Useful links

“Educational Quotation: ”We cannot hope” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Ken Whytock

• ASCD EDge – Reimagining Learning Spaces with Design Thinking #HackingPBL This article offers a look at the phases my students would follow to establish their learning space, while calling upon the LAUNCH Cycle, a design thinking process created by A.J. Juliani (@ajjuliani) and John Spencer (@spencerideas). (LAUNCH is an acronym for the different phases.)

• The Beginner’s Guide to Design Thinking in the Classroom – A.J. JULIANI  In this article, the author takes you on a tour of design thinking. It’s the process that they have used countless times as a teacher, curriculum leader, technology coach, author, and entrepreneur. Here’s what will be covered: 1. What is Design Thinking (and the LAUNCH Cycle)? 2. How is design thinking used around the world? 3. How can I use design thinking in (and out of) my classroom?

• Design Thinking: Lessons for the Classroom | Edutopia   “Design thinking, which is a dynamic, creative and collaborative approach to problem solving, presents a unique model for educators who wish to facilitate from within the class, rather than impart knowledge to it.”

• How Teachers Use Design Thinking in Reimagining Learning Spaces “As education continues to evolve in countless ways, educators of all levels strive to always be engaging and inspiring to their diverse global learners. From making shifts in teaching practice to experimenting with student-driven learning frameworks that foster responsibility and independent thinking, the profession of teaching and learning is witnessing some incredible innovation. Another great example of this is how teachers are applying design thinking techniques in completely re-imagining learning spaces.”

• Design the learning space | Futures Learning “Whilst the actual design of a new space is exciting and it is tempting to ‘get it done’ quickly, it is important that the space is developed in a considered way. The process outlined in this toolkit has hopefully led you through some of these steps. Even now, however, it is important that you plan, prototype and test the space carefully before investing heavily in a ‘final’ product”

• A Principal’s Reflections: Research-Influenced Learning Spaces ” Educators utilize research for interventions to support individual academic and behavioral needs why not learning spaces? “The research indicated that intentionally designing spaces provides for more effective teaching and learning.” We are intentional, let’s hope, with lesson design, questioning, Socratic seminars and personalized learning – creating learning spaces to meet the needs of the learner should be step one when preparing for the school year. Most students can clearly articulate what their environment needs for their engagement. This moves student engagement to a higher level of student empowerment. “

• Digital Citizenship for Middle and High School – Lessons by Sandy “Several options for middle school posters.  The teacher has created both a chalkboard and white board version.  Both sets have a main poster (with all 6 reminders), individual posters of each of the 6 reminders, and double sided bookmarks that you can send home with students.  She also created a black and white version of everything in case you don’t want to waste your color ink and would rather have your kids color them instead.”

• A Place for Learning: The Physical Environment of Classrooms | Edutopia Why change from the traditional. One teacher’s journey. “There are at least two lessons from this story. The physical structure of a classroom is a critical variable in affecting student morale and learning. Students’ involvement in the process of creating their environment can empower them, develop community and increase motivation.”

• Design Thinking and the Deskless Classroom | Edutopia – Linkis.com Design thinking and working through making your own learning space is difficult but it can be a greag change to the classroom dynamics. “Why Design Thinking? Increasing student engagement by taking the leap into a deskless classroom required an introduction to design thinking and the support of my admin. Creating a learning space through design thinking is about fostering student agency from the outset. Students are more engaged in this space. More than an interior design project, rethinking a learning space is about remaking not only the space, but also the learning that happens there. Design thinking is about finding a real-world solution to a real-world problem.”

• Infographic: Cyberbullying and other digital dangers – Teacher Simple infographic about cyber bullying. The statistics come from a 2016 national survey released by the Office of Children’s eSafety (Australia)

• 8 Must-Try Coding Websites & Apps for Students – Class Tech Tips  “Coding websites and apps place valuable resources in the hands of students. With mobile and web-browser based tools, students of all ages can explore computer science. As you think about your goals for the school year, how can you incorporate coding into your instruction? Maybe you’ve decided to carve out a part of the school day or school week for coding. Perhaps you’re starting an after school program. If you are ready to bring coding into your classroom these coding websites and apps are worth checking out. On this list you’ll find a wide range of tools. Some are perfect for younger students and others will work best in classrooms where teachers have lots of experience with computer science.”

