More on Student Groups – Infographic 2

A second great infographic by Mia MacMeekin It offers an addititional infographic that compliments the first, with similar ideas but also a few different ideas.

1. Bond
2. Supplies
3. Intervene (If they are struggling)
4. Praise
5. Research steps (clear and simple)
6. Freedom (the one I particularly like)

The freedom to:

• explore
• fail
• have fun
• be creative
• do it their way

An Ethical Island

This work by Mia MacMeekin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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6 ideas for Forming Effective Student Teams and Groups

I have been working teachers and their year 7 students. They have been working in literature circle groups and others on some research activities.
It is interesting watching the dynamics and how different groups and classes perform their tasks. It is easy to put students into groups but creating effective student groups takes a bit more work.

I liked the following infographic by Mia MacMeekin as it offers a few ideas to help assist teachers to make groups more productive but still student lead. It is logical and not really new but it helps to remind us that these form a range of the approaches, particularly useful as “one-size never fits all.”

There are 6 Tips For Creating Effective Student Groups

1. Create a ZPD Zone. This refers to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development. He frames student ability in terms of developmental range. This is different for each student and understanding the different ranges for the students can assist in making decisions about the groups.
2. Cognitive Dissonance is Good. Encourage the student to stretch themselves beyond what is comfortable
3. Numbers Count. (4-6 being optimum)
4. Praise and recognition of good group behaviours)
5. Give Them Something to Do. Use the PBL (Problem-based learning) approach which works well in a group setting allowing for different knowledge and strengths of all in the group.
6. Facilitate the team bonding by assisting in the initial brainstorming activity. The trust that comes with good team bonding allows everyone a voice and participation by all.

An Ethical Island

1 Step in the Process:

This work by Mia MacMeekin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Flipping the classroom: where do your sit?

I watched another report this week about how getting good marks is the main goal of education and students are doing anything to achieve the highest marks possible. This aim was not about being a better learner but about the game of beating the system. When marks, not learning or understanding how to learn, become the ultimate concern,the education system is in trouble.

I enjoy reading about what some schools and teachers are doing to get their students engaged their learning. I love seeing students taking responsibility for their own learning and even more, enjoying the process of learning. These students are giving themselves a good basis for being successful throughout their lives.

I have been reading more about flipped classrooms lately. These classes offer a type of learning that seems to fit the bill about allowing students to take responsibility for their learning.

One article entitled About flipped classrooms from the University of Queensland gives a good description of the roles and expectations of teachers and students in flipped classrooms and the important technologies. They also provided the diagram below about “the  Learning opportunities of the flipped classroom (adapted from Gerstein)”.  There are also useful links to more information.

I also found the infographic below, from a post “Is a Flipped Classroom Right for You?” by Jennifer Prescott on the We are Teachers site,  useful. It would help any teacher work out where they are in relation to “flipped classrooms”. It clearly sets out some of the basic ideas then leaves any reader with enough knowledge to investigate further.

Another great resource about this topic is a post on the coolcatteacher blog, “Preparing your students for flipped learning”, where Jon Bergmann talks with Vicki Davis about this with many examples given.

He explains the difference between flipped classrooms and flipped learning, which is more in-depth pedagogical method. Jon explains how to flip learning in areas without connectivity, how this system improves learning, and raises grades.

Flipped classrooms

Useful Links

• A Principal’s Reflections: BYOD Begins With Trust and Respect. An interesting analysis about one school’s experiences of BYOD. “Our BYOD initiative at New Milford High School has succeeded and grown up to this point based on the basic premise of trust and respect. Yes, we have policies in place, the right infrastructure, and support our teachers with professional development and guidance. However, the most important elements stem from the fact that we trust our students to use their devices as tools for learning, enhanced productivity, and to conduct better research. Time is spent working with them on digital citizenship and the creation of positive digital footprints that they can be proud of. We also respect them as learners growing up in the digital age where these tools are playing a greater role in the world we are preparing them to succeed in. When creating a BYOD initiative grounded in these principles the possibilities are endless.” 

