more discussion?
3. Consider adding resources to course lessons. One of the many exciting tools available for educators to tap into when building online lessons is The New York Times Knowledge Network Repository. This tools gives educators access to content from the top minds and organizations.
These include
New York Times: Tap into articles, media, and content that dates back to 1851.
MIT OpenCourseWare
NASA
Star Date: University of Texas McDonald Observatory
Aventa Learning
PhET Simulations that are Interactive with University of Colorado
International Children's Digital Library
Flat World Knowledge: Free online college textbook resources
4. Embed other tools inside your course to make for a more enjoyable experience. Students love embedding tutorials or content within course wikis, forums, and blogs. Our students use Quicktime Player to create a screen recording and upload tutorials to schooltube. Other students have used Prezi and Animoto to create How To Presentations, which they then embed in the course content.
Instructors can model and do the same. Embedding third party interactive websites within project share gives students the ability to access quality and interactive content and packages content nicely in one place: Your Project Share Course.
Project Share is a true course management system, allowing educators to not only collaborate but create a true online learning environment.
1. Reach out and collaborate daily. Add and invite students and professionals to join you in professional learning and dialogue. Post a cool new resource, ask questions, or give student examples of integration for other educators to use. Begin by searching for groups in your content area. Don't be afraid to email other educators or teachers that you find in project share. I have found that many educators are excited about the possibility of collaborating and just need an invitation or push to do so. So send a quick note to someone within project share that can add to your collaboration efforts in the classroom.
2. Use productivity tools in project share courses. I began doing this by creating weekly announcements, utilize the calendar feature, post your syllabus, and use your course mail system to keep students up to date. There are many other productivity tools you can encourage your students to use. These include the Take Notes feature, Work Groups, and Drop Boxes. Teachers should consider creating a drop box for each assignment submitted. Other classroom productivity tools include: attendance, grade grid, reporting features, Test/Quiz generator, and alert feature.
3. Use collaborative classroom tools: I am finding that students really love embedding content in the course wiki, forum, and blog tools. Encourage students to post feedback and model feedback for students. Consider grading feedback and teach students how to participate appropriately in a collaborative educational setting. My students are graded on the following scale. Fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is on their original posting of content to the course in the collaborative tool. Was the content appropriate or did it add meaningful subject matter to the course? Did students embed content? The other fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is how students respond to other peer postings. Did students pose a higher order thinking question? Was the response and feedback thought provoking? Did it generate more discussion?
3. Consider adding resources to course lessons. One of the many exciting tools available for educators to tap into when building online lessons is The New York Times Knowledge Network Repository. This tools gives educators access to content from the top minds and organizations.
These include
New York Times: Tap into articles, media, and content that dates back to 1851.
MIT OpenCourseWare
NASA
Star Date: University of Texas McDonald Observatory
Aventa Learning
PhET Simulations that are Interactive with University of Colorado
International Children's Digital Library
Flat World Knowledge: Free online college textbook resources
4. Embed other tools inside your course to make for a more enjoyable experience. Students love embedding tutorials or content within course wikis, forums, and blogs. Our students use Quicktime Player to create a screen recording and upload tutorials to schooltube. Other students have used Prezi and Animoto to create How To Presentations, which they then embed in the course content.
Instructors can model and do the same. Embedding third party interactive websites within project share gives students the ability to access quality and interactive content and packages content nicely in one place: Your Project Share Course.
Project Share is a true course management system, allowing educators to not only collaborate but create a true online learning environment.
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