• Six reasons why you should use polling in virtual classroom – The WizIQ Blog “Polls can by an efficient way to assess overall student understanding on a given topic. Students more likely to admit they don’t know something if they are operating within a group context, which helps to make polls highly effective.”

• ISTE | Top 10 sites to help students check their facts “A good fact-checking site uses neutral wording, provides unbiased sources to support its claims and reliable links, says Frank Baker, author of Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom and creator of the Media Literacy Clearinghouse. He adds, “Readers should apply the same critical thinking/questioning to fact-check sites.” This post offers an annotated list of 10 fact and bias-checking sites that can be shared with students. There is a rundown of 10 of the top fact- and bias-checking sites to share with your students.”

• 3 Ways to Use Data You Are Already Collecting | EdTech Magazine “Administrators and educators alike have access to data that can improve business practices and learning outcomes.”

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Useful links.

“Metacognition” (CC BY 2.0) by mrsdkrebs

• Note Taking With Technology | Edutopia “Today’s students require strategies that support their acquisition of knowledge, allow them to save their notes across devices, permit them to search through vast quantities of information, and share their learning with the rest of their community. Before blaming a device—either the pen or the laptop—we need to identify what is best for individual students by considering what I call the four S’s of note taking. Does the system students are using: 1. adequately support the students’ learning needs? 2. allow students to save their notes to multiple locations? 3. let students search for salient points? 4. permit students to share with peers and teachers?”

• Sketchnoting: I Just Don’t Know How To Start • Heck Awesome If you like the idea but don’t know where to start here are “some ideas to keep in mind,  tips for thinking about it and ideas for how to start using it in your teaching and student’s learning”

• ISTE | 9 ways real students use social media for good “Students around the globe are tapping into social media to get involved with world-changing projects and share their passions. The 9 approaches here explain some of the ways they are using these tools for good.”

• A Reading List for Differentiated Instruction | Edutopia  Annotated list of resources on the topic.

• How to Teach Students to OWN that Speech | Teacher Off Duty “A lesson plan that offers practical advice and can also be adapted to plan for any sort of performance-based activity: speeches, poetry slams, presentations, or interviews. “

• Slam Poem Videos Appropriate for Middle School (and others) – Teacher Powers One teacher’s thoughts about SLAM poems and ides for how to use them. You are also given his introduction to slam poetry lesson plan. The lesson could be appropriate for all ages.

• A Great Hands-on Approach to Programming – STEM Activities for Kids  One teacher’s explanation about the Let’s Start Coding kit? The basic kit comes with some useful pieces and component and coding cards. “There are projects included on the website, as well as educator guides you can download. The projects have the kids modify both the hardware and software components. By changing various components, the board and program will respond in different ways.” One way to approach learning coding.

• A Beginner’s Guide to Bringing Coding Into the Classroom | EdSurge News  There are many free resources, lesson plans, tutorials and events that can bring the power of coding into the K-12 classroom. This post discusses nine of the authors favorite options for anyone of any age to learn computer science skills. There is allso a link to a much fuller list of coding resources as well.

• The Edvocate’s List of 88 Amazing Edtech Tools, Apps, and Websites – The Edvocate “A list of 88 amazing edtech tools, apps, and websites that has been created to assist educators to understand what is available to them.”

• 10 Questions to Ask Before Installing a New Educational App | EdTech Magazine “This checklist has been compiled to assist teachers to select apps that can not only improve learning outcomes but also align with school and district technology goals.

• News for Padlet fans and newbies — @joycevalenza NeverEndingSearch  Joyce Valenza has written a post to explain about some useful new features added to Padlet that make it an even better space for classes for learning and sharing.

• Canva Font Combinations: How to Create Pinterest Friendly Graphics Discussion about designing graphics using canva fonts.

• Type Connection This is a typographic dating game site called typeconnection. It can be fun and helpful as you learn different strategies for combining and matching fonts.

• Fontspring Matcherator :: Find Fonts From An Image This is a tools that takes an image with type and finds the fonts that match. One user talked about using different maps and wanted to find a font that would be perfect for the writing on them, Font Matcherator was helpful.