• Getting Going with Mobile Devices: Workflow, Organization, and Fundamentals | Connected Learning How do/should you develop the long-term capacity to manage student work and a daily workflow process in a mobile classroom?

• What is Connected Learning | Connected Learning Post with infographic and video that tries to explain what connected learning is and why it offers an important pathway in education

• Discovering Pathways Through Connected Learning | Connected Learning Interesting discussion about learning as a whole. Debates why we should acknowledge learning that occurs outside the classroom/school as well as within and how that might be acknowledged ( and more specifically at having badges to recognise achievements)

• Teaching Skills: What 21st Century Educators Need To Learn To Survive Listing the traits that make an/the ideal 21st teacher. Post tries to answer What does an educational professional need to be or do to tune in and synchronize with the new realities silently emerging inside schools and educational environments?

• The 33 Digital Skills Every 21st Century Teacher Should Have | Fluency21 – Committed Sardine Blog “Med Kharbach compiles an extensive list of 21st century teaching activities and presents resources to assist others in adopting these activities into instruction. This post comes from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning at http://www.educatorstechnology.com, where they offer a host of web resources and educational tools that are definitely worth checking out.”

• Big History Project The Big history project tells the story of the universe. It starts at the very beginning and reaches to the complex societies of today. It illustrates the connections between what are often seen as diverse subjects and weaves together insights and evidence from many disciplines into one single, understandable story. Insights come from astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, history, economics, and more.

• Atlas of Living Australia “The Atlas of Living Australia (Atlas) contains information on all the known species in Australia aggregated from a wide range of data providers: museums, herbaria, community groups, government departments, individuals and universities. You can also get facts and figures about the information contained in the Atlas from the Atlas dashboard.”

• Tech Learning : Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy in the Classroom – Infographic with ideas and assessment.

• How To Build Powerful Tech-Infused Lesson Plans – Edudemic – Edudemic The piece offers advice on how to go about creating “21st century lesson plans” that leverage the technologies available to support a lesson without being the lesson.

• Free Technology for Teachers: A Short Guide to Creating and Grading Quizzes Through Google Forms This is another great guide to using Google Docs by Richard Byrne. Here he offers screenshots of those processes he has discussed in some of the workshops and webinars he has run on how to create self-grading quizzes through Google Forms and Spreadsheets. He has put them into one PDF that you can use to guide you through the processes. . You can view the PDF below. (If you are viewing this on an iPad, you might not be able to see the guide.

• The Teacher Report: 7 Tech Tools for Collaboration A short list of tools that offers tools that enable teachers to connect in our own time and in a variety of interesting ways with educators around the world. These tools offer the platforms for learning from one another and sharing best practices.

Useful sites (weekly)

  by  mikefisher821  

• Teens Find Innovative Ways to Control Their Facebook Presence “Ever heard of “Super-logoff” or “whitewalling”? They are ways to designate what some teens have been doing in order to have total control over who posts what (and when) on their Facebook page:”

• Digital Culture & Education: Classroom perspectives – Digital Culture & Education In this issue we present articles that push the boundaries of research on digital cultures, teaching, and technologies in fruitful and generative directions.  Researchers and practitioners in this issue present case studies and analysis of practical classroom use of copyright literacies, learning management systems, mobile/cell phones, social video, Twitter, and Google Reader.  The articles demonstrate how the affordances of digital culture have shifted our understandings of how pupils learn as content can be accessed, designed, and shared.  Despite the affordances of digital culture, teaching and learning—with and through digital technologies—requires effective pedagogy.  Digital technologies are not ‘teacher-proof’ tools; they require thoughtful and thorough integration into pedagogy, in a manner that reflects carefully articulated instructional and learning goals

• Media Awareness Network (MNet) | Reports and Publications The Digital Literacy in Canada discussion paper is a response to the Government of Canada’s Digital Economy Consultation, launched in May 2010. The paper calls for federal leadership in the creation of a national digital literacy strategy to ensure all Canadians have the necessary skills to use digital technologies to their fullest potential.  