• Font Pair – Helps designers pair Google Fonts together. Beautiful Google Font combinations and pairs. This is a tool that assists designers pair Google Fonts together

• Why Digital Learning is Reshaping Education – The Edvocate “Technology has changed just about every field, including education. Digital learning is reshaping education in unprecedented ways. The ways in which students learn are changing rapidly thanks to technology, and both students and teachers will benefit from it.
  There are several specific changes that we can expect to see as digital learning takes over education. For one, the way teachers present information and how students work with that information has changed. Students are asked to be more hands-on and collaborative than ever before. There are also new skills that students must learn, such as digital literacy.”

• 9 Tips for Teaching Coding in the Classroom – The Edvocate There are some very good suggestions discussed here. They are logical and really show commonsense and offer practical ideas.

• Choose The Best Search For Your Information Need – Laptop Study Useful list. Nicely organised with brief annotations.

• The Complete List of 200 Most Useful Websites for College Students – Laptop Study A useful annotated list, with like tools grouped together under appropriate headings.

• 15 Games To Teach Kids About Social Issues – EasyBib Blog An annotated list of social impact games that can be used with students to educate students about different social issues.

• John Grisham’s Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Popular Fiction – The New York Times

• How to Teach Students about Internet Privacy – SafeSmartSocial Nothing new but some simple and logical commonsense points that it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of. “3 experts to share their best tactics, tips, and talking points parents can use to help teach students about social media and internet privacy.”

Useful links 06/09/2017 (p.m.)

“Technology is just a tool” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by rhondda.p

• Beautiful and easy to use newsletters | Smore Smore allows users to create digital flyers that can be easily shared and accessed by anyone interested. The most useful thing about Smore is that it allows admin/teachers to embed photos and videos right in the flyer to easily share what is going on in the school.

• EDpuzzle Edpuzzle is a site that lets users select videos from YouTube to edit and customize for your students. Once you have the video you want for your class, add text and images to the video to for enrichment opportunities and add questions to assess your students’ knowledge.

• Duolingo: Learn Spanish, French and other languages for free This is a good enrichment tool, one that could be used when students finish an activity early or as a way to start off class each day. Most of the lessons are short and they are all interactive and engaging. Users complete written exercises to match words and phrases, plus Duolingo has a speaking component that has users speak the new language they’re learning.

• Recap Recap is an online tool that teachers can use to post questions that students have to answer through a video response.
  English language learners could practice their skills if they had to post daily/weekly question on Recap that they have to answer in English.
  A feature about this tool is that it keeps your prior videos, so students can visually see their growth.

• Newsela | Warriors look unstoppable going into Game 4 of the NBA Finals Newsela posts current, high-interest articles on their website daily. It is a US site but still has articles that could be used with Aust. students.This site is good for English language learners because it can alter a text’s Lexile with a simple click of a button. Through this site, students with lower English skills can participate in class by reading the same text as other students but at a lower Lexile.

• Learning, made joyful – Memrise Memrise can assist learners to learn a language through games, quizzes, and repetition.
  You can use competition with the students as Memrise includes a leader board and points system to get them to continue learning outside of the classroom.

• Quizalize Quizzes are a long-standing tools for assessment. Quizalize is a tool that aims to make quizzes into friendly online competitions. Teachers can create quizzes that test subject knowledge or can pick from a selection of a large number of ready-made quizzes. Students can be grouped into teams, play as individuals at home, or sit down to a formal test offered through this ed tech tool. Quizalize works on most mobile devices.

• 5 Myths About Teaching Kids to Code – The Edvocate Learning to code in the early years can help children to develop problem-solving skills, improve creativity and boost their attention. There are still myths that survive when it comes to teaching students to code in the early ages. This article discusses the validity of the most common five of them.

• Do students lose depth in digital reading? – The Tech Edvocate  An interesting article comparing the ways in which we read in print and onscreen. The author discusses the results he gathered between 2013 and 201. He obtained data from 429 university students drawn from five countries (the U.S., Japan, Germany, Slovenia and India).The students in the study reported that print was aesthetically more enjoyable, saying things such as “I like the smell of paper” or that reading in print is “real reading.” What’s more, print gave them a sense of where they were in the book – they could “see” and “feel” where they were in the text.

• Formative Homepage  Formative wants to encourage students to learn from feedback and corrections. teachers can watch in real time as students answer questions and can go in to give assistance.This allows students to feel that they are receiving one-to-one attention. It also offers way for teachers to provide personalized comments outside the classroom. The tool with Maths and Science focused subjects.. Free for students and teachers.

• Tristan Bancks | Australian Children’s & Teen Author | Kids’ & YA Books: Story Scrapbook Story Scrapbook is a transmedia story brainstorming tool. It lets you bring together images, video, music, text and web grabs, making creative writing interactive and fun. “It is based on my own multimedia-fuelled writing process, bringing the writing process alive for people who think visually, interactively and aurally, as well as textually.”

• Goodreads | Tristan Bancks’s Blog – Vision Boarding for Writers – June 08, 2017 05:57

• Python – teachwithict  A collection of free Python lessons Lessons include: Shakespearean Insult Generator, Magic 8 ball, Sorting hat, Mad Libs, Chat bot and Coding Golf

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

Useful links

“Creation and Consumption” (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by gcouros

• The Inquiry Process | Trevor MacKenzie The graphic is titled the Inquiry Process and offers a visual representation (a map) of the inquiry journey together. “At its essence, inquiry takes learners on personalized learning pathways that are often unique in their details as well as when they meet particular benchmarks phases.  This map allows learners to visualize where we will go and understand that although our individual journeys may be unique, we are all in a similar landscape that provides connections across topics and questions in the processes we all follow.”

• Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools | Edutopia Good formative assessment removes the embarrassment of public hand raising and gives teachers feedback that impacts how they’re teaching at that moment. Instant feedback. This post explains how we can do this in a way that suits our classes best. Tools are listed and discussed. Direct links to them are provided.

• 15+ Ways of Teaching Every Student to Code (Even Without a Computer) | Edutopia  “Every student in every school at every level should be taught how to code. They need this skill not because they’ll all go into it as a career but because it impacts on every career in the 21st-century world. Any country recognizing that will benefit in the long term.” There is an annotated list of resources that can be used to teach programming to every student at any age.

• Stop telling people to love libraries – Library AF – Medium  4 ways to flip advocacy on its head. it’s about doing not talking.

• Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum | Edutopia “Bringing computational thinking into your classroom is simple, and can only help your students achieve the learning objectives you’ve already identified. Think about these skills and attitudes when planning lessons, and use this language throughout the year. Introduce some ambiguity in your projects, link lessons to real-world examples and evidence, and dream big—over time, your students may surprise you with the connections they make and their confidence in diving into new challenges.” Links to classroom lessons as well.

• The Ultimate EdTech Chart for Teachers and Educators ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  This list features a number of key websites and online resources arranged into different learning area categories. Not all areas are covered. The purpose is to provide teachers with a repository of EdTech websites that can potentially help them with the teaching their classes.

• Why Effective Practice Is Just As Important As the Hours of Practice | MindShift | KQED News “Researchers believe that practice helps build up the protective layer of myelin, the fatty substance that protects axons in the brain. Axons move electrical signals from the brain to our muscles and when they are better protected by thick myelin they move more efficiently, creating an “information superhighway” between the brain and muscles.”

• Python – teachwithict A collection of free Python lessons Lessons include: Shakespearean Insult Generator, Magic 8 ball, Sorting hat, Mad Libs, Chat bot and Coding Golf.

• Learning Blog: 5 Subject-Specific Ideas For Using Google Forms  Google Forms is a useful tool to collect student responses.You can add images quickly and easily. There are 5 options discussed here.

• Learning Blog: 10 Tools For Student Voice Welcome! – Computational Thinking Curriculum at Excel Some of the lessons and projects undertaken at the Excel Public Charter School.

• Finding Age Appropriate Books for Gifted Readers Some ideas about where to find age-appropriate reading materials for gifted children.

• 8 Good Android Science Apps for Elementary Students ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning  This is a list of useful tools if you are using Android devices with students in class. It is a collection of science apps curated specifically for elementary students. When using these apps, young learners will get to explore and learn about different science topics in fun, engaging and challenging ways.