• Roald Dahl – The Official Web Site  This is the official web site of author Roald Dahl. A great site to visit for fans of all ages. It contains Dahl’s biography, books, and special links to peruse and enjoy.

• Mobile Digital Storytelling with StoryKit, Storyrobe, and SonicPics #edapp « Moving at the Speed of Creativity Post from Wes Fryer. An overview of StoryKit, StoryRobe (both free), and SonicPics (small cost) on iOS devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads)- Some great apps for creating digital stories

• Blekko Tries to Filter Out Web Search – NYTimes.com NY Times article: New search engine Blekko aims to show search results from only useful, trustworthy sites

• Sir Ken Robinson, Daniel Pink and David Pogue the Creativity World Forum #cwf2010 « Moving at the Speed of Creativity Wes Fryers notes from Sir Ken Robinson’s presentation at the 2010 Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma City. “Sir Ken is part of our morning panel along with Dan Pink and David Pogue. My notes from their panel discussion after Ken’s remarks are also included”

• TEFL Non – Stick Teaching | EFL Classroom 2.0 – Teacher Talk post about 25 ways to be a good teacher

• e-Learning Stuff » Blog Archive » Adobe Photoshop Express – iPhone App of the Week 

• Violating a Creative Commons License | edte.ch Interesting case over in the “interesting ways” world.. resources built up through widespread teacher use. Australian company, Edsoft, using our “Interesting Ways to use an iPad in the Classroom” resource as a handout at a sales event. You can see the image clearly showing how they have used it, breaking the terms of the CC license. 

• 40 Astounding Examples of Abstract Photography | Inspiration Some great examples of photography 

• 30+ Outstanding Websites of Higher Education Institutions | Vandelay Design Blog These College and Uni sites contain huge amounts of information and they managed to design an attractive and usable websites. Links from this post take you to more than 30 outstanding sites for your inspiration. 

• Global Education Conference – Home The conference is a collaborative and world-wide community effort to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities 

• Bookapedia The blog for a NZ school book club. Links to their website for hosting the Bookapedia Book Battles project. 

• 10 best Android tablets in the world | News | TechRadar UK  These are worth a look if you are wondering about how the Andriod tablets will compare to the ipad. Article about 10 best Android tablets in the world In Depth: Which Android tablet is best for you?” 

• Using new visualizations to tell your story – Official Google Docs Blog This blog post gives information and examples about the new charts and graphs that Google Docs offers using new visualizations to tell your story  

• 10 iPad / iPhone apps for primary school teachers – TEACHING APPS: iPhone – iPAd, iPhone, Android, AIR – Edgalaxy: Where Education and Technology Meet. 

• And the Most Popular Way to Read an E-Book Is … | Epicenter | Wired.com 

• DeweyDigger An innovative way to discover what the Dewey Decimal Classification system involves!By clicking on one of the Dewey classifications, you are then presented with a range of topics that would be found under that classification. Clicking on one of those you are then presented with a range of options to dig further. 

• Make a word cloud – WordItOut Much like Wordle, this tool creates word clouds out of any text that you paste into the text box. The application allows the word cloud to be customized by size, font, and color scheme. Word It Out also allows the user to ignore certain words and thus keeps them out of the word cloud. It can be used without a login, although the saving option requires an email. You can work around this option by right clicking to save as jpeg and/or screen print.

• Australian humour – Australia’s Culture Portal  This article describes the nature of Australia’s unique sense of humour and how this developed. It also contains a brief overview of how humour has been used in literature, film, television and radion. Links to relevant online resources are provided. 

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful sites (weekly)

  by  lynetter 

•  HowStuffWorks “Top 5 Google Killers — That Didn’t” “Google is the world’s search engine leader. But that doesn’t mean every other company has given up on dethroning the king. See why so far no company has had what it takes.”