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

Useful links

“Always walk through life as if you have” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by rhondda.p

• 32 Great Educational Websites for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning This infographic features a number of key websites and online resources arranged into different learning area categories. Not all areas are covered. The purpose is to provide teachers with a repository of EdTech websites that can potentially help them with the teaching their classes.
• The Ultimate EdTech Chart for Teachers and Educators ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning This list features a number of key websites and online resources arranged into different learning area categories. Not all areas are covered. The purpose is to provide teachers with a repository of EdTech websites that can potentially help them with the teaching their classes.
• Fun STEM Lessons to Teach Robotics and More to Kids Some great ideas to use well known characters to explore ideas
• Why Effective Practice Is Just As Important As the Hours of Practice | MindShift | KQED News “Researchers believe that practice helps build up the protective layer of myelin, the fatty substance that protects axons in the brain. Axons move electrical signals from the brain to our muscles and when they are better protected by thick myelin they move more efficiently, creating an “information superhighway” between the brain and muscles.”
• ‘The most loudest library ever’: Booklover goes the way of shushing staff as community hubs take hold – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Article that discusses how libraries continue to change from the traditional stereotype
• Control Alt Achieve: 30 Free Google Drawings Graphic Organizers You have been able to create graphic organizers with Google Drawings. for a while. Graphic organizers are a great tool to share information, explain a concept, or illustrate a relationship using elements including images, shapes, text, colours, and connecting lines. They are useful in education over a wide range of year levels and learning areas. There are many useful tools for creating graphic organizers and teachers should investigate them to see which ones best fit their needs.
  This post explains how to use Google Drawings, with directions on how to create graphic organizers using this tool. It includes a help guide and a recorded webinar as well as 30 free sample graphic organizers that you can copy, use, and modify as needed.
• 18 Fun and Simple Creative Writing Activities There are some great techniques/activities that offer a range of ways to stimulate the minds of students and fire up their imagination to help them with their creative writing.
• 20 Creative Bloom’s Taxonomy Infographics Everybody Loves Using There are many Bloom’s Taxonomy infographics online. Almost one to suit any teacher. They range from Bloom’s Verbs poster to the great resources that can be found on Andrew Churches’ Edorigami. There is a taxonomy tool for every purpose. (Andrew also created a very helpful chart for checking your lesson components against Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy—you can get it here.) This is a list of 20 of the author’s favourites from all the best Bloom’s Taxonomy infographics available
• Is mindfulness meditation good for kids? Here’s what the science actually says. – Vox A good discussion about the benefits (or not) of mindfulness in schools
• Don’t teach your kids coding, teach them how to live online
• How (and Why) to Write a Great Game Design Document “Every game developer or team has asked themselves how best to manage the development process. Is it obligatory to use detailed documentation, such as the legendary game design document (GDD)? What are the most common mistakes, and how can they be avoided?” The author shares his team’s experience of creating our GDD.
• 4 resources for fighting fake news – Innovation: Education A post that discusses some resources that will help you teach your students to find accurate information, manage their social media feeds and make good choices about what to share
• [infographic] Fake news or real news? 10 tips to getting the facts for yourself – Stone Soup Creative This useful infographic is based on the article and a link provided to a google doc, False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical “News” Sources, prepared by Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College.
• How To Start a Podcast Students hare voting with their fingers and are increasingly using podcasts to learn. Here are some useful tips about creating your own podcasts
• Great Debates: Tips for Generating Healthy Classroom Discussions “Healthy classroom discussions are about harmony and understanding. The question is how do we do this in our own classrooms in the best way for our learners? Here are some quick and dirty tips on how you can make it happen easily.”
• 7 Actively Engaging Ways of Developing Critical Thinking Skills “Thinking critically is the pinnacle of the accumulation of knowledge and experience. How can we start developing our learners’ critical thinking skills rather than teaching to the test? There are some useful strategies suggested here that can be used to bring out the critical thinkers inside all our learners.
• Secret Teacher: we’re not reading – so why do we assume children will? | Teacher Network | The Guardian English teachers are too bogged down by workload to take pleasure in what often brought us into our job – a love of literature. But if we aren’t reading, how can we encourage our students to?
• 10 Podcasts That Promote Reading – The Tech Edvocate “These iPod-based audio broadcasts encompass a wide variety of subjects, such as entrepreneurship, politics, history, to entertaining series on serial killers. These downloadable series can be subscribed to, so you automatically get the next installment. However, podcasts can be utilized in the classroom, especially to promote literacy.
• By using podcasts in conjunction with their transcripts, or by finding engaging podcasts that discuss books benefit students’ different learning styles. Podcasts bring together reading, writing, analysis, listening, language and many other ELA Common Core Standards (source). Here is a list of 10 podcasts that promote reading.”
• Infographic: Teen reading habits | Online publication for school educators | ACER
• Types of Visual Content to Improve Learner Engagement Infographic – e-Learning Infographics

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