• BBC – Writersroom – Writing Resources Writing resources and tips for the screen, radio, theatre, magazines, etc from BBC

• BBC – Writersroom – Writing Tips Writing resources and tips for the screen, radio, theatre, magazines, etc from BBC

• EduKindle A blog that looks at using the kindle in academic arenas. It is designed to provide information and tools that will enhance the Kindle experience of anyone with an interest in teaching and learning with support from the Kindle.

• In Scholastic Study, Children Like Digital Reading – NYTimes.com NYTimes Article summary of research: “Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books. The report also suggested that many children displayed an alarmingly high level of trust in information available on the Internet: 39 percent of children ages 9 to 17 said the information they found online was “always correct.” “

• New Study on Reading in the Digital Age An article about research conducted in the USA, but has applications for Australia as well.. As expected, kids have embraced new technology faster than many adults, and are keen to read ebooks.

• The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education | Center for Social Media 

• Alone Appealing website for James Phelan’s Alone series

• The problem of the read-aloud – readerswithautism.com Read Alouds are a vital component of the literacy curriculum, yet many autistic children do not respond well to them. Advice on this issue is from the Readers with Autism blog. 

• Over, Under, and Beyond Words: Alternative Strategies for Observing Talk in Classrooms (E-GUIDE) conversation

• How To : Five Common Sense Social Networking Rules for Kids : ReputationDefender 

• BBC EARTH LIFE IS An amazing site from BBC Earth. The beautifully interactive site is full of images, video, and stories from BBC Earth’s most captivating documentaries. Each month features a different theme. The astonishing images and video capture life’s most colorful displays in nature. The search page is equally stunning, offering an on-screen widget that lets students adjust the pictures in the grid by filtering by hot/cold, slow/fast, sea/sky, or colour.

• Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloomin’ Tree from iLearn Technology » Blog Archive » A teacher created these for her classroom so that she could share Bloom’s with her kids in different ways that would make their classroom fun, but also give them a different way of viewing the information. Here she is sharing her Bloomin’ Tree. As she started making her Bloom’s re-imagines, students started coming to her with ideas of how to display the information. The tree was a student idea and the boy underneath is Lance, who made the suggestion.

• MathMovesU | making middle school math fun MathMovesU is an innovative approach to maths practice that shows students how maths is used in real life. As students explore the MathMovesU virtual world they will collect points by discovering maths and tracking solutions. This site encourages students to discover more, dig deeper and think critically about maths.

• The easiest way to download lossless YouTube to your computer – HOME – Edgalaxy: Where Education and Technology Meet. 

• Futurelab – Resources – Publications, reports & articles – Literature reviews – Serious Games in Education 

• Comic Master Comic Master that lets you create a graphic novel online that can be saved and printed. The interface is very intuitive and fun to use Using the Graphic Novel Creator, students can create their own multi-page graphic novels with interesting backgrounds, characters, props, and customized text.

• Researching and Writing Bestsellers – An Interview with Joseph Kanon | The New York Public Library 

• THOSE WHO DON’T BUILD MUST BURN (Featured Article) « The Burning Platform 

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Bring on the Learning Revolution – Sir Ken Robinson (TED)

TED recently released this video of Sir Ken Robinson’s talk from TED in Feb 2010. His latest talk Bring on the Learning Revolution is a follow-up to his very popular TED Talk Schools Kill Creativity given in 2006.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

more about “Bring on the Learning Revolution – Si…“, posted with vodpod

 

I have listened to teachers in my school talk about punishing students who do not finish their word documents or powerpoints or the kids who just copy and paste in the answers. It never occures to them to look at the assignments and the work they are setting the students.

What did I learn from this TEDtalk?. We must recognize the need to allowfor  a diversity of talents in education (and in society as a whole) and that education often works best when it is an organic and a real-world , authentic